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Albuquerque Police Officer Arresting Two Men, 5 of 9, 1999 by Tetman Callis
Author: Tetman Callis
Even worse than a head for figuresEven worse than a head for figures
“Too much honor destroys a man quicker than too much of any other fine quality.” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
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Albuquerque Police Officer Arresting Two Men, 4 of 9, 1999 by Tetman Callis
Happy ThanksgivingHappy Thanksgiving
The great turkey shootThe great turkey shoot
“Killing cleanly and in a way which gives you aesthetic pleasure and pride has always been one of the greatest enjoyments of a part of the human race. Because the other part, which does not enjoy killing, has always been the more articulate and has furnished most of the good writers we have had a very few statements of the true enjoyment of killing. One of its greatest pleasures, aside from the purely aesthetic ones, such as wing shooting, and the ones of pride, such as difficult game stalking, where it is the disproportionately increased importance of the fraction of a moment that it takes for the shot that furnishes the emotion, is the feeling of rebellion against death which comes from its administering. Once you accept the rule of death thou shalt not kill is an easily and a naturally obeyed commandment. But when a man is still in rebellion against death he has pleasure in taking to himself one of the Godlike attributes; that of giving it. This is one of the most profound feelings in those men who enjoy killing. These things are done in pride and pride, of course, is a Christian sin, and a pagan virtue.” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
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Albuquerque Police Officer Arresting Two Men, 3 of 9, 1999 by Tetman Callis
Populating the workPopulating the work
“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. If a writer can make people live there may be no great characters in his book, but it is possible that his book may remain as a whole; as an entity; as a novel. If the people the writer is making talk of old masters; of music; of modern painting; of letters; or of science then they should talk of those subjects in the novel. If they do not talk of those subjects and the writer makes them talk of them he is a faker, and if he talks about them himself to show how much he knows then he is showing off. No matter how good a phrase or a simile he may have if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary and irreplaceable he is spoiling his work for egotism. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over. For a writer to put his own intellectual musings, which he might sell for a low price as essays, into the mouths of artificially constructed characters which are more remunerative when issued as people in a novel is good economics, perhaps, but does not make literature. People in a novel, not skillfully constructed characters, must be projected from the writer’s assimilated experience, from his knowledge, from his head, from his heart and from all there is of him. If he ever has luck as well as seriousness and gets them out entire they will have more than one dimension and they will last a long time. A good writer should know as near everything as possible. Naturally he will not. A great enough writer seems to be born with knowledge. But he really is not; he has only been born with the ability to learn in a quicker ratio to the passage of time than other men and without conscious application, and with an intelligence to accept or reject what is already presented as knowledge. There are some things which cannot be learned quickly and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave. Every novel which is truly written contributes to the total of knowledge which is there at the disposal of the next writer who comes, but the next writer must pay, always, a certain nominal percentage in experience to be able to understand and assimilate what is available as his birthright and what he must, in turn, take his departure from. If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay. And this too remember: a serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (emphases in original)
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Albuquerque Police Officer Arresting Two Men, 2 of 9, 1999 by Tetman Callis
A double shot of Mr. Molotov’s cocktailA double shot of Mr. Molotov’s cocktail
“After one comes, through contact with its administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
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Albuquerque Police Officer Arresting Two Men, 1 of 9, 1999 by Tetman Callis
Licensed to thrashLicensed to thrash
“Where you see gratuitous cruelty most often is in police brutality; in the police of all countries I have ever been in, including, especially, my own.” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
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Weatherboard #14, 1997 by Tetman Callis (2 ft. x 2 ft.; acrylic on wood)
After all this, won’t you give me a smileAfter all this, won’t you give me a smile
Any way you look at itAny way you look at it
“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you. Especially do all stories of monogamy end in death, and your man who is monogamous while he often lives most happily, dies in the most lonely fashion. There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife then outlived her. If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
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Weatherboard #10, 1997 by Tetman Callis (2 ft. x 2 ft.; acrylic on wood)
Keeping it realKeeping it real
“If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes. If he mystifies to avoid a straight statement, which is very different from breaking so-called rules of syntax or grammar to make an effect which can be obtained in no other way, the writer takes a longer time to be known as a fake and other writers who are afflicted by the same necessity will praise him in their own defense. True mysticism should not be confused with incompetence in writing which seeks to mystify where there is no mystery but is really only the necessity to fake to cover lack of knowledge or the inability to state clearly. Mysticism implies a mystery and there are many mysteries; but incompetence is not one of them; nor is overwritten journalism made literature by the injection of a false epic quality.” – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
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Weatherboard #9, 1997 by Tetman Callis (2 ft. x 2 ft.; acrylic on wood)
What security, indeedWhat security, indeed
“I ask you what confidence you would have in a Court thus constituted—a Court composed of partisan Judges, appointed on political grounds, selected with a view to the decision of questions in a particular way, and pledged in regard to a decision before the argument, and without reference to the peculiar state of the facts. Would such a Court command the respect of the country? If the Republican party cannot trust Democratic Judges, how can they expect us to trust Republican Judges, when they have been selected in advance for the purpose of packing a decision in the event of a case arising? My fellow-citizens, whenever partisan politics shall be carried on to the bench; whenever the Judges shall be arraigned upon the stump, and their judicial conduct reviewed in town meetings and caucuses; whenever the independence and integrity of the judiciary shall be tampered with to the extent of rendering them partial, blind and suppliant tools, what security will you have for your rights and your liberties?” — Senator Stephen A. Douglas, 1858
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Weatherboard #5, 1995 by Tetman Callis (2 ft. x 2 ft.; acrylic and wood putty on wood)
But we won’tBut we won’t
“There is not one human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.” — Gore Vidal
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Weatherboard #4, 1995 by Tetman Callis (2 ft. x 2 ft.; acrylic and wood putty on wood)
Surf’s up!Surf’s up!
“A feeling of doom can be productive, if you know how to surf it.” – Victor Lodato, “P.E.”
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Weatherboard #3, 1994 by Tetman Callis (48 in. x 24 in.; acrylic and wood putty on wood)
Gotta start someplaceGotta start someplace
“It is fair that each man shall pay taxes in exact proportion to the value of his property; but if we should wait before collecting a tax to adjust the taxes upon each man in exact proportion with every other man, we should never collect any tax at all.” – Abraham Lincoln, “Speech to the 164th Ohio Regiment”
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VLA, 1993 by Tetman Callis (16 in. by 32 in.; mixed media–photographs, cardboard, water-soluble glue, and nylon thread on rag board)
Not looking to need thisNot looking to need this
“Nothing justifies the suspending of the civil by the military authority, but military necessity, and of the existence of that necessity the military commander, and not a popular vote, is to decide. And whatever is not within such necessity should be left undisturbed.” – Abraham Lincoln, “To Benjamin F. Butler, August 9, 1864″
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Truly Portable Quick Meal Magic, 2001 by Tetman Callis (32 in. by 48 in.; mixed media–paper, acrylic, and glass on primed canvas)
Hold me, LordHold me, Lord
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQeSKqKF7qQ
Fill ‘er up!Fill ‘er up!
“Envy is the gasoline on which American capitalism runs.” – John Lahr, “Lives in Limbo”
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The Tiny Prefix Language, 1999 by Tetman Callis (about 32 in. by 48 in.; mixed media–paper, acrylic, and plastic on canvas)