Distance

Reduce the distance between thinking and doing 

Eliminate the fantasy of doing. Do. 

No ruminations. 

Actions first, emotions later

Class action

" If you run around in Adidas all the time, I don't have to pay you for Gucci " 

On Taraji

Only thing

The only thing that matters is what you do, to yourself, to make yourself happy

Loki muthu 

I only have a few things to do in my life:

I only have a few things to do in my life:
pay off my loans
Do gods work - create art, write books, teach
Gods work together with Lisa
Honor our Mother by Publish a book of mom's art
Teach, write, create, travel 
Pray, meditate
—- 
I summon the courage to challenge myself to be my best
Summon the courage to be fearless about anything( always remember you are released) 
Summon the will, and channel will through daily practice and dedication. 
Make this your ultimate romantic pursuit. 
Romance with your true nature,toward God
(Bhakti!) 
—- 
Everything is given to you. Use it celebrate it! 
—-
Everything in the eyes of God
This life is given to you by God. This life will be taken back. So live in service and duty and humility, knowing nothing is yours, but live in the humility and dignity and make it worthy of your life, worthy of the gifts you have received. 
Let God be happy with the decision he made to put you on this earth. 
Make yourself worthy of the creators gifts. Be a role model, in the eyes of God. 
"Be God like"
Seek God's truths
Do Gods work
"Love Supreme" 
"You are released" to do "Gods work"
Share your gifts, that God has given you. 
Gift your gifts generously. 
Let people be loved by your gifts, let them see the power of God through your gifts. 
Let others "see" their gifts through your work. 
Gods work above all. 
Stay fit and prime, to go Gods work. 
Multiply Gods work. Scale God's work. 
10x Gods work!!! 
God bless you Loki 

Notes short story

They didn't even bring us one scallop each!! 

Currency in life, notes

I am a currency that she uses in her life…. 

Notes feelings

Feelings are real

You can't have a fake feeling 

God

I believe in God! 

I believe in attribution! 

Tony Bennett

"I learned two things in life: always say please and always say thank you!"

Layering of material

Surface

Texture

Meaning

Notes: letters,pillows,books

Name of poem!

This was a sign on a cardboard box of belongings from montclair! 

Notes on boundaries

We need to reclaim our own lives. 

We do this rediculous  job of chopping our lives and handing it over to people. 

—-

Subjugating your needs for the needs of other people. And you end up not meeting our needs 

— 

Lisa

I have all kinds of muscles 

Rothko

ASPIRATION Mid-1930s Rothko's early paintings on paper include landscapes, portraits, nudes, and bathers. He exhibited these works throughout the mid-1930s-in fact, his career as an artist began with a solo exhibition of watercolors-and he gave many as gifts to family and friends. But the paintings did not sell well. To supplement his meager income, Rothko taught children's art classes at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center. He took the job seriously, encouraging students to prioritize self-expression over technical skill. He also practiced what he preached. In the 1930s Rothko painted quickly and intuitively, delighting in the fluidity and translucence of water-based paints. His early watercolors reveal an aspiring artist engaging with his role models while searching for his own voice. They also hint at the technique and expressive content of his mature works to come.

Rothko

"A PICTURE LIVES by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky and unfeeling act to send it out into the world." Writing in 1947, Mark Rothko (1903-1970) addressed one of his greatest concerns: the vital relationship between a work of art and its beholder. So which works did he think were worth the risk? Although Rothko is best known for his towering abstract paintings on canvas, the artist also produced nearly 1,000 works on paper in watercolor, oil, and acrylic, many of which he considered suitable for exhibition or sale. Works on paper are often understood as preliminary to or lesser than those on canvas. But Rothko believed his paintings on paper were equally capable of holding a viewer's attention and addressing what he understood to be the universal truths of human experience. This exhibition assembles roughly 100 of the kinds of paintings on paper that Rothko chose to make public. The exhibition is organized around four periods in Rothko's career when painting on paper was his primary focus. Watercolors from the 1930s reveal his early artistic aspirations and influences. Symbolic paintings of the 1940s show Rothko searching for "timeless and tragic" subjects relevant to the turmoil of contemporary global events. In the late 1950s and late 1960s, Rothko created hundreds of paintings on paper in his signature abstract style. Just like their canvas counterparts, these works attempt to convey, in Rothko's words, "the basic human emotions-tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on." The exhibition starts here (Mezzanine) and continues one floor up (Upper Level). The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of LUGANO DIAMONDS Additional major support is provided by the Annenberg Fund for the International Exchange of Art and the Director's Circle of the National Gallery of Art.

