"Only The Devil And I Know The Whereabouts Of My Treasure And The One Of Us Who Lives The Longest Should Take It All"....Blackbeard

Damnation Seize My Soul by Chris Collingwood. I saw a great copy of this painting once, with perfect lighting, and it seized my soul.

Off the coast of Beauford, NC an anchor has been hauled up one last time... almost 300 years after its last drop. It is the anchor from Queen Anne's Revenge, the pirate ship of the famous Blackbeard. The once French slave ship was renamed and became Blackbeard's stollen ride after its capture. The ship met its demise before it's famous owner, having been run aground and abandoned a few months before Blackbeard's death in 1718.

The anchor of Queen Anne's Revenge being hoisted from NC waters last week. The wreck, which is the largest off North Carolina's coast, was discovered in 1996. Recovery has been ongoing since then.

The mad-eyed Edward Teach was born in Bristol in 1680 and grew up to be the most famous marauder of the West Indies, North Carolina and Virginia. Pirates were admired as romantic heroes even during their own lifetime, glossing over the fact that most were brutal sadists. They lived outside the law and were free from constraints in those hard times when everyone else seemed to be catching a flogging. They accepted their fate--that their lifestyle led to an exciting, but usually short life with a career that ended in one or two years...usually at the end of a rope.

A pirate captain only kept his position if he were popular, successful and feared. He had to stand out in a crowd, and this Blackbeard did well. He was said to be tall, strong, hairy, wild, brave, and a flamboyant dresser. He wore brightly colored silk scarves over his shoulders with flintlocks tied to the end. He braided his beard, which grew almost up to his eyes, and tied the braids with colored ribbons. He put slow burning fuses in his hat which he would light right before going into action. He was a constant drinker who believed a drunken ship was a happy ship and said that without alcohol, the "rogues are aplotting." He was said to have tormented fellow pirate, Stede Bonnet, once inviting him on board, getting him stinking drunk, then convincing Bonnet's waiting crew to elect a new captain.

The Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1718.

But it did indeed come to a quick end after he was mortally wounded by volunteers of the Royal Navy led by Robert Maynard at Ocracoke Inlet. It took 25 wounds to bring him down, including 5 gunshots and a slit throat. During those times, if you killed someone famous, there were no photos or press to prove it, so Blackbeard's head was cut off and hung from Maynard's ship's bowsprit as it sailed back to Virginia. But Blackbeard had the last hurrah as it was reported by those present that his headless body, when thrown overboard, swam around his killer's ship three times before sinking.

A canon recovered from the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge. Blackbeard had plenty of warning that he was losing his ship, so his booty was removed and taken ashore. Artifacts from the recovery will be on display at the NC Maritime Museum.

Look Homeward Angel: Part I

I am re-reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel and find that when people who have not read the book ask me what it is about, I never feel like my explanation is enough. Well maybe these words from TW can help explain...

Thomas Wolfe, From a letter to his sister, 1937:


"I agree with you when you say that bitterness is one of the things in life that kills....There is another thing in life that is hard to bear that fortunately you do not know much about---that is loneliness....I think I learned about being alone when I was a child about eight years old and I think that I have known about it ever since. People, I think, often mean well by children but are often cruel because of something insensitive or cruel in their own natures which they cannot help. It is not a good thing, however, for older people to tell a little child that he is selfish, unnatural and inferior to the other members of his family in qualities of generosity and nobility, because a child is small and helpless and has no defence, and although he is no worse than other children, and is in fact as full of affection, love and good-will as anyone could be, he may in time come to believe the things which are told him about himself, and that is when he begins to live alone and wants to be alone and if possible to get far, far away from the people who have told him how much better they are than he is....I can also say that the habit of loneliness, once formed, grows on a man from year to year, and he wanders across the face of the earth and has no home and is in exile, and he is never able to break out of the prison of his own loneliness again, no matter how much he wants to. So with all your troubles and misfortunes of the last few years you can be thankful being alone has not been one of them."




Wolfe's original title for LHA, even before the second title of O Lost, was The Building of A Wall. Now I understand why.

