Spatter Theory

The finches are riding the pampas grass again. I was watching them and D drove up, said -the birds are in the pampas grass again- so not only is it an observable thing, it would seem to be a seasonal thing as well. They must remember. I know nothing about bird brains but myself. It was, of course, a childhood nickname. I was cleaning up some unidentifiable spatters on the floor today, main gallery, couldn't figure out what it was, like melted plastic. If it was remains of some food I don't want any, as it had morphed into a kind of epoxy-like resin. Very hard, had to scrape it up with a razor blade. Maybe punch sugars reacting to the floor finish and converting to plastic. Maybe the Deputy or D melted the edge off a plastic cup with a lighter, to fuck with me. Whatever, I was reminded of the series of classes, at Janitor College, on Spatter Theory. Great old professor, Myron Mumble, Head Janitor for the surgical floor at Mayo, and a forensic witness long before there was such a thing. He knew the slings and arrows. His death was so strange, so perfect. He had been in the surgical suite so many times that they often asked him to scrub, suit up, and sit in on a particular surgery because he knew more than they did. There was a patient with an occluded bowel, he was eating a 55 Chevy for the Guinness Book Of Records, and Myron saw that there was a gas build-up behind the occlusion, tried to warn the surgeon and nurses, but there were four killed and three wounded by flying shrapnel. Worst toll by exploding body ever. A natural exploding body. Not your C4, ball bearing, exploding body of today, but at the time, the worst there had been. Took a direct hit from a walnut coming in tonight, a dint in the roof, it was so loud I almost drove off the road, fucking nuts, man, they catch you off guard. You're thinking about something, off in your mind, and suddenly BAM an acorn hits the new woodshed roof, then BAM, BAM, and you forget what you were thinking about. Spatter Theory, what's that?, I'm thinking about breakfast, the smell of bacon, I want toast and jam. BAM, an interesting beat, irregular, I like that, the irregular part, then it kind of makes sense, and I worry about it, because it makes sense. I wasn't even trying for that. I don't understand sense. Read more...

Stochastic Factors

Effectively, accidents, drought, hurricane, fire, that affect animal population densities. Reading about the passenger pigeon, depressing, when D shows up with 1,500 lbs of gravel for the driveway holes, we shovel it out, then add some braces to the woodshed, add an extra purlin for the roof metal overlap, and put the lid on (as many carpenters refer to the act of roofing with metal). Storage space for wrack. Load D up with materials for the wrack furniture, drive over the new gravel a few times, to pack it. Progress in spite of myself. The roof metal, in 8 foot and 12 foot lengths varies slightly in corrugations (great word, I love the way it sounds), which is plain silly, but we make it work, it is just a woodshed. I haven't had one since Missip, Colorado so dry it wasn't necessary because the snow wasn't wet, but here it will be a good thing. My style is one big pile of firewood in the middle, but I might get into stacking. Most firewood users are compulsive stackers, even anal, and in the house, I too make lovely ricks, but only because I need to lose surface moisture and my two-by-two ricks are perfect for that, and they have to balance 12 high, so they tend toward the uniform, with usually a gnarly split knot on top. Soon enough. Need to pick up the pace every weekend from now until November 15th, when the show opens, then get a couple of things done around here, including firewood and back porch roof. Will my house ever be finished? No. Will it last until I die? Yes. If I can outlive child-support I have a fighting chance. Today gives me a fighting chance, the woodshed, the driveway repair, but I probably need a cell-phone eventually, so I could call B or Ronnie to come and save my sorry ass, I've broken my leg or something. I need to smoke this cured loin, so it doesn't need cooking, then could be thin sliced for sandwiches or whatever. It's amazing, rinsed of the cure and soaked in papaya juice, it's one of the finest things I've ever eaten. If curing pork was an Olympic sport, I'd win a metal. I mean, really, I don't brag on myself often, I'm more usually self-deprecating about some foible or the other, I know I'm imperfect in almost every way, but I can cure a pork loin in ways that make grown men cry. Various Jewish friends have called me The Devil. I accept that. Maybe I am. Eight out of ten of my fingernails are deformed, as a secondary characteristic of another disease, and I eat meat. Does that qualify me? The Devil's Advocate, certainly, but him himself, I think not, you got the entire administrative branch to fill that slot, what do they think they're doing? I could run this country better and I'm a janitor. Clearly, intelligence is an impediment, lack of, you can be dumber than a fence post and do just fine, keep your finger poised on the trigger, and not do too much harm. But the next president gets to appoint two Supreme Court Justices and that could turn the tide. Over-ruling everything. Scary. Who would Palin nominate, after McCain suffered a stroke? Keeps me awake at night. Someone else who had killed a caribou? Another Hockey Mom? Please. I don't want to appear politically incorrect, but I have a problem, this woman is dumber than a fence post, and I don't want her 'a heart-beat away', I want her far away, a small town in Alaska, where she wouldn't threaten me, I don't want her nominating Supreme Court Justices.
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Salacious Details

Hung over. Dinner, drinking and laughs, pay the piper. Nice shrimp fried rice. Extracted broth from the shells and made a nice clam chowder for dinner tonight. Bags of extra oyster crackers at the museum and I finally took one, because I sensed the beginning of soup season, and they were perfect; with Wilted Lettuce, what my Mom calls it, just make a regular salad, whatever suits your fancy, and as a dressing use hot bacon fat. This is very good. Young spinach is particularly fine this way. Finally some color, and the leaves are falling, and the acorns; it's kind of noisy, actually, but a lovely distraction. Rerereading parts of "Song Of The Dodo" because I hadn't put it away and it was at hand when I plopped down on the sofa, arm across my eyes against the morning light. This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, so early in the morning. Read a chapter or an essay, take an Advil, maybe two. Loren left a bud, mid-afternoon I break it apart, smoke a bowl, watch golf and then Nascar for a few minutes, wondering whether I should get satellite, so that I might have greater choice. Not a good idea, I'd watch the Food Channel all the time. I think we're all addictive, whatever turns your crank, and there is something for everyone, out there, somewhere. Zeno, consider the lilies of the field, the crows, the fox; Brandy asked me, I couldn't duck the question, I told her, and I believe this to be the truth, that we are entering the fox season, I'll see her now, because she wants that to happen, or it to happen, whatever, whichever. Two emus go into a bar. One of them is cuddling a hairless Mexican dog. The other asks for two martinis, shaken, not stirred: which one is the alpha male? You see what I mean?
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In The Mix

