The Knews Review

 Before Facebook began putting holes in my cheese brain, some of the most fun I ever had, was prepping, printing, and mailing out a tabloid newsletter zine. 

Lately some of 'the bigs' are selling their entire life catalog for $500 million. I figured I'd better get my notes together. 

These mastheads represent some of my 'family' Christmas letters, three times a year for 20 years - sixty-six issues from '88 to '08. 

Also, I find it startling to discover that the publication I fondly remember as ‘The Knews Review’ is not represented here. Perhaps I fell for a fiction. Apparently I name each issue on a whim. Further though, this blog, the recent entry of Zoupa to the AZML stable, and Substack, the emailer, is of a piece that calls for more creativity. More play.

And, by play, I mean to get lost in a challenge and reward of exploration and discovery, to travel beyond your usual borders, encounter the unknown, and return with personal souvenirs.

It's good for you. Think of it as rest and rejuvenation.

IKEA Reality Kit

Verandananda, Swami Vida, Tepoz 2000

Seated in a restaurant window, in Tepoztlán, MX, on Father’s Day 2000, 
just waiting for me, was the manifestation of Verandananda,
Swami of the Front Porch Swing, my alter ego, and imaginary friend.

He was antsy to leave. We haven’t stopped.

I forgot to mention he was wooden, life-size, and decked out in binoculars and pith helmet. Ready to roll.

“You too can be the Swami 

of the Front Porch Swing, 

when you sit yourself down 

and think on these things.”

David L White ‘22

No meditation is complete without a meditation on death.
A paraphrased quotation with no attribution.

Multiplicity

Acting as if you're the singularity
when you know damn well
you're the multiplicity.
Here's the keys.
Move on in.
Unpack.
Live.


…
Copyright 2022 David L White

Art

A. R. T. 

Agenda reduction therapy

Christmas ‘21

Horizon

Just this

 

All my love

My dear dear, Honduras '99, AZML #33.

AZML #33 was the middle edition of 20 year run of personal newsletters.

I absolutely loved designing and printing this little variety show.

I especially loved creating the little fake stamps with Mr. and Mrs. Yours Truly along with our pet Olmec head. Yes. Honduras on church mission after Hurricane Mitch. After a week digging the clay we were treated to an overnight stop in Copan Ruinas. As we stepped off the bus in the little two square I was sure I had been there before. Not deja vu but, welcome home.

It was a fun issue of The Knews and 1999 was an interesting year.

I’ll post the rest in a little while.

Good Work Cards

Click to enlarge.

My life in printing and praise.

For about 15 years in our Small Potatoes Press printshop, I designed and printed postcards and bookmarks for teachers of Spanish, French, German, and Latin, with words of praise in the language.

I was close to adding Japanese Kanji font. 

As I was finally adding English the only thing to say was Thank You and Good Work!

Handing someone a GoodWork card brought a smile for a couple moments and, as cards tend to have a life, they keep on giving.

Pandaloon, the pocket poetry saga

Panda plus Loon; Pandaloon, playful wailing, pocket poetry. A dollar. Temporary. Inexpensive. Featured about a dozen poets per month, buying in so that they themselves could afford to give them away. 

I created, promoted, lightly edited, printed, and mailed the issues monthly for just over a year. The project had promise.  I do not know what happened.

I still have a box of submissions, checks, and correspondence with postmarks from Paris, Tokyo, and less notable locations.

Perhaps the money model was flawed. The turn of the century was a troubling time in my print business. Maybe I was simply not staffed for the load.

Process

Thoughts on process, presentation, and perfection.

I still take notes long hand. Too many notebooks actually.

I usually dictate to the iPhone. 

I merge words and art into Procreate on the iPad.

Things change most of the way. 

Before I post it I move it to the MacBook Pro. 

Back up.

Perfection?

Unique every step.

Ram Dass has a quote about not judging the trees in the forest.

Samuel Johnson says, “The writer only starts the book. The reader finishes it.”

I say - who knows who sees what? Further, it’s not just about readers and writers but extends quickly to creators, consumers, and critics, and easily includes artists and entertainers.

Stop fixing yourself

I read the title, snorted, and said "I'm not buying that book", out loud. So far so good.

Main Stage

All the players on stage. The rest of the garden …

Summer Sunrise

Toons

Four color, 300 dpi, on a ABDick 360 single color duplicator

Need better doodle pads

Art

Oh dear

Getting org’d

Long ago now

and far away here

the stories we tell us

oh my and oh dear.

