In the mysterious landscape of limestone caves, gorges, sinkholes, underground lakes and rivers just northeast of Trieste, known as the Karst, Dante was inspired to locate the entrance to the Underworld.
As the subterranean water carries away the soft calcium carbonate rock, so too does the River Styx’s ferryman Charon whisk away souls who strayed into a life of dark choices.
Often we are led to believe that The Prince of Darkness has lured the beguiled by way of seductive trappings. As thou we were under the cunning ploy of a grifter’s game of 3 card Monte. Adam is drawn into sin by the moist fruit offered up by the curvaceous Eve; herself entreated to fondle and nibble the hanging handful by the wet smile of the writhing serpent.
But, we are told, Satan is on a leash. And like Béla Lugosi’s Count Dracula, cannot cross a threshold uninvited.
Thus after leaving Trieste and Dante behind and snaking by rail thru Italy’s northern regions, I find myself in the humid realm of Milano.
For weeks I thought back over Dante’s netherworld, it’s bleak entrance within the Karst, and the adjacent port of Trieste, itself a city not unfamiliar with carousing and the lustful ramblings of many a person given to the appetites of the flesh. One soul bearing such feverish appetites was James Joyce, who soddenly traipsed to the city’s bordellos while scribbling about his fear of roasting in the dark flames of Hell.
As I sat on the apartment’s balcony mulling over temptation, beguilement and suffering, or what defense attorneys might deem entrapment, I would casually take note of the stairwell in the grounds below.
The grassy courtyard never served as playground for children. Nor frisbee park for dogs & owners. No sunbathers were to be found, reclining on elbows, ankles crossed and bikini strap unhitched while reading pulpy delights thru Foster Grants. It’s said a parking garage was beneath and this was but one of half a dozen stairwells scattered among the large apartment complex leading to the cavern of cars. Occasionally, I would glimpse someone laconically strolling to and then down the stairs. Never rushed. Hesitant at times as though guided by curiosity or accompanied by uncertainty. No destination imploring urgency.
But never in the months I spent there did I witness a soul emerging from the stairs.
If we are to believe that the first move
need be made by the sinner, this would run counter to the notion that those inhabiting the animated mud are but pawns in the tango betwixt grand overlord and his errant
Angel. The leash dropped once free will exercises poor choice. Must we see that choice as necessarily guided by the foulest of humors, craven longings or foolishness? Were not the children of Limbo denied basking in celestial glow through no fault of their own?
The door to The Land of Shade is neither arduous to open, nor hung with wreath of rotted fruit calling the spiritually weak as if fruit flies.
The door is simply there. Available not just because morality has proven a shifting and confusing compass. It is en route to the most banal of tasks. It’s convenience at times without question. Even the most mindful might tumble, as has the diligent ant, into the lair of the Antlion.
Drawn with fountain pen, DeAtramentis Document Brown ink, Pitt Artist Pens on Tomoe River Paper.
- February 9th, 2023
- Posted in Drawings
- Tagged Adam and Eve, Antlion, brush pen artwork, Charon, Dante, fountain pen drawings, Graphic novella, ink drawings, pitt artist pen, Seven Seas Tomoe River Paper, stairwell, The Java Knot, the Karst, Trieste, Underworld
- Comments Off on The Java Knot- Egress To The Underworld
“Stuart could not believe his luck. At a time when he most needed to hide (in plain sight, no less) from his enemies & the authorities (the lazier & clumsier of the two), the pandemic & the obliging mandates kept him masked up & out in public.
Unable to pull a Ted Kaczynski in a rustic hideout dug into the cleavage of some red neck mountain range, too vain to forego Michelin star meals & haute couture tailoring, & too claustrophobic to hunker down for endless months in an apartment dependent on the lowest common denominator of restaurants willing to home deliver; he would live a near normal life behind a face cape, exposed just nose bridge to brow.
Among the upscale streets of Chitown’s Gold Coast & Mag Mile, where you’re likely to trip over an august geezer draped in the showroom offerings of Armani, Tom Ford, Prada, or Zegna & topped with $2,000 Optimo fedoras, he could venture out daily. Even talk to strangers, in between sneaking sips of espresso at any of the dozen cafes he treasured.