Fruit flies have gotten smarter, taste terrible. They like my drink. Had to stop eating bananas until after the first couple of frosts. Staff meeting, much talk about the Wrack Show. Interest and some confusion. Briefly below the floodwall but we couldn't recover the hawser without some sort of loppers, though no one else can either, so, confident we'll get it. The missing link, one of, could use more rope. Start in earnest at the shed on Monday, sorting pieces, making lists, and it all feels right. Will be good to start handling the actual sticks. Had an excellent visualization of the pergola today, especially after Nick's suggestion that we might soak grape vines in water, to soften them, and wrap them around a section of it, would also serve as a kind of reinforcement. D could turn some pegs from found sticks, standard size shaft with a bulbous head, a great attachment. God-damned black snake in the grass, walking in tonight, and it wouldn't have frightened me so badly but I was deep in a reverie, thinking about B carving a roughly female shape, viewed from behind, that might be in the other 'Peeping Tom' window. I get preoccupied. Then, after dinner, a can of beans, bread and cheese, some olives, I'm thinking about two things, on a kind of rotating basis; one is how this sort of installation is site specific, and the other, more important, for me, now, is that the materials dictate what and how they do what they do. I've used natural sticks, in construction, for years, but more recently I only want to use natural forms, I'm not interested in 90 degree corners and all the rest of it. Regularity bores me, I've been around too long, built too many houses. B and I have talked about this, the last house I build will have no right angles, will be built from reject sticks collected from the bone-yard of saw-mills, shingled with slats cut from shipping pallets, a modest shack without running water, just enough electricity to charge batteries so I can write. I'd rather use an oil lamp to see. The light is better. Speaking of which. The angle of light changes almost daily and the leaves are drifting, another year is dying. Are your ducks in a row? It's all a matter of latitude, what you allow. I am, actually, better off than last year, when I was completely ill-prepared, and that's all I wanted to be, a little better off. I don't want life to be easy or I tend to nod off, fall asleep at the wheel, and I need to stay attentive, or I don't notice things, and I need to notice things or I feel I'm wasting my time. A Catch 22 but there you are. My ego is not on the line, but my life is.
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Hello Dolly

There is another articulation, counter-intuitive, but there. One thinks of legs as coming straight out of the body, but if you swing each leg around, so that it comes out the opposite side of the hub, presto. Moving the other piano on stage for tuning, we noticed the configuration of it's dolly, looked at each other with a head-slap, -but of course, Watson!- and five minutes later we had the second dolly contorted into position. It will work and we are fools, I apologize to those I damned to hell, their nostrils clogged with radioactive dust, I was too quick to judge, may the curse I swore against their children unto the 7th generation be lifted. An easier day and welcomed. Nick Gampp, The Gamppster, brought his Art History classes over to the museum today and he got there early; as a co-conspirator on the Wrack Show, having seen his name in print, wanted to know the plan. We walked the gallery together, exchanging ideas, it was quickly apparent that we would have fun with this installation. Nick is a pack-rat, has always viewed the debris fields as a kind of shopping mall, a collage artist of great refinement and a wonderful abstract painter, he adds at least one more dimension to our thinking here. Welcome aboard. Sara comes in because we're raucous, wondering what's up, starts laughing at the ideas spilling out. There's a ledge, outside the 2nd story gallery we'll be using, that is actually in the downstairs gallery, and Nick wants to line it with old tires (common wrack) and use bleach bottles (common wrack) suspended on monofilament (common wrack) to spell out the name of the show. We hadn't thought of that. And he has some windows, sans glass, that will be perfect for the windows we need. It's coming together. It might be out of control. For the first time this week D and I take a full lunch break at the pub and the other genius local artist teacher guy is there, and he too wonders what's up, what he can do, how to be involved. I ensure him a pedestal, a space, what I think now should be one of the 'windowed corners' we're imagining as adjacent houses to the house we'll be suggesting. Sounds vague even to me, but something 'site specific' has to be vague or it becomes predictable. Lane wants some parameters and we can supply them. He wants to fill a space after we define it, fair enough. We'll give him a space, the northeast corner. Today, I saw these two spaces, northeast and northwest corners, that I had imagined as walled-off 'other houses' that we were looking into from the outside, a kind of peeping Tom thing, as kind of sexy. I'll mention that to Lane. I accept the role of lead conspirator (Sara asked me to write the artist's statement) but only in so far as it allows the installation: if it fails it is my failure, if it succeeds it's a group success. I'm comfortable with that. The last couple of days, I realized my ego isn't on the line: I write, my readers judge me, I care about that, but in my professional job, I'm a janitor, I unclog toilets, I mop, who expects much from him? The kicker, of course, it that this is going to be a great show. I love making people wrap their brains around that. The janitor did what? I want a larger space to fill. The economy? Give me a big stick and free-reign. If I had a plunger large enough, I could fix this. Don't get me started on Palin.
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No Subject

Too tired to think. Ate some leftover lunch for dinner, then sat in my chair staring into space. The piano doesn't fit the dolly but the piano must be moved, probably have to carry the damned thing so make some arrangements with some large guys. The piano tuner does what he calls a rough tuning, but the instrument needs to be in location for the final adjustments. The second piano we move on stage, after sweeping the chips and scrapings of a turning demonstration, after setting up chairs for a lecture, after starting to clean the kitchen after the Board Dinner, after clearing tables and chairs from the gallery, after doing several sinks full of dishes, after unplugging a toilet. The piano doesn't fit the dolly, still, when we look at it again, later, and we discuss modifications. We discuss redrilling some of the holes, we discuss cutting the sleeves, cutting the arms, bolting the casters on in a different configuration, sending the damned thing back. Do more dishes, put away more chairs. The Richards Gallery was packed for the lecture and people are slobs, they drop things to the floor in public spaces they would never drop at home, and while I'm sweeping I docent a group through the turnings. A variation on Mop And Tell. I still can't believe the piano doesn't fit the dolly, the hoops we jumped through to order exactly the correct unit, the piano tuner is cool, reminds us that the 800 number person has never moved a piano, checks our specs, says that, yes, that dolly is supposed to work for that piano but that clearly it doesn't. Move on. Elect to cut the sleeves, have them cut, with a plasma torch at Rush Welding, later. The concert is Sunday and we have to move the piano tomorrow, so it can be final tuned. No way around it: we have to carry the fucker. Consider a Grand Piano and the way loading is carried down through the legs, consider the stress on the joints where the legs meet the body, consider the weight of the sounding board, there is no way in hell to roll this thing across an uneven floor, something will snap, a piano in your lap. Yet, ever stupid, they've put these cute little casters on the bottom of the legs, which we'll have to remove to put the damned thing on a dolly, assuming we surgically alter a dolly to fit, and those cute little casters, solid brass in a fitted sleeve, are $160 each, AND DON'T WORK. I'm beyond appalled, in denial. I have friends that work in clay that could design a better system, I have friends that work on paper that would never imagine this would work. You don't run a sport's car on bicycle wheels, what were they thinking? Inept fucking assholes. Like Clov said In "Endgame" -But my dear sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers- a tailor with principles, my kind of guy. What the janitor said. I wasn't even going to write tonight, but I'm glad I did, I feel better. Surely I must have offended someone. My job. Love those pictures of your kids, we should take a cruise, watch the sea-level rising. Going to hell in a hand-basket.
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Nice Breeze

Falling leaves, though no color change yet. About a zillion geese at the lake. The museum is totally trashed, and, of course, my little apprentice janitor person calls in sick, seriously, emergency room sick. D is back from some days off but he absolutely most spend the day designing a mailer and fixing various computers. A string of events upcoming, one right after another, so I spend the day putting away chairs and tables, sweeping, mopping, the floor is as bad as I've ever seen, except for that Sinclair reception a couple of years ago where they actually slung beer at each other and we had to repaint walls. Nothing surprises me anymore, maybe not nothing, but close, very little. The way people abuse public places. The menu is written on the floor. D and I talk about the Wrack Show, I walk the space, counting posts in my head, what we need. He assembled the sand-blaster while he was off and I can hardly wait to use it. It's a process whereby what is hidden is revealed, taking away what isn't necessary, blowing off the sap-wood to reveal the heart. I'm a builder, essentially, where things are added to define, paring down is almost the opposite of that, but what has happened for me, in the last decade especially, is that I want the materials to speak for themselves. I don't want to mediate, though I am, at heart, a mediator. Letting go is difficult, it's easier to exercise control, but after many years of demanding a specific outcome (that set of stairs will look like this) what I want now is to see what happens if you follow the grain. It's a paradigm shift, but subtle, you get good at something and then relinquish control. The stairs in my house, for instance, look like something I've done, I did, in fact, build them, but my ego was not involved, I was just paying attention to what the materials could do, they dictated what could be done, not the other way around. I don't want control, I want to watch the ducks, notice the crows, fix breakfast for dinner and smile at the discrepancy, read a book at the island, and write you, about my confusion. The wind picks up and a few more leaves fall, it doesn't matter, but I'm watching, I take the time to watch. What is insignificant becomes important, the way the leaves turn, a subtle difference in light, I've always liked fall, the intimation of death, like taxes, what you can't escape. Human too, after all. I have a rash on my foot and a rash in my crotch, I treat them as best I know how, still I scratch and itch, sometimes it's unbearable, I wake up in the night uncomfortable and bleeding, but I'm alive, and it's better than the alternative. Didn't mean to go there, but there it is.
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Bitter Acorns

