“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart;

the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

—-William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

I forget how long it has been since the world has gone mad. When I go out, I am astonished to see how mad it has gone.

Every year I like to go the the For the Love of Kettle competitive shopping event at The Kettle Gallery in Deep Ellum

The best way to understand this is to read my 2014 Blog entry, The Weird and Wicked World of the Singing Cowboy

I went every year, sometimes successful, sometimes not so… I didn’t write about it every year, but sometimes I did.

2016 Getting A Ross

2019 A Competitive Shopping Event

2020 A Very Human Way of Making Life More Bearable

Last year, of course, they did not have an event. I was excited this year to go back again.

Candy looked over the paintings that were listed on the facebook page and gave me a list of four to look for – pick one. There is no guarantee.

The DART ride down there was awful. Post COVID – the trains are overrun with insanity. I used to enjoy riding public transportation, but not any more. The cars reek of weed. Every car and every stop has at least on lunatic screaming and cursing.

There is track maintenance going on so the train had to empty and one stop, load onto a shuttle bus, ride to another stop, and get back on. The trip downtown took me almost two hours.

The worst was at the Lover’s Lane station. A lunatic roared across the platform pushing a stolen shopping cart full of shit – mostly broken pieces of plywood – cursing and screaming. He stopped a few yards down the line and stood there screaming and throwing stuff onto the tracks. When the train arrived, loaded and left, it paused at a street, waiting for the bar to lower, right next to this guy. He continued to scream the most awful obscenities while beating on the driver’s window with a big hunk of plywood. The train held several families on their way to the Mavericks basketball game – I doubt they will take the train again.

I made it to the gallery about an hour before the event was to begin – later than I planned, but I still was about the tenth person in line.

I always enjoy talking to the people in line and the hour went quickly. Luckily the weather was good – only a little chilly.

We all ran in and I chose my artworks. Unfortunately, the numbers were small and black on silver, and my ancient eyes could not make them out. I had trouble finding the artworks Candy had picked out – this slowed me down and by the time I reached the counter, three-quarters of the artworks were already sold. I discovered that I had written a number down wrong, and had purchased a random artwork (this has happened to me before – my handwriting is so bad when I’m rushed).

In the end, I had a good time, though I’m not completely satisfied with the two artworks I bought. But they will go onto the wall where my choices from the past are arrayed… and will look fine alongside the others.

But I still have this frightening feeling that everything is spiraling out of control… the world is going to shit.