Konrad’s Composite Letter to friends and colleagues in the Healing Arts and Sciences:
Dear friends,
Please excuse the crumpled-note passing, but words take time and time is of the essence. Besides beat (as in beatific) letters are meant to be shared whilst fresh.
Concerning the Outlandish Christmas Card
(Honoring Survivors 2018):
Right on, dear one(s). Much like the Aurora parcel at Carmel Highlands/Big Sur, without the mold remediation issues (no one’s fault). This time the cancer patients also win, not just us chickens. One never knows, but I would “LOVE" (extended by prayerful / prophetic words and meager deeds) to see this combination of an alternative (biological) tumor-targeted Cancer Gene Therapy Program strategically aligned with an alternative-non-profit, old-school Bio-Balm Healing Hands Treatment Program (using “all-natural,” “highly-selective,” “oncogene-suppressing” plant extracts (e.g. artemisinin, boswellia, betulinic acid, mithramycin etc, etc; so uber-cool, biochemically/medically) — all folded in with a more-compassionate Small-Group Patient Care Aesthetic for the advanced treatment of Intractable Metastatic Cancers and/or Intractable Rheumatoid- and Osteo-Arthritis.
Recalling an old joke set-up that says, “A Buddhist monk ordered a hotdog;" he said, "I’ll have one with everything!” Well, Brody (my feline friend) and I suddenly realized that a Healing Hands Program Project, which includes a new Catholic Mission (check), Hard-core Science (check), a Small Clinic (check), a Biotech Research/Teaching Center (Rexin-G plus Tree sap, etc), a Veterinary Outreach Center (check: XD-balms and targeted gene therapies), a Spiritual Retreat Aesthetic (recall “Eat, rest… repeat:” was heaven’s personal prescription for the prophet Elijah), complete with a Jack Kerouac-style forest walk (check), and a sustainable Not-for-Profit ethos that truly spans and respectfully blends the revered traditions of Eastern / Western Emersonian Usonian humanistic philosophies, including non-verbal humanities, in a powerful harmonious artistically-gifted symphonically-enlightened (i.e., Post-lux) elaboration … is a fledgling UNIVERSITY after all, nothing more, nothing less.
Concerning the Outlandish Christmas Card
(Honoring Survivors 2018):
Ps, Whatever happens, please remember my traditional working formulas: 1. Keep something precious and alive like a candle flickering within; 2, the hand/pen raised in praise (literature, even fiction and poetry) opens the door to (artistic) grace; 3. we are all saved by someone else’s blood, sweat, tears … naturally; 4. stay small, to serve many; On Sugar Mountain no one owns anything but their own dignity, and no one philosophy captures the flag! One never knows what will happen for certain, dear one(s); time and real-life drama will impeccably tell; we just dream, perchance to do some good before it's all over. The imaginative university will surely be established upon the high-minded aspirations we set out to accomplish in artistic absentia, now or posthumously, as the age-old exploitation of illness is finally gunned down for good.
Concerning the Outlandish Christmas Card
(Honoring Survivors 2018):
Time to paint with light, “dramatically and visually” for my postmodern friends who prefer videos and oral traditions over literary stuff and such.
Hi P_____, That photo of you on TV is so cool. Glad to see you happy enjoying the teacher’s path.
So much is happening so fast, it’s hard even for me to grasp, nearly impossible to relate. So, in Staccato: Christmas happened, Brody’s balm made waves into pharma, Drs. swooned, patients smiled— but you knew that from the Christmas card-show. REAL NEWS: money dropped from heaven into a non-profit; child in extremis named: impossible!! yet is it?! After all these years!?
A New Poster Child with a face and a name (Reese) and a family. Recall the last time we tried, and failed, to save poor Alvin, we did manage to successfully regenerate the FDA approved pollen (DNA plasmids) needed to begin producing the tumor-targeted medicines again. “When push comes to shove, I need my trusted motley crew!!” — exclaimed the fiercely Emersonian Biochemist — a crew dispersed elsewhere and/or in rehab from all sorts of deeply shared PTSDs.
No kidding, J___ and H___, whether moved from within / above or shamed by a Christmas Card, the impossible mission is emerging real-time as a non-profit mission even as I write this. So, you know, of course, one has to try; and by so doing, the miracle of shared risk, shared worries, shared doubts, is balanced by solemn confidence of molecular genetic cause and effect, as a team of world-weary sailors (unpaid pipers) come together one more time to try and save a stricken cancer patient / a dying child, or not, while the now-awakened philanthropic whole-wide-world, including the Vatican, is watching closely. Yikes, and double yikes! Good news, my beatific friends, is I got the sustainable economics of my Big Sur imaginary homeless village down pat, and my old cat by my side in the chair. But unfortunately, that will have to wait a little bit longer... and so will the commercialization of all things Konrad Ventana... as I bend to the wheel ... one more time ... to do this thing (encourage others) that only I/we can do; then teach and tell, then write about it.
