Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Jul 16, 2011, 10:43 am
Mahbubur Rahman, Time Warp The Month of July Written by Basel Al-Aswad, the father of Escape into Life founder, Chris Al-Aswad Thirty-two years ago on July 16th, 1979, I received a most special gift, a son. Little did I know this gift would not last the rest of my lifetime. On July 27th, 2010, mot...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Jun 19, 2011, 1:20 pm
June 20, 1993 – Father’s Day Loving, living, and giving are three gifts which you continue to give me each day. A blanket, you are, which holds me at night and frees me in the day, and this is important because a holder is not a keeper. You will hold until I grow up, the greatest gift I could as...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 21, 2011, 3:35 pm
Wink Winter 2006 – Normal, IL Last night at Borders I picked up a book by Osho about aloneness and after reading the last four chapters of the book, my perceptive on my current state changed dramatically. Aloneness according to Osho is a gift, not something I should run from. Ever since I started...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 15, 2011, 7:18 pm
Stefano Unterthiner Early 2007- Normal, IL 10 minutes before work, I’m sitting in the front hall of Heartland College, eating my apple. A man, middle-aged, wearing a sport jacket and a baseball cap with a briefcase, says hello to me in a placid tone. He stands looking out the window and then come...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 8, 2011, 12:05 pm
The Swan, Rosalind Al-Aswad Christopher Al-Aswad’s Journal Entry – March 14, 2003 My mother died on March 13, 2003. She died so peacefully, is what I told my friends. I said she died without resistance. And that’s how I want to live my life, without resistance. Easing up into the ceiling, wit...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 4, 2011, 2:34 pm
Frank Caico Jan 1, 2007 – Chicago, IL Last night was a hell trip. But a good one, and I am glad it happened. On New Years Eve in a bar in Naperville, you should have seen the looks that hung on the faces of both sexes. After twelve o’clock, everyone was thoroughly intoxicated and their eyes lik...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 22, 2011, 12:11 pm
Jeff Luker February 2006 – Normal, IL A letter to my father on his 60th birthday It is hard for me to believe that my father is 60 years old. Memories from when you used to take me to my soccer games, or sit with me in front of the computer helping me write my papers, or when we took the road tri...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 20, 2011, 4:44 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad July 30, 2006 – Normal, IL I have a backyard my neighbors have a garden the air reverberates with children’s voices. Crickets chirping the autumn stands one month ahead looking back at the most placid day in August – her feathered frock gently ruffles. My forehead is ...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 16, 2011, 4:01 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad September 27, 2007 – Normal, IL The personality comes and goes. My task is to stay aware – aware of my discomfort, my anxiety, my suffering. An insight – as I mature, I find that my path is not so much one of seeking perfection or discovering an ideal state or creatin...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 13, 2011, 6:24 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad June 2007 – Normal, IL My personality is based on an overcompensation. I was wounded probably at the end of my childhood and at the beginning of my adolescence. I made several observations about who I am. I must have observed that I was not as smart as a certain group, th...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 8, 2011, 5:16 pm
Lethe Bashar's Novel of Life Las Vegas Written by Chris Al-Aswad and illustrated by Gerrar Gonzalez June 20, 2007 – Normal, IL In my novel, the main character is riding a bus to Las Vegas when he has an epiphany – “I’m an eccentric genius,” he says to himself. He’s writing a novel, he re...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 7, 2011, 7:54 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad January 2008 – Normal, IL We can learn by living in reality by dispelling illusions And illusions are desires forget desires - Just be – live in the moment of what you are doing Otherwise we cheat ourselves We trade in counterfeit We never understand truth We never unde...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 1, 2011, 12:58 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad 2007 – Meditation retreat with Dad “All in all, today hasn’t been that bad and things are looking up for you already. And while the body is irritating and you always wish you were more comfortable, at least you are aware of your pettiness and discomfort. We do have a ...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 30, 2011, 2:17 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad March 2005 – Normal, IL "How do I trust or learn to trust? How do I place faith in simply being myself and not strive so hard to be the world’s next great author? When if ever will I be able to not think about writing. My consciousness, dominated by a few ideas branc...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 29, 2011, 11:44 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad April 2009 – Normal, IL All is incomplete Can you handle being a work in progress Can you handle incomplete unfinished symphonies novels portraits The moments of perfection of completion like finished work that you set your gaze upon When I stop to think about the shuffle...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 23, 2011, 3:14 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad March 2005 – Normal, IL “…Greatness is not assumed, it is earned and I have not earned it yet. These are just my thoughts, they are not public displays of art. Why to write art you need a form, like a poem or a short story, or a novel. Those are the buildings. But a j...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 17, 2011, 5:12 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad February 2007 – Normal, IL “…My mind is a temple of illusion and I am a false god. True, there is something pure and positive in me but it is hidden so deep, under all the layers of illusion. I seem to know my soul exists but I am constantly running from that source. ...