I was raised in a family with art on the walls and art history all around me. I studied art and art history all through undergraduate and graduate school. As a result there are many artists whom I have known about and seen their work over many decades. This is especially true of the work of the early and mid-twentieth century American artists, some that my Grandfather and Grandmother collected. One artist among this group was Stuart Davis. I saw many of his pieces during my studies and some in person. I always liked his work but had never really seen the entire breadth of his accomplishments until I went to the ‘Stuart Davis – In Full Swing’ exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
What did I find? I found an innovative abstractionist before there was such a thing, an insightful pop artist before pop art existed and, most surprisingly, a musician who whose instrument was paint. Here are a few pieces that illustrate how the thread of these three ideas weave seamlessly together throughout his career.
POP BEFORE POP
Starting in the late 50s and blossoming in the 1960s, pop art became all the rage. It was a communal reaction from many younger artists to the abstract expressionism then prevalent in the art world. The pop artist was intent on engaging with popular culture instead of withdrawing from it. The 60s were a time of great social upheaval and for many artists trying to be a part of that while painting something that had no visual relationship to it was impossible. So, they took ideas and images from their environment, especially in the area of advertising and mass media (what social media was called before it was social). They then transformed these images in size, material, intent and location to have the image be more than just a soup can or comic strip or American flag. They became commentary and critique at one level and formal visual statements at another.
They were thought of as wholly original and American in their creative use of the world around them and had much acclaim and fame as a result. Only, it really wasn’t as original as we supposed. Stuart Davis had thought of the idea and painted many canvases exploiting the idea in the late 20s, 30 years before.
Here is a popular mouthwash of the day and a typical print advertisement promoting it.
Davis took the product image and created still lives based on them, using it as a starting point for a formal exploration of shape, color, form etc. and at the same time introducing social commentary about popular culture of the time.
Odol, 1924, Oil in canvasOdol, 1924, Oil in canvasLucky Strike, 1924 – oil on paperboard
As you can see, Davis was exploiting the commercial world around him for artistic and social expression well before the pop artists came around. This is evidence that no matter how original a movement seems to be you can usually find roots and reasons behind its development that show an incremental development from work that has come before.
ABSTRACTION
Once Davis started down the road of using objects from day-to-day life for his subjects he quickly moved beyond mere representation. He did this by adding another element that would gain great traction later in American life and that is abstraction. This was not a concept he came up with, it had been germinating in Europe for at least a decade or two. Malevich, LIssitzky, Kandinsky and Mondrian were all moving decisively in that direction in the first two decades of the twentieth century.
As a matter of fact, Davis was very attuned to this European movement from the time he attended the famous Armory Show of 1913 in New York City. While pure abstraction wasn’t highly visible at that show, it was hinted at in many of the works. In subsequent years the European abstract artists work continued to be known about and seen in America on occasion. But, here is what is interesting. The majority of collectors and artists purposely rejected the European idea of abstraction in favor or what became known as American Regionalism. In an effort to delineate boundaries between the two continents and forge their own identity, American artists went in the opposite direction, towards a social realism and narrative story telling.
All except Stuart Davis. Instead of reacting against abstraction he decided to investigate it and find it’s expressive value. And so he embarked on a great journey of combining abstraction with visualization of external subject matter in a completely unique way.
Salt Shaker, 1931, oil on canvasEgg Beater #4, 1928, oil on canvasEgg Beater, 1928, oil on canvas
Above are just three examples of this idea in action.
VISUAL MUSIC
As much as I like narrative stories, representation and messages in art, the number one thing I must have for me to be satisfied with a piece is compositional harmony. It has to be composed well and be balanced. That isn’t as easy or pat as it sounds. It takes meticulous seeing and it takes a courageous willingness to destroy part or all of an image to make it work right.
One of the most amazing things I discovered as I walked through this exhibition at Crystal Bridges was how much I was taken in by the composition of almost every single piece. I saw a genius-level use of color, rhythm, pattern and tone to develop the compositional flow. It was incredibly impressive to me at a root level.
One thing I always tell people when disparage abstract art and wonder why it has any value is for them to think about music. Do they demand lyrics be added to a symphony for it to be worthy of attention? Do they demand a beautiful Spanish guitar solo be punctuated with a story-teller standing next to the player explaining what each passage is supposed to mean and how it all fits in to a specific story? No, they don’t. Why? Because they know sounds can be beautiful, profound and meaningful without a verbal element to them.
