Jan 29- the feast day of Brother Juniper

" Would to God, my brothers, I had a whole forest of such Junipers!"

-St. Francis of Assisi.

I couldn't let this day go by without giving some homage to this most interesting fellow. If you have never read that great 14th Cent. classic, The Little Flowers of Saint Francis (i fioretti di San Francesco) you should. In it you will find many wonderful stories about the early days of the Franciscan order; about Francis and his early companions. One such lovable fellow, was Brother Juniper. His simplicity and innocence got him in trouble; often he gave away what few possessions the friars had if a poor person came begging at their door. After being scolded, he once made some porridge and took it to the one who scolded him because he noticed that in the heat of the scolding the other friars' voice was getting hoarse!

He died in 1258 and is buried at Ara Coeli Church in Rome.

From the diary of an obscure painter

Within a week, I arrived. Earth is indeed lush; more so than I had read about. I spent a fortnight painting various scenes  of the place.  The inhabitants are very friendly, the few that are left here. They told me that in their distant past there were many people known for their paintings. In fact, they claim that there are ruins of large monuments to the arts. I would like to see these someday, but I recently received an odd commission to paint a portrait on the moon of Aura, so I must depart.

-Tyraine  son of Minuriat

 AD 3246 

If You wondered about what kind of Harp I play....

Today I thought I would show my harp. It is a high headed Harp that I designed with the help of Rick Stanley of Celticharps.com. who also built the harp as well. This fine instrument is made of Maple and sounds very nice. Now I am not the best harper, I'll tell you that much. I usually have the best intentions of leaning new pieces of music (I don't read well-have trouble with black spots on lines) but when I start to play I usually get wound up in the overtones and just ad-lib. I've managed to ad-lib so much that I go from Renaissance, to 2oth century romantics, to Baroque, and other places....so, as I said I have trouble with concentration.

Well, that being said, if you want to hear me play this harp a little, CLICK HERE.

In his youth the old man saw Angels....

With not much longer to live, an old man goes back to the fields he played in as a boy. He has composed a poem for the occassion. Unable to speak anymore, his robot companion reads to him.

CLICK HERE to hear the Poem and read the text.

New Music added

 I wanted to put up another composition of mine (music) for some time but have been at a standstill as to which one. As the years have gone by, I have moved away from blues, jazz, electric guitar and all that. Not that They aren't viable forms of  musical expression; no, but rather that I find the Orchestra as a new instrument, one more suitable for expression. Yet there were times when a certain mood could only be accomplished with elements of the pop culture. One such composition of mine, THE DARK SIDE OF NIGHT fits this bill.  I wanted  to compose something that suggested the darkness of young, street wise detective and the life that he lived. These were the beginnings of my character Eddie Skate. To hear this track CLICK HERE, or go to the right column and look for the songs title.

'SQUIRT'-the little surfer kid

I started surfing back in 1964. Every time Surfer

magazine came out, I dug into the comic section

to follow the antics of 'Murphy', by Rick Griffin.

Inspired by Murphy and the wacky humor or Mad magazine, I have managed to make a living

in the arts.

So a few years back (2002) I had an idea for a strip, drew it up but never really promoted it. So I dug it out and and publishing it here.

So here it is. CLICK HERE