Company

"Which is more important" asked Big Panda.  "the journey or the destination?" 

"The company" said Tiny Dragon 

Goal

Goal: 

Earn money by being yourself 

Being yourself is making art

Being yourself is writing. 

Being yourself is taking pictures

Being yourself is drawing 

Being yourself is traveling 

Being yourself is being yourself 

She married the color of his skin.

He married a flame.

He married horse.

Married wolves clothing. He married a wolf in the sheep clothing.

He married

He married a chrysanthemum.

She married brothers.

Half married an antelope

He scored a marriage.

She married blindly.

He married for the house.

She married and lost all her money.

He married in an island.

She married on top of a mountain.

She married without a ring.

 he married a darling.

She married a Body Satis.

She married an old Carmen.

You married a cheater.

She married an abuser.

She married a rat.

He married a cat. He married a past.

She married lamb chops.

 he married a recipe.

She married a physical therapist.

He married a doctor.

She married a cardiologist.

She married a homemaker.

He married for the breasts.

She married for the sound of his voice.

He married because of his parents.

 She married for revenge.

She married a cloud.

He married a mountain.

She married a lifestyle.

He married to die.

He married a person with the love for drink.

He married late.

She married 99 she married. 

He never married. He married out of his city. She married within the lines.

He married for her mother. She married six times in her head.

She married forever.

Married and ran Helter skelter.

She married, and she married, and she married.

He married, and he unmarried, and he remarried. 

She married, and then she said never again.

Married a minor line and happily ever after

She married God Curry.

She married a fruit cellar.

He married a fisher woman.

He married a handshake

She married the smell of his linens. He married her perfume.

He married arise.

She married a month of October.

Hiding

People only want to hide bad things

Not good things 

Terrorize

I'm here to terrorize the industry 

Lucky star

You are the lucky one. 

People are always watching you.

God is watching you when people aren't 

Conduct yourself in a kind, honorable and dignified manner worthy of being the child of God.

If the tape is rewound, you are the same dignified and godly person with nothing to hide and nothing new to reveal  🙏🏽

Dreams

It's important to be in touch with your dreams.

They create the shape of your life. 

Sometimes you carry the dreams of your mother and father. 

Sometimes you carry their trauma. 

The richness of life smells like pain, terror and joy. 

Artist - eternally rich in life 

Adam - Pennington school counsellor

Behaving well when you are not being watched 

Idea

Matchbox paintings

Don’t pick up the baggage

Notes for loki

- you have come to the right juncture

- after a long winding road, you are here. 

- feels very precious and rich 

- wild with possibilities 

- thorny brush feels free 

- a weightlessness

- a weight lifted

-//-

Composure of releasing the things you have carried. 

——

Release the baggage 

——

You are the sum of all the great artists you eat for breakfast every day. You have developed form and shape and muscle. You always had soul, the gift of your mother and father… 

- you are absolutely free and released to pursue the things you want to pursue

- the skye is blue, the sun is shining, the vista is wide open…..

- God is welcoming you to enter the space where he knows you will find natural to inhabit 

—- 

You have been free, without knowing it or testing it.  Now you feel the freedom

- to be prepared to jump into the water

- you have always been seeing from the sidelines….. now time to take the plunge 🙏🏽🔥💪🏽

—— 

Your determination will ultimately prevail 

—-

Determination will ultimately prevail 

—- 

"Natural to inhabit"

Notes : fundamental things

20 works of fundamental things 

Fundamental things that make you alive: 

Wilderness

Water

Leaf

Tree

Bird

—- 

Wilderness 

Air

Wind

Stone

Hill

Tree

Leaf 

Grass 

Paper

Lemongrass

Bird

Sky

Clouds

Nature

Wilderness

Vignelli

The New York City subway and The Museum of Modern Ar located just outside this station, have a long history of collaboration. The 1970 Graphics Standards Manual and the 1972 subway diagram were the result of concerted efforts by MoMA curator Mildred Constantine and Transit Authority head Daniel T. Scannell to unify a complex system of train lines once controlled by different companie Developed by graphic designers Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda of Unimark International, their radical approach introduced bold colors, geometric lines, and clear typography to simplify signage and lettering. In 2004, the Standards Manual, the 1972 diagram, and station signage were added to MoMA's collection, cementing the legacy of these now iconic designs. This installation highlights the continued success of the original graphic identity with updated diagram designs that celebrate the intricate intersecting points of the vast subway network. Unless otherwise specified, all images are credited as follows: Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda. Unimark International Corporation,

Print 2

"When I see something that just gets me, I want to work with that artist," Jacob Samuel has said. "And if they've never made prints, all the better.... Because then it becomes a real process of discovery." As a master printer, Samuel has been creating etchings for five decades; as a publisher, he introduced the five-hundred- year-old printmaking technique to some of the most influential artists of our time. Samuel began his career as a printer in Santa Monica, California, where he worked with the Abstract Expressionist painter Sam Francis, a prolific printmaker. In 1988 he began inviting other contemporary artists-painters, sculptors, photographers and even performance artists-to collaborate with him, assisting them in adapting etching to their own artistic visions. He published the resulting projects under his own imprint: Edition Jacob Samuel. To prepare an etching, an artist makes marks on a copper plate; the printer, harnessing acid, ink, and a powerful printing press, transfers those marks to paper, creating distinctive works of art. The projects Samuel published all share the same modest dimensions, they are generally printed in a single color, and most are serial, unfolding across multiple sheets. Rather than restricting artists' creativity, these limitations were profoundly generative, as shown by the diversity of visual styles and approaches presented in this exhibition. Selected from the complete set of more than seventy Edition Jacob Samuel publications in MoMA's collection, the works on view each tell a unique story of collaboration between an artist and a printer. Together, they are compelling evidence of the beauty and versatility of etching and its relevance for future generations of creators. Organized by Esther Adler, Curator, and Margarita Lizcano Hernandez. Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints Support for the exhibition is provided by the IFPDA Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund Leadership contributions to the Annual Exhibition Fund, in support of the Museum's collection and collection exhibitions, are generously provided by the Sandra and Tony Tamer Exhibition Fund, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim IIIJerry 1. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, Eva and Glenn Dubin, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, Kenneth C. Griffin, Alice and Tom Tisch, the Marella and Giovanni Agnelli Fund for Exhibitions, Mimi Haas, The David Rockefeller Council. The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz. Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr., The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern ArtMajor contributions to the Annual Exhibition Fund are provided by The Sundheim Family Foundation. Major funding for the publication. New Ground: Jacob Samuel and Contemporary Etching, is provided by the Riva Castleman Fund for Publications in the Department of Drawings and Prints, established by The Derald H. Ruttenberg Foundation

Print

What Is a Print? A print is an artwork created by transferring an image from one surface to another. While a drawing may be made directly on paper, a printmaker instead makes marks on a "matrix," such as a metal plate, a mesh screen, or a stone slab. This surface is then treated with ink and pressed against a sheet of paper-sometimes in a printing press- so that the marks pass from the matrix to the paper. Because the matrix can be reinked and printed over and over, prints are often produced in an edition (a numbered set of identical works). Printmaking is frequently a collaborative effort, with highly trained printers working closely with artists to realize their visions. On view here are prints made with three different techniques, along with the tools used to create them. Each process has distinctive visual characteristics: the fine lines of etching, for example, or the flat planes of color in a screenprint. A variety of advanced etching techniques are on display in the nearby exhibition New Ground: Jacob Samuel and Contemporary Etching.