…

Thanks Bob

Frames, free

Ride Share Model

 Ride Share Model

Nearing autumn, yet spring is
springing with seeds reaching
for the light, tendrils stretching,
buds blossom, harvest into
soup … simmering

Hawa Arbow is a model,
Chicago bound for now and
I see none of the runway
stereotypical, nonchalant,
aloof, learned way to stay
safe when everyone wants
something, I, too, do wish
merely to be seen

She is looking into,
sees into me, notably,
and I am not afraid
to be seen so clearly.
I actually feel felt;
gladly, cared for.

She wished it.
We shook on it.

The table is set and we
eat these fleeting moments.

….

© 2021 David L White
September 17, 2021

O. O. Wazeu

 Maps have been very intriguing lately. Maybe not even maps but a recording of the actual footfalls of the way; a choreography of your path.

I needed to chart the order of operations to present you with a jpg.

O. O. Wazeu

W = Words, longhand, spoken to iPhone, moved to iPad Procreate

A = Art, image - join art to words, twiddle diddle, move to Z.

Z = Zippy is the name of our Macbook Pro. ( yes. I can move it from the iPad. Don't want to.

E = Email post, file, image, to Google Blogger davidlwhite.org

U = Upload to Substack - because I cannot email a post to Substack.

-------

How much attention do I need? At what cost? Is there a menu?

Drinking from my saucer

 I stocked my test kitchen at a hot springs fed by the fountain of youth.

Why not?

That Picasso quote

 I've wrestled with this quote. Whoever asked him anyway?

"The meaning of life 

is to find your gift. 

The purpose of life 

is to give it away."

~ Pablo Picasso

"Find your gift. ( gifts

Give it away. ( them"

~ David L White

"Pablo was getting 

paid by the word."

~ David L White

Give? Have you factored packing and shipping? Storage? Inventory?

...

Life on Words

 Life on words. Zoupa! Add more joy. Good eats.

It is what you say it is

 

Say so.

I do not know

 I 
do not know really, mostly, usually. 

I do fool myself .....

Faith

Hope

Belief

Guess

Hunch

Notion

Theory

Feeling

Opinion

Thought

Suspicion

Reflection

Hypothesis

Assumption

Expectation

Perspective

Speculation

Supposition

...

Fender Bender

 

I talk a lot about changing our language. Get more flexible. Expansive.

I'm here to tell you we all already do it. Creatively.

There's a fender bender. No one hurt. But the police are called.

You tell a story to yourself immediately. You tell a similar but different story to the other driver. If there are witnesses you might practice the story a bit. You then tell a story to the officer. Later you tell a story to your insurance agent, spouse, peers, co-workers, on and on.

The story gets refined according to your needs.

Creative. You already know how. Apply the skill.

Dolor Lump

We are not sure this is your scan. It's not labeled. But it's a training hospital. Therefore we can say with all certainly that your brain looks something like this.

This graphic represents the coding burned on to your chip. Sometimes we have to do more than pop the hood. We might have to swap your board.

The internal mental chatter we all do might be more closely examined from time to time to see if there aren't upgrades to your system that might improve performance.

More on all this later. I'm trying to swap out the auto metaphor and move it towards the kitchen. But, you might be able to change horses at full gallop. Oops. More and more metaphor.

The idea is that we talk to ourselves all the time. If we watch our language we can find ways to be more friendly to ourselves.

I spiked it so that DOLOR would read bigger. Dolor means pain. We are trying to reduce pain through Therapeutic Linguistics.

The text in the graphic is lorem ipsum run through a word cloud generator. More on Lorem Ipsum here.

Do Not Wait

 

Please do not wait for the poem to end. Get that feeling WOW! Get it NOW!

Consuming Exuberance

 

Consuming Exuberance

Adding

Zoupa

Gusto

(to our)

Jargon

Lingo

Salad

(ain't it)

Powerful

Tasty

Coconut Wine

 

Cake Me

 

Blue Vase; green frame

 

Between on and off

 

Because I said so

 Because I said so

You might’ve heard it. 

You might’ve said it.

Usually it seems to 

come with a frown. 

And when we turn it 

upside down, it may

act like magic, 

matter-of-factory,

acting magically.

Because I said so.

Abracadabra.

….

(c) 2022 David L White 

Early Day Date 

January Poem

Tell them I said hello