Friends of WAM

Well it is an age of "selfies" so I have a seen several group shots from golf outings and random gatherings. Still I am keenly aware of those pictures that exist from 1980 (the year I married Lynn and the same year that my close friend Dave Brunner married Dianne) and prior to that time. I am also becoming more and more aware od the precious moments in time in which I enjoy the here and now. I have always veen a social person (extroverted and open to new friends).   

HBE Golfers League 2026

Week One of 2026 HBE League Season is officially set to begin on May 28, 2026. HBE officially closed and ended it's existence with Jim Phillips wrapping up the business and facilitating the re-population of the big house on Olive Boulevard. Fortunately, one can still visit the impressive collection of Brother Mel Meyer sculpture and enjoy the premier acomodations at the Creve Coeur office building. 

Golfers couldn't help but ramp up the season with several weeks of pre-season meeting. Jerry Ornellas has negotiated our 11 week schedule behind the Watlow folks that got priority tee-times before our group (Tee-offs beginning at 4pm). Jerry manages the schedule and is collecting to make "closest to the pin on #2 and #9" into an incentive. A hearty band of golfers are determined to keep the HBE band on the run. 

Darryl Vandiver continues as "chair Chair" for our post round conference. Darryl has also agreed to step up as "hospitality chair" (which means he's agreeing to stock the beverage cooler.) Wes Morgan is among the first to arrive at CCGC. He is happy to share first tee-time each week with the hospitality chair (Darryl). Will Wes ever run out of attendance prizes?

Pre-season enthusiasts have started appearing at CCGC this spring and and some "sponsor exemptions" are being granted to accept a few outsiders into the exclusive group. Randy Niederer joined us a couple of years ago with Dave Cox as sponsor. Randy will occasionally get his pilot son Ben to join us if it doesn't interfere with his flight schedule. Randy's pal Jim joined us in week one. (Even as Randy soon plans to relocate to Florida in retirement.)

Adman/creative director Marco Tocco has been a reliable sub familiar with HBE as he worked on the advertising when he was a honcho at Adamson back in the day. Tom Shaughnessy is all in with ample material for storytelling and a love of the game.

Greg Miles arrives just in time and offers golf instruction when a suitable time and place can be arranged at a driving range in Kirkwood or South County. George Robin has been to Peeble Beach and Hilton Head but easing his sore back into the weekly round at CCGC. George Robin!

Joe Voss is a solid supporter of the weekly tradition if he can manage his parental car-pooling responsibilities. Just a couple of weeks ago he had to rush home. Marco had to peal off early that week too. (His wife needed his help with a financial matter involving cancelling a credit card.)

Jerry Petry is on the mend from a surgery but he made an appearance at our post-round tree conference. He was presented with a signed copy of Ron Untereiner's book for making the effort. Meanwhile Jerry O. reports on the health of Fred Scott while he is in a hospital bed somewhere with access to facetime on his cell phone. (As we age, tales of healthcare, daily living and retirement are creeping into our scholarly lecture/pointers on our golf technique.) 

Hit Fairways and Greens. Make Putts. (It's a simple game really.)

Group Photo from last year includes Jerry Petry, Don Pickens, George Robin, Dave Cox, Greg Miles, Fred Scott, Jerry Ornellas, Tony Augustine, Darryl Vandiver (seated) and Joe Voss. Wes Morgan with Maestro. 

  

 

Bing

Of Mere Being

Of Mere Being

Wallace Stevens was a businessman who worked most of his career in the insurance industry in Connecticut. He wrote poetry as a way to calm himself, often while commuting to and from work. If you read poetry, no doubt you have favorite poem you revisit from time to time. Such a poem becomes an old friend. That being said, I would like to introduce you to this one.

Of Mere Being                                                            

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.                              

The palm at the end of the mind with a bird singing a song without feeling reminds us that merely being is not enough. The poem seems to challenge us to see the beauty, hear the bird’s song and give it meaning and reason. Find the joy.

Thank You Wallace Stevens

Photo Caption:

ST LOUIS - Artist Robert Lobe (b. 1945) was inspired by Wallace Stevens poem Of Mere Being when he used a dying walnut tree as a starting point/substrate for his sculpture The Palm at the End of the Parking Lot. Photo (above)  by Wes Morgan captures the sculpture under threatening skies last fall (2012).  

ROBERT LOBE

(AMERICAN, BORN 1945)

The Palm at the End of the Parking Lot, 1995/2023
annealed hammered aluminum, stainless steel
204 x 96 x 84 inches (126 inch circumference)
Laumeier Sculpture Park Commission, with funds from the Mark Twain Laumeier Endowment Fund

Robert Lobe has described his sculptures as “involving an interrupted, sacrificed Nature that is not just borrowed but violated.” His works are created in nature as sculptural echoes of natural form, usually rocks or trees. The signature process Lobe uses is an adaptation of repoussé, an ancient technique in which metal is hammered to create designs or shapes. The fusion of natural beauty and metal handiwork shows the wildly disorganized aspect of nature rather than the tranquil one presented in a park setting.

The sculpture is a re-imagining of his original work from 1995 that included the trunk of a walnut tree. Incorporating the now empty space where the tree once stood, the hollowed artwork amplifies his focus on the violence of ‘nature and culture.’ The aura of the sculpture obliterates the formal distinction between nature and technology by imposing a distressed layer of armor plate implying the tree’s old contours. The punch marks left by the pneumatic hammer that formed the aluminum become a matrix of penny size scars through which Lobe has preserved and mimicked the tree’s original textural surface. Are technological interventions strong enough to reverse the ravages technology has already visited upon the landscape? Lobe’s answer to this question remains enigmatic.

---

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Robert Lobe was born in Detroit in 1945. He earned his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1967. Lobe received National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1979 and 1984 and an award from the Joan Mitchell Foundation in 2001. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The White House, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Lobe's works are in numerous collections, including the Brooklyn Museum; the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Mihama-cho International Outdoor Sculpture Garden, Japan; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Visit www.robertlobe.com for more information.

BC and AD to BCE and CE

 

The Saint Louis Art Museum exhibit on view now celebrated the Emperor Trajan from the 1st Century into the second Century. The Roman Empire time line from history and antiquity now designates time with CE or Current Era and/or BCE or Before Curent Era.  

Imagine a fresco painted on plaster lasting 20 centuries! This Narcissus and Echo fresco shows the story of Narcissus becoming so in love with his own image. A myth from ancient Greece.  

Matilda as Thelia, Muse of Comedy 120-138 CE Marble  from the Vatican Museum - Vatican City (Trajan's niece)

 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Copyright Credit: Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Source: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995)

AI

 

 

A I A I Ohhh!

Atificial Intelligence - more digital disruption and away we go

More than you’d imagine

More than you’d ever know

No emoji to convey

No projection can tell

Regardless of algorithm or code

Large language model – the mother lode

Peruse, scan, click; Tell us more.

Forever in space and time

Data-driven action items on line

Intelligence, not real, completely fake

But well-crafted corrections are easy to make

Chat, Share, Share some more.

 Your input is held in the highest regard

Technology to the rescue – Solutions are here.

Your identity. Our program.  Never fear.

P.S. Full disclosure. I wrote this ditty (poem) with my typical sense of sarcastic response to the positive affirmation I heard at the MDMC 26 conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Saint Louis.