As to Rena’s heartbreaking losses, I am reminded of the time Mimi made her first appearanece after the death of the love of her life, Richard Farina. Keith and I were at a Monterey music festival when she was introduced. For what seemed an eternity, no one appraoched her. They were afraid of her Great Tragedy. Who could fill Richard’s shoes. There was no one on God’s gree earth that Mimi could transfer her love to. We all knew this. We grieved along with her.

“Let’s go talk to her.” said Keith, and we sat down beside her. I was rendered speechless by her beauty, inside and out. Keith asked her to dance, and they danced.

Good for you Keith.

My former wife did a life-size portrait of Mimi, whose husband was Thomas Pynchon’s best friend. I fell in love with this painting that was the mate to my lost painting of Rena – that inspired Christine to take up art. Should I repeat myself?

Mimi was Richard’s beloved Muse. When he died, she lost her wings. Mimi inspired Richard. Everyone around them bathed in the light of this great Muse. This inspiration was susposed to last forever. What is the lesson here?

I believe Thomas was crushed by the death of his charismatic friend, who was heroic. Richard came up to many old doors – and smashed them down. Richard was forging a new way, doing something completely different. Being the survivor of a great charismatic, myself, I know how impossible it is to go on. But I did. I became empowered and emboldened by my loss, my challenges from beyond the pale bid me to try the impossible. Orpheus’ sad lament is our guide.

Mimi took herself and her loving songs into the darkest of prisons. She went into Hades with Bread and Roses, where she got Richard’s loving approval for not forsaking their Quest.

I hope Mary Ann, the Artist, renders this lost work – again! So they we, this Beloved Bohemian Group, can soar like Phoenix Birds from the ashes of despair!

Yes, we were born to sing a sad song. Yes! We are not going to be on this stage forever. We must vacate it, if only for the reason here come another inspired generation waiting their turn to be in limelight. We, have prepared their way. Only history can prove this, define the path we took, and make it clear for all time, for all fellow Bohemians.

Into this Bohemian Vessel, we pour all that was, and is good in us, when we picked up the pen, the brush, put on our dancing shoes – and let our spirits soar!

In the end, it is not a matter of being loyal to one another, but, being loyal to our art! Only when we are loyal to our art, will they come to us…..our beloved Muses.

Love

Jon Gregory

Susan Benton
Jessie Benton
John Freemont
Thomas Hart Benton
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor
Christine Rosamond Benton
Philip Boileau
Garth Benton
Joaquin Miller
The Pre-Raphaelties
George Sterling
Jack London
Joaquin Miller
Gertrude Stein
Isadora Duncon
Mary Ann Tharaldsen
Thomas Pynchon
Richard and Mimi Farina
Joan Baez
Rena Victoria Easton
Marilyn Reed
Dottie Witherspoon
Bryan McLean
Peter Shapiro
The Loading Zone
Nancy Hamren
Bill Arnold
The Harkins Family
The Purvis Family
The Rosamond Family
The Zorthian Family
The Mel Lyman Family
Pubishers of Out West Magazine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jirayr_Zorthian

Born April 14, 1911, in Kütahya, Western Anatolia, Ottoman Empire of Armenian parents, Zorthian escaped through Europe, with the remnants of his family after two waves of political massacres, and arrived in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1923. He earned a Master of Fine Arts at Yale University and studied art in Italy in the 1930s. Returning to the United States during the Great Depression, he painted several massive murals, including 11 for the Tennessee State Capitol in 1938 which earned him the honorary title of “Colonel”.

https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/the-miminis-rose/

The most mimicked image in the world (Mime Mundi) is THE ROSE. I wrote this twenty years ago;

“After God made the world, He began to make His rose, but, left it undone for His Man to finish so he can present it to the Woman he loves.”

Man and woman kind have made many species of the rose, but, is there an archetypal rose?

Above we see the beautiful women of Philip Boileau “The painter of fair women”. He is my kin, he the son of Susan Benton and Baron Boileau. Next to Boileau’s women, are the women of the artist Sara Moon, who is a man who mimicked the rosy images of my late sister, Christine Rosamond Benton. Sara’s woman with scarf looks like my mother, Rosemary Rosamond, who is kin to Baron Boileau who owned a fabulous art collection that was gather in the wake of Napoleon’s conquests. Rosemary’s son-in-law is Garth Benton, a muralist and cousin to the artist, Thomas Hart Benton. Is Rosemary the archetypal rose? No! But, her mother, Mary Magdalene Rosamond, is! You can not own a more archetypal rose name, other then Mary Rose of the World ‘Mother of God and Lord Jesus Creator of the World and Universe’!

One can conclude God made Mary perfect so He could come to earth and be a mortal – for just a little while! Because we mortals did not recognize Jesus as an immortal, we tortured God and put a wreath of thorns upon His head, and thus He is sometimes called ‘The Rose of Sharon’.

Having a blueprint of perfection, all of humanity is bid to BE LIKE JESUS, but too much like Jesus! There can only be ONE JESUS! All imitators will be tied to a stake and burned alive! NO MIMES – PLEASE!

I know the Torah says we were made in God’s image, but, as long as we got that nasty junk hanging between our legs, we are doomed to be Ugly Sinners till the day we parish.

Sara Moon has beaten God at His own game. Even though he owns a trouser snake, he smells like a rose! He did not live the torturous life my sister CHRISTine ROSE of the World did, because he is not culpable. She paved his way.

Jon Presco

The Philosophical Position

Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who held in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. In the essay, written as a Platonic dialogue, Wilde holds that such anti-mimesis “results not merely from Life’s imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy.”.[1][2]
Wilde’s antimimetic philosophy has had influence on later writers, including Brian Friel. McGrath places it in a tradition of Irish writing, including Wilde and writers such as Synge and Joyce that “elevate[s] blarney (in the form of linguistic idealism) to aesthetic and philosophical distinction”, noting that Terry Eagleton observes an even longer tradition that stretches “as far back in Irish thought as the ninth-century theology of John Scottus Eriugena” and “the fantastic hyperbole of the ancient sagas”. Wilde’s antimimetic idealism, specifically, McGrath describes to be part of the late nineteenth century debate between Romanticism and Realism.[1]