Ruscha

"How things go from robust to desolate"

Ruscha

Ideas often come to Ruscha on the road, whether driving on the congested freeways of Los Angeles or across the expansive mountains and deserts of Southern California. Drawing inspiration from this varied geography, Ruscha introduced new motifs in relation to familiar themes in his work from the last two and a half decades. For instance, soaring, snow-capped peaks emerge in the backgrounds of his word paintings-a novel take on his ongoing preoccupation with language and landscape. Ruscha has also meticulously represented cast-off debris and roadside markers in works that meditate on the passage of time through their depictions of accumulation. and decay. "I have always operated on a kind of waste- retrieval method," he has said. "I retrieve and renew things that have been forgotten or wasted." More than mere description of his subject matter, this statement captures the ways certain ideas have been revisited and reimagined by Ruscha across his six-decade career.

Ruscha

872 While documenting Los Angeles streets, Ruscha amassed an extensive archive that details the project's costs, materials used, and streets photographed. Notebooks from 1973, 1995, and 1997 record the locations and times Ruscha and his team started and stopped shooting. To maintain continuity of lighting and street conditions, they photographed early in the morning, when there was less traffic and fewer people. Ruscha also used the notebooks to detail his process for creating what he described as "motorized photographs." A sketch showing his setup-a camera mounted on a tripod, which is grounded by sandbags-includes instructions for how to shoot from the bed of his Datsun pickup truck.

Ruscha

Whether as an avid reader or self-publisher, Ruscha has always had a special attachment to books. In the 1990s he began using secondhand books as supports for his paintings, rendering the letter o in various typefaces on their covers. By using bleach to create an image through the absence of color, the artist mimicked the effects of extensive light exposure on clothbound volumes. In one example Ruscha drew the letter o in charcoal and colored pencil onto the book's substantial fore edge. His attention to the various surfaces and dimensions of these objects recalls his approach to his own artist's books as "bits of sculpture."

Ruscha

The American flag is a dynamic winner in terms of design, not what it represents

Ruscha

The mood shifted in Ruscha's work in the mid-1980s, as his use of both color and language became more restrained. A switch from oil to acrylic paint, which he applied with an airbrush, prompted the artist to make a series of "strokeless" pictures. Restricting himself to a largely black-and-white palette, the artist portrayed subjects drawn from history and fantasy, such as ships and elephants, as hazy silhouettes. Rather than faithful representations, these motifs function like symbols. "The ship is my interpretation of a picture of a ship rather than a ship," Ruscha has said. "It's like a painting of an idea about a ship." The grayscale surfaces of these works recall early photography and cinema, which Ruscha further explored by painting film projections in painstaking detail, recreating the effect of degraded celluloid through simulated scratches and dust spots. Just as these marks interrupt the compositions, blank rectangles occasionally appear in other works from this period. Resembling redacted text, these voids both stand in for language and, as the artist has offered, "suggest a space for a thought."

Ruscha

Asked in an interview about the unusually long and skinny format of paintings like this one from the late 1970s, Ruscha remarked, "I'm a victim of the horizontal line and the landscape." "I guess maybe I'm trying to put more time and mileage between one end and the other," he added. In this example the artist depicts the kind of luminous sunset he encountered during his cross-country road trips between Los Angeles and Oklahoma City. Barely visible within the panoramic vista is the painting's evocative title, its diminutive scale seemingly at odds with its weighty subject.

Ed ruscha

Sufferer of the horizontal

- loki muthu 

Ruscha

Following a period of experimentation with unconventional materials, Ruscha returned to using traditional mediums, like oil and pastel, to paint and draw prismatically colored and increasingly complex backgrounds. They conjure the sparkling grid of a city at night, the refraction of light in a swimming pool, and brilliant sunsets in the western United States. Yet despite their evocative imagery, Ruscha denies any deeper meaning, referring to them simply as "anonymous backdrops for the drama of words." Ruscha's use of language in his work also evolved at this time. In place of single words, the artist began depicting longer strings of text borrowed, he explained, "from memory, sometimes from dreams, sometimes from listening to the radio." Expanding on Ruscha's repertoire of sources, works in this gallery feature phrases from literature and film, conversations overheard, and the terminology found in science books. In other examples, his language is more self- referential, humorously alluding to his occupation as an artist.

