Ketamine

(2011) Jimmy, an old man, was a Japanese homeless artist living around a deli on 7th and Prince 11 years ago, though we had left the city a few months before. We'd gotten to know him - which was a bit difficult, trying to follow his discourse in a heavily accented, broken English. He might have been schizophrenic or more likely have had other problems (stroke), seeing as his mobility was somehow not qu ite right. Anyway, he never asked for money, in fact refused to accept charity of any kind. So we would 'commission' art and bring him supplies and then buy the resulting works, heavily influenced by his Onymodo, yin-yang philosophy. The balance of things. And there on the street he would elegantly move his hand and arm in the drawing of koi's in a pond or other, seeming happy at least in those moments. When it was very cold at night the help in the deli would let him sit inside the plastic tent covering their flowers.      Still, as slowly he incompletely related h...