But today, at perhaps his preferred roastery, something of note, a troubling note, occurred. He caught the eye of an artist. A capable one with a penchant for detail. Not only had Stuart been captured in his favorite fedora, standing at the marble & tile counter, thereby giving a close approximation of his height, the background drawing pegged him in the exact cafe. One head study didn’t suffice, the page contained three. Matters were made more grave as two head studies of him, a profile of his left side, & a 3/4 rear view of his right, contained explicit features. A mole just behind & beneath his right ear was cause for concern enough, though men of his age were polka dotted with warts & moles & and garlands of age spots. It was the left profile that froze Stuart. There, in the middle of his head, acting as an anchor to the black mask he depended on to protect his identity, was his large ear. The one with the lobe that had been split when a diamond earring had been ripped by a thug sent to collect on a debt. That memento to reckless behavior had been left unrepaired. As a reminder. Now, it spoke to him again.
“I don’t mean to intrude, but you are very talented.” Stuart infused his words with just enough grace.
“Oh, thank you.”
“Do you do that for a living?”
“Well, not much of one, but, yes.”
“What do you do with your drawings?”
“These? I usually just post ‘em online.”
The artist’s hand hadn’t stopped.
“Do you ever sell them? I should like to buy that one in particular. It’s quite….arresting.”
“Well, I usually don’t sell these as they’re drawn on both sides of the page.” The page was flipped to show another cafe scene. “Plus”, he said looking up from the book,”I’m going to publish these soon. So, I’m holding onto all of these till the book designer & I make the final selection.”
Stuart’s emotions were as Grey as his eyes.
Something would have to be done about the sketch, or, the sketcher. Should he post his handiwork, it would draw the unerring eye of his pursuers.
Drawn on a #stillmanandbirn sketchbook with fountain pen and Pitt Artist Pens.
- November 13th, 2021
- Posted in Drawings
- Tagged brush pen artwork, clairefontaine paper, drawing from life, Drawings, fountain pen drawings, ink drawings, Pitt Artist Pens, Stillman & Birn, The Java Knot, urban sketching
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(A snippet from the ongoing graphic novella The Java Knot)
I freely admit to having an unfettered imagination. Which may be partially to blame for my hypochondriacal nature. If I see things I don’t completely understand, I extrapolate, fill in the blanks so to speak. Any tummy ache is a symptom of a greater anomaly. Sepsis, bleeding ulcers, ptomaine poisoning, tapeworm colony penetrating my intestinal epithelium….those are the lesser of my fever pitch imaginings.
So I’m on a flight back from Istanbul. Went for an architectural pilgrimage to Hagia Sophia. I had actually been before, as a child when I lived in Turkey, Ankara to be precise. Pop, in the US Air Force at the time, was stationed there. But I had little to no recollection, so this felt like my first truly cognizant visit.
Well, across from me sat a passenger. Thin, squished features, and in need of a cane as she came up the aisle when boarding. Big, sturdy frame glasses with thick lenses. The big statement, hype-fashion, bel mondo gear that I find mostly clunky. The haircut was au courant though several shades of walnut deeper than you would expect from such withered features. C’mon, let’s face it. I may be jealous but I’m not mean.
I was putting away my luggage when she arrived to take her seat. I don’t automatically step up to help people struggling with their luggage as some can be touchy about personal belongings and if they make the initial attempt I show respect for their independence. But the shoulder bag she carried was awkward, she was quite short, and not showing much success as a phalanx of passengers increased behind her, I gently extended an open palm, and asked, in Turkish, “Izin verirseniz?”
A slight nod, and I hoisted the bag into place. I then lifted the seat’s arm and held the right seat belt up so she could settle in more directly. She took the belt and chose to quickly lower the seat arm as she did. As she settled in and fastened the seat belt, I sunk back into my seat without further ado. A bold glance was cast towards me, not so much to thank me as to assess whom had taken it upon themself to….assist. Decades of social interaction in myriad locales and backwater travels have given me a fairly dependable sense of when to mind my own fuckin’ bizniss. I was towing the line here.