Ruscha

Seeing things age is a form of beauty 

Ruscha

For Ruscha, words "live in a world of no size." Infinitely scalable, they might exist at 8-point font in the pages of a book or tower overhead on billboards. In 1962, intrigued by its commanding monumentality, Ruscha recreated the dynamic logo of the film studio 20th Century-Fox on canvas. The image's dramatic diagonal composition-what he termed its "horizontal thrust"-would become a useful pictorial device for the artist. "I could see that a lot of subjects could work their way into this format," he reflected. "It was like broadcasting something from a tiny point, then expanding beyond the limits of things." Similar to how this painting evokes the fanfare that accompanies the logo on screen, other works of this period explore the sonic possibilities of visual imagery.

Ruscha

Ruscha left Oklahoma City in 1956 to study commercia art at the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) in Los Angeles. While his design courses focused on precision and balance, his fine art classes emphasized spontaneity and gesture. "They would say, 'Face the canvas and let it happen,"" Ruscha recalled. "But I'd always have to think up something first." The artist would ultimately merge these approaches, neatly ordering text, images, and found materials within painted compositions. A series of travels-a cross country hitchhiking trip in 1954 and a months-long European tour in 1961- sharpened his attention to signage, architecture, and everyday objects. Back in California, Ruscha began rendering single outsized words in impasto, accentuating the shape of letters with thick layers of paint. These "guttural utterances," as he called them, include onomatopoeic exclamations (like "oof" or "honk"), popular slang, and brand names. Sourced from comic strips and supermarket shelves, the artist's frequent references to consumer culture aligned him with the burgeoning Pop art movement.

Ruscha

"Tendency to photograph things in a serial manner"

Workplace workforce concepts

Story

Story of abbreviations, there was a person who used to read AMDR as amor AMR. Every word was every abbreviation was translated to something else. Bon appétit fish fleet. This person was AWOL. TMI. Aarti L. Making a story about abbreviations and making fun of English.

Name of story

Credit River Valley 

Sunflower adult home

—/-

I am a robot

Run algorithms. I am created. I can perpetuate. I am a robot. I run various kinds of algorithms. I'm self correcting

Book notes selfless

I was trained to be selfless, and I would be selfless to point where it's not healthy. It had to be fixed.

" to listen to other peoples problems. They give away my money to give away my time…. 

Book notes

Just pick up the raspberries

When the berries fall from the fridge,

just pick up the raspberries

help your partner

you

you are your enemy

you anger is your enemy.

today you are angry at x

tomorrow you are angry at y

you are your anger

anger is toxic

you are your toxic

you have to heal you 

not the other person who you are angry toward 

Notes on Life: Book Notes

We are robots.

Somewhere along the way, we have been programmed how we live.

We have to be aware of our own programming.

and make upgrades regularly.

----

Conversation /w Leke Nov 27,2023

Leke's mom being in an "Abstract Prison '' of her own programming.

Visiting her is like visiting her in a prison. 

---

Killers and bad people:

They have bad programming.

They have to be stopped 

For myself

Everyday,

I have to be happy for myself. 

That is what God intended 

—-

Not happy for others,

In the face of others

Loki is interested in

Simplicity

Purity

Highest quality 

Do everything

 Do it. Do everything. Do everything you can think of. Do everything you think is a good idea

Josh Baer on Art Fairs

Most of it is noise. 

Most of what's being sold here, 20 years from now will be worth zero.

I'm here to tune out the noise. 

Focus on things that are great.

Art fair - notes

Collectors make their own decisions - that's a good idea. 

Art fair: smell the art. 

"Young collector"

Highly informed, not educated.

Informed and educated - good combo 

Andrew krepps - NY Gallerist 

Herman and Dorothy Vogel 

Skulls 

Markets always correct and adjust

—-

5000, second level old masters 

"It's a matter of timing" 

"Gmail art advisors" 

——

Art in America 

David Zwirner 

"How do you get information"

How to make things accessible and impart knowledge 

——

reckoning

All mean people will have their Karmic reckoning.

Who

I'm very proud of me for being a good man.

Now I'm learning to be good to myself 

Loki 

Who?

Do you want to be a Sunday painter?

Do you want to be a painter? 

Critters

I am a crazy critter. You are a crazy critter. We're perfect for each other.

Lisa Opoku

Create

Drawing is like dreaming

It is the beginning to everything

Beginning of creation 

Shape

Only God determines the shape of things in your life. In that sense every one's life is like a pattern in a kaleidoscope. You can drive the shape of your life, but the true shape of your life is what God plans for you. You can't override God's shape for your life. In that sense, every once life is the same. 