The same is true in Abstract art. It can be seen the same way a symphony or guitar solo is heard. It can have its own visual beauty without having to be a representation of something outside itself. And Davis was deeply enmeshed in that idea. He was immersed in the world of Jazz in New York and beyond and he worked profoundly hard to bring that jazz sensibility to his visual art.
But it goes beyond just one canvas having jazz rhythms. It’s the whole idea of improvisation that Davis embraces. Just as a Jazz artist plays the same tune each night at the club, but improvises it differently each time, Davis did the same from canvas to canvas. As a matter of fact, much of his later work was variations on a theme he had developed earlier in his career.
Here are a few examples of that improvisation on a theme over the years.
Town Square, 1929, watercolor, gouache, ink, and pencil on paper
Check out the transformation of the scene from the image above to the one below. ‘See’ it as you would listen to music and let your eye travel around the two images the way you would listen to two different parts of a symphony. There is echos and hints of each in each other but they are both completely unique.
Report from Rockport, 1940, oil on canvasFrom top left clockwise – Landscape, 1932-35; Shapes of Landscape Space, 1939; Memo, 1956; Tournos, 1954
Let your eyes bring about the different feelings you get by looking at each piece the same way you would let your ears take you to places in your mind while listening to music.
Little Giant Still Life, 1950, oil on canvasSwitchskis-Syntax, 1950, Casein on canvas
Let the colors guide you the way different instruments guide you through a musical composition. The horn brings up something different in you than the violin. Green and black bring up something different from blue and pink.
American Painting, 1932, 1942-1954 – oil on canvasTropes De Teens, 1956, oil on canvas
AND MORE
It’s not enough to limit Davis to just 2 or 3 Art Appreciations lessons. The joy isn’t in always categorizing an artist’s work into little bite size pieces. Sometimes you just sit back and not worry about the label, you just enjoy the visual music.
Here are some examples of his work I think is amazing. It gives me pleasure to investigate and discover. And that is always enough for me in art.
Summer Landscape, 1930, oil on canvasLandscape with Garage Lights, 1932 – oil on canvasArboretum By Flashbulb, 1942, oil on canvasCliche, 1955, oil on canvasThe Paris Bit, 1959, oil on canvas
CONCLUSION
This is just a small sampling of his work and a micro look at a few of his career phases. I recommend you spend some time reading up on him and looking at more of his work. You won’t be disappointed. The catalog from the show pictured at the top of this post is an excellent source for artistic and social information about his life and times. It includes a wide array of images, 2 long and interesting essays and an in depth chronology. I highly recommend getting it if you like his work.
I wake up every day around 5am and start my morning ritual. The very first thing I do is unplug our cats’ automatic watering bowl (it is a little waterfall gizmo that allows them to drink running water). Why do I unplug it? Because it’s got an electrical buzzing sound to it. It’s annoyingly loud in the morning when there are no other sounds in the house. Later in the day, especially if music or TV is on, I barely hear it. But in the morning? It’s like a roaring freight train sometimes.
Tinnitus
One thing I can’t turn off every morning is my Tinnitus. I have had ringing in my ears since 2000. It came on when I was repeatedly in a very loud contemporary worship service at Asbury Methodist Church here in Tulsa. I told the worship leader and music leader the volume was too loud numerous times and that it was going to hurt someone’s hearing eventually, but they ignored me. It did turn out to affect someone’s hearing, mine. What do I hate the most about it? I hate it when I am in an otherwise completely silent and peaceful environment. It’s like that cat watering gizmo annoyingly getting in the way of the silence.
Self-Noise
But this quote is more than just about physical silence. It’s also about mind silence or self-noise. For example, I am sure you know the old problem of thinking of a response while someone is speaking to you instead of just listening to them. What is that but self-noise in your head getting in the way of hearing what the other person is actually saying. Your self-noise is loud, wanting to get validation or respect or power from the person you are talking to or from those listening in. It’s your ego in the way and what is your ego but self-noise?
Care Enough to Not Care
So, how do you combat this? It’s to not care. What do I mean? I mean you give up caring about your status or your reputation or your ego or your defense. You let that self-noise fade away and just listen to what is around you. It might be a child or parent, it might be a co-worker. Get rid of your own automatic response (self-noise) and you might be able to hear not just what they are saying but who they are deep inside. And then you have solid information received clearly that you can respond to.
