(#101) CODY'S BOOKS:

Edition of 2350 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300, 26 copies are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and five sets are signed as progressives.

January 27, 1983 11 colors, including gold foil stamping, done by Marier Engraving 17-1/2" x 24"

Client: Andy Ross, Cody's Books, 2454 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley CA 94704. Telephone (510) 845-7852 A-Z: artist's own use. Progressives: 1 set to Andy Ross,

Model: Courtney Leigh Murphree & Pablo Picasso's, "Madame Picasso," 1923

On particularly clear nights you can sometimes see "The Old Moon with the New Moon in Her Arms," a sliver of the waning Moon pregnant with her deep-shadowed future self. Old love carries new love along, gradually fading away but never disappearing altogether. New love is burdened with the old. We visit punishments for sins not committed, entertain suspicions for errors that someone else made, and generally hoist all the baggage of every love and loss, every quarrel, every joy and sorrow on someone who didn't do any of it. They, of course, do just the same to us.

There's no way we can separate ourselves from our past, no way we can avoid staining the clear waters of the future with murky events that happened on another time line, with another person, with a different self entirely. If we're not careful, this wreckage of lost lives and lost loves can drag us down and spoil our chances. Then we retire from the lists of love, bitter and angry, to suck our paws in solitary misery, and hibernate through the endless winter. Better to try and do better, come what may, and try as hard as we can not to blame other people for things of which they are entirely innocent. Amor omnia vincit.* If we give it a chance.

The Old Moon with the New Moon in Her Arms I saw the new moon late yestreen, Wi' the auld moon in her arm; And if we gang to sea, master, I fear we'll come to harm. - Anonymous ballad, "Sir Patrick Spens."

And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, and I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear. - Wm. Blake (1757-1827), Songs of Innocence (1789-1790), Introduction, Stanza 5

*"Omnia vincit amor: et nos cedamus amori." "Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love." - Virgil (70 - 19 bc), Ecologues, VIII, l. 69