Henry Taylor

But Taylor said achieving prominence was never his aspiration. "There are people that have big major goals, and that's great," he said. "Me, I just want to get to a place where I can pay rent. That was my thing for a long time. It was nothing grandiose.

"My mom always told me to stay out of jail, and I've done that," he added. "I know that I want to take care of myself. I'm happy to show work. I'm happy to sell work. I'm happy to feed my kids, feed myself and have a few friends and family. If it allows me to do that, I can't frown on that."

Book title

Life unexplained

One must do:

Beautiful works

Works of arresting beauty

It should carry the highest version of the artistic thinking of the artist with every piece.

It should be intellectually ambitious

It should be bold, beautiful and complete.

It should sing like a bird 

It should hit you with a hammer

It should make you stand still and lose yourself 

I only have a few things to do in my life:

I only have a few things to do in my life:
pay off my loans
Do gods work - create art, write books, teach
Gods work together with Lisa
Honor our Mother by Publish a book of mom's art
Teach, write, create, travel 
Pray, meditate
—- 
I summon the courage to challenge myself to be my best
Summon the courage to be fearless about anything( always remember you are released) 
Summon the will, and channel will through daily practice and dedication. 
Make this your ultimate romantic pursuit. 
Romance with your true nature,toward God
(Bhakti!) 
—- 
Everything is given to you. Use it celebrate it! 
—-
Everything in the eyes of God
This life is given to you by God. This life will be taken back. So live in service and duty and humility, knowing nothing is yours, but live in the humility and dignity and make it worthy of your life, worthy of the gifts you have received. 
Let God be happy with the decision he made to put you on this earth. 
Make yourself worthy of the creators gifts. Be a role model, in the eyes of God. 
"Be God like"
Seek God's truths
Do Gods work
"Love Supreme" 
"You are released" to do "Gods work"
Share your gifts, that God has given you. 
Gift your gifts generously. 
Let people be loved by your gifts, let them see the power of God through your gifts. 
Let others "see" their gifts through your work. 
Gods work above all. 
Stay fit and prime, to go Gods work. 
Multiply Gods work. Scale God's work. 
10x Gods work!!! 
God bless you Loki 

Chase

Don't chase after anything secular.

Chase the glory of God 

Lisa 

Paula sure

Without history, you are floating in space.

Paula, SCH ER

Art notes

Representation

Arrangement

Only you can do this (interior india) 

Transcendence through elevated simplicity

Arresting 

No apologies 

Repetition 

Arrival through trial / iterations

Sumptuous color 

Lisa letter to Loki - Oct 22 2023

Dear Loki,

I love you!  I made the best decision of my life on October 22, 2022 when I married you.

It's hard to understand why God so richly blessed me with you.

I never had any doubt that you and I would get along beautifully.  You have the most perfect temperament.  The things that should matter to you, matter a lot.  With everything else, you bring endless optimism into perspective.  

Thank you for being so much fun to be around.  I love to talk to you on the phone, hear the sound of your voice and I love your perfect hugs.  Waking up next to you in the morning is comforting and exciting.  You are a beautiful and brilliant man.

I've spent most of my life holding back.  I was quite sure that I was unlovable.  I had a very hard edge.  Remember I used to say I was Jordan on the outside but Austin in the inside?  We now know Jordan is Austin on the inside too.  🤣  The ability to embrace my inner Austin and share my deepest pain and most vulnerable moments with you has been healing.  I don't believe I am unlovable anymore.  Every second my eyes are open I know that I am cherished by someone I could only dream about being in this kind of relationship with.  And, every night as I close my eyes, just after the drops go in, I know that if I don't ever wake up, I left so incredibly happy.  

On this one year anniversary, I want to thank you for bringing your best to this relationship everyday.  You authored a book this year.  Ozzy The Okra.  You created so many beautiful paintings.  And you lifted up so many around you by sharing your creative gifts.  I admire you so much for generously sharing your gifts with everyone around you.  

