Excerpts from a sketchbook by
Warren Criswell
in sumi ink & other media from July 1982 to September 2001
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| After
the attacks of September 11 I felt the need for some kind of
artistic response. Not that it would do any good, but just to
express what I was feeling. I wanted to put some image on my
homepage, but the only appropriate source I could think of was
an old sketch book I did in the '80s--just an exercise book,
really--which I called Lenny and the Black Riders, referring
to drawings of Leonard Bernstein conducting Mahler and Verdi,
and of the Black Riders from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Love and art vs. hate and destruction--that was the idea.
The drawings were almost entirely from TV--news, movies,
commercials, whatever. The following three Web pages are excerpts
from the book....... .....Flipping through those old pages, I was stunned by how relevant much of it seemed now. It's full of war images from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the time and place |
 Hardbound Sketchbook, 7½ x 5 inches |
that suicide bombing made its first
appearance in the world--and the beginning of Al Qaeda, according
to Osama bin Ladin: "The events that affected my soul in
a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis
to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in
that.... And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon,
it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind
and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they
taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from
killing our women and children." (See full text here.)
......Each reaction is an escalation of the slaughter and stupidity. I was afraid that the only thing worse than 9-11 would be our reaction to it and I was right. ......."We were neck deep in the Big Muddy ........But the damn fool said to push on." (Pete Seeger) ................................ ......................................Warren (updated 11/4/04) |
THIS BOOK IS DIVIDED INTO 3 PARTS AND PRESENTED ON 3 WEB PAGES:
KYRIE, DIES IRAE & LUX AETERNA
