Aesthetic Thursday: Poussin’s Poetic Painting "Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

I recently went to the Met — and I wandered the newly renovated European Paintings galleries and I fell in love with the French artist Poussin's painterly image of a wandering giant looking for the sun.

Nicolas Poussin, French Les Andelys 1594-1665 Rom — "Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun," 1658 (oil on canvas). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. 24.45.1 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has recently renovated its European Paintings galleries. The skylights have been fixed and apparently more artwork has been hung on the walls. I like to wander the galleries without a goal in mind — however, I lie just a bit, here. Because I did have a goal in my wanderings — mainly to find the Met's Caravaggio's. But it's always the serendipitous finds that stick with me. And Poussin's "Blind Orion" caught my attention. I know nothing of Poussin — so my interpretation of the painting is more of a first blush. But I am a lover of myth and poetry — and this painting draws you into a mythological world. At first I thought the giant figure carrying a man on his shoulders was Saint Christopher — the legendary boatsman who carried the Christ child on his shoulder crossing a river. But that is not the subject of this painting. It's a depiction of the blind giant Orion, who carries his guide Cedalion, as they look for the rising sun. The museum placard indicates that Diana, the moon goddess, who appears a diaphanous blue, stands watching in the clouds. It's a magical story; obviously one fit for myth — but the scene resonates with me because I think of myself as somewhat of a wanderer. And Orion is also the name of one of my favorite constellations. So it is befitting. Here's to searching. For the healing sun.

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Photograph: A Scene of a Winter Gloaming in Queens

A million years ago I spotted the gloaming on a Summer evening in Brooklyn near the Gowanus Canal. Fast forward into the future and here I am in Queens, on a Winter evening, having spotted the gloaming.

The Gloaming As Seen from 37th Avenue in Queens Looking Southwest

Words to Describe the Period of Sunset

In the English language there are a few words that can be used to describe that moment between day and night. The most common word is dusk — which I feel like is a broad term to describe that temporal zone in which the sun has dipped below the horizon but a sliver of light remains. 

It is part of the larger sunset process, that process seen from an observer on Earth as the day and night cycle. The sun seems to dip below the horizon line, never to be seen again. Our ancestors hoped for another new day — and especially in Wintertime, as the sunlight grows less during the day, we pine for more light — hence the origin of almost every Winter holiday celebration from Diwali, to Hannukah and Kwanzaa, and to Christmas. We look and pray for the restoration of light.

Twilight or Gloaming?

Twilight — which is closer to what the term gloaming means. It is that precious moment where the last dots of lights appear in a reddish, bronze haze of light — and then slowly descend into night.

I imagine gloaming is the more poetic term. Twilight is reserved the scientific view of the event. Read this nice article from the British newspaper The Guardian for a thorough review of the different terms.

I like this time of day — while it is just as likely to capture a similar picture in the morning, when in reverse, we see a similar process in the dawn.

When have you seen a gorgeous dusk? What do you call it?

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Is Brainstorming Ideas a Good Idea in the Middle of the Night?

image credit: Roy Lichenstein c. 1986

I feel like my best ideas come to me in the middle of the night. Or, I'm like "Oh my God! I left the baby on the bus!"

I try to get a good night's sleep. I have a ritual for bedtime. I turn the curtains and turn on the white noise machine. Sometimes I take a Melatonin tablet. Sleep comes easily enough. I'm a deep sleeper but when I wake up I'm awake. It's one o'clock in the morning I'll wake up with a start. If it's a school night I automatically think of something school related. While I don't advise it, I keep my mobile phone next to my bed. Once I use it - it's a death knell to sleep. My brain starts whirring and I start to input ideas into my Google Keep app (I also like Day One Journal).

The last couple of nights I've woken up with lyrics from the Scissor Sisters stuck in my head. It's not uncommon for me to browse my Amazon.com purchases. Yes, I know. I hate that I do that. It's nervous energy. Once when I was sick in bed I wrote up an entire emergency lesson plan so my substitute teacher would have something to do for my students.