Euell Gibbons made the point in "Stalking The Wild Asparagas" that there was, actually, the occasional sweet acorn. He's correct, they're rare, but I've found at least one everyplace I've ever lived. They make a good meal and you can make an acceptable Bible Cracker (a simple, long-keeping thing) out of them, a kind of survival food like hard-tack. I haven't found a tree that bears them here yet, but I've tasted a lot of bitter acorns. In Missip, Roy had taken me over to meet Big-Head White, an ancient curer and smoker of pork, must have been 90 years old and didn't much like a white guy standing in his yard. I won him over after a few visits. I always called him sir and he always giggled at that. His cured and smoked hams were as good as anything I every tasted. After smoking, he coated them with many layers of a flour and water paste, with a lot of black pepper, carefully dried between coats, to "keep the weevils out". There was an old white oak tree in his yard, probably first growth, a monster, and we were sitting under it one day, drinking home-brew, telling stories about giant catfish and snapping turtles. The ground was littered with large acorns and I picked one up, scraped off a sliver with my pocket knife and tasted it. I remember the moment vividly, Roy was telling a story about digging a 78 pound snapper out of a creek bank, Big-Head was watching me take off a second then a third shaving and finally said -boy, what the fuck you doing?- and I told him about the occasional sweet acorn. He didn't believe me but asked for a sliver, got a big grin on his weathered face and said -now, how the hell would a white boy know that?- He called out to his wife, I loved her dearly, Emma, she made the best Hush Puppies I've ever eaten, we shared recipes for various forgotten dishes, to come outside. A beautiful, stoic, old, old woman with arthritic claws for hands, who moved slowly, with great precision. He asked me to slice her a sliver, which I did, she smiled when she tasted it, said her grandfather, a Chickasaw, had once mentioned that no one ate acorns anymore. Ask me what I did with them and I told her about Bible Crackers, next time I was over there, I didn't see them often, she brought out a plate of what I'd have to call cookies, way better than anything I'd ever made, said she'd added "some rising and a bit of honey" to my meal and water recipe. In hindsight, I'm amazed I wasn't lynched in Missip, this was the 80's and it was still completely segregated, but most of my friends were black, they came to my house, I went to their houses. Roy and I were tight, the Mutt and Jeff of Duck hill. When his brother died, in a knife-fight outside a roadhouse, I helped him cook for the wake, he called on me to help, wanted me there, and the only incident was when a cousin questioned his choice of assistants, and Roy swatted him across the yard with a backhand, -Tom- he said, -is good people, don't matter what color he is- and I was proud to be his friend. Choppers over the clear-cut, looking for illicit crops, blatant blat bleat echoing through the hollows, surely they have something better to do than nailing a bunch of rednecks for earning a living. A couple of pot plants can't possibly be more important than a failing economy. Far as I can see, pot is the economy, look at the numbers, tax it and you've got a windfall. If I were President. A fat joint in every hand and a chicken in the pot. Wait, that's not what I meant. Root beer in the soda fountains. A great dipping sauce. Maybe it is what I meant. No one is better off than they were but the .001% who should be shot, the rest of us eat acorns and wait for change. What percentage of that 700 billion will actually do anything? Most of it is profit. I was expecting you'd bail me out. I love the boat, I love the skimpy bikinis. I understand Monaco is nice, this time of year.
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Manic Episode

Different angle to the morning light and I see I really need to do some house cleaning, break out the shop-vac, large espresso. Crazy man on a caffeine high, vacuuming in his underwear. Then a sheep watering-trough bath, then a huge bacon, potato, eggs and toast brunch. Feeling nearly normal, I almost wish I had a Sunday paper, reread some Guy Davenport stories, "Eclogues", then doodle for a couple of hours, spatial configurations for the Wrack Show. Need to work outside part of the day tomorrow, as the brush is infringing, but not too much, as a very busy week ahead at the museum: it's all about balance. I lived with a dancer, once, who practiced a kind of Tai Chi stretching routine, a part of which had her standing on one foot, very like a flamingo, and the difference between her and the rest of us, was that she was rock solid in that position, not a quiver, still as a statue. Loading, and muscle control. Shooting is a good test, but I don't want to hear the report. I have a compound bow and some target tips, some dense foam off-cuts, so I make a gallery, mount a New Yorker cover that features George W, pace off fifty feet; I take my time, control my breathing, I've never shot competition, never wanted to, I'm not competitive, but my first shot is center-of-mass. He's a dead man. I'm pleased with myself, and lucky. And I am lucky, any gambler will tell you luck is very real, the breath of the gods; I'm still alive, that should tell you something, the things I've ingested, the things I've done. A slow starter, maybe, because I didn't die at 28, which is when most icons fall, I was just getting my chops, for christ's sake, didn't have the money for uncut drugs or whatever else, I was drinking cheap ale and smoking home-grown bud. Maybe I missed the point, but I was still alive. Survival is everything. Darwin was correct. Or Wallace.
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Dark Cars

I don't like being behind people, especially people with darkly tinted windows. Pain in the ass. Can't see ahead. Library, laundry, liquor store. Poked my head in at the wedding reception, lots of fragrant people and ribs cooking in the alley. Below the floodwall I reassure myself that there is the Wrack we need for the Show, need to get down there with a chainsaw and some trucks. Refound the hawser tangled in a tree at water's edge, 2 inch braided nylon, colorful, we can unbraid and use for lashing, found another prolate spheroid. Sitting on a convenient stump, I stare at one of the debris fields, considering the physics involved. There was a spin to it, for sure, powered by the river's flow, but contained by two large logs that were wedged between trees, the water dropped out from under it, and what we see, now months later, is something we might call a River Turning, which oddly mimics the show we follow, Far From The Tree (a Turning Show). We could call our show Not Far From The Tree, or River Sticks, but I like River Wrack, because everything is not sticks, there are burls and balls and even a miniature fire truck that must have ridden in on something's back, there's a plastic tiger, a GMC enema bag (?), and all the shoes we didn't collect that we should have collected, flip-flops and tennis shoes and whatever those other plastic things are called, we could have carpeted the pergola with shoes. There's another show I'd like to do, The Debris Field, where we'd photograph the field and reconstruct it, as close as possible, using all the parts. You could walk around it. Found art, the physics would be apparent. It would be transparent and almost meaningless, a simple backwater, yet, something. And something is better than nothing, usually, a nod toward direction. The phone rings, I could not answer, clearly an option, probably a telemarketing call from India, but my parents are dying and my daughters need me, so I pick up the phone, it's another call about the Direct TV thing I have to have before February, I tell them to fuck themselves and slam the phone back in the hook. Nowhere near as bad as what I told the Palin people to do. That involved a camel's ass and a needle, sundry angels and the head of a pin. They were confused. When their finger was off the trigger, I kneed them in the groin and broke both their arms. I'm a passionate guy.
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Actuate Signal

Turn it up a notch. Fire in the hole. Set up for a wedding reception, 150 people, in a room large enough for 100, just do it. And the menu? Barbecued ribs, slaw, cheese potatoes, nuts and candies, spiked punch, in an over-crowded room? I believe we're looking at a world-class mess. Ground nuts in the grout joints, sauce and spilled punch everywhere, bone middens in the corners. But you only get married once or twice, so pull out the stops. I had taken some notes, during the day, some things to think about, but I can't read them. This thing about seeing more clearly, without my glasses, has me leaving them everywhere. My handwriting has become a scrawl. The bride's helpers don't show, so I assist with table decorations, filling the nut-cups, arraigning fake flowers; as the day progresses she gets closer and closer to the edge, getting married tomorrow, overwhelmed. -Listen- I tell her, -it's not that big a deal and it probably won't last- she throws a peanut at me. -You can throw a peanut at me, but the statistics don't lie- she throws another nut, but at least she's smiling, we finish the tables. She's an attractive lady but wears too much make-up, I don't tell her that. Stage make-up on the street looks like a mask, you can see the edges. I ask about her dress, always a good question for the bride-to-be, and what perfume she'll be wearing, she looks at me strangely, as though I were an alien. I explain my theatrical background, costumes and such, a certain knowledge of style (her Mom has arrived to help, has me pegged as the custodian, which is not untrue) and she thinks I'm probably gay, because I ask about the dress and the scent. I'm just trying to defuse her panic attack, I don't care what she thinks of me, I'll never see her again, and what she thinks of me, or the questions I ask, are of no import. Some of her friends arrive, already after closing, and I agree to stay a bit longer, while they sort out details. I'm just the custodian, what kind of life could I have? Return to my hovel and abuse animals? Drive out on a rural road and shoot mail-boxes? The geese have arrived, they cluster in great numbers at the lake, and if the winter isn't too bad they stay, if it is, they go further south, they shit profusely and the grass becomes slick, they honk and waddle, they amuse me. They truly announce the change of seasons, look to your woodpile, look to your larder, the times, as Robert says, are changing. I slept on the sofa last night, so the sun would wake me first thing, and I was already late. Still, first frost will be the end to bugs, and I really don't mind walking up the driveway, at least the snakes will be gone and I might see the fox, and unexpected guests are cut from nothing to less than nothing, good odds, if you look at things statistically, and you want to be alone. Consider the crows squawking, it sounds like meaning, brother can you spare a dime? Boz Skaggs, that first album, Dwane Allman on lead guitar, lord have mercy. As good as it gets.
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An Inversion

Late onset, extremely localized, very dense fog, locked on town. Thick as I've ever seen. Below the floodwall, on the lower road, you can't see the river 50 feet away. It's like a Science Fiction movie, mutated catfish crawling from the water and eating people, slime monsters dissolving cars. The fog bank ends right at the Scioto River where it empties into the Ohio, like a big inverted bowl with the New Bridge abutments rising out of the cloud (they're 336 feet tall). It doesn't smell or taste that I can tell. I need to read up on fog, and tidal nodes, they came up yesterday, in conversation with Tony. He'd mentioned that his dog liked the ocean in Key West, because the waves were small, and I had lived there, knew the tides were very small, inches, so what is a tidal node? I only know it is one. Also once spent a night on the shores of the Bay Of Fundy where the tides are 45 feet and watched a standing wave you could surf. I'm sensing a Bell Curve here, most tides are probably 4 feet, or maybe 6, then there are the far ends, 5 inches and 50 feet; a standing wave goes up the Amazon every day. Enough with the fog, I think, I've got a full plate and not enough time, so I go to the bakery for coffee and scones and Liz greets me with upraised arms. The second batch of scones are still in the oven, if I'll just pay she'll deliver them, she already has orders for a dozen, knows where everybody works, knows where the back door is. Warm scones delivered at the door is an unexpected treat, come on, hand delivery of fresh pastries, whatever the circumstance, would have to be considered a good thing. Another day like yesterday, I have a list of things I need to do. Borrow the Deputy's van to deliver some art to the hospital, they over-bought, four things, colorful, to decorate the lobby of the new Hospice, they've got the money, they're swimming in money, and the lobby needs some color. When I finally find it. They're building so many buildings so fast no one can keep track. I ask three people at the main hospital and they don't have a clue where the Gibson Building is, I find it by accident, trying to get back out and admit defeat. I find Jennifer, first door on the right, the messiest office I've ever seen, and she's one of those smallish women filled with energy, bursting, so happy to see me. You know it's a fake persona but you go along with it. She has a good job and she knows it. Decorating waiting rooms. I get the Deputy's van back without a scratch, my goal, and wonder about the politic. I (the janitor) using the Deputy's van (which is totally trashed with baby stuff and water bottles and juice containers) to deliver art to a place that can afford it, when the market is tanking. Something is wrong. The Palin Ticket is wrong, consider the Supreme Court. Scary. I'd probably move to Canada.
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Counting Time

The day disappeared. It started, and then it was over. A long succession of separate tasks. Sara wanted me to deliver some art that had been purchased. Set Mary to some jobs I'd normally be doing. Three deliveries to make, a small event (Art Talk, one of the photographers) to set-up for. First, though, to really start the day right, even after I had brought her a scone, the Deputy finds it necessary to hurl a little sexual harassment my way. The ladies were having a Does thatquick conversation about husbands and sex, I excused myself, to go open the museum, and Pegi asked if the conversation bothered me, -no- I turned and said, the Deputy looked me up and down and said -you dress that way because you want it- Pegi laughed so hard she spit and covered her mouth. Smoothly delivered, excellent pace. Very funny. All three deliveries were to secretaries who knew nothing about any art, everyone an instant critic; between 2nd and 3rd deliveries set up a couple of tables with chairs and an extra dozen chairs, 3rd delivery, University President's office, three secretaries, and they're a little bumfussled by my extremely casual manner, but Rita, the president, sticks her head out the inner office door, and says -hi Tom, thanks for bringing that over- -no problem, Rita, but get somebody to frame it strongly, there's a warp in the stretcher- I love these little Janitor - President exchanges. The stunning sculptress from Yellow Springs is in the upstairs gallery, with grandmother and baby and I docent them around. Anna allows she might like to try a piece for the Wrack Show, and, oddly, we had picked up a stick, thinking about her, a cherry log, we think. River sticks don't yield up there true self right away, like a regular tree, they're usually smooth and gray, not much to go on. Then the Art Talk, Tony Mendoza, the best of the photographers in this show, I think, strange perspective, surreal, beautiful. His work sells for about a $1,000 a pop, it's beautiful. He's interesting, Cuban, funny, major grants in three different fields and just the right amount frumpy. He and Sara finish lunch together and I chat with them for a few minutes, then feel a little strange, the Artistic Director and the Artist finishing lunch, and the janitor is sitting in, as if he's waiting for them to finally set down that cup so he can spirit it off with the garbage. I have fish to fry, as my Dad always says, when you ask him what he's doing. One of the two blue banners blew away in the wind storm and Sara's husband, Clay, found it wrapped around a tree. Oh, wait a minute, one other thing about the scene, there at the end with Sara and Tony. I hadn't cleaned up yet, of course, and there was a jumble of chairs and the two tables, and just Sara and Tony, both bent over a card table, finishing lunch, chatting, and behind then is the front wall of the gallery, with all those photographs, it was a lovely picture. So I took the tattered remains of the banner down to the sign shop, to get another one made, chatted briefly with them. Victor is a shooter, so we talked shooting, bullshit stories, I can bullshit with almost anyone. Interfaced with many people today, way too many. I have an interaction overload thing going on, get a footer on the way home, some pepper poppers, make a large drink when I come through the door. 48 degrees this morning and I'd left the house closed up. It smelled like dirty socks. An unwelcome hour cleaning. How can I be both a very good janitor and a very bad house-keeper? Then I could write (to you, as it happens), and we'd make sense of it, together. I mean, really: sometimes I have a Subject Line, sometimes I have a Subject, rarely both, I merely write, it's only in imagining what you think I'm saying that allows me. You enable me. I can imagine that said in a more romantic framework, but there you are. Not that there couldn't be some nude scenes, but you see what I mean. How is that, that you see what I mean? Not an idle question, because the Wrack Show is a question, what is it doing? I don't know, but I like the way it sounds.
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What's Missed

Expecting symmetry I was confused. Had to measure again. A grand piano is not bi-laterally symmetrical, therefore it follows that the legs are not equidistance apart. There's the issue of equipoise, even distribution of weight. All three distances between legs are different. All pianos are different, the brands; our new one, the upstairs grand, is a Young Chang, which the music guy says is a fine instrument. This one weighs right at 1,000 pounds. The new dolly arrived today, in three heavy boxes, requiring assembly, 14 pieces, 22 bolts. Dollies for grands come in several sizes, all adjustable in a certain range. You have to assemble it finger-tight, lift the piano, take off the little useless casters, hold it in the air while someone adjusts the three arms of the dolly, set it down, tighten the nuts, take the piano off, really torque the nuts, then lift the damned thing on again. What fun, need some guys from the pub, they always joke about wanting to help (Jim said he could hang a show quickly, with a nail gun). This the way I always moved printing presses, bet a couple of large guys that they can't lift something, buy them a beer at Happy Hour. An assembly like this dolly, what I do is lay everything out, bolts next to their holes (the bolts are all different sizes), look at the diagram until I understand it, then start fitting pieces, goes perfectly, each arm gets a caster and a cup to hold the piano leg, top and bottom center plates that bolt to three sleeves, the arms go into the sleeves with a large bolt set-screw to hold them in place, assembled upside down so the nuts and lock-washers are on the bottom (easy to get confused here, but all goes well, I turn the thing over. There are two adjustments possible on each arm: the sleeve pivots on a single half-inch bolt, and the arm goes in and out, maximum "in" is snug against the caster. Killer casters, 5", swivel, with bearings and a grease fitting. The arms dip down, in an "L" so that the piano isn't five inches too high, clever bastards. I lock everything at the fullest "in" position and measure the arms, thinking to get them close to where they need to be, measure the piano again, then measure the dolly. I don't think it's the correct dolly. Despite the fact that I've measured everything so many times, had D call the toll-free number, despite the fact that there was only one dolly (in the online catalog) for Young Chang, stood next to D when he was making the call, verified all information twice. I'm confused. End of the day I realize I could maybe turn the casters the other way, the wrong way, but they are slotted and will fit that way, and the load bearing is the same, gain maybe the few inches it seems to me we need. I built a very interesting studio for a guy once, who could actually do the math that would tell me whether or not moving the arms "in" one inch would be enough to allow a fit. Tomorrow I need to rebolt the casters, I can't do the math. I could make a cardboard model, if I needed to, if it was important, but it's not. Rebolt. Howe and I, the most lucrative stair-job of all time, in Telluride, got called into a Condo job, where the stairs were log stringers with half-log steps, four sets of stairs for four condos. The concrete pour had been off, and the landings weren't perfect, they couldn't figure out what to do. We made a jig, extendable at both ends, turned it into a piece of cake, took us a day to make the jig and install the first set of steps, but we had them all done in a week and paid a flat $300 per set. I bought a 1st, Hard, "Gravity's Rainbow" and a case of Ridge Zinfandel. The back-up plan is that we just carry the fucking piano where it needs to be, in the main gallery, for tuning, and playing at the event. We can do that, it's not even a problem, but I wonder why we have the wrong dolly, we could not have been more clear. I occurs to me that those people on the phone, they've never actually moved a piano, they were flipping pages in a book or something, we really weren't on the same world. I don't flatter myself, I don't need to, I fuck up, I'm wrong often enough that it doesn't seem unnatural, but I can measure; unless the legs were realigned in transport, this dolly won't work for that piano. If you had to turn the casters sideways there should have been a note. I'd do that, if I was shipping them out, -hey, by the way, buddy, if I was doing this I'd turn the casters sideways- but I wouldn't be working there, so that's mute. I wonder what the co-efficient is. It's a complex equation, two unknowns, like most marriages. My gut feeling is we gain enough, if we turn the casters around, still, I hate the fact that it isn't correct, this is an expensive dolly, and I expected it to be correct. Fuckers. I find I'm disappointed in almost everyone's attention to detail, Kim gets it, but almost no one else, so maybe those of us that get it are wrong, certainly possible, too tightly focused, I've thought about this; what you thought you'd learned, what you thought you'd heard, what you thought you'd seen, I came away from this neutral, I didn't believe or disbelieve anything, I just watch.
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The Wind

Remnants of Ike, strong winds all day, increasing in the afternoon, 30 to 50 mph. Still mostly in leaf, the forest takes a beating. Brown-outs and black-outs and finally losing power for good about 5 in the afternoon, cold supper, a can of beans, then rereading essays by Carl Sauer, by candle-light as the day darkens. Early morning there is still no power and debris everywhere, finally, at 10 o'clock, electricity again and I can have a cup of coffee, some breakfast, take stock. Rain mostly missed, off to the north and west and the temps are 25 degrees cooler. I hike far enough down the driveway, clipping as I go, to see that the large lodged hickory tree on the uphill side of the driveway didn't fall; one large dead chestnut oak came down, but parallel to the driveway, and brought down with it a tangle of fox grape vine, not quite ripe grapes everywhere. Strong enough wind to knock down acorns, which litter the ground. At peak of storm yesterday afternoon, because the leaves were sails, the trees were bending through 60 degrees of arc, sometimes a bit more. I had taped my drafting protractor to a window and noticed there was a pattern to the wind-bursts, like waves (maybe the same pattern): 8 to 12 minutes sequences that would go from almost calm to rage and back to almost calm. Loki with a bellows, Aeolus breathing in and out. The house shuddered, a winter phenomenon . Remembering some winter walks on Cape Cod, stir-crazy in the print-shop, Ted and I would suit-up, do a loop down through Crow Pasture, around on the beach, and back up through Sesuit Harbor, tears streaming down our faces, freezing in out beards, barely able to stand, being pushed sideways by huge winds, mammoth blocks of sea ice jumbled like broken glass, salt spray turning our clothing white. About half-way around, high on the beach, there was a cluster of large glacial erratics, we'd stop in the lee, to get out of the wind, take a hit from the flask, maybe a toke, roll a smoke if either of our fingers worked well enough, calmly discussing the design of a book we might be printing, or whether either of us might get laid the following week-end. Thinking about this, I was thinking about this last night, when people talk about the best days of their lives, christ, I'm still having them. I listen to Greg Brown, "The Poet's Game", then get an early drink, I hardly drank at all last night, because I knew I couldn't write (also I wanted to remain lucid in case something happened, you know, tree on the roof, or branch through a window) and I knew I'd start writing early today, because I didn't write last night, couldn't write, because I need the keyboard, I can't do longhand anymore, just can't, I love the screen and this thing that happens for me, when I reach what I think of as 'terminal mass' and the paragraph simply takes over. I'm not superstitious and subscribe to no bullshit, but there is a zone. Purely neuronal, probably. But most writers I know do keep a bauble or two around, house-hold gods, something to fondle or sniff. What would have been perfect, last night, would have been a laptop and a couple of batteries, I could have written by candle-light. If I could have written last night, I could have placed you in the middle of my experience of what was happening, I can't do that now, I can only do a kind of reportage, not the thing itself. Clearly have to think about that, because I'm going to be off-line, getting the Wrack Show together, and I wonder where I am, in that, me. Skip, that bastard, has got me cutting out all of the connective tissue, and I can hardly follow myself. Look at his cuts, they're cinema-graphic. Not a single clue. Those that can't do read. Something like that. -Do you have Prince Albert in a can?- What my concerns are. Right now? I see patterns. Kim was talking about a decorative course, but higher, where he could see it, where we could see it, and I agree, love your tucking, do it. The shadow of your smile. Listen, before I go, I have to say, you smelled great, something between a mushroom and a lily, and the music started, fucking music, noise is more like it, whatever that hip-hop thing is. Maybe we should get together, my guys will be in touch with your guys. Hey.
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Hearing Voices