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 14, 2011, 4:13 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad Poems to my mother We had fun didn’t we – on earth We laughed, our laughing released us from the pain of circumstance. We couldn’t adequately explain or escape but like now there are these nether worlds right above or beyond – the colliding particles of everyone els...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 10, 2011, 3:38 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad March 2005, Normal IL “…We exist outside our conversations, with ourselves and with others, we are part of the silent nature of things. When we are confined to our thoughts, we look remotely out from the lighthouse of consciousness to the silent order of things. We move...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 7, 2011, 6:43 pm
Sketch by Chris Al-Aswad March 2005 – Normal, IL "…After the meeting, I went to Chestnut, which is an adolescent facility for addicts and sometimes I go there to help out and be of service. Every time I go there I am reminded of all the institutions I was put in and locked in and remember how h...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 3, 2011, 2:26 pm
Drawing by Chris Al-Aswad Spring 2007, Normal IL “…The woman you love, her actions and behaviors toward you, her words, that is the balm for your soul. She is there to validate you, to reveal to you your utter worthiness. God has made it so without her, you may have never known. The inner lack...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 1, 2011, 2:51 am
Understand Still by Nick Lepard February 2007 – Normal, IL “…What I’m a finding overall is that this image I have of myself in my mind should not be taken so seriously. Who I think I am is an illusion. Yes, I’ve devoted myself to writing but there is nothing remarkable, nothing truly geni...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Feb 24, 2011, 12:38 am
Gustave Courbet, self portraitIn tribute to the life and works of Chris Al-Aswad, we, his family, are honoring his memory by posting regular excerpts from his writings here at his website Escapeintolife.com Summer 2006 - Normal, IL “… I worry that I won’t have enough time, once work starts, t...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Feb 22, 2011, 5:15 pm
The Musician by Fred Aris (1972) A long, wintry six months has passed since EIL and Blog of Innocence's founder, Chris Al-Aswad, left life behind and stepped into the world of the Spirit. In addition to countless unforgettable memories, Chris also left us with dozens of journals brimming with his de...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Oct 31, 2010, 10:23 pm
Entered into life July 16th 1979 - Escaped into life July 27th 2010 Henry Darger When Chris set up this Online Arts Journal just a little over a year ago, he dedicated it to his late mother, the artist Rosalind Al-Aswad. Shocked by his untimely death, his bereft family and followers feel that an app...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Jun 11, 2010, 5:32 pm
The visual arts have been at the center of my life from my earliest memories. My mother was a painter and she taught me to observe the world intently; she also conveyed the mysteries of the creative artist; a love of introspection; and an intelligence built on association. My father had a passion fo...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Jun 10, 2010, 8:49 pm
is a poem cycle I'm beginning that joins my love of visual art and classical literature. Gustave Dore (b. 1832-1883) illustrated scores of literary masterpieces including Paradise Lost, Idylls of the King, The Divine Comedy and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I purchased a book not so long ago that pre...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Jun 8, 2010, 7:36 am
for the moment it lastssomething like the mathematics of miracles or continuous spacewe sense it under every mundane awarenesswe seize it once or twiceI imagine we're split into particleseach a smaller copy of the wholewe undergo a transformationwith our sudden sprawling capacity we define an infini...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Jun 6, 2010, 1:36 am
and then self-enclosing, like an oyster shellpink ribbons and flesh-colored brilliancereflecting on the inner wall, sudden darkness once the shellhas closed. The origin of the worldmay never be found, locked in a massof tangled ropes, swaying with the tides,a prisoner of our dreams, a captive of our...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Jun 4, 2010, 3:56 am
as if I've gone nowhereI demand my rose and my pearlboth were lost along the waylook over this cliffdo you see tomorrow recedingbeneath yesterday's waves?every wrinkle of hope belongs to another part of meI don't think we can save ourselvesit is too cold, too deepthe world, family, strangersreside i...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 28, 2010, 6:09 pm
Like an excellent programmer, a hacker, she codes my brain. She gets behind my eyelids with her cunning and her artifice and tinkers with the very machine of perception. Without my OK! Her hacking results in an elaborate scene that does not, cannot, and will never take place! Fantasy! If only you c...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 25, 2010, 2:55 am
bearing down on us . . . the heat like a thousand rattlesnakes hissing in the continuous burn of the sun. I slept well past noon, I shouldn't have, but when I awoke and went outside, it didn't seem to matter that I was unconscious, possessed by dreams I don't remember. Much of my life is fixated on ...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 22, 2010, 9:48 pm
I write nonsense poetry in my journal, and several hours later, try to make sense of it . . . the only way of course, is to create something, a form, a pattern of allusions and metaphors that fit the foundation no matter how small or inconsequent that structure appears to be . . . We start with noth...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 20, 2010, 10:24 pm
