I can’t remember how this even came about. Russian flag? Bannon? Trump? All I know is that I owe Cervantes an apology; maybe for the second time because of this 11/28/13 post as well.
click on image to enlarge
Paper 53, Imported photo of a drawing whose origin I know nothing about, so I have the bird toting it.
Lieutenant Colonel Ely S. Parker, whose photo can be found by clicking here , (born Hasanoanda, later known as Donehogawa), a Seneca lawyer, engineer, and tribal diplomat, was present when Confederate General Robert E. Lee (See drawing below) surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865.
At the surrender meeting, seeing that Parker was an American Indian, General Lee remarked to Parker, “I am glad to see one real American here.” Parker later stated, “I shook his hand and said, ‘We are all Americans’.” (Sources for further general reading: this and that.)
Parker went on to head up the Bureau of Indian Affairs and collaborated with American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan. Read on, by all means!
Technical:
When my wife and I lived in Charlottesville, VA in the mid 1990s, I developed an interest in Robert E. Lee for reasons that continue to intrigue me, not the least of which is related to my having read Don Quijote de La Mancha as both an undergraduate and a graduate student. I’m fascinated by the man and how he is viewed in retrospect.
The reference photo I used can be found here along with others. I imported the photo into Procreate, drew it freehand using various brushes to apply and smudge color, and cropped it out. I could have spend more time on this one.
Something interesting happened last weekend while visiting friends. I saw a carving I had made nearly a quarter of a century ago, called Maryam’s monk, that prompted me to look at time – not only in terms of chronology but also as Kairos, which roughly corresponds to the difference between a minute and a moment.
Entranced as I was, I felt like never before the significance of a quote from Cervantes that I included in a recent post. Cada uno es hijo de sus obras. Roughly translated, Each of us is the son (or daughter) of his (or her) works. (Read how this was uttered by Sancho Panza in Don Quijote, Part 1, Chapter 47). Looking at the carving, which I’m now calling Maryam’s Monk (see photo below), I suddenly recalled in that moment how it was made and who I’d become since.
It’s Kairos Time
To be continued.
Maryam’s Monk
Maryam’s Monk
I’m still thinking about Between, mirrors, and inter-independent subjectivity in relation to interpreting and understanding texts of all sorts, tangible and intangible. Weren’t you just asking about that? We so underestimate sense making and, consequently, settle for less and less. I’m thinking political discourse, marketing, educational psychology, etc.. We’re told we’ll go off the deep end if we unglue ourselves from the loyalty wall and approach sense making eclectically, pragmatically, and collaboratively. Soon each of us will be hopping around and around in a private, one-legged sack race, taking personal responsibility for one one-hundredth of his or her cognitive capital and sacrificing the rest to what, an antiquated but persistent hermeneutical habit?
But wait! “Cada uno es hijo de sus obras.” Aha! Cervantes had Sancho Panza himself say this in Part I, Chapter 47 of Don Quijote de la Mancha. Who better than Sancho to balance things off, turn things up-side-down and inside-out? Roughly translated, We are the children of our works. Oh, the offsprings? Never mind.
Say what you will about him, but this pope seems to be shaking things up. Seems like every time he opens his mouth, he symbolically knocks over another money-changer’s table in the temple! He has a way with words. In his first public address he caught everybody by surprise by deviating from the traditional script and speaking directly from the heart. Soon after we learned, that, naturally, as a Porteño, i.e., someone from Buenos Aires, Argentina – and a Tano to boot, a Porteño of Italian descent – he even threw out a word in Lunfardo for Christ’s Sake, Porteño street slang! He said, “God nos primerea!” which draws on a fútbol reference to convey the notion that God firsts us, bests us, will always have a hail mary pass up his sleeve! Che, and that was code for something bigger, something more generalizable! You name it, think of anything, and all of us, everybody, todo el mundo, we are all tied for second place, at best!! What a refreshing solidarity. “Who am I to judge?”
Sources close to Pope Francis recently reported that one day he looked out of his simple apartment’s window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, saw the multitude gathered there against the backdrop of the world he has been asked to shepherd, and uttered another common Argentine expression in sotto voce:
Imagine the pope looking out his window and seeing all of us. For those who don’t already know what ¡Qué quilombo! means, check out Item #3 here. It’s no big, mysterious deal. It means something like, “What a mess!” Or my favorite translation is “What a shitstorm!”
Over time I’ll tell the story of how the pope used to be my boss…indirectly.
portfoliolongo 