This is my drawing of our preacher this past Sunday. Her name is Paula. She spoke on marriage from a woman’s perspective. Her husband, named Deron, also spoke about marriage, but from a man’s perspective. There was a bit of stereotyping, which she told us would be coming. It is true that stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason (sometimes) and in this case there is enough truth that I understood why she used them. She basically said that while most women want love, most men want respect. I can see that in my life. But it’s important to note that women, while wanting love, do also want respect.
The battle for equality on behalf of women for the last 150 years in this country is proof of that. The fact that it was a risky move to even have a female preacher up at the altar is also proof of that. They have had to fight for that equality even though their behavior and actions have proven they are worthy of it many times over. From talking to my wife, daughters and others, it’s a very frustrating position to be in, whether in career, education, home or social life. Women want their intellect respected, as well as their decision-making, emotions, insights, capabilities in the workplace and their creativity. And they want their bodies respected at all times.
Many men already get plenty of respect from society, but not all. Often times a man will suffer disrespect until they reach a boiling point, then explode in anger and resentment at not getting it. If they were able to ask for it, and explain how the lack of it truly hurts them, then perhaps they would get it before their blow up. But that would demand a vulnerability that most men aren’t comfortable with. To ask for something like that, or to explain their hurt, could open them up to ridicule or even put them in a dangerous position with other males. The male preacher brought up a good point however, and that is they have to deserve it. Asking for respect when their actions aren’t respectable or respectful is going to fall on deaf ears.
So, it seems to me there is a bit of a lopsided element to respect. Women often do more than enough to deserve respect and don’t get it. Men often do very little to deserve respect but get it anyway. Men often times will demand the respect and might get it out of intimidation or fear. Women will often not demand respect out of the same reasons.
How do we balance out this inequality? That is where the love comes in. Yes, it’s great to be respected, but at the root of respect is love. My wife and my song is ‘What a Wonderful World’. One of my favorite lines is this: “I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘how do you do’, they’re really saying ‘I love you’. And what is shaking hands but a show of respect, right? Well if the line is true (and I think it is) what lies behind that respect is love. Love is what allows the empathy needed to see the frustration on the part of women when they are not respected. Love is what allows the sensitivity needed to see the hurt behind the disrespect men sometimes get. Without love in your heart, respect is just an academic exercise you can dismiss at will. With love, it’s the mechanism by which you can love the whole world.
This is a continuation of my digital drawings, the first batch of which I published earlier this year. I have gotten into the habit of drawing for 10-20 minutes after I get in bed each night and these drawing are the result. I use an iPad mini and the Sketchbook Pro app by Autodesk. I usually use my finger to draw or a digital pen. These are all about the artistic challenge of getting the most sophisticated emotion out of the least sophisticate technique. After I am done I usually post the image to my instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you want to connect with me at any of those social media platforms just search for ‘The Napkin Dad’ and you will find me.
click on any image to see a slide show of them all.
Have you missed me? Probably not considering my blog doesn’t reach that many people. But if you did, fret no longer, I am back. Are you wondering, ‘uh, I didn’t know you were gone.’? Then, don’t worry, I wasn’t gone long enough to worry you. But if you were wondering where I went, here’s the answer (actually, this is the answer even if you didn’t wonder.)
Shorter Version – I messed up my security settings, my hosting, my databases and other stuff and basically locked myself out of napkindad.
Longer Version – Two things happened, One, I let my SSL certificate lapse. I got an email for a company telling me it was about to expire but I thought it was a company trying to get me to switch by telling me that when it was still far off. But I was wrong, it actually was the company I was using. Duh. Once it expired I was toast, no longer able to access my administration area to do any updates. Because I didn’t renew in time I had to have my host renew for me and install the new certificate. The problem was he was not able to do it. I don’t want to go into too much detail out of respect for him but he’s been having physical, mental and financial issues and they came to a head this spring. Bottom line he was not able to work on getting my site back up and running in a timely manner.
Because of that and because of my lack of confidence that issues wouldn’t occur in the future that would cause more problems I decided to change hosts. The problem with that of course is I need the help of my prior host to help me do the transfer. This took a while. Eventually he got back on the job and helped me from his end. That meant he was giving me the backup files for my sites (this one and martycoleman.com). But the bulk of the work had to be done with the new host, Bluehost.
