One Picture of Me

 

One Picture of Me

By Mike Garofalo

When Laurence asked for poems on the theme of "Self-Portrait" I though of a long philosophical poem I wrote about the interrelated subjects of Picturing and Describing. 

One set of examples I used in that long poem was the human skull. I spoke of memories of Halloween in East Los Angeles, where Mexican Skulls, calaveras, filled displays on El Dia De La Muerte. Meaningful from artistic and religious perspectives.

The brief poem I'm sharing today is a excerpt about my own skull as Pictured by medical imaging, and described by me and interpreted by the oral surgeon.

"This bony skull of mine
electrified
pictured onscreen for me.
     Doctor recommends
     some oral surgery.

The brain disappeared,
an empty space
sliced from
X Ray images retraced.
Eyeless in inner space.

Monkey nose holes,
bony eye glasses,
teeth glowing in the dark.
     Inner spaces never seen
     underneath my very being.

Skinless, noseless, earless,
a shape, a form—
     the images informed.
Stripping away the unneeded,
revealing my inner core."

So, as we all know, a single picture or image can cause a flow of ideas, interpretations, and feelings in our minds.

Or, just two words can please, excite or inflame our minds. Our lover's name can explode our feelings.

But, just two other words can frighten our moral being.

For example, 

Donald Trump ...
[pause, raise your elbow]

Kick Him Out. 

See you on the street next Saturday.

The above "brief poem" will be printed in
The SkullCrushing Hummingbird
Zine #7, in Portland, Oregon,
on 10/12/2025.

Commentary: Off the Cuff

So, considering, have you ever seen
a picture or a video or a drawing
of a Skull Crushing Hummingbird,
crushing an insect's Skull
with its tiny beak or flashing wings?

No, you have not,
and that is just one reason why,
you don't believe
that Skull Crushing Hummingbirds
are really alive.

However,
Words, context, technical knowledge,
and intent claim meaningfulness,
even truth,
in addition to any pictures viewed.
The surgeon and I see differently.

Sometimes, though, we reader's prefer
fantasies and fictional
Skull Crushing Hummingbirds
to any ho-hum boring beings-
a moniker for fun memories.

***********************

Pictures mirroring things
displaying aspects of reality
uncovering hidden realms of being
pointing to more clear correspondence.
Show me a good picture - Please!

We drew pictures in caves
Heroes pictured in statues
Books illustrated pictured facts
Drones picture our towns from above
Hubble sends us clear pictures of Space

Our brains are
Picture processing ... Machines-
and you can picture mindfulness
you can picture your intent verbally...
picturing is a form of meaningfulness.

Science and technology have
invented new ways of picturing
so we can see into Reality
and open our ordinary eyes
to new ways of seeing.

Picturing - Defining
Planning - Imagining
Painting - Photography
Reflecting - Mimicking
Do I see what I mean?

Wittgenstein in the Tractatus of 1921
Used Pictures and Picturing as the
criterion of meaningfulness and truth.
Wittgenstein in the Investigations of 1953
changed to talking about our talking
about, in ordinary words, aspects of Picturing.

The best pictures, the best descriptions,
how we talk in everyday ways,
point to correspondence, mirroring,
a theory of epistemology.
Richard Rorty disagreed.

**********************************

Bundled Up, Volume 1
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tankas

Gushen Grove Sonnets

Highway 101 and 1: A Docu-Poem
California, Oregon, Washington

25 Steps and Beyond
The Poetry by Mike Garofalo

Art from China and Japan

 I have greatly enjoyed looking at East Asian Art, and reading about this subject, since I was in High School in 1961.  I have used scores of books from public and college libraries on this beautiful cultural treasure.  Lately, I have purchased used copies and studied the following books:

Click on any title below to go to the book information in Amazon.  I purchased all these fine books from used booksellers.  

I recently borrowed one art book from the Three Creeks Library of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library System.  

What attracted my attention the most was the juxtaposition of art works on interfacing pages. One page would feature a photograph of an artwork by a 20th Century Chinese artist; and, the interfacing page would feature an artist working prior to 1900.  Violent scenes and serene scenes.  Contemporary and classical.  Painters and calligraphers from precision realists to literati impressionists. The old and the new in contrast.  

This art book is very large and very heavy. A coffee table display volume. Also, the timeline index with all the photos was useful.  I purchased a nice used copy from a bookseller.  

This beautiful art book, with outstanding photographs and concise commentary, was published in 2005, and is titled: 

The Chinese Art Book.  

By Keith Pratt, Katie Hills, and Jeffrey Moser.  Published by Phaidon in 2013. 352 pages.  Contemporary and classical artists.  

"The Chinese Art Book is a beautifully presented, authoritative and unprecedented overview of Chinese art. The book examines the art of the oldest continuous civilization on Earth through 300 works, from the (earliest dynasties) Neolithic period to the new generation of contemporary artists enlivening the global art world today. Every form of Chinese visual art is featured –including painting, calligraphy, sculpture, ceramics, figurines, jades, bronzes, gold and silver, photography, video, installation and performance art. Concise descriptive essays place each work in context, and cross-references lead the reader on a fascinating journey through Chinese art history.

The Chinese Art Book features an introductory essay by Colin Mackenzie, Senior Curator of Chinese Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, an accessible summary of Chinese political and cultural history, a comprehensive glossary defining technical terms, and an illustrated timeline.

Full of surprises for the reader new to Chinese art as well as for specialists, the book breaks new ground by pairing works that speak to one another in unexpected ways, enlightening historical, stylistic and cultural connections."

Huineng (638-713 CE)
Huineng Chopping Bamboo
Ink on paper by Liang Kai
Circa 1200 CE

A Teacher Mentoring His Students
Ink and Color on Paper by Yang Zhiguang, 1959
From the Chines Art Book, p.77

Library books on Asian Art that I have benefitted
from browsing in 2023:

Hiroshige.  Janina Nentwig. Konneman 2016. 

The Arts of Japan: Late Medieval to Modern.  By Seiroku Noma, 1966. 326 pages.  

The History of Japanese Art.  By Penelope Mason, 1993, 431 pages.  

 

The Arts