As we enter into the next year of our lives together.  I want to thank Muthu and Meera for bringing this lovely boy into the world.  Who knew that he would someday meet a little girl from Minnesota and share his chapatis with her.  

I am the happiest I have ever been in my life, Loki Muthu.  God Bless You for being my best friend and soul mate.  In this next year, I want us to continue to put God first in our lives and each other first in our hearts. 

Thank you for the most beautiful chapter of my life.  I love you! ❤️

Love,

Lisa 

Gluck

1.

The sun is setting behind the mountains,
the earth is cooling.
A stranger has tied his horse to a bare chestnut tree.
The horse is quiet-he turns his head suddenly,
hearing, in the distance, the sound of the sea.

I make my bed for the night here,
spreading my heaviest quilt over the damp earth.

The sound of the sea—
when the horse turns its head, I can hear it.

On a path through the bare chestnut trees,
a little dog trails its master.

The little dog-didn't he used to rush ahead,
straining the leash, as though to show his master
what he sees there, there in the future—

the future, the path, call it what you will.

Behind the trees, at sunset, it is as though a great fire
is burning between two mountains
so that the snow on the highest precipice
seems, for a moment, to be burning also.

Listen: at the path's end the man is calling out.
His voice has become very strange now,
the voice of a person calling to what he can't see.

Over and over he calls out among the dark chestnut trees.
Until the animal responds
faintly, from a great distance,
as though this thing we fear
were not terrible.

Twilight: the stranger has untied his horse.

The sound of the sea—
just memory now.

2.

Time passed, turning everything to ice.
Under the ice, the future stirred.
If you fell into it, you died.

It was a time
of waiting, of suspended action.

I lived in the present, which was
that part of the future you could see.
The past floated above my head,
like the sun and moon, visible but never reachable.

It was a time
governed by contradictions, as in
I felt nothing and
I was afraid.

Winter emptied the trees, filled them again with snow.
Because I couldn't feel, snow fell, the lake froze over.
Because I was afraid, I didn't move;
my breath was white, a description of silence.

Time passed, and some of it became this.
And some of it simply evaporated;
you could see it float above the white trees
forming particles of ice.

All your life, you wait for the propitious time.
Then the propitious time
reveals itself as action taken.

I watched the past move, a line of clouds moving
from left to right or right to left,
depending on the wind. Some days

there was no wind. The clouds seemed
to stay where they were,
like a painting of the sea, more still than real.

Some days the lake was a sheet of glass.
Under the glass, the future made
demure, inviting sounds:
you had to tense yourself so as not to listen.

Time passed; you got to see a piece of it.
The years it took with it were years of winter;
they would not be missed. Some days

there were no clouds, as though
the sources of the past had vanished. The world

was bleached, like a negative; the light passed
directly through it. Then
the image faded.

Above the world
there was only blue, blue everywhere.

3.

In late autumn a young girl set fire to a field
of wheat. The autumn

had been very dry; the field
went up like tinder.

Afterward there was nothing left.
You walk through it, you see nothing.

There's nothing to pick up, to smell.
The horses don't understand it-

Where is the field, they seem to say.
The way you and I would say
where is home.

No one knows how to answer them.
There is nothing left;
you have to hope, for the farmer's sake,
the insurance will pay.

It is like losing a year of your life.
To what would you lose a year of your life?

Afterward, you go back to the old place—
all that remains is char: blackness and emptiness.

You think: how could I live here?

But it was different then,
even last summer. The earth behaved

as though nothing could go wrong with it.

One match was all it took.
But at the right time-it had to be the right time.

The field parched, dry—
the deadness in place already
so to speak.

4.

I fell asleep in a river, I woke in a river,
of my mysterious
failure to die I can tell you
nothing, neither
who saved me nor for what cause—

There was immense silence.
No wind. No human sound.
The bitter century

was ended,
the glorious gone, the abiding gone,

the cold sun
persisting as a kind of curiosity, a memento,
time streaming behind it—

The sky seemed very clear,
as it is in winter,
the soil dry, uncultivated,

the official light calmly
moving through a slot in air

dignified, complacent,
dissolving hope,
subordinating images of the future to signs of the future's passing—

I think I must have fallen.
When I tried to stand, I had to force myself,
being unused to physical pain—

I had forgotten
how harsh these conditions are:

the earth not obsolete
but still, the river cold, shallow—

Of my sleep, I remember
nothing. When I cried out,
my voice soothed me unexpectedly.

