Gil Cortez en LA

 

Siempre estarás sucio en mi corazón, cariño.

Elka Leigh Scott Schumann

 August 1935 - August 2021

A fiend of many years died last Sunday.  I knew her best as the mother of several dear friends and I see her teachings, good and bad as well, reflected in them all. I know that many people knew Elka better than I did, but I knew her for more than thirty five years and sat at her table and ate her food with her and her family and traveled and performed with her on more than one occasion, so I knew her pretty well.  Over the last few days I've read many tributes to her and don't really recognize the icon these tributes describe.  Elka was generous to her friends and benevolent to the thousands who met her through the famous theater she founded with her husband.  This is the public figure I see being memorialized on Facebook and in the press.  The loss I feel at this time is of someone who I enjoyed being around in more mundane circumstances.  I will always think of her because of the support stockings I wear that I first learned of from her daughter when they were prescribed for Elka.  I remember watching Peter struggling to put them on her one morning in the kitchen.  I will always remember Elka's great clutter of uncompleted projects that grew and shrank and grew again at the end of the kitchen table.  I think of her garden, which she maintained every year outside her house near the woodpile.  Several times I was sent to pick in it and I believe I helped weed on occasion.  I stayed for extended periods in the cabin by her house.  I used to watch horror movies in her basement with Tamar and the others in Max's room, the 1987 NBA Basketball Finals too.  I know it will feel very strange for her five offspring being in her house now that she is gone.

Kyin Khine (16 June 1954 - 27 July 2021)

A friend in Burma, Kyin Khine, died the night before last from the Covid 19 virus. He was a robust man of 67 years. He died way too young, unnecessarily, through no fault of his own. The Military Government that staged the coup d'état last February has intentionally allowed the virus to run rampant through the country in hopes that it would eliminate a large portion of its opposition. Kying Khine was a cheerful, generous man, well loved by his siblings, nephews, nieces and cousins, who cared for him up until his untimely end. Here are a few photographs I made of him when we traveled together seven years ago. I'm sorry I will never have the chance to travel with him again.

Eduardo KV como Tarzán, Rey de los Gatos

Hice otro collage de Tarzán. Estos parecen venir de dos en dos. Esta usa otra ilustración del mismo ilustrador comercial de tarzán e impone el rostro y la polla de otro Eduardo (éste Eduardo Cortes, Duque de Blagis o Kapitán Vergarfio) que recientemente pasó unas sexy vacaciones en Bogotá. Aquí retrata a Tarzán, Rey de los Gatos.

Eduardo Luján como Tarzán de los Chacales

digital collage employing original illustration by Joe Jusko

Major Applegate's Dinner with a Loon Cry

It's a leopard.

 Oh, excuse me Major, you're right, it is a loon.

Storm Hills

Storm Hills (Dale Wittig, 1988) first published at age 30

I was living on the hill above Elka Schumann's farm with Tamar S & David Thorne. As I painted pictures and wrote stories, Tamar encouraged me to combine the two in a book. However, I wrote this story and painted these images specifically for the book, inspired by living there.