We were flying to Frankfurt from Istanbul on PIA. So, I took note when the stewardess came by with packaged blankets and earplugs and upon handing these to my new friend received a thank you. In Urdu. I’m pretty certain about that. Learned that from the Pakistani embassy kids who turned me onto Tin Tin adventure comics back in Ankara. Being that all the flight attendants on every flight I’ve ever taken on PIA, or THY, most airlines for that matter, speak English….well let’s say, it caught my ear.
I opened my sketchbook as soon as we lifted off. She put on an in flight movie, with subtitles, in French. And opened a folder of some documents, which appeared to be in some form of, not sure, Russian? Impressive. Probably an academic. A language polymath whizz kid who writes those damnably opaque tomes liberally sprinkled with run on sentences and a host of suffixes no one else ever resorts to.
Didn’t I freely admit to being the jealous sort?
She then put in ear plugs but not to the console. To an iPad type device. Wow. Talk about multi tasking. Did I mention she pulled out a fountain pen, to jot notes in the margin. Of course it was a Mont Blanc. Good pen I’ll grant, but a way overpriced brand by my perspective.
Being that she seemed occupied sufficiently, I arranged my sketchbook so a sly peripheral glance would not gain view of my doodling subject. Her.
I put away the M215 Pelican fountain pen, and uncapped my Graf von Faber-Castell Classic Ebony Anello fp with a Broad 18K gold nib. Touché bitch. And with that we made our way across European skies.
In time she put away her papers and appeared taken in by the movie. I liked trying to capture her yellow and brown Buffalo gingham jacket. Square and hip at the same time. She was pretty clear in her wardrobe that harmony ruled the day. Ginger colored big ribbed corduroys and the chocolate suede Chukka boots, why even her cushy neck pillow matched. She was like a meal at yer typical American sports bar. Tan to brown food. Although the cut of meat resembled a dried out chicken cutlet. Okay, I’ve strayed into my mean streak. There’s no need for that.
Suddenly her ears got red. A Carmine blush that must have arrived with a considerable heat rush. Apparently that plug in her ear was live and feeding her something someone had said that created a dramatic response. Her gnarly hand raised the cane an inch, if that, and stamped it into the floor. In contrast to her orange red ear, the knuckles of her clenched fist were yellowish white.
Now she was clearly talking. I had thought the working of her jaw had been gum chewing. The video had been put on pause. Something, or rather somebody was getting her full attention. I made sure I appeared consumed in my doodling, slightly turning my head away from her least I warrant another glance. And the muffled words that wafted from her face mask sounded, well, I’m not sure…. it certainly wasn’t..(to be continued)
Drawn with fountain pen and Pitt Artist Pens on watercolor pad.
The latest installment of the graphic novella,”The Java Knot”. – The morning cafecito had already greased the nervous system as the crew were putting on the harnesses and saddling onto bosun chairs. He was not one for those clunky scaffolds. Less mobile & less safe to his way of thinking. His mind was made after high winds slung those 2 dudes & that scaffold into the intersection of Market & 17th.
Crew readied, they strode to the edge & swung a leg over. At fifty stories, this was the moment no matter how cavalier, when the pecan sack clustered into a tight ripple skinned lemon. Over the edge & down to work. If you weren’t in free fall now, you’d set your lines properly. They’d begin where they left off yesterday, the 38th floor.
In earlier than usual, the office hadn’t gathered its sonic hubbub, so before the flurry of calls & office catch-up pulled him in more directions than a crab beset by a romp of otters, he went online to look over specs of that new Ducati he intended to have. Out the window the morning sun was still below the building across the street. Two slender ropes flirted with his window.
Andrea, the secretary he shared with 2 lugs in the adjacent offices, broke his concentration, brusquely sweeping in & setting a Dunkin‘ Donuts bag on his desk. “I was reminded to see you had everything for the conference call from Germany which got bumped to 9 sharp.”
“Somebody’s eager. All set.”
“They were out of Maple Old Fashion. I nabbed the last Chocolate Cruller”.
”Sweet”, his eyes followed the lines of the Ducati then slid from the bike seat to Andrea’s shrink-wrapped gluts as they rounded the door frame.