In the silence of consciousness I asked myself:
why did I reject my life? And I answer
Die Erde überwältigt mich:
the earth defeats me.

I have tried to be accurate in this description
in case someone else should follow me. I can verify
that when the sun sets in winter it is
incomparably beautiful and the memory of it
lasts a long time. I think this means

there was no night.
The night was in my head.

5.

After the sun set
we rode quickly, in the hope of finding
shelter before darkness.

I could see the stars already,
first in the eastern sky:

we rode, therefore,
away from the light
and toward the sea, since
I had heard of a village there.

After some time, the snow began.
Not thickly at first, then
steadily until the earth
was covered with a white film.

The way we traveled showed
clearly when I turned my head—
for a short while it made
a dark trajectory across the earth—

Then the snow was thick, the path vanished.
The horse was tired and hungry;
he could no longer find
sure footing anywhere. I told myself:

I have been lost before, I have been cold before.
The night has come to me
exactly this way, as a premonition—

And I thought: if I am asked
to return here, I would like to come back
as a human being, and my horse

to remain himself. Otherwise
I would not know how to begin again.

—Louise Glück

Work ethic

"Intense work ethic"

Describing the baker tharshan selvarajah who bakes the best baguettes in Paris 

Herzog

Be a good soldier. Approach work with a sense of duty. Time has hardened my courage. My fascinations have become wider and Wilder. I'm not afraid of anything anymore.

Werner Herzog.

Maya Angelou

"Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."

Bill evans

Always look for it, and sometimes, it happens

Be good

Just be a good guy, loki. 

In the image of God. 

Kind and gracious to a fault. 

Concerned care. 

Willing to sacrifice for others, but protecting yourself 

Hard work, discipline, 

Focus on what's important of valu you can share with the world. 

Every day is preparing you for it. 

Live

Live, live

Live easy and right

Live live 

Live frugal and right

Live live 

Live for nature and light

Live, live 

Live with all your might 

Looking

She's looking for a "hot guy" as opposed to a "good man" 

Really simple guide for artists

Put out high quality work, consistently

——-

If you work at yourself 

and put your work out there 

And the work is good

Then people will respond to the work. 

—

If you put out work

And the work is good

If the work reflects you

If you practice with dedication

And are determined, 

People will respond

People will take notice 

—- 

If you put out interesting, high quality work, consistently, people take notice 

—- 

Borges

"A writer—and, I believe, generally all persons—must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

Borges

on friends notes

"They are your friends, but not when it matters"

Lisa 

Fordjour

I was the product of interventions 

Derek Fordjour 

Rise

There is in this world, no such force as the force of a man determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained

Dubois 1910 

Hustle

Our kids need to understand the hustle of earning money….. 

Lisa Opoku 

Thiebaud

I think of myself as a beginner. Sometimes, that's the whole joy. If you could just do it, there would be no point in doing it.

Wayne Thiebaud 

Best comfort and interior luxury is 

- when you have had a good nights rest

- dreams 

- when your stools are passed

- taken a hot shower

- breakfast 

- mind it still, no agitation of thoughts

Fairness

Fairness expands markets 

Example: Uber 

In the dark

Everything they do, is happening in the dark

White boy games 

Eghosa

Come at you with their CHEST 

Eghosa

"Make it a black box"

To get away with anything 

Example: admission process in US 

Eghosa Racket

"The cost of not knowing the Racket" is going to hurt us more in the long run

Example: feeder school racket

This themes links to 

"Games White people play" 

Play Fair

Title for book

Honesty

I can "hear" honesty and dishonesty. 

It sounds different.

- Lisa Opoku 

Suffering

Self inflicted suffering is poor design 

Lisa’s first book theme: This system is not designed for women”

Book notes

Strangers in Paradise

Nature holidays.com

Concentrated sustained attention 

Living

Loving is horizontal, not vertical

Lisa Opoku 

Hurt

People who want to hurt me don't get priority in my life. 

Being Black

Being black is full time not part time 

- Lisa Opoku