That took a number of days. Why? Because I am an idiot who misread a file and told the support staff to put it in the wrong place, which messed most everything else up. In addition I got all pissy with the tech support guy I was chatting with because of course it was completely his fault…until it wasn’t. We finally got that issue resolved and came upon another issue, this one having to do with the database. This took another day or two to resolve. Then another issue popped up with a plugin that was so good at security that it continued to lock me out even after all the other issues had been resolved.
While You Were Gone
So that is why napkindad.com has been dormant for almost a month. But that doesn’t mean I have been dormant. During the last few months one of my daughters got engaged, I visited another daughter and my grandson and I ran two marathons in two different states. I came within 3 minutes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon so another race is in my near future (probably September) to see if I can’t cut my time down and qualify. I will post something about that in the next week.
Anniversary
And guess what? 2018 is both the 10 year anniversary of the Napkindad website and the 20 year anniversary of when I first started drawing the napkins for my daughters. I will be doing some fun things to celebrate both of these anniversaries over the next year so stay tuned!
She went around and around about wearing circles. She didn’t want to be too matchy matchy. Then again she did because her mom liked her more when she was. But she liked her mom less when her mom liked her more which was very confusing to her and made her head hurt.
She went back and forth about wearing the jacket. She liked the color and the buttons were all nice circles and she liked nice circles. Then again she worried about there being too many circles because her boyfriend didn’t like a lot of circles. She didn’t like when he didn’t like what she liked and that made her head hurt.
She went in and out of her closet deciding on whether to wear pants or a skirt. She liked wearing pants but her Grandmother thought it was unseemly. She always wanted to please her Grandmother because her Grandmother gave her money when she pleased her and didn’t give her money when she didn’t. She didn’t like doing what pleased her Grandmother just for money but she needed the money very badly and that made her head hurt.
She went up and down emotionally about what blouse to wear. She had a blue one that was pretty and she had a green one that was strong and she had a red one that was sexy. She liked looking sexy but didn’t like people thinking she was trying to look sexy. She didn’t like looking strong because then people thought she was trying to look strong. She liked looking pretty but didn’t like people thinking she was trying to look pretty. Thinking about what other people thought about her made her head hurt.
She decided on wearing the jacket but couldn’t decide on any of the other items so she just sat there in her jacket thinking around and around and back and forth and in and out and up and down about everything, especially the circles. She eventually got up and took a pill for her hurting head.
I like to draw on my ipad, especially at night when I am sitting in bed before falling asleep. Most of the time I use my finger but I also use a digital pen on occasion. I use an app called ‘Sketchbook’ from Autodesk.
The goal in all these drawings was to do the most with the least. My focus was to do simple visual drawings that had complex emotional messages.
Here are some of my creations, some with commentary.
The Barbed Wire Boy – 2018
The International Woman Enjoying Not Smiling – 2018
I drew this on the International Women’s Day. I’ve spent over 40 years photographing women and I have combated the idea that they have to be smiling or somehow they are unhappy. I love having them NOT smiling actually because then I am more likely to get a genuine emotional look from them.
Add to that the refrain women so often hear from men telling them they should smile more. That is simply a way for a man to say his comfort is more important than him understanding who that woman really is.
He Was Very Upset She Was Smarter – 2018
She Scribbled Herself Across the Land Scape – 2018
She Felt More Fraught Than Hot – 2018
This drawing’s title is reflective of something I have seen over the years. In all my work over the decades drawing and photographing women I have learned that their outward appearance, how they appear to others, often has very little to do with how they feel about themselves. It isn’t always this way but it isn’t uncommon to find the typical ‘beauty’, admired by all, is filled with doubts and hatred for their looks while the one that passes under the radar and is not seen at all much less as a ‘beauty’ sees herself with confidence and strength. I liked using the rhyming play of ‘fraught vs hot’ to express that idea.
The guy Who Was Always Shocked – 2018
She Never Knew What Hit Her – 2018
Originally the face extended all the way down to where the chest is now. But as I continued I had trouble making the features do what I wanted and decided to shorten the face and add a body.
She Realized Too Late She Wasn’t Ready To Split – 2018
He Felt So Stoopid – 2018
She Wondered What People Thought Of Her – 2018
Much of the look of these drawing are a result of experimentation with various pen settings in the app. In this case I brought all the features of this one pen style to their max settings and started drawing. This was the result.
The Man With The Th ick Brows and Neck – 2018
I don’t know in advance who or what I am going to draw when I do this digital portraits. In this drawing I started with the thick brows and was actually envisioning a woman but as it went further the blockiness of the shapes led me to make her into a him.
