Grapes of Wrath weather

"Grapes of Wrath weather," 5 x 7 watercolor

 
August bears down on Oklahoma tomorrow like the glaring sun and 100 degree heat do have done for several days, with more to come.

Water and air conditioning consumption soars with the heat, and yet, we're soft and comfortable compared to...

Weather like this reminds me of the classic opening chapter of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. I used that to teach descriptive writing a few years ago, because it is not fiction, but specific, sensuous fact, garnered from detailed observation.

You're supposed to paint what you feel, your reaction to what you experience, not what you see, and today, the heat, the sun all made me think of those lines in Steinbeck's novel.

So here is the last watercolor of the month, my feelings, inspired by the heat and those lines.

Grapes of Wrath--Dust Bowl Future

Dust Bowl Future, 9 by 12 watercolor, 140# Fabriano Artistico

The Dust Bowl Future looms on humanity's horizon like Black Sunday did in the Dust Bowl Depression.
 Read Mr. Steinbeck's opening lines in "Grapes of Wrath"--

•     "To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale pink in the red country and white in the gray country....
•    "The air and the sky darkened and through them the sun shone redly, and there was  a raw sting in the air....
•    "In the morning the dust hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. All day the dust sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth."

"We will see this again," I thought," forgetting the lessons of that man-made disaster," and starting painting, from the gut. 

Humanity is inhumanely writing its obituary, its extinction notice. 
Science, and detailed books about mass extinctions, and politicos ignoring factual science about climate change, spurring contempt for any regard for our planet's health turned my thoughts to the opening paragraphs of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath."

Just nine years from now--in about 2026--wars will be probably be fought over water and food, not oil, and exploding populations and increasing heat will turn much of the earth brown, with coastlines swamped under rising oxygen-dead oceans.
As the politicos have no concern for  the future, only lining their corporate pockets with more greed, at my age I don't have much to worry about. But my children and grandchildren do.

This is not "dystopian." (I had to look that word up the first time I heard it. It isn't pretty) Facts--2026--Ten billion people, less water, less farmland, less food, less water, fewer jobs. Chinese will be the most spoken language. Islam will be the largest religion. 
Unless there is a pandemic, or a nuclear war, it will happen because the leaders of the world's most powerful country are trying to speed up the process, ignoring science, attacking the environment, to make a quick buck. 
Best single example, of many,  is  Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA...the fox in charge of the hen house. He's a foe of environment because his puppet strings are pulled by big corporations, big energy and others  like the Koch Bros., who want to rape the earth to make more money, screwing the future of the middle class and poor.

 We have passed the tipping point of turning the process around where humans can survive on earth. This isn't politics. This is science.
Don't believe it? It's happened before. Don't agree with it? You didn't live in the Dust Bowl, or study it,  did you?
Thus the vision of this painting...more to come.

Unsettled skies

"Unsettled Oklahoma skies"...today's watercolor, 9 by 12

It's one of those days, and months for that matter, and the skies today captured my mood without my even knowing it, until I made myself paint, and then write about it...the first blog post this month. 
Unsettled skies and more...
Plenty to write about, plenty of books and people, and yet like the skies in the opening pages of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, the rain won't come. Part of the drought is an almost aversion to the computer and keyboard, part a "rain shadow" from the peaks of activity in   the past months, and probably, part just because of the years and miles.
 But at least, there are the skies of the Great Plains, and the promise of rain.

Room to breathe--Sunday in Sayre

The Spirit of the West in Sayre

The minute I get out of the city limits going west, my tension eases, even though I'm on I-40.
Halfway to Amarillo, I always stop for a walk around at Sayre, Oklahoma, right before I get into Texas. But last Sunday, at a more leisurely place, I got off I-40 for a few minutes and drove up into downtown Sayre. My traveling tension evaporated.
There's room to breathe out here in Western Oklahoma. The skies are big, the horizons long, the people friendly. 
I know a few friends from this area, including Brad and Dayva Spitzer, owners of the award-winning  weekly newspaper Sayre Record and Beckham County Democrat, and former UCO student Cody Vignal and family.  I didn't stop to visit anyone, but thought about how peaceful the town is on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

I'd traveled through here on old US 66 on my way to my freshman year in college long ago. Then I saw the old Rock Island depot, thinking about how my Dad went through here in a box car on a freight train longer than that--headed for Mexico to celebrate his high school graduation. Coming back, he tried to jump another freight in Tucumcari and lost his right leg. But he would have seen this depot.
Today, it's the aptly named Short Grass Country museum.

City hall--a monument to civic pride

The streets are wide, like the land, and the Beckham County Courthouse is distinctive as the people--Westerners as the Spirit of the West buffalo suggests on the Courthouse lawn. 
It was also featured in the movie "Grapes of Wrath," but the town is healthier and greener than that now.
 And who can miss the elegant architecture of a former bank that is now city hall? It's a monument to civic pride. Check the equally classy chamber of commerce web site for more information.

This home brightens up a normally dry country

Some of those people make sure there's color in what is usually dry country by painting their houses bright colors. 
Room to breathe--Sunday in Sayre.

Where the streets are as wide as the land--room to breathe

Blog clog

Too much to write about in the past week, but posts on several topics are coming:
1. Went to see City Rep's "Grapes of Wrath" play at OCU Sunday. Astounding, moving. On the 75th anniversary of Steinbeck's book, I found this play perhaps the most powerful I've seen.

2. Attended the opening of Mark Zimmerman's photo show of his wife Meredith's battle with cancer, one I consider of national significance.
3. The blog at 130--Coffee with Clark just registered a reader from the 130th country to click on it...Macau.
4. News stories cropping up about the gun nuts wanting students to be able to carry guns on campus. What a tom-fool, stupid idea, of 18-year-olds being able to blow away a classroom and a prof. If it happens, I will lead a strike of professors to abandon the classrooms. Or, I will pack a gun, place it at the front of the class  in front of me, pointed at the students. The minute some pistol packing pouty, pimple-faced teeny looks like he's upset and twitches, I will take appropriate action.
Is this what these Neanderthals really want? What has happened to the fabric of our society? More coming.
5. Turns out Bill Bennett, Reagan's cultural warrior, was right, in railing against the way student financial aid is administered, saying it just allowed universities to raise tuition, and not help poorer kids. Terrific article in the NY Times about that today...college in the US is the highest priced, and while graduation rates are oaring elsewhere, they're not up much here. Here's the link: Missing the mark.
6. Australia is considering  a ban on "Hate preachers" entering the country. Doesn't apply to Australians. Quote: "By all means, let Australians who want to say stupid things can say stupid things, but there's no point in importing troublemakers." Amen.
7. More and more evidence shows that  turning off the phone, TV and tablet, and reading ink on paper helps your health and children learn to read.
8. Quote from a Christian student: "Saying all Muslims are like Isis is like saying all Christians are like Westboro Baptist Church." Amen, amen.
9. The fear-mongering media and the ebola crisis, and fears of Muslims. People wearing masks in Dallas? Ebola is not airborne--I asked a doctor. Media are flat out irresponsible on this.