Hi. I realize I haven't posted in 5 months, and I wanted--and needed--to say hello. I haven't forgotten anyone. I'm in a writing mood---I've been silent for so long, I just have a desire to talk now. Please allow me to share a some memories. I'll try to make them un-boring... I turned 75 last week, and while I don't pay much attention to that stuff, this bday had a special force: I had a series of health issues of late which made it clear to me that they weren't going away. I sat down my health problems, and said: "So when are you leaving?" They didn't budge. I mean, they didn't budge. I had several high fevered flus (not covid), some hip and shoulder problems---one of which put me in bed for weeks (that was fun!) (I walked around like Igor from Frankenstein, muttering "yes maaaster!" and fetching skulls out of the dungeon: I'm sorry you didn't see it: I scared away spiders...). I have a major dental problem which I'm avoiding like the plague, a major infection which I'm not, and---well, it's a big list. And it descened all in 1 year's time. Now none of these have been life-threatening so far: But they piled up. Repeatedly. Just to explain why I didn't come here after November. I've seen everything---everything you've posted---I just found it harder to comment or upload. If I could comment telepathically, you'd be coddled and praised galore. But I haven't developed telepathic commenting yet. I'm working on it though... But I've stopped creating to. I mean, it was inevitable that I'd burn out at some point. (Some of you relate, for sure.) I just realized that I've been in the arts since I was 4. That's 71 years! I remembered, I started classical piano at 4, and I started art lessons at 5. In fact, I studied classical piano for 12 years after that, and started playing jazz professionally in my teens. (Picture a naive clean cut teen playing gigs with adult musicians who did every drug imaginable---if you think rock musicians knew drugs, oh baby you couldn't believe what jazz musicians knew in those days...) I played for audiences so drunk they couldn't remember their names, and wound up doing local and school theater for some years after---composing music and awful scripts, working with actors and dancers and high strung directors and costume designers and choreographers, etc: Dreams, dreams, dreams, dreams, dreams. It wasn't Broadway or Steppenwolf, but it was experience, and it was invaluable. Then I studied the arts at university, including an unwieldy and way-overpacked graduate thesis on "the interrelation of the arts" (a modest title). Grad school can be a creativity-killer, but it was utterly eye opening as well. In fact, I did my grad work at the place where they split the atom---in the first nuclear chain-reaction in history (for all you Oppenheimer fans)---all for the atomic bomb. So when you walked past the spot where they did all this, you got a chill of terror and wonder at what a little knowledge can do. But the arts split atoms of a different kind; and they were just as thrilling, and a lot less destructive. The University of Chicago had buckets of Nobel Prizes then, and the place felt like a craggy, dauntingly inhuman wilderness; but I learned a cosmos about the arts then; and anything good you find in my comments today owes the world to my work back then. Then I entered the commercial arts---a whole new world, w/ advertising, promotion, sales...But I assure you, no matter how different the commercial world seems from the academic: Artists are the same everywhere: They're all obsessive, maddened, devoured by the minutest details, and always seeking magic. Always. Watch an ad shoot, watch a photographer spending 4 hours finding the perfect angle for a bottle of perfume---a mere bottle of perfume---and you'll see the same obsessive craving for magic that you'll find anywhere. The dedication can be mind-boggling. I played jazz professionally too---one more journey, stay with me: I won't drag you too much longer: I played locally---not with John Coltrane or Duke Ellington---but when half your audience is so drunk they can barely say 'hello', and your musicians are so drugged they've forgotten what planet they were on, you still reach that moment, each night, where you gell so deeply with your cohorts and with the music that touch the stars. I mean you touch the stars. And when that happens, you---as one musician called it---"talk to god". I composed on the first synthesizers---huge beasts with endless buttons and wires and blinking lights---and partook in "happenings"---spontaneous street art and avant garde theater-events, even to massive crowds of 5 people (!) (there's a thrill); and I lived with creatives and was romantically involved with 3 highly creative women (the last two of whom sadly passed away); which is all to say that I've been through the obsessions, drives, moods, madnesses and the ineluctable acts of finding yourself immersed in that one precious stroke or word or gesture that you fiercely believe will capture the entire universe---if you only let it, if you don't get in its way. "Finding the universe in a grain of sand," as the poet said. It's when, by moving a line 1 thousandth of an inch to the left, you suddenly liberate a whole work of art (!), whereby you've created your own atomic fission and released the power of the atom right there in your modest living room. That's the creative act. As far as I'm concerned, we're all doing our own private Manhattan Projects, while sitting at home at night. Get a loada that, Oppenheimer...we split the atom too... To conclude... I've been on that path all my life; and it's been glorious as all get-out...but I've run out of gas, and I'm not able to do it for a while. I hope just a while. Right now however, I don't seem to be able to draw a straight line. To those of you who've stayed with me: You people are dear, dear, dear to me. I'm sorry I've disappeared so long. But I want you to know that I still look here, and everyday; and I try to leave a comment at least once in a while. I hope it improves. But this year became my "persona-non-grata" year: I can't be in public now. Not a lot. Here are 3 unrelated images, with which I say thank you for your love and great support; and, in exchange I send all of mine. And for those who think we artists are all obsessed---what's more glorious than being obsessed for revelation? You know the story? Beethoven and the writer Goethe were walking past princes and dignitaries in 19th Century Vienna: Goethe bowed deeply; but Beethoven rasped: "No! Don't bow to them---they should bow to us." Right on, Ludwig! So move over, bigshots: It's our turn, and we can blow your minds if you just let us.... Thanks so much for your support, people, I'll be back in time. Lots of love and inspiration to all of you, and lots of health too, Mark ------------------