“Okay, time to pay for the new wheels”, he launched the balled up donut bag at the trash can placed purposely as far from his chair as the office would allow. A tightly crunched coffee cup followed. The napkin knot next. Ungh, 2 for three. He looked around for something else to pitch, then lit up the array of screens and dialed in the conference code.
It wasn’t so much the nylon ropes that kept he and his attached crew from becoming flesh bombs endangering pedestrians curious as to where that encroaching scream was coming from, as it was their mirrored avatars. It might be the touch of a boot toe or scraper to scraper kiss on the glass plane that kept a Rorschach twins high wire dance above the patient vigil of a concrete death. How much it reminds one of the cat’s optimistic glare at the butterfly fluttering ever so much closer, closer….
An hour into the conference and having concluded his part of the presentation, his mind wandered back to the Ducati when the slightest change of light in the room turned his head to glimpse a murky figure creating foamy graffiti on one of the three large windows in his office. Now he fancied himself an upper tier thrill seeker. Totally dug high finance with dizzying sums, no stranger to the poker table, & he expected to find out if that Ducati performed as advertised, but dangling in thin air from a couple shoe strings??!! And while the city looked great from here & he was mindful of the corporate cachet & bragging rights of a desk with a view, the thought of feeling the breeze on the other side of that glass made his loins wither. For sure if them ropes snapped, that little orange sucker in dude’s hand wouldn’t hold his ass.
He turned back to the screens to follow the numbers but he’d already gone over these stats umpteen times & his mind just as quickly returned to that Ducati. He swiveled in his chair to watch his man just finish soaping the center pane. His eyes traced those snaking curves of soap & as the scraper cut a clear view of sky he was now gliding along the serpentine roads of Passo dello Stelvio. The husky rumble of that Ducati reinvigorating the dwindling his family jewels had experienced only moments before.
As the window washer switched to the last of his trio of windows some blur caught his dreamy attention. Following behind his man, about ten feet off his right shoulder, was a drone. Wait. What the..? How cool is that? Is someone shooting a movie? Awesome, I’m in a…wait, they’d have to get a release signed. Might be a training film. Just then Andrea popped her head in his door,”Upstairs said to say thanks, you don’t need to hang for the remainder. I’ll fax the statements and leave the contract on your desk. The others are going off for an early lunch and asked you to meet ‘em at the elevators”. He followed her curves out the door and caught sight of his team gathering by the elevators. A round of high-fives ensued, a quick exchange of who had what on the latest round of Fantasy Football and he promised to catch up with them soon as he ordered a shiny present to himself and shut down his computers. “Oh hooooo, you’re going for the Ducati?!” More high-fives. “Congrats Guys!” Andrea said as she went past the congregation. Their eyes followed her and then settled on him. “Bet your gonna love taking some curves on your new D!”, offered one. He backed towards his office with a smirk and prolonged shrug.
The corners of his mouth were still nudging his earlobes when he strode into his office. He shut his screens off and then, still facing his screens, his mouth went slack as his brow knit. The now dark screens bore the reflection of his figure back lit by the squeaky clean windows. And on the center pane, was a round shadow. His turn was measured, but he came full around to see it. And just it. A black circle with a smaller disk in its center. It was about 6 inches across and on its other side, an orange handle. Bright orange. The drone was gone. The ropes, also gone.
Drawn on a Stillman & Birn Gamma Series sketchbook with Faber-Castell Essentio Broad nib fountain pen end Pitt Artist Pens.
So, Joe. Enigmatic. Been seeing him every so often over the last seven or so years whenever I need hi-fi ink jet copies of my drawings. He’s good. Very technical. The strip mall store he works at is pricey but Joe’s tops. I know if he’s on the job the moment I walk into the place and look in the direction of the frame & print department. Whoever’s working is seated behind a large screen computer. If they’re not sporting Tin Tin’s haircut…I leave.
