rendezvous with karl

PHOTOS BELOW. Chillicothe Business College mural, painted from a scissors-lift three stores up. The full space was 100 foot wide. Ten foot illustrations was course work offered at that turn-of-the-century school.

--- The Karl from 2014 is melding with the Karl from 1998 and the Karl from 1977. What a rendezvous. the VAST INTENSITY joy undivided is stitching my memories into one person. that PHAT PHISH. beautiful FIRE. my king and lord jesus. from a 1996 journal entry entreats me to: DELIGHT IN HIM, speak of him, SING TO HIM, let my tears be on display, be a model of tenderness, be open, be gentle. 

 --- I remember what Danielle Sullivan told me about the red plastic tear drop, with the bright glitter outline, in the middle of blue felt jesus hands. she said: "THAT US. WE ARE IN THE WOUNDS OF JESUS. THAT IS WHERE HE HEALS US." that nine year old observation, so fresh and real. 

Danielle gets autograph BELOW from reggae band Temple Yard, when they performed in 1999 at That Phat Phish Coffeehouse, 14 North Main, Carrollton, Missouri. Off the CD they handed out. Lion of Judah, and Tell Me, and Freedom In Captivity,  samples, listen.

 --- The night I woke up at two o'clock in the morning to record on paper what he pointed out to me from that night's movie at the Uptown Theater in Carrollton. As Bud of Pleasantville told the students in the soda shop about his experiences "outside Pleasantville," the blank book pages came to life. How the roads are not a circle path, but they go on and on. He declared an experience greater-than-you-have-ever-known with jesus and the wonderful drenching rain of the spirit and the beauty of jesus ( full text at http://karl.marxhausen.net/pleasantville.html ) 

Carrollton sculptor Robert Willis ABOVE mounts his welded shovel bird at 1999 Beautiful Fire exhibit, 5 East Benton Street, Carrollton. That exhibit was sponsored by That Phat Phish coffeehouse, for a one-day event.

 --- it was my chat with wayne, something my youth group wrote on paper, the VAST INTENSITY JOY UNDIVIDED crashing mashing melding smoothing splashing into my mind and heart and being. he is ALL THAT..........and so much MORE. He stirs my senses in my 58 years old self. He embraces this porcupine, I am His and He is mine. 

PHOTO BELOW, a piano break of mine, in gymnasium. One stop of many during my father's art workshop tour 1970 - 1971, around the United States when I was age 16.

 PHOTO BELOW. at age 20, on my knees in the Commons room of Centennial College, surrounded by Jon Swift (upper left), Dan Swinarski (holding lamp), Tim Roper (center), Lynn Williams (upper right). my advertised happening event, tearing paper strips from discarded Lincoln phone books, tossing them up in the air, watching them flutter poetic to the floor. 1975 at the University Nebraska in Lincoln.

---- My piano self in 1977, sitting on the wooden bench of the Neihardt snack bar, next to Jon Swift, harmonizing about my neighbor Bob Popek in a warm and silly chorus. Conversing with the grown up version of Jeffrey Binder, the flute person who now is a neurologist in Wisconsin doing brain research. That friendship stretched through time and space into May of 2014. oh my lord, my phat phish, my delight, my king. you ARE so good.

free spirit

In the new year 2012, I have been enjoying music by the tUnE-yArDs.

Watch video of You Yes You, four minutes (above).
More works by Merill Garbus, click HERE
More about her, click HERE
http://www.tune-yards.com/
Watching her sing on stage reminds me of my second year in college.

Being an art student I put together and pulled off a few "free spirited events."
The year was 1975. I was enrolled in the Centennial Educational Program, while at the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln.

One Saturday morning I staged an impromtu happening in the Nebraska Student Union lounge. My roommate Bob Winkler (above) and I stacked blocks of scrap wood and invited others to do the same.
This was what an art student with lots of zeal did when he was out on his own. The memories do not stop there.

Our dorm room on the second floor of Love Hall became an art project itself. From the paper strips that hung from the ceiling (right) to the flattened refrigerator cardboard boxes

boxes I dragged from off-campus and lined our walls (left). To draw and build on, of course. Obviously influenced from the "basement wall" I grew up with in my parents' house. (See a clip of their wall, click HERE.)

Friday nights when students were out visiting their friends on our floor, Bob and I talked fellow students to enter our room to see the hung ceiling and watch their response to it. That same year 1975, I had found a way to pull the paint layer out from our room wall. Very carefully I stuffed portions with small piece of tissue and resealed it (left and below).

Here is another memory about Centennial. That same year I organized, scripted and filmed a 40 minute super-8 movie as an independent study project at Centennial. The story followed a traveling salesman as he went from room-to-room with his suitcase. Each room presented a different odd scene. He met a scuba diver, a troupe of human flowers, a foosball champion, and many others. Fellow students in Centennial were asked for their ideas and many acted in the film. All the scenes were shot within Centennial. My advisor gave me full credit for it.

Centennial was in the (north) Love Hall end of the John G. Neihardt Residential Center. I remember setting up a number of "peoples concerts" to showcase the musical talent from our dorm and the Neihardt complex. I borrowed sound equipment from the Nebraska Union. There was a concert held in the Neihardt snackbar in the basement of our dorm, and one in the lounge of Raymond Hall, because it had a grand piano there. There was a concert also in the South Crib Room of the Nebraska Student Union. Here is a list of some of that talent. (I have added current available links where I could find them.) Jon Swift on guitar, Tim Roper 1  and 2 on violin, Jeff Binder 1   and 2,  Ray Walden on piano, Jim Williams on piano, Rick Nelson on guitar, Tim Booth on piano, Vicky Thomson on piano, Dave Mosley on piano, Steve Petersen on guitar, Pat Collins on guitar, Brian Nyquist vocals, Mark Willy on piano, Bob Popek, Jeff Taebel 1  and 2  on guitar and 3, Paul Marxhausen 1  and 2  on guitar, myself on piano, and others.














One more memory.
(below) That's me kneeling on pages torn from












a discarded phone book. (In photo, Jon Swift is seated second from left, and Tim Roper seated just above my kneeling figure) In the darkened space Dan Swinarski (above, left) cast light on the dancing strips of paper for all to see.
With a free spirit and in total silence, the community watched and enjoyed the spontaneity of the event.