"Look homeward Angel now and melt with ruth:

And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth." (John Milton, Lycidas)

The Droste Effect: The Ad That Keeps On Giving

From Season 4 of Madmen:


Sally: I just felt like I was going to heaven, except I don't believe in it.

Glenn: You don't? Then what happens when you die? Nothing?

Sally: It doesn't really bother me, except that it's forever. When I think about forever, I get upset. Like the Land O Lakes butter has that Indian girl...sitting holding a box. And it has a picture of her on it holding a box, with a picture of her holding a box. Have you ever noticed that?

Glenn: I wish you wouldn't have said that.

Like Sally from Madmen, for most children, infinity is a serious matter. You reach the point where your brain allows you to look beyond the confines of everyday life and you suddenly have infinity staring you right in the face and it's there to stay.

This implied infinity of images has a name, the Droste Effect, named for the Droste Cacao company which used the effect in their advertising in 1904. If you look around you, it's used more than you realize. Why? What better way to have the vision of your product continue in the observer's mind forever...the ad that never ends.

Smile...you've just been Drosted.

Armadillo Skills

"Don't hate me, I have skills."



There is just something appealing to me about any animal that comes with its own motor home on its back, causing me to have great affection for turtles, roly poly's, and armadillos. Due to the cold winters in upstate SC, the only time I managed to see an armadillo in the wild was on a visit to Florida when my uncle's dogs were engaged in an armadillo round-up one night. But the armadillo is broadening its horizons and he has rumbled his way to parts of South Carolina. Whenever I drive to Charleston, there is a swampy area on I-26 where there is almost always an armadillo casualty on the side of the road. I always perk up at "Armadillo Swamp" with mixed feelings of excitement at a sighting combined with sadness for the demise of this "little armored one." I think there is a lack of respect for this animal who ranks around the same area on the animal respect scale as the lowly possum. It seems we like to demean any creature that becomes an easy victim of our automobiles....make it their fault. But don't be so flippant if you do run over the nine banded armadillo, because I have discovered that this is a little mammal with skills.

For example, their proliferation (in spite of the automobile) is partly due to their ability to practice delayed implantation of their fertilized eggs, timing their babies births at favorable environmental conditions. They are also one of the few animals to exhibit Polyembryony-the single fertilized egg always divides to produce four genetically identical offspring.

When startled, the nine banded armadillo can leap straight up in the air, sometimes three or four feet in the air, as a defense mechanism. That would be like a human jumping 20 feet into the air. Well no wonder they fall victim to automobiles...the headlights keep them busy jumping. I'm surprised they don't end up coming through windshields.

The armadillo has two water skills. Since their armor makes them heavy, they will sink of course. That's no problem though because they can hold their breath for about 6 minutes giving them time to casually walk across the bottom of small bodies of water. If the water is too wide for the six minute skill, they have the ability to inflate air into their body enabling them to float for long distances.

The armadillo shell has many uses... such as a back for the Charango (an Andean lute), baskets, wine holders, and the stylish pocketbook seen above.

When I read that they could be housebroken, I felt the familiar urge to try to capture one, but remembered they also have the rare ability to carry leprosy. It seems they have the skill to lower their body temperature to adapt to long periods without much nourishment, making their warm bloodied bodies the same cooler temperature as human skin.

So, let's quit dismissing this animal, giving him our human diseases, and casually running him down with our automobiles. Don't become hardened like a Texan, be mindful that he is an animal with skills.

Night Singer

Waking up at dawn to the singing of the Northern Mockingbird is a regular event in South Carolina, but never have I had one serenade me after dark until last week at Sullivan's Island when the singing would begin about 11:30 and last most of the night. He didn't bother me at all and even though I am a light sleeper, I went right to sleep after a short listening session and would only notice him briefly when I would wake in the night. I think the morning singing is more annoying to me because it serves as sort of an alarm clock. " It's daylight and we're singing so you had better get your lazy self up." There was something soothing about this night singing...sort of like a lullaby. It is something I have never heard before so I had to do a little research on night singers. I knew Mockingbirds were supposed to be very intelligent and remembered a study where a person was made to prowl around a Mockingbird nest and then later, the bird could remember and pick that prowler out of a large crowd of people to harass. I figured there must be a good reason for night singing.