I wasn't always this way. As a kid and as a teen I went to sleep before eleven o'clock and woke up at quarter past six in the morning. I had a bus to catch! Times were simpler then; or, more accurately, I think when you're young you're preternaturally ignorant to the ways of the world. It's the paradox of youth. Young people are so into themselves that they've inoculated themselves to certain things. It's partly because adults have constructed a world - a youth culture - to protect them. It's not to say youth are not stressed but there's a qualitative difference between being a dependent and then becoming a tax-paying adult.

Why I like Fifth Century Thinkers like Socrates and Confucius

Confucius and Socrates Represent a Renaissance of Thought

I was trained to begin with Socrates. But what about Confucius standing next to Socrates? Confucius was Socrates’s contemporary. "They probably never met," you say. A Queens taxi cab driver told me their meeting was possible – how could there have been such a confluence of ideas in both East and West without either Socrates or Confucius never having met? The fifth century before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was a renaissance of thought. It was a time of emerging thought, of dynamic ideas – that would forever change the course of human history.

On Being Right in the World

An R160B rolling stock working the E line waits in the terminal World Trade Center station in Lower Manhattan.

I do not think it is hokey to think about what kind of energy we project into the world.

No matter how smart you are, what clever ideas you bring to the table, or what accomplishments you've mastered — it's all about how you are in the world that counts.

I'm not talking about broadcasting a veneer of positivity. Even when you don't feel so great, you can still be mindful enough to not let your own feelings seep out and be destructive. I know from experience that never works.

That's why we have art. And stuff. And tragic movies. Or hitting a baseball. Or running until your chest hurts (I know. I don't do that too much.)

Frankly, for me, I'm just beginning to come up to the surface of the water to breathe. And the air does feel good. On my face. The taste of pepper on my scrambled eggs.

Can you tell I am trying to make a breakthrough? 

On Not Being Right in the World

One of the Damned from Michelangelo's fresco "The Last Judgment."

Advice for When You Do Not Feel on Par with Existence:
While we value people who have come through significant challenges, the prevailing opinion among many is that those who are struggling just have not tried hard enough.

However, there is value in not being right in the world.

It does not mean you are not trying to succeed.

Who is Measuring and Why Does it Matter?
Often we are measured by criteria that even those who are setting the criteria don't fully understand.

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Image Source: Michelangelo Buonarotti, "The Last Judgment" 1537-1541, The Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

Ersatz Existential Daily Post

Today I poured a cup of coffee into a plastic, reusable cup. I sighed. As the world sighs. I sat at my Formica dining room table, listening to the sound of faint music from the bottom floor rising up like a tribal beat, a haunting sound, then quiet. My cup dry. My cup doth not runneth over. The refrigerator hums. I sit in my pea-green apartment and I am one with the universe. It's the best thing going for I must have some sense of transcendence. Right? It bothers me that I must be so existential in the morning. Damn coffee cup. Damn emptiness. I eschew you. Spit you out. There. That's better. Good day, mates.

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The B Train Don't Ride to the Beat of the Mardi Gras Mambo

A woman peers out the window

on a subway train (near Coney Island).

To be from the South. It's forever. The South is my ultimate frame of reference.

Some Yankee asks, "Why live down dere where it's below sea level?"

Anger is easy to erupt. But the Yanks don't get it.

Riding the B train I realize my heart beats to the rhythm of the Mardi Gras Mambo. All writers know that. Frank Levy taught me that.

It does not help that I start singing, "Mardi Gras Mambo" — a blonde hipster gives me a dollar. 

I admire her Trader Joe's bag.

Hey, I say. We got Winn-Dixie.

And she thinks I am talking about some fucking children's book.

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Poem: "Forgot to Listen"

Forgot to listen, learned one voice.
Stood erect, a little shaky, stood to one side —
learned to mimic a consuming system,
jamais penetrate, just preserve,
emitted jelly slugs, phage, phage, phage.
Spoke magnificent monotones with glee,
curved a unilateral smile and a sly handshake
grasped. A chuckle and then a dead listen.
Untied a bulbous, enveloping shoe,
engorged, overfolded the dialectician,
held the united sphere and showed the germ.
Proclaimed the world, as mighty metaphysician.
Dissected and stored it all in a little shop,
Plowed through the murk, to the immediate, ethereal top.
image credit: Greig Roselli

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