SunSense by Gerry Fialka
SunSense by Gerry Fialka — Venice BeachHead Feb 2021
The sunsets at the Venice Boardwalk are the best for many of us. It makes supercalifragilisticexpialidocious sense to stare into the golden bliss. Sharing this ritual, with a group of friends, is the ultimate mystery solver.
So often, the spectrum of vermilions, crimsons, and yellows are exquisite and iridescent. The cosmic commonness of colors galore leads to surprises, like the green dot. Also called the “green flash,” this meteorological optical phenomenon sometimes occurs transiently around sunset or sunrise, and lasts for no more than two seconds. “Here today, gone later today,” as David Lee Roth quips.
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” — Isaac Newton.
“Any true poet can spare a few lines for twilight, waxing lyrical the most beautiful time of day and working those transitory, moody metaphors for all they’re worth. As Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) pointed out, twilight ‘is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.’ Then again, maybe poetry’s chief use is to inspire us to watch the sun go down. . . . John Keats (1795–1821) used twilight as a metaphor for poetry itself, explaining that for the reader a good poem should ‘like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the Luxury of the twilight.’” — Jessica Kerwin Jenkins, Encyclopedia Of The Exquisite.
Maybe we can probe “the physics of sunset,” as Jane Vandenburgh has proposed. We can be engulfed in the “music of sunsets,” as scored by the art and science of Jimi Hendrix, whose “Third Stone from the Sun” pondered:
“Strange beautiful grass of green,
With your majestic silver seas
Your mysterious mountains I wish to see closer . . .”
Venice activist Beth Allyn is all about “seeing closer.” I am forever grateful to her for capturing on her cellphone a performance of my band Black Shoe Polish at John Mooney Glass Art Gallery on May 5, 2018. See it on YouTube: as “Mystery Duck Call” featuring my wife, Suzy Williams.
Beth has gathered friends for years to celebrate Venice sunsets. I asked her if she has maternal feelings, and she responded “more like dominatrix tendencies.” Recently, her sunset gatherings have convened at Navy and the Boardwalk. One rule: “Don’t block the view.”
Beth introduced me to the esteemed Venice artist, James Farran, who joins in often. My article in the December 2020 Beachhead issue had photos of the Boardwalk installation art piece called “Venice Cemetery,” without a credit for the artist. I am now happy to credit James Farran as the maker, and include his photo of this artwork during a Venice sunset.
Some say that photos of sunsets are over-rated, and maybe even kitschy. Noted curmudgeon, Eric Ahlberg, and one of the publishers of this very newspaper, claims that an ironic view of sentimentality towards sunset photography can wake people out of their somnambulism. “HoMey HipHop Hit the HealthFood . . . Fortified with Irony.” I ponder how one may flip this cliche into an archetype?
In a hallmark-card-world, this attitude evokes Marshall McLuhan. He met a woman with her baby in a baby carriage. He bent over and said, “What a lovely child you have.” She said, “Well, that’s nothing, you should see its photograph!”
Seeing a “live” Venice sunset conjures words by Nelson Schwartz, who walked the Boardwalk for over 4 decades in radical political T-shirts spouting naked poetry. His expressive words in my film, The Brother Side of the Wake, applies to the sunset ritual: “It’s a fantasy beyond reality.” Nelson passed recently, and we’ll miss his puckish probes and outrageous proclamations.
David Quadrini, while a beloved Venice local, had earned national renown, first as a painter, then by launching the careers of a generation of artists from his Angstrom Gallery in his hometown of Dallas, Texas. His view apartment overlooking Ocean Front Walk near Westminster served as a sundown oasis for visiting artists and a perch from which he took sunset photos every evening for a decade, roughly 2003–2012.
Navy and the Boardwalk, our current sunset hang-out, is significant in Venice history. The infamous Cheetah Club was located on a pier near this intersection. The biker-rock club hosted every famous rock act in the 60’s and 70’s. Alice Cooper was the house band there, and they would often sing these lyrics:
“Sun arise, she come every mornin’
Sun arise, ever-y ever-y ever-y ever-y day!
She drive away the darkness everyday, Hey! (3x)
Bringin’ back the warmth to the ground.”
Sunsets may be metaphors for poets, but never the less, we Venetians love and adore the real thing.
Reflect on Annette Wynne’s poem “Twilight”:
“Sunsets welcome sleep,
The first glad breath of day is clear;
The sky is very soft and near;
The noon is glorious with light;
And afternoon is bright;
But I love twilight best, it seems,
When all the air is drenched with dreams,
And up against the sunset bar,
One small dream changes to a star.”
In Venice, “everybody is a star,” as Sly Stone sings our mantra in his funky (“fun-is-the-key”) anthem. Sunsets can illustrate quotations from poets, whose verses can inspire us to watch the sun go down. Sunsets can be metaphors for poetry itself. So thusly, I call out all Venice poets to submit their sunset-inspired poems to the Venice Beachhead. And join us every evening (masked and social distanced, of course) for our twilight funnery.
from the Feb 2021 issue #462 of
https://freevenicebeachhead.com/
https://twitter.com/venicebeachhead?lang=en
UPCOMING:
*** Sat, May 22,2021 It’s All Write Ma — Dylan Celebration — Zimmy Zoomin’ https://www.facebook.com/events/373078470435815/
*** Sun, Nov 14,2021
PXL THIS 31 Toy Camera Film Festival https://www.facebook.com/events/848200315947916/
see PXL THIS 30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n37t6IFU5jQ&t=3811s
See THE VENICE FILM FEST 18th films at https://www.facebook.com/events/1594236250781655
and VENICE PHOTOs 11th at https://poetryofvenice.shutterfly.com/pictures and click on “Pictures and Video” at https://poetryofvenice.shutterfly.com/
ZOOM Funnery (aka LZS Laughtears Zoomin Salons) with Gerry Fialka
1:25 to 2:10 pacific time on Mon, Tues, Wed,
and every Saturday (2–4 pacific) RSVP at pfsuzy@aol.com for links
James Joyce VeniceWake every first Tuesday (next March2 -pg597)
McFinn discussion group -tba more info:
Gerry’s interviews and McLuhanMashUps
at Clinton’s youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/clintonthegeek
“In Eskimo, the word “to make poetry” is the word “to breathe”; both are derivatives of anerca — the soul, that which is eternal: the breath of life. A poem is words infused with breath or spirit…” — Edmund Carpenter
Please be familiar with these 4 Tetrad questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects
