Somewhere in Rome. A very long time ago. There is this man. He is already a well-known and celebrated artist. For hours he has been thinking about his current work of art. Now he is tired. He needs some sleep. The cleaning lady has cleaned up the mess in the hall. Today she is accompanied by a little girl. About nine years old. Red-orange hair with the two twigs left and right standing out. She seems a little cheeky. Just like that, she started a conversation with the great artist. " They do not touch, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, have a nice dream"! At least she calls me by my full name, the artist thinks and really hopes for a beautiful, inspiring dream.
*~cc~*: Hey buddy, today I'm going to show you something special, I'm going to explain the sticky bottle to you, you remember.
Clayton: Sure, I have rarely laughed so much, it's been months now, such a funny thing !
*~cc~*: but you haven't understood anything yet !
Clayton: no, is that bad ? It was so funny, that's something, to have fun, to laugh ?
*~cc~*: Sorry buddy, today I will let you dive into deeper insights. It's about choice !
Clayton: You've already decided that I'm going to go for it, so here we go !
*~cc~*: That's right. What else do you think of when you hear the word "sticky". Think of art, of pictures and music.
Clayton: sticky sticky sticky....Sticky Fingers ! Isn't that that great album by the Rolling Stones ? One of my favorite albums.
*~cc~*: very good. Look at the album cover now !
Clayton: Well, a simple skinny jeans, some conspicuous details, red lettering the Rolling Stones and Sticky Fingers.
*~cc~*: I do not like this conspicuousness . Soon it should be covered. Not only that it is the very much me in our equation, which is pure asexual. But before that, find out a little more about the album cover, who is the officially appointed artist ?
Clayton: It's Andy Warhol.
*~cc~*: That's right. We now have the Sticky Fingers artwork. We now need another picture for the other perspective. When it comes to art, bridges and the divine, Buddy, what vision have I shared with you before?
Clayton: The two of us, on a bike, in a dreamscape. This is not possible, either I ride or you ride, but we can't both ride together, can't meet. In an imagination anything is possible. You stretch out your right arm, me my left, just touching a bit, nearly like in that painting with the completely exposed Adam. From Michelangelo.
*~cc~*: That's right. We have our two paintings and our two artists. Just like during your best performance on the full marathon distance, so I will break through the time-space constant exactly now also in an active imagination, in a dream. Build a bridge between 2 worlds. Let's meet our 2 artists.
Andy: oh, where am I, and who are you, I don't know you? Hey, that's an interesting picture ! The Rolling Stones ! Just had a longer conversation with Mick, we were there not quite agree, I'm racking my brain about a good motif, something striking, but the picture here, so it should look, of course, this conspicuousness must be seen. Great idea ! Who are you ? I recognize the other Picture. It is Adam and God, by whom...what was the name, I can't think of it right now....
Michelangelo: (clears throat) uh, yes, that would be me, my humble self: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, how can it be that one disturbs me, how can it be that one doesn't know my name although it stands in front of this one of my current works in progress ? So I see it ready before me ! Only a little bit differently, I am angry.
Andy: Of course Michelangelo, loosen up, quite easy and relaxed, it's nice here ! But who is this complete stranger here
Michelangelo: I have not given permission to call myself by my first name only. Well, I feel a certain artistic kinship, and right he is, and who are you, unknown?
Clayton: Clayton, just Clayton, Clayton B. from Wisconsin.
Michelangelo: Wiconsin, where is that, in England ? No, I feel Germania in you !
Andy: Wisconsin, the land of bottom-fermented beer, stony woods, fishponds, and yes, Germania is there too, but Marathon county and Rib Mountain State Park also come to my mind.
Michelangelo: Well, why am I here, with Clayton and Andy, who are you Clayton ? You are not an artist, not a painter at all, you are a nobody !
*~cc~*: Uh Oh Michelangelo, it's my buddy !
Andy: Holy Bimbam, the great bright eyed one, with those Dutch braids + accent, omg, these orange braids sticking out left and right, 77.7mm exactly long, this is art! Hey you look a little like Pippi Longstocking, in adult !
*~cc~*: The one with the Bimbam, we'll talk about that in a minute, so, Daddys girl, the lost mother and Annika and Tommy my heroes...is it only logical or ?
Michelangelo: we are slowly reaching a level of unimagined craziness here, it's starting to amuse me. So Clayton, if she's your friend, you can call me Michelangelo !
Clayton: Most people only know you as Michelangelo anyway, the long appendage is already forgotten by many.
Michelangelo: Filistei dell'arte !
Andy: For you Buddy, simply Andy ! I know she calls you Buddy, you're not the boy anymore !