Not a good sign. Hot again, with ice and the fan to cool my computer, and some harmonic in the fan's motor creates the sound of men's voices outside. I can almost make out the words. Strange. Camping and fishing way up the Little Cimarron in Colorado, pretty high up, maybe 11,000 feet, just below snow-melt, where the stream was quite wild (cut-throat trout above the beaver ponds, native, and rainbows below, introduced), pebbles and small rocks, rolling in the stream sounded like voices in the night. Spring fishing there was extraordinary, 17 miles off a paved road so not much pressure and the fish were starved. A native cut-throat, caught in 34 degree water, is the firmest, finest eating fish I've ever tasted. We'd take in some bacon fat and a couple of lemons, some cornmeal for johnny-cake, a couple of skillets, eat fish three meals a day. Took my parents in, before they were so feeble, and Dad still tells stories about catching a trout on every cast and throwing them on a snow-bank. It is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, headwaters of a lovely stream, the very beginning of an extensive drainage, 12 and 13,000 foot peaks on three sides, virgin Englemann Spruce thick as fur on a dog's back, and at night the stars were thicker than the spruce. I went up alone one time, after the divorce, considering just disappearing, hiked to a ridge top by moonlight, and the Northern Lights sheeted and shimmered; it was August, and the last of the snow was melting in the northern lee of the rocks, there were hundreds of drips, and they sounded like voices, saying -maybe not love, but at least truth and beauty-, and I spent a really uncomfortable night wrapped in a space blanket with no dinner. My camp looked like heaven when I came down, fire-pit, fridge rack cooking surface, coffee pot, made a pot of coffee, caught a couple of fish, got on with my life. Sometimes the wind, when I'm carrying wood in winter, will be absolutely conversational. Sometimes I talk out loud when I'm alone and hear myself, reply, start a rant. Interesting experiment, don't know why I did it, but I needed to go to town, library, liquor store, laundry, and some other supplies. Once every two weeks I have to do this, make a trip to town, other than working days, normal working day I can pick up a few things but I will not stay in town and do a major thing after work. Desperately need home. Maybe an occasional function, but I've ducks to watch, crows to see, I completely ignored a very large spider today, because I was in a hurry, and that's just wrong. So what I did is the whole town run without ever saying a word, not a word, I nodded and gestured, but I said nothing: it wasn't actually necessary to say anything. And I did a lot of things. I listened to a lot of other people say things, most of it unnecessary, but maybe not, maybe necessary, for, you know, normal interaction. Fact is, I do all of the stuff I needed to do, buy the things I needed to buy, and I never say a word. I'm impressed by this experiment but I don't know what the result means. On my way home I was giving myself hell about hearing voices, went below the floodwall, walked down, across that first terrace, to the river bank, The Ohio, ditched as it may be, channelized, dammed, controlled, is still a significant thing. I watched for an hour, if I'd had some jerky, I might have stayed all night. Had to get home and eat. Milk was on sale so I bought a half-gallon and thought about the cured loin, milk is a great marinade for cured pork, I don't know why, lactic acid? bought a dozen organic eggs, not for their organic properties, they're just better packed, thinking I'll be eating breakfast a lot in the near future. If Wittgenstein came to visit, I'd feed him breakfast, easily reproducible. They went away. Advile.
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Minor Flooding

Talk about local events. No storm at my house but town (17 miles away) got hit with a thunder shower. Minor flooding in the basement at the museum. Mopping up (when a janitor marries above his station) I had the great good fortune to find a hidden corner in a dark room where one of the kids had pooped several times. It's lunch time before I get everything cleaned up. Ate at the Pub, joined by two profs from the college. Mike, the music guy, still wanting to do some music for the installation, catch up on college gossip. Mid-afternoon docenting a pair of ladies around the exhibits, one I know from several openings, the other, her friend Jodie, was darkly attractive and had great legs. I was glib and funny. You collect wonderful stories at an art museum, one does. The Deputy knew I was flirting, hated to interrupt my narrative, but something needed doing and she and I were alone as staff, it was my job to do whatever it was, didn't matter, because the ladies called me back over, to explain what a burl was, why so many of the wood turners liked to use them. I did the five-minute burl lecture, making up shit as I went along, stringing together fact and fiction, realized I was in the same mode that I write from, the middle-distance. They were asking good questions, very like the questions I ask myself, and I was answering the way I write, little essays, posts, notes. I brought back lunch for a couple of staff, sat with them for a few minutes, then Pegi wouldn't let me leave, giving me a raft of shit about being a recluse, anti-social. Very funny stuff. Bottom line, I don't have any free time, it looks like I should, but I don't, and if I did have more time, I'd spend it reading and writing. Staff room conversation today is all about the new generations of pests, resistant to the usual batch of insecticides, nits, mites, bed-bugs, crabs; motels are deathtraps and movie theaters harbor disease. I'm cleaning up human feces in the basement, to which I'm not even related (an important distinction when it comes to shit, the Deputy pointed out) and they're talking about nits, hell, you just rinse off with kerosene and take a bath, it's not rocket science. I only had body-lice once but got them from a famous lady and considered it an honor. Raining off and on all day, clearing a bit on the drive home, sun visible as a white disc, and there are two sun-dogs, just visible in the clouds, stop at the lake and roll a smoke, three crows cleaning up after a picnic. Must trim the driveway, it's gotten scary, looks like nobody lives there, here. Three crows a cleaning, two sun-dogs shining, and a recluse in a pine tree. Sorry, thinking forward to xmas, the girls want to come here, put that into the mix, the Wrack Show, right, right, prioritize. I need a really large calendar for November and December, with room for notes, I can't write when other people are around, I just can't, and I'll need a handle, something, because other people will be around, so I need to take notes, I might use them later. I might not. It's not fair to say never: twice, when other people were here, I wrote when other people were around. It was an experiment, no one could tell any difference in the resulting paragraph. I thought that telling. I could have written about it, I chose not to, I don't know why. Really, I'd rather talk about my failures, they're more interesting, success is easy, failure involves some thought, and is way more interesting. Listen, there was a rock song at Kroger's this morning, The Grateful Dead, doing "Ripple" and I was gone, buy whatever they wanted me to buy, yes, sure, whatever. I know I'm protected, I have a vest, I only hope you don't shoot me in the thigh, or the neck.
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Your Language