Ps to all above, I thought I might include this video link to show you dramatically the current state of affairs, as the proud but washed-up gunslinger displays his street creds, while offering his services for hire. Just when I was hankering and setting down to write “the true Quick and the Dead finale all the way from Sunset Boulevard to Sugar Mountain, I find myself in a somewhat lesser position as a poor player on the stage once again... this quite late in the day / drama feels to me more like Lee Marvin, the gunfighter, in the movie “Cat Ballou”. I’m not complain’,
just sayin’.
Response to the Movie-clip summarized:
This is 😞 sad
Konrad’s Reply to a Sympathetic Friend (complete with artistic revelation):
Thanks for the sympathy, P_____ – you-all know the artist within the ol’ professor – but I was only funnin’, dear ones. Not seriously sad, folks: “gallows humor” is just a coffee break for terminal gladiators—Even the possibility of re-assembling my long-lost team (from rehab to mission as together-rehab, is a blessing; not my plan, obviously heaven’s plan … a good plan). Here is a snippet of this morning’s joe … when I realized that the simple innovation in disposable labware (past 10 years) has now made true Hyper-titers possible (2-3 x higher to >10e10 particles/ml of cancer-busting gene-meds), enabling us to do more with less; in a smaller space, etc, etc …. Call it Breaking Good!! Now, P_____, since you are an adorable poet at heart and an enchanting artistic teacher in real life… I am going to let you discover this ephemeral connection yourself. Last night 3am I messaged EMG some HYPER-stack info-link, as the sterile disposable cell-factory “boxes” to order asap. This morning, I realized the gossamer connection to a lady named Jackie whose artistry in glass blowing was recently added to the Fr Aveni website (a long-term cancer-free survivor of metastatic breast cancer following what we now call DeltaNext-G, in obvious homage to the late Steve Jobs). First see the Corning Literature (Fig 5 pops), which I was studying bio-engineering-wise when the mystical connection to Jackie P. came to mind:
More Staccato News Flashes:
Bonaventure Pointe, Part 2, is currently on hold!
Meanwhile, just when I was getting ready to start on the next outlandish chapter of the fictional Bonaventure Pointe, my California Romance ... everything suddenly, necessarily screeches to a halt (Kairos Time, for sure, in a good way), and we hastily prepare to set forth once again to attempt to do The Impossible—to save young Reese (with a solemn confidence with the molecular/genetic cause and effects of things like off-road and tumor-targeting cancer genes, both physically unseen in normal reality). First, we go forth (to declare the impossible) then we do (with faithfulness, fidelity, and good intentions); and then, as we learn to paint with such light, we teach and tell, and then we eventually write about it … until we die… or it dies within us. And so BonaVenturePointe (adventures in hyper-reality) is officially on hold … for a little while longer (no worries, as always, the underlying intensely allegorical drama is nearly writing itself now).
Konrad’s Reply to a Sympathetic Friend (complete with artistic revelation):
Then— just for fun— take a look at the latest video of Jackie Pancari at work in her laboratory—Artist-in-Residence—complements of the Corning Glasswork Museum—and you won’t be sad for very long. American innovation yet again affirms the inestimable value of an Example-of-ONE. Do you see it now?! It takes a village, artists doing art, biologists doing biochemistries, and sometimes a lowly gunfighter with volatile sweet/aromatic/simply awful/dragon breath.
Konrad’s Reply to a Sympathetic Friend (complete with artistic revelation):
See P_____, sad in one personally frustrating way; but not in, oh, so many others…. And you thought I was kidding (or worse) or just been’ pompous when I told you I meant to seriously change things in Dr-Dr-ville and etc. Sensitive Artists like us are such a fur-ball of frustrated desires, it’s amazing that we can even communicate with each other at all. My favorite one-liner from this entire past year is this: (from Outcast: graphic comic turned TV show, from the post-modern Kirkman dude who also penned the walking dead.) The one-liner came from a young, mystical girl when asked WTF? … she simply explained, in nearly a whisper, “Fireflies see other Fireflies” and thus, dear one, when it comes to you and me communicating something urgent and important across such space and time, we fireflies will always see each other wonderfully, shockingly, beautifully naked in the energetic shine of our blissfully-painfully-playfully-lovingly shared experiences for better or worse. So, from sad to FANTASTIC, now that’s my shining girl!
Final Note to young artists, seekers, creative writers, and avid readers:
High drama is present everywhere in reality; development, conservation, and evolution of your character is key; characters-in-action provide for saving grace; thus seek and find what matters utmost within your precious heart of hearts, as it beats, as you silently breathe, as you claim your rightful place and time to think such outlandish thoughts as these, and to dream such wondrous dreams of beauty amid the atoms and the stars.