All adult make male mockingbirds sing during the day, but only a bachelor will sing at night. If you are a single female Mockingbird and you hear singing at night, there's no mistaking that the message is for you. So it was a love song I heard. As soon as he finds a mate, the singing will stop. I would think he should have already begun nesting by April, so he must have lost his original mate, or maybe he's starting nest two. I hope there is an eligible bachelorette for him on the island. The sound repertoire of this bird is amazing and the reason is, unlike most birds, who learn all the songs they will sing in the first year of life, the Mockingbird builds his song catalogue throughout his life. They will imitate most anything: other birds, car alarms, and in night singer's case, even crickets and frogs.

Judging from the other Internet sites, many people don't find the night singers to be nearly so pleasant. There are numerous posts on how to get rid of them and John van der Linden, author of Eastern Birding Central FAQ says 25 to 50 percent of his e-mail questions are how to deal with annoying Mockingbirds. I suspect it could be their own irritation that keeps people awake more than the birds. Thankfully, Mockingbirds, like all US migratory birds, are protected by Federal law. They are also protected by "Atticus' law"who told us in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, that "it is a sin to kill a Mockingbird because they don't do anything except sing their hearts out for us." Keep on singing night singer and I hope you find a mate soon.

Pretty Mockingbird eggs...they remind me of the Easter candy, Malted Speckled Eggs.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, A Radiant Child

Jean-Michel Basquiat portrait by James Van Der Zee, 1982. A man with a cat.




I have always liked the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) but must admit I really knew very little about him, having been shrouded by the myth of this artist who died when he was only 27 years old. Last week I happened to catch the PBS showing of the documentary by Tamra Davis, Radiant Child, which left me a little more enlightened and a little more sad for this remarkable, but too short life.

A 17 year old Basquiat left his middle class home to began living on the streets of New York, quickly gaining notoriety as Samo (as in "same o' shit"), the graffiti artist. Some in the art world speculated that the mysterious Samo may actually be an old woman, which speaks to the nature of the philosophy left on the streets by this teenager with a soul that defied his years. But in the early 1980's, Samo "died" and Basquiat was born, selling out his first art show on it's first night with $200,000 sales. The 80's art world, like much of that era, seemed defined by fame and greed, and Basquiat struggled between the desire for success and the limits that a life as a celebrity often brings. His world seemed filled with extreme contradictions. He would enter a New York club where he was the center of attention, the mega-star of the art world, only to leave and find that the cab drivers would not stop for him on the street. He felt frustrated with the critics who described him as a genius yet chose ethnic descriptions of his work rather than looking at the concepts, using words such as "primitive, primal, and child-like." He was a prolific artist, giving some of his art away as gifts to friends, and later feeling betrayed by them as they sold the pieces at auction when he became famous. He ended up lonely, addicted to heroin, without anyone to guide him through it all to safety. He died at age 27 of a heroin overdose, shortly after the unexpected death of his estranged best friend, Andy Warhol. Langston Hughes' poem, Genius Child was read by a friend at Basquiat's funeral...."nobody loves a genius child, kill him-and let his soul run wild."

Jean-Michel Basquiat is recognized as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century with a recent painting selling at auction for 14.5 million, yet I wonder how many people know his work. There is a difference in Basquiat's art that I love, a difference which makes some people uncomfortable. When you look at his art, it takes you a step back from your own feelings, from your need for an instant personal connection, and instead you are granted a glimpse inside a fascinating mind with a mysterious and important story to tell. Before you know it, you are engaged in a dialogue with this artist. The words in the paintings are both text and visual images in themselves, and they are the clues. According to Basquiat, he marks through them to make you want to read them more. The story was "given" to him, he needs to share it with you, and it is well worth the time to uncover it. As Basquiat himself has said, "it is the story of royalty, heroism, and the streets."

This is Basquiat's work, In Italian.

Thanks For Waiting, All You Understanding Ears

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them---words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear."
Stephen King, The Gunslinger