The Winging Woman Worried – 2018
Sometimes I just have a fleeting glimpse of a person and later use that glimpse as an inspiration. It isn’t a portrait of anyone in particular but it was inspired by a woman at an airport on my recent trip to California
Last January 2nd I wrote my second Spring Marathon update post. It covered weeks 2-4. My goal was to do an update every 2-3 weeks after that. This is my next update, 12+ weeks later. What happened? Let’s see. Cold happened. A lot. Not a cold, but just COLD. Running happened. Again, a lot. Coaching happened even more. What didn’t happen was writing about it. This is mostly due to training just not being all that exciting, interesting or sexy. It really is just a lot of running. I had done regular updates in the fall, during my training for the Marine Corps Marathon, but that was my first training season after my Achilles surgery and it really was a new thing for me. This time around it was a lot of the same.
The other reason is I forgot. I don’t mean I forgot to write, I mean I forgot about the runs and the training that I would be writing about. After the first really cold run I was going to write about it but didn’t. After the 5th or 6th cold run they all seemed to blend together and I couldn’t remember the specifics more than that they were cold. Then one was in the rain, then another and another and they blended together as well. The other thing was I was following the same training regimen I had told you all about in the fall so I felt like much of it would be a repeat. That lead me to giving up on regular updates and deciding I would just do a recap at the end of the season. And voila, here we are.
Otis with his own Medal!
Goals
My goals for this Marathon were as follows:
Break my 4:14:47 PR from the Marine Corp Marathon (9:36 pace)
Break 4:05 – 9:20 pace
Break 4:00 – 9:09 pace
Be consistent in pace from beginning to end – meaning no mile would be more than 30 seconds different than any other mile.
Fuel and hydrate properly and consistently until the very end.
Recover properly and slowly after the race, avoid cramping.
Here is what I achieved, with explanations:
Yes
Yes – my finish time was 4:03:41 with a pace of 9:06. But wait, wouldn’t my pace be closer to the 9:20 I mentioned above? See #4 below.
No (and yes). The race was actually mismeasured long by at least .4 miles. My final distance was actually 26.77 (which is why the 9:06 pace), much farther than 26.2. There would be some extra in my Garmin watch measurement due to not running the exact angles, but not by over 1/2 a mile. I checked out the course map versus my tracking map and there was one point where they had us run 6 extra blocks that weren’t part of the measured course. My actual 26.2 time according to my Garmin was 3:58:37. So, even though it’s not an official time it at least tells me I can do a sub-4 marathon.
Yes and No – My fastest mile was 8:49 but my slowest was 10:10 when I had to pull off to the side (at mile 25.5 no less!) with a hamstring cramp and work it out for 30 seconds. Without that mile my slowest would have been 9:12. Overall, I did a pretty consistent job with my pacing.
Yes – I took a gel every 5-6 miles, including at mile 25 and took water and/or Gatorade at every water stop. I also took electrolyte tablets twice and advil at about mile 17.
Yes – As opposed to what happened at my last marathon (laid down and cramped up really badly) this time I kept walking and standing until my legs were no longer in danger of cramping. By the time I got in the car about 30 minutes later I was fine.
View of San Francisco as the sun rose
Lessons Learned
I always learn something valuable every season and this one was no exception.
The Will Must Be Stronger Than The Skill – There were plenty of runners younger, stronger and faster than me at the Oakland Marathon. And obviously those things matter to some degree. I didn’t win the race, nor did I win my age group (I came in 3rd in that category). But what I did do was beat a very aggressive time goal I set for myself (4:05), one I was not at all sure I could make. To achieve this would mean I would have to run at least 22 seconds per mile faster than I did my last marathon in October, only 5 months before. I was able to do it because I had a plan that I worked on day in, day out and I had a goal that I didn’t let go of during the course of the season. I trained until I thought my skill was there, but it was my desire to meet my goal that drove me to live out that plan. The will drove me to have the skill.
LESSON: The will to do your best is the key to doing your best.
Luck Matters – I have run many, many races over the past 10 years and there have been very few where everything out of my control lined up so I could be at my absolute best. Wind, heat, cold, humidity, course, injury, – you name it and one of those things will likely rear it’s ugly head. That’s why we run races again and again, because they are never the same and there is always a challenge. This past Sunday every single thing that could line up to be perfect, did. My will and skill were strong, but so was the temperature, the wind, the course. I was lucky those things were in my favor.