the mass of caring I have toward an object, any object--it can be big or small . . . emotion clings to it--I need it must have it it defines me-- and then, after a period of time . . . it can be three months, a day, or a half-hour the object does not hold the mysteries to my desires anymore. What ...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 19, 2010, 8:45 pm
the sun came out. I noticed among the people a feeling of joy, renewal. The cook at the Garlic Press usually has a dour face, but today she was snapping her fingers--to the music. I turned around and couldn't believe it was the same person. Yes, the mundane is everything . . . I chased after a rabb...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 17, 2010, 2:04 pm
Julie Heffernan, Self-portrait Sitting on a World We have an outstanding line-up of art essays, poetry, and reviews this issue. Personally, I am grateful for the contributors to this online art journal. Month after month, we receive erudite, well-researched submissions on interesting topics, and it'...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 10, 2010, 5:22 am
Frank Ciaco On a Friday night, not unlike any of my other Friday nights, I came home with a pepperoni pizza and turned on the oven while emptying the dishes from the machine. This was my second pepperoni pizza since last week, and so I anticipated it would not give me the same rewarding pleasure th...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 10, 2010, 1:23 am
Le Corbus The story I write always begins with having the experience first. After living in Madrid for a year, I grew obsessed thinking that every new experience would then become a short story or novel. Ten years later, I found myself still toiling on the the same scenes from the past. Now I've giv...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 5, 2010, 10:45 pm
Ryan McGinley Without giving away too much about the circumstances in my life, I feel I am going through an exceptionally dark period. How did I get to this place? I've asked myself this question many times. I can only attribute my present situation to my personality. To me, the personality is the ...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - May 2, 2010, 5:23 pm
ATMA Escape into Life continually welcomes new writers onto our team. In this issue, you'll find an eloquent essay on Gauguin by Linnea West, whose art blog, Art Ravels, is a favorite among arts writers. You'll also find contributions from Lou Freshwater, somewhat of a haiku expert, and the German w...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 27, 2010, 9:23 pm
The Blog of Innocence was started in 2008 with the motivating desire to write essays and meditations on a broad spectrum of topics that intimately concerned me. The title of “Innocence” is a partial response to Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet. Whereas Pessoa’s writings center on an imagin...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 24, 2010, 1:55 pm
Julie Heffernan, Self-Portrait as Broken Home Throughout the course of a day, many battles are fought. The mere fact of having a physical body creates stress--whether in the form of exhaustion, bouts of emotion, anxiety. But the alternative, floating around in some amoeba-like wavy film, doesn't sou...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 19, 2010, 12:17 am
Christopher Holloran This issue of Escape into Life expresses every reason why I began the journal in the first place. Lara Cory's article, "The Etsy Phenomenon," challenges us to see the effects of a democratic web on art. The article provoked a lot of conversations, and I invite you to read the st...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 17, 2010, 7:36 pm
Nic Rad, Peter Schjeldahl Nic Rad's PeopleMatter project is essentially a portrait project in which the artist paints media personalities, tech-industry giants, literary and entertainment figures. He shows the portraits on his website and offers his paintings to anyone who can give a good enough rea...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on Lethe's Blog - Apr 15, 2010, 10:16 pm
I have just completed my first body of creative work, a book of poetry entitled Purposeless Solitude. For years, I've been writing poetry, but only in the last year my style became more natural and I began to feel like I could really communicate to people through poetry. I've decided to give...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 8, 2010, 11:37 pm
Richard Estes One of the things I've noticed lately is the immense popularity of photorealistic works online. I believe this is related to how photorealism conjures up the "real" while simultaneously negating it due to the materials involved; ie, this is a drawing or a painting, it can't be real. Ap...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Apr 4, 2010, 11:12 pm
Katsumi Hayakawa The popularity of Escape into Life on the web is reaching unforeseen levels. According to a conservative estimate, we received nearly 50,000 unique visitors last month. By blending artist profiles, multimedia, poetry, and journal-length essays, I am finding that people really do enj...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 29, 2010, 1:44 am
Mark Weaver John Ladd, over at Paradise Tossed, has asked me to talk about how blogging and technology has affected my development as a writer. Every writer will approach blogging differently. For some writers, a blog is mainly a marketing apparatus to promote their published (or unpublished) books...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 26, 2010, 9:34 pm
Wang Guangyi Michiko Kakutani's New York Times article, "Texts Without Context," attempts to pull together a number of loose strands about contemporary culture and technology. Her basic premise is that culture is feeding on its own tail; without creating anything new, we are depending heavily on the...
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Lethe Bashar posted an article on The Blog of Innocence - Mar 24, 2010, 1:56 am
Katsumi Hayakawa When I first saw the trailer to We Live in Public several months ago, I was anxious to see the film. It had all the ingredients, a documentary, about the Internet, about a pioneer of the Internet, a madman, perhaps a genius, or just someone exceptionally bright with a leaning toward...
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