As in watch your language. That Brit has a dirty mouth but he speaks so well you hardly notice, in fact, it's charming. Read about a boat, D wants to build one, I have built one, but just one, the infamous pirogue that was a legend around the backwaters of Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, she drafted just 2 inches and I could take her anywhere, raiding oyster beds of the rich and famous. Massachusetts law dictated ownership of certain waters, they went with the land, you had your house, and you had your oyster bed. Many changes of hands later, rich people end up with oyster beds they know nothing about, don't care about. I think it's true that I've never bought an oyster, can't remember ever, but I have eaten my weight many times over. The Vineyard, we were so poor there, our combined income wasn't enough to pay any taxes, but we lived like royalty. We were brewing beer and making wine, bartering the excess (most) for anything we needed, grew all our own food, bought wheat berries, green coffee beans, and sugar once a year, along with a 55 gallon drum of lamp oil, made the cash we needed for those items by selling oysters to restaurants. In three years there we published 18 books, hand-set letterpress mostly, but a couple of linotyped (and go back over to the mainland and linotype a couple of books in a day or two and bring them back), longer books, and the 'Leash Of Gaelic Tales" which was monotyped and the dude that did it for us brought the galleys over, we just had to put him up for a couple of nights and feed him, I've told the story, but I was remembering so clearly. Somebody would show up, and if you live on Martha's Vineyard people are always showing up, and we didn't have a phone, or electricity, for that matter, people just materialized out of the fog. In the extended summer is when this would happen, droves of people, night after night for weeks on end. We couldn't afford to feed them, not to buy stuff, so in the summer we'd feed them clam chowder, we'd gather the clams on the mandatory beach walk, I'd make the chowder, Marilyn would do something magic with vegetables, and always, strawberry shortcake for dessert, because we had a great strawberry patch and she could make such a nice shortcake. Later in the year, it was always oysters, lots of oysters, fixed a lot of different ways but usually roasted on a grill just until the shells opened. And for those other dishes, requiring raw oysters, I still bear scars. Now we were really popular, the food was amazing, we either had to open a restaurant or leave. We left, moved to Missip to cut down on the guests. And it worked. We were more than self-sufficient, we produced a surplus in everything we did for ourselves, make three pounds of butter, sell two, bottle three cases of beer and trade two, kill a grass-fed steer, sell half, make sausage to order. We were a well-oiled machine. Oh, the boat, right, it was a Guide Boat, which is a white-water boat you stand up in to row, fishing for trout, and there were pictures, it was lovely, and the article said that it was "only incidentally beautiful": what the builder was going for, directed toward, was beauty and function, it was hardly incidental. Watch your language. The Brit, I've noticed, asks a lot of questions for which he always has the answers; often, too, he'll roll off the end of a sentence with a kind of half-question, half-statement. I like listening to him. It's confusing. The emphasis. Also with Mary, who hasn't finished High School, is 19, dropped out of school to live with an abusive goth, the State should pay me for listening. I could dress it up and get a grant. Listen, you want to know the truth? Dreyfuss was correct. I went into the basement bathroom with some trepidation, you don't want to know. A pink elephant, my living room, I don't want to know. I'm still wondering what you said behind my back. No one treats me the same anymore, I'm like a janitor with contacts. The docent of choice. The go-to person for definition. It's tough to create the right image, I don't want to wear a cape, but I need to convince D he needs to come in and do a few things, while he's on vacation. I think I might be able to do this, I'll have to call in some markers, it's an iffy thing. I hate politics.
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Dirty Jobs

Loud noise outside, I was curious, might as well get up and pee; at first I can't see a thing, flooding the dark with light, then notice that the grill is turned over, something afoot. Not a fool, I get the .22 and the big flashlight. Don't know where I'm going with this but I had cleaned up, a full bath in the sheep-watering trough and unguents to heal the sundry bites and rashes, some Gold Bond Powder, and I'm kind of crouched, outside, waiting for the next thing, an alien or a secret agent, it's a feral cat, a tri-color, she shows herself. I don't want a cat, I'm clear on this, I don't do litter, clean up after, any of that, but a wild cat might be acceptable, like the fox, we might be neighbors. I toss her a piece of pizza and go back inside. Her court. Nothing is what it seems. That Wedding Chapel on Rt.125 is a joke, eventually there will be a punch line, an Emu goes in to a bar, something. Always difficult to get back to sleep when I go outside in the night. I think I thought I saw, and, as Cage pointed out, it's real hard to hear nothing. Credit Bob and Jana, I don't have to wait until the weekend to read up on Shelley's death and disposal. Cremated in the presence of Trelawny and Hunt, the heart simply did not burn, so Trelawny wrapped it up and took it to Mary, it was finally buried with the body of Shelley's son, Florence, 1889, 67 years late. Recent article posits something called 'progressively calcifying heart', which must have something to do with writing you heart out. Finished Skip's book again, will read it twice again in a couple of weeks. Back at the museum, D is off for several days, building furniture, I set Mary (is the girl's name) to work on my usual chores, start bagging mulch, breaking that task into doable units by putting away things or throwing them away, from the downstairs hall, where the kids waited to do their bit. A really big mess. The Brit was very strict with them, each had a chair with their name on it and the "Moms From Hell" who kept them seated, but they could play with anything that didn't make noise; also, it was dark, because two doors open onto the stage and they were kept open for the frequent entrances and exits. Classroom also totaled, an unbelievable 55 gallons of garbage. Cleaning clears the mind. That was the sign over the door of Dufus Dreyfuss's classroom, "Zen, and The Art of Mopping", "Shit Is Just Shit", "Loose Change Is Everywhere". His courses were well attended. He was a dapper little Irish dude, knee-pants and funny socks, awful vests that often had a pocket with his smoldering pipe sometimes emitting the occasional puff of smoke when he got energizied and pumped his arms. He had an affected manner, lecturing, that was much imitated, and he knew his shit. Used a cane, and pointed with it, when we were in the field; I was there when he died, we were examining a treatment plant, and he got excited about a perfect 'v' of geese flying overhead, pointed them out, did a little twirl, and tumbled into the sewage. Heart attack. It was just too much, the treatment plant, the geese. Dead calm on my way home and no one at the lake so I stop to watch the ducks swimming. When It's dead calm and the lake surface is a mirror, the intersecting v's are a delicate pattern on the surface, it looked like it carried meaning; five ducks, and somebody must have just fed them because they don't care if I'm a food source or not, which means they just ate big time, and they are swimming away from me, across the lake, and all their little wakes are interacting. I roll and smoke two cigarets, seek higher ground, they finally reach the other shore, and half the lake is engaged in the ripple-effect of their passage. An ephemeral piece, that fades back to mirror surface, I can almost hear a cello, you might never actually see the ducks, just a pattern on the surface of the water. You could slow it down, if you wanted to, add music, but it was beautiful, just the way it was. A perfect mediation between work and home, reintegration into the natural world, which is where there is no light pollution and not a sound that isn't natural, that's all I require. I forgive my fridge on a regular basis, I need it, and my computer makes noise, which I quell, with ice, and a fan that makes noise, but you know what I mean, mostly what I hear is bugs. My windows are open, I don't have AC, I live by the wind, whatever breeze, -brother, could you spare a dime- D off working, during his vacation, to make ends meet, everybody, it seems, with new kids, fucking vectors for disease because they have no immune system. My kids were healthy because they drank raw goat's milk. Fuck your antibiotics, I believe in pre-treating with biotics, poison ivy, right, no problem, if you drink the milk from a goat that ate it you'll never get it, Trust me, the homeopathic thing is very real, I just don't understand it yet, but if the squirrel runs across your roof does it mean anything?
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Later

I'm a creature of habit, completely dismissible, look at my record, in every category I failed, if you were putting together a dream team you wouldn't include me, somewhat less than nothing, I am nothing less than a dust-ball, a balled-up spider web, cat-fur in the corner. Love your eyeliner. Read more...