LESSON: Control what you can control and don’t worry about the rest.
Estimate Long – I had a plan to make sure every mile I ran was under a certain time (9:09). If I did that I knew I would break 4 hours. But that is if I went exactly 26.2 miles. The truth is almost everyone runs farther than what the race distance is because we don’t run the shortest possible route. We take turns wide, we don’t go in a straight line, or maybe the cones are placed in the wrong place making the route farther. Whatever the reason if you run 6.2 miles or 26.2 miles, chances are your Garmin will say you ran more. My Garmin said I ran 26.77. That is over 1/2 mile longer than the race distance. It turns out this wasn’t just due to me running corners wide, but a 6 block long mistake the race organizers made in setting the route on the morning of the race. What that meant was even though my watch told me I had run 26.2 miles in 3:58, my actual time at the finish was 4:03 because of the extra distance. But my pace was 9:06, 3 seconds below my goal of 9:09.
LESSON: Put a little cushion in your time and distance estimate when you are deciding your goal.
Support is Awesome – As you may now, I am on a mission to do a marathon in every city I have a sister or a daughter (a total of 6). It’s a heck of a lot more doable than the 50 states challenge or the 7 continents challenge. The main reason is as an excuse to go visit family, but the more selfish reason is to have support even if I do a race in a distant city. At the Oakland Marathon I not only had my daughter Chelsea, but my grandson Otis cheering me on. In addition Chelsea’s boyfriend Josiah was running the 1/2 marathon and his parents were there cheering us both on as well. There is no such thing as an easy marathon, but a hard race can be made much more enjoyable by having your loved ones there supporting you.
LESSON: Invite your family and friends to come support and celebrate your accomplishment.
No Detail is Unimportant – My daughter Chelsea’s boyfriend, Josiah, was going to run the half marathon while I ran the marathon. We got to the start in plenty of time for the 7am gun and off we went. Since the half and full course split before mile 2 we didn’t bother to stay together at the start. When I crossed the finish line 4+ hours later Josiah was there with everyone else celebrating my finish. But he didn’t have his medal on. I asked why and found out he had been disqualified. Why? Because he didn’t actually run in the half, he ran in the full. The half didn’t start until 9:30, 2 and 1/2 hours after the full marathon started! I didn’t bother to check since I had never heard of a half and full not starting at the same time. He didn’t bother to check because it was his first half and he was just assuming I knew what was up. He ended up running the marathon route for 15 miles when he finally decided he had turn back to the finish line. When he crossed (not yet knowing the half hadn’t even started yet) he was disqualified because he hadn’t run the half route at all. He also crossed the marathon finish line first, messing up the official timing for the real winner (it was corrected, no worries).
LESSON: Check Your Start Time!
Left, published map; middle, actual distance traveled; right, difference in distance
New Goals
And now to set some new goals for the rest of 2018.
2 goal races – Chicago in October and New York in November. I would like to do both but will wait and see if that’s feasible.
Time goals –
Under 4:05 will qualify me for Boston, 2020
Under 4:00 hours
Close 3:50 – which would qualify me for Boston 2019.
Use the foam rollers more diligently.
Be consistent and aggressive in my stretching and weight routines.
Lose 15 pounds.
Institute a more thorough warm up and cool down routine.
I will keep you informed!
Oakland Marathon Medal, 2018
So, there you have it. I felt great through the entire race and was very happy with how quickly I recovered. Let me know if you have any questions or comments, would love to hear from you!
She sang in the choir, always trying to understand the meaning of the songs. She felt they were a mystery far beyond her capacity to understand. But she also knew that, just like in her yoga class where if she kept doing that one pose she would master it, she would eventually get closer and closer to understanding the more she sang. And that turned out to be true. She never did completely understand, but over time she became better at hearing, interpreting, and understanding. She became a leader in the choir, helping the less experienced members learn these same mysteries. As a result she became beloved by all.
This is true, though it can be women who indulge in it as well, it’s not just men.
Here’s the thing to always ask yourself about conspiracy theories: First, how many people would realistically have to be involved to pull it off? Second, how many different organization’s people would have to be in on it and how far up the chain in that organization would the conspiracy realistically have to go? Third, what is the likelihood that so many people will all perform their job perfectly AND keep quiet about it afterwards? That is why conspiracy theories are almost never true.
In the meanwhile, we have the Orange Man believing way too much of what the Fox says and then acting on it. That is not a good thing in my opinion.
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