I’m quite fascinated with Joe. Told me once he was a history major in college. Eastern European events. Knows a good deal about the Vikings in Russia & Byelorussia, about the Balkan Wars, Crimean War, all that Iron Curtain stuff. I had heard about the connection between the words ‘Slav’ and ‘slave’ but it was Joe who told me of the derivation of ‘cíao’ from ‘slave’. He’s keen on mechanical pencils and fountain pens and is usually sporting an ever changing pair. Likewise here. I comment on his. He on mine. A couple of hopeless gear heads. He likes plaid cowboy shirts with Mother of Pearl snaps, lots of panels, exaggerated cuts on the yoke. Dude must have dozens tho he favors a powder blue and brown combo.
Dropped in last week to take advantage of a storewide 40% off Halloween sale and place an order. Saw Joe in the parking lot on a cig break. A busy man, I let him have his peace. I watched from the printing desk as I waited for his return. I hadn’t seen Joe in a month of Sundays so the arm sling was a new development. Didn’t appear to slow him down much as he looked to be texting while nursing a make. He was already reaching for another cigarette as he crushed the previous butt beneath a high top Chuck Taylor. A pack of smokes is always part of his ensemble. Filterless. Total old school. Like my Uncle Bill. But so unlike my uncle’s measured, dreamy eyed way of languidly drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, and pausing to give the system every last second to snatch the cargo of nicotine before two wispy dragons slowly writhed from his nostrils. Joe was on a mission. For uncle Bill it was breathing. Just that. Joe’s urgency showed in impatient lips and eyes riveted to some something before or behind dilated pupils. Each drag is deep but the cigarette makes it back to his pucker before the exhale seems complete.
What these committed smokers had in common were finger tips of amber and caramel tinting. Like aged meerschaum pipes. Teeth to match.
I turned to look over his workstation while he power dragged. Orderly. The ever present cup of coffee. Didn’t matter when I showed up, there one sat. The other feature to Joe’s shift was the array of post-it notes. A handful on the counter top and several stuck about the perimeter of the computer screen. Usually in three different colors. Sky blue, bubblegum pink, mint green. Don’t know if it was a color coded system but Joe struck me as a man of systematic observance. I had never given them further consideration, but with time to kill……I slid a glance sufficient to note Joe still fixated on his cell phone and puffing like a car‘s exhaust pipe.
I didn’t learn much from a quick look because they weren’t in English. There were numbers, perhaps phone numbers with crossed sevens and that Euro #1 with the long upstroke Yanks sometimes mistake for a seven. A buncha Greek frat letters. Some letters were backwards. Maybe Russian or some such alphabet. One word, ???? was followed by what looked like a date & hours of the day using the 24 hour clock. Odd. And if you’re entering orders into a computer, what’s with all the notes to self?
More than that I didn’t get as an acrid bite to my nostrils announced Joe’s return. He slid into his chair, his eyes following an imaginary dotted line from mine to his post-it notes as he turned on the computer.
“ Mister Joe”.
“Hey”.
Our brief exchange thoroughly muted by our face mask; de rigur in these days of pandemic, his appropriately bearing a Day of the Dead motif.
“Once I clear the previous orders I‘ll open your account”.
I tried to cover my inquisitiveness with a question of faux innocence.
“Gad zooks Joe, quite the hieroglyphs there. S’that advanced math to figure out your scale conversions?”
His eyes briefly glanced down at the colored squares of paper then returned to the screen before the muffled response came,”It’s Cyrillic”.
I redirected the conversation to his sling. “That’s gotta make for an awkward day on the job.”
“Beats letting it hang”.
“Hope you’re on the mend”.
“Getting better day by day”.
“Good to hear. Been wearing it long?”
“ ‘bout six months”.
Each response took appreciably longer than the previous. I’m slow, but eventually I get the message.
Every so often a buzz would grab my attention followed by Joe rotating the wrist of his sling bound arm to show he still held his cell phone. A glance down, a tap or two, then the wrist turned to again conceal the phone.
“What do you have for me today?”’ he asked.
“I’d like scans and 50% enlarged prints of four drawings from my sketchbook”. I set my backpack on the floor and fumbled thru the stuffed contents to pull out an old ledgerbook I was currently drawing in. “The pages are marked”, I offered. He took the book and opened it to the pages I had marked with little post-it notes. As he did, I noticed his had been removed.
Drawn with Faber-Castell Essentio fountain pen, and Pitt Artist Pens on Stillman & Birn Beta Series sketchbook.