We Could

Funny conversation with D today, we were coming back from getting the metal roofing, his truck, me riding shotgun, and there were three or four things being discussed, a kind of shotgun approach to communication. One thing we were talking about was trimming the purlins on the shed, but the talk was veering into the Wrack Show, because we had gone below the floodwall, I needed to put his mind to rest on the availability of certain sticks, had shown him one of the two main areas where wrack collects, not sure about the mechanics involved, which we were also discussing. He said -we could...- and I said -I know.- and that was the end of it. From that (a great Skip title) exchange, I knew that he meant that when we stopped at the museum, to get my truck, and pick up the hammer-drill, which he needed to set some window jams in concrete, we should also get the cordless mini-skill-saw because it would be perfect for trimming the purlins. Not an object exchanged, but we both knew what we were talking about. We work so well together because we understand what the other is going to say, often we don't even bother saying anything. This drives other people crazy, which drives me crazy, because it's what I expect. If I'm wiring the shop with B and I need a certain screwdriver, I assume he'll hand to me before I ask for it, like a surgery nurse in the operating suite. I assume that level of understanding. What I most enjoy is when the next move is anticipated. I'm a great helper, easy to work with, because I anticipate. It's not a big deal, if you're the helper, you spend a lot of time standing around, watching, and after a few cycles you know what's needed next. Kim is bricking the Carage and I wish I was there, I could be his hoddy, I can mix mortar, I can carry bricks, I only don't know how to lay them. As Skip is the best writer I know, Kim is the very best layer of bricks, self-taught, fucking auto-didacts always cloud the stew. Why am I burdened with all of these people who are so fucking good at what they do? I got a pizza and a twelve-pack of Rolling Rock on the way home. D wanted to nail the roofing down but I wanted to talk about the Wrack Show, so we talked, I wanted to see if we thought the same way about what we were going to do. Everyone's conception of what's going on is different, nothing is ever the same, you know what I mean, but D and I seemed to be close: there's this poplar burl that's going to be a wall-hanging in the show, and it's leaning against the print-shop, I tell D we have to install this show before it rots, and we're both picking at the burl, peeling off the bark, exposing amazing grain, maybe you had to have been there, but it was a magic moment. We talked about the show, then we talked about it again; what we're looking for, we agree, is merely a stunning installation, we agree we can do that, just let the materials speak. So much is made, incorrectly, of our ability to intercede, we can do nothing, our claim to fame, like various small monkeys. Never put all your assets in a tea cup. I won't go further than that. My main interest is feet, from the ankle down, I'm interested in footings with a sidebar on high-heels and the definition of certain muscles, I'm not dead yet. There's this young lady who smokes, and we see her, because we smoke to, and she presents rearward, and her rearward is a thing I might have talked about. Killer thighs.
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The Perks

My goodness. An e-mail from Skip and he says to send him your snail-mail address and he'll send you the book, he's wxf8424@louisiana.edu on my list. Do it. Might as well read the best. I finished it today, and started rereading it. Working on the Wrack Show tomorrow, at least some serious talk and hauling the metal for the shed roof, also metal for back porch roof, force my own hand, so to speak. First orange, a sumac frond. Lovely but scary. Need to walk the driveway tomorrow morning and cut away some brush, using D's truck to haul metal and he'll bitch about the metal scratching tunnel the driveway has become. Those folk that walked up the other day were sure the place was abandoned, -it is-, I said, -I live in an abandoned house-. Thinking about voices. Got up to pee at 3 and flipped on PBS, as I often do, when I know I can't get right back to sleep; often strange things on the air then, and it was a documentary about STAX Records, got to listen to a little Otis Reading and Skip mentions John Lee Hooker's voice, so I go down stairs and listen to a little John Lee, lord have mercy, maybe the great voice of all time, and remember that Miles Davis once said of James Taylor he sounded like a blind black man. John Lee sounds like black velvet, smoke and whiskey. He's often just a little ahead or a little behind the beat, makes it real, and when he's playing "Black Snake", there isn't much doubt what he's talking about. His voice is hot, sexy, effortless. In a woman's voice it's always a contralto for me, that carries that load of promised sex, and precise pronunciation. John Lee does it with a low baritone, some mumbles, and just the right tone. Boys and girls are different. It took a long time for me to learn that. My life as a wrack line, a sequence of failures, the two mile trough the "Bismark" carved when it was sliding to it's final resting place, let's face it, a hole in the ground. Could be a gopher. I could blame it on someone else, or I could, as I do, just accept responsibility, my fuck-up, I'll fix it, don't bother yourself. Aloneness is the issue, would you rather be bothered by someone else, or be alone? Most people would rather be in company, who could blame them, another warm body, as good as McCarthy's can of peaches in "The Road". I salivated, but I would rather be alone. I like being alone, I can project things, imagine what might be said, sometimes I almost dance, the space is completely open. Defining space is an option. What he said. What you said. I have no idea.
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Losing Leaves

Up half the night reading this dense new book of Skip Fox. Bk 3 of a projected 9. I hold manuscripts. Great writing maintains. Heavy, funny, sexy. Get it. "For To". I was in it all day, wading, rereading, laughing. The man makes me proud of Hunan beans. Huge breakfast at brunch and a bottle of beer. Zipped to town to check on Pegi and The Brit, everything fine, opening went well, Pegi said the show is wonderful. Home, I resume reading, then fix a package of chorizo and eat them as hot dogs, with various toppings. Yum, I say to you. I actually make a better chorizo, but it messes up the kitchen something awful, and this is pretty good. Need to mention to B's brother that I need some lard, and, next pig they kill, some fatback. Tomorrow I'm going to grill a boneless chop I cut off the curing loin. Wash off the cure and soak in papaya nectar. Mesquite wood. I'd love to share this meal with my huge friend in Missip, from whom I learned so much about curing meat, and life in general. I was his first white friend and we were very close, he was my best friend in Missip, bar none, Big Roy. After 10 years in Missip, it was 10 years in western Colorado, and I'd like to show Roy what all those western peppers do to a cure, he'd be on it. I got to get my Roy stories in a folder, I can scan them from copy, I think, maybe dump them in here too, for safe keeping. Odd feeling, reading along in the Fox book and there's a quote from me, from a text/manuscript that was stolen in the one robbery of my life so far, remembered me to that project, three years and 1500 pages of raw text. Skip once related the tale, he gets up early, tokes with his coffee, writes in the morning, often before the sun rises, we exchange work, and I'd sent him a chunk of the text "Text Toward Building A House", and first thing whatever morning, he picked up my manuscript and started working on it as if it was his own work. I see this as high praise. In that survey? He's number 1, in the: white, living, male, category. I had wondered what the hell I was