Comstockery

Anthony Comstock, [excessive] censorship. Exflunctify (!), to overcome, to use up. This new dictionary/novel is killing me one word at a time. Are 'Slow Children' signs politically correct? B over mid-morning, haven't seen him in 10 days, touch base, quick cup of coffee, some starts for me to plant. When he knocks I'll looking at a picture of that impossible staircase in Santa Fe. Double helix, rises over 16 feet to a choir loft in Loretto Chapel. Story goes that an itinerant carpenter, 1878, stopped by, built it in four months and disappeared without payment. An act of God. I know maybe three people who could build it today, with space-age components, and I'm not one of them. I could be, I think, but I'd have to read a lot about some things I don't care about and the math would be difficult for me. Find a picture, it's unbelievable. Thinking about stairs because I want to do an exterior set to access the front deck, a single stringer down the middle, half-log treads, massive. The stringer would need to be curved through 45 degrees, maybe eight feet long, and at least 16 inches diameter. Why is it a 'set' of stairs? Riser and tread? Railing and riser? Up and down? Herbert, my stair mentor, said that 17 and a half inches was perfect for the combined rise and tread, he was a small man, I like 20, 8 inch rise and 12 inch tread. After I left Colorado, Dennis called from outside Telluride, he had a staircase to build and wanted to run it by me. I was flattered, he's a genius with wood. For the outside stringer, exposed (there was no inside stringer, the treads would be buried in a rock wall) he was going to take a stick he had cut, 16 feet long, an 8x14, rip it into strips a quarter inch wide, build a form, and bend them into the shape required. Dennis is so good, that I can visualize the glue lines will look like growth rings, he's that good, and I say sure, that all works, we talk it through. My own tendency is to take a walk in the woodlot and find a tree that might work, a particular curve. Important distinction between hammering something into your position or using something found. I spend several serious hours visualizing what I might build, steam an artichoke, the largest vegetable I can find. Fucking Cicadas, they are really loud; B , even blanched, is better than most, scratching for anything I could k(ghat) though, i unsuruct YOU, know, whatever., where we think we might go . What is reveled, what is was, I was looking at a construct, playing with the noun. I don't know what I mean.