zenpundit.com » Blog Archive » Sweet bird

Sweet bird

[ by Charles Cameron — let me present a little personal joy ]
.

This evening, a little sweetness entered my life, via my long-time friend Jon Lebkowsky. JonL, as I think of him, posted one of a cluster of photos on his FB page — upper panel, below — and Pat Pagani Adams asked, innocently — with question mark — lower panel —

**

You know, I’ve thought of cardinals and Cardinals, many times, toyed with the idea of cardinals and Cardinals, toyed with the idea of pairing them, of an appropriate DoubleQuote to feature them — but today that opportunity has arrived.

Maybe arisen is the better word.

Today, JonL and Pat Pagani Adams have brought me, all unknowing, the ideal visual image and the ideal surprised question:

Richelieu?

I thank you both — and enjoy, friends!

4 Responses to “Sweet bird”

  1. Charles Cameron Says:

    For those who come fresh to my use of “DoubleQuotes” — it’s a format I use to emphasize resonance between two items.
    .
    I wrote to Jon Lebkowski:

    I suppose I should explain — my reworking of jonl & pat pagani adams’ respective cardinals uses the format for neatly twinning ideas, quotes, images etc that I devised under the title, DoubleQuotes as the kernel form of my earlier HipBone Games..
    .
    One of the more powerful examples is my comparison — reaching across from the sciences to the arts — of Von Karman’s formula for the curlicued path shown when a moving liquid enters a still fluid body — with the very similar curlicued path of the winds & clouds portrayed by Van Gogh in his painting Starry Night”.
    .
    My shorthand DoubleQuote expression of the connection between those two “ideas” in DoubleQuotes format is this:
    .

  2. Charles Cameron Says:

    I don’t have many examples here, because I’m in a quasi-hospital bed without my hard drive, butt here’s another, comparing the work ethic in Zen and Christian monasttic traditions:

  3. Charles Cameron Says:

    among my favorites — features the echo across a centtury of the British general in Baghdad and Donald Rumsfeld a century later:

    The idea is that by juxtaposing two well-chosen items, one focuses the viewer’s mind on the relationship — parallelism, opposition, transmedia, etc, between them.
    .
    To my mind, your cardinal and Pat’s are a wonderful pairing of relatted yet disjunct items. I love the simplicity of your photto, with the cardinal shy, almost hiding itself in plain sight, and the graceful leap Pat’s mind made to arrive at the conniving — and endlessly fascinatibg — Richelieu!

  4. Charles Cameron Says:

    And hey, here’s one more:
    .

    .
    Trump’s not the first to use such fiery imagery, as this DoubleQuote illustratess.

    **

    I’m also reminded of TS Eliot:

    The dove descending breaks the air
    With flame of incandescent terror
    Of which the tongues declare
    The one discharge from sin and error.
    The only hope, or else despair
    Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
    To be redeemed from fire by fire.


Switch to our mobile site