*~cc~*: Buddys, we want to do a joint thing here today. It's about choice ! We'll start with the profane perspective, that's you, Andy!
Andy: Splendid, yes I see it in perfect shape before, a real zipper, which then shows some underwear. This conspicuousness falls right into anybody's eyes.
*~cc~*: Well, if you don't put on such tight pants then you don't see so much there, but since you are dressing in the mundane world, and to see something after all, have your actor put on tight pants so that Clayton can put his nice water bottle on it as a kind of fig leaf - like a stencil. It has to make sense to put that water bottle right there.
Andy: I see, somewhat disreputable, ingenious, profane - and that's how it's done !
*~cc~*: I have no doubt about that, you have no choice ! I want to see a conspicuous thing because I do not want to see a conspicuous thing.
Michelangelo: wonderful, if Andy may be the profane perspective, my great bright-eyed one, so I may play the sacred part, oh yes ?
*~cc~*: who else ?
Michelangelo: And our Clayton, your buddy, what's he doing here now ?
*~cc~*: He connects, joins, with me, together, as a team. In this example. Your two Artworks. He also describes it, that's the glitch. He will put his image of a simple water bottle, whatever may be inside it, as a stencil, in both of your works. As some kind of a bridge. This is happening right now, in this moment of time.
Michelangelo: stunning, though, so come on, Clayton - couldn't you have made it all a little more beautiful - this bottle, it is imperfect !
Clayton: I am, just like you 2 great artists, so also like you, Michelangelo, nothing more than an earthbound imperfect living being of flesh and blood bound in space and time.
Andy: So what ? The main thing is that we have some fun !
*~cc~*: I was and am never keen on big trophies or king titles, I've left the myself as a powerful one with this little flying thing buzzing around at every win behind me, that's why Clayton isn't the boy anymore, it's not about being the best. Let it be a very simple bottle of water.
Andy: Yes, place the bottle just like that. Very good. Now the Sticky lettering is in the right position. And everyone can think about whether they see Sticky Fingers because maybe they know the album, or if they already see Sticky Bottle in it. Individual perspective. Bombastic. I love it.
Michelangelo: What are Sticky Fingers please?
Andy: Besides the already mentioned Rolling Stones album, one of the best in rock and pop history, Sticky Fingers means something like thief, long finger. Someone who steals something. Consciously made himself guilty with it.
*~cc~*: Andy, very good. We don't need to know any more about the profane picture, your part, the profane perspective. Which position, thus which rank the one or other song takes in this music album - diversion, as said, profanity.
Michelangelo: Now I recognize a sense. The supposedly free decision. We also think about something like that. Was it the free will of the thief to commit the theft or not. Since it is the fingers of flesh and blood that do this, so from this point of view it is the will of the flesh, earthbound and thus to be condemned by laws of men. I think now it is my turn. But I have one more question.
*~cc~*: We don't have that much time left, shoot !
Michelangelo: What is this water bottle, what is special about it ?
Clayton: This is about sports, cycling in particular, you know I'm from Wisconsin, I like my Trek bicycles. Handcraft in Wisconsin.
*~cc~*: In Germania it could be a Canyon and a Cube for example, just to have 2 c's in a row. Buddy, this is totally irrelevant, get to the point !
Clayton: So it's about this bottle here, original UCI from a competition from Germany. It is about water and electrolytes. The elementary supply during physical exertion to compensate for the loss of these, so it is also about balance. You know, I'm a paramedic. Almost every patient gets fluid in the form of water with electrolytes - symbol of life, - or who wants to fill his veins or throat with fire ?
*~cc~*: We don't want a stolen fire, we want a stolen sticky bottle !
Clayton: Filled with water and electrolytes !
Andy: Beer ! Water and electrolytes. From Wisconsin. To Dionsysus. Long live the profane Rush. Passt ! Prosit der Gemütlichkeit !
Clayton: First let's ride a little bike !
Michelangelo: begs your pardon, but what is a bike, what is this cycling. I don't know this.
Clayton: A bicycle is a land vehicle of at least two wheels, usually single-track, propelled solely by the muscular power of persons on it by pedaling or hand cranks. It is not a rowing boat. The bicycle with pedal drive, chain and gears has an efficiency of 90 to 98 percent ,the joint movement efficiency of humans is 84 percent. The required kinetic energy is not as low for any mode of locomotion (of humans or animals) as for cycling.
Michelangelo: formidable ! What an exciting orchestra of the future I may attend here with you.
There has been now surely torn down all monuments of lumpy despots to exchange them with monuments with bicycle-driving humans ?
*~cc~*: No !
Michelangelo: Kulturbanausen!
