Another “OJESUS!” week is in the books. The Crumbleys. The Supreme Court. Justice and daylight are waning this first week of December.
First, the Crumbleys. Sigh. It is as comic and tragic a name for this family as any fiction writer could assign. It is the last name of the parents of the 15-year-old who shot up his high school in Michigan killing four.
It takes a lot for my jaw to drop these days. But, drop it did, when I read the text the mother sent to her son after getting a call from the school the day BEFORE the shooting because he had been observed researching where to buy ammunition on the school computers and coming to the attention of the school staff for other worrisome behaviors. This was her text to him.
And, the morning of the shooting, both parents were called to the school because of additional alarming drawn images and written material and told he needed counseling. They did not take him out of school. They did not tell the school that the father had just bought him a gun on Black Friday or that mom and son had just recently spent a day at the shooting range with his new gun. No, they went home. Their son started shooting a few hours later. After they learned there had been a shooting at the school, the father came home and called the police suggesting the shooter might be his son. The mother texted her son, “Don’t do it!” Calls and texts after the students are dead? After their son is already handcuffed? What is that about? See! We called the police says the Dad to investigators? We even texted him not to do it says the Mom to their lawyer?
They left town and subsequently were the subject of an FBI and Michigan police manhunt when they did not appear in court on Friday when charged with involuntary manslaughter. Their lawyer said they were definitely going to turn themselves in but were a no-show. They were caught on Saturday hiding in a warehouse in Detroit. The chief of police in Detroit, nor the Judge, apparently thought that “hiding in a warehouse” equated “to turning themselves in” and they were arraigned via Zoom from individual cells, and their bond was set for 500K each.
I don’t remember parents being charged like this before but nor do I remember a shooter being “caught” in the school halls with bullets still in the gun and still alive. Maybe it has happened but I can say this for sure, by the look and sound of Mom on her Zoom arraignment from her cell, her “LOL” texting days are over. Whatever the course of justice is for this crew, there is no justice for the four dead students and their families.
The other chilling “OJESUS” moment this week came on Wednesday when the audio of the Supreme Court considering the restrictive abortion law of Mississippi, which I thought was the restrictive abortion law of Taliban Texganistan, was discussed and it was clear Justice Amy thought being able to drop off your baby at a designated fire station anonymously was all the options women should have or need in this culture. The scale of politics/religion and women’s rights are not balancing toward justice with this group. But, Justice Sotomayor, summed up the imbalance:
The light moment and there were only a few light moments this week came when I designed some fabric for cosmetic bags. My mother was well known for her red lipstick and her despair over those of us who didn’t seem into the make-up arts. She used to say to me, “The LEAST you could do is put on some lipstick!”
So she’s got her own fabric inspired by her red lips (Revlon Fire and Ice).
My apple watch is in full-out despair mode. It keeps reminding me to stand, to “breathe”, to close those move circles. I ignore all three prompts. All I do is walk once a day for 30 minutes and I look like I am suited up for Mt. Everest. I take pictures every once in a while.
As most of you know “O JESUS!” has been my daily response to news alerts since November 2016. In this past week of 2021, I decided to make this text into my new logo, fabric design for home decor and bags, and a 24 x 24 metallic print for my wall.
The worst it can be: I’ll carry my swears with leather handles.
And, lastly, if you made it this far, I’ll give you this to contemplate.
I was reminded that a year ago I visited the MFA for the first time since lockdown in March 2020 & was simply knocked out by a very early Jackson Pollock. It was really, really big. The length of one whole gallery wall. I wrote the following a year ago and somehow it made me feel better about life a year later. No easy feat. (See above). I met a moose is in the story.
I was finally able to physically manage a trip to the MFA last week. This painting by Jackson Pollock, not yet famous, (1943) was a commission for Peggy Guggenheim’s ‘foyer’ in NYC. A moment of silence for a entire wall of a foyer that can accommodate a canvas that is 8 feet by 20 feet. At any rate, I kept seeing faces of animals, necks, legs, ears, eyes, even haunches and shoulders in the overall abstraction. As if these animals were looking out at me through the dust up and swirls of color as I walked slowly closer and then, on by. Almost personal. Reminded me of an early morning encounter with a moose in Jasper, British Columbia. I stopped abruptly on the path. The moose turned his head to look at me. Silence. I was frozen still. Then, the moose just walked back into the forest. Definitely, a bit thrilling to suddenly encounter this immense painting, as it must have been to guests of Peggy Guggenheim. There was nothing in the write up about animals. So, I moved on but so enjoyed my eye to eye with this enormous painting. Got home and looked up this painting and in an interview Jackson Pollock said that he was way past deadline to deliver it and had a blank canvas for months. Then, in a vision one day he said it just came to him: a stampede of every animal living in the American west. Cows. Horses. Antelopes. Buffaloes. “Everything was charging across that goddamn surface.” They are still charging. I saw them.
pbc