*~cc~*: However in an artificial world this was already implemented.
Michelangelo: Then of course there are bicycle competitions, right ?
Clayton: Yes of course, and this is what the Sticky Bottle is about.
Michelangelo: The next question would have been, what is a Sticky Bottle in cycling ?
Clayton: Sticky bottle is a name for an offense that is committed when, during a cycling race, a helper hands a water bottle to a participant from a moving car and the cyclist holds on to this bottle too long and allows himself to be pulled by the car. Cheating. Let's see the clear superiority of the car. 170 horsepower against one person on a bike. That's why we took the UCI bottle - they make a lot of rules. I think it's forbidden to hold it for more than 5 seconds. What are we getting at? The symbol. The superiority of the man-made object. Promethean. The one who brought us the fire. Because we put so much emphasis on technology and knowledge.
Michelangelo: [laughs, laughs very long, lol, rofl ] The funny thing is, not only this Sticky Bottle, I understood this now just from the context, because you didn't explain to me what this car is. 170 horsepower. A good army. An artificial monster. A supremacy. Ridden by a human. Who then hands a bottle to a cyclist, in a bicycle race - and this cyclist holds on to it, in order to be pulled along - by exactly this monster. Funny things seem to take place far away in a world so strange to me.
*~cc~*: So Michelangelo, I think you have now understood a lot of what I am about. Explain to us also briefly which difference you recognize at this picture, already finished, in contrast to your mental model at whose conversion you still brood.
Michelangelo: That, my venerated feminine divine, I recognized immediately: Here, the now finished picture, it is to be recognized immediately that Adam stands in no way in contact with the big one God, the one light. I have been racking my brains for days about the way of the point of contact. Now it is clear. They do not touch at all. Nor should they, nor can they.
*~cc~*: That's how I helped you both, my great artists!
Clayton: Now I just have to digitally cut out this sticky bottle like a stencil copied from Andy's artwork, and then paste it into Michelangelo's artwork.
Michelangelo: what fabulous stenciling, cutting out and scaling, rotating and much more, so I still wonder a lot about these fantasy technologies. Make this sticky bottle just a little bit bigger, yes just like that, position God's thumb in that little hollow of the bottle. Yes, that's it.
Clayton: Now it fits into the hand of the image of an archetype of the old wise man who is supposed to represent the one God, drawn by you, Michelangelo.
*~cc~*: The sticky bottle filled with waters and electrolytes, symbolism of life, the stolen fire by Prometheus. As seen also as symbolism of a bridge - which connects beginning and end, the lower with the higher. The gap is now closed. The bridge is built. With the sticky bottle.
Clayton: The only difference between a great maker in the outer world, attached to so many things, with the urge to control everything with supposedly sticky fingers, and the complete nobody, whose non-attachment leads to the realization that it is not sticky fingers but a sticky bottle, is to see the illusion, to look upward with reverence and humility along the puppet strings, toward the one light, that there is no choice. With that, fear disappears into divine love, divine bliss.
*~cc~*: Buddies, great work, great divine perception, I want to say thank you and you may say thank you as well, you had no choice!
Clayton: Is the dream over already? It was very nice with you, thank you very much, very nice to have met you!
Andy and Michelangelo: I'm dreaming, but of course!
*~cc~*: Don't wake up yet, I have a little extra bliss, the Nikey Fly of the Wise divine Feminine.
Andy: Oh yeah, come on, I invite you all to Studio 54! Anything is possible in a dream!
*~cc~*: Clayton has something even better, especially for Michelangelo, but also for you Andy!
Clayton: Let’s have a gravel ride through the stoney forest of Rib Mountain State Park (for sure).
Andy and Michelangelo: oh yes !
*~cc~*: I will take the lead, ride ahead and give you some draft, like in the old days, promachos !
The somewhat fancy group of cyclists already cycled through the autumnal, stony forest over colored gravel paths covered with colorful foliage up to the forester's lodge, past the tip fir rock and the sow bath rock to the game preserve with a capital deer. At this point, the downhill began. The speed increased to an adrenaline level beyond 40 and 50. The rather shy in real life, in this dream completely thawed Andy had to shout out a loud yeahhh fun is fast, which was followed by a long weeeeeeee and a “This is even better than Studio 54.” Michelangelo could not put into words the rush of speed, faster than the fastest horses, and he dreamed of having full control of the steering wheel. Then he muttered, "I love you cultural philistines." Just before peace rocks, the sky cracked open. The bright fall colors gave way to the one light. A downhill. Like a Rolling Stone. The letting go of everything we know. And everyone woke up from their dream. Forgotten almost everything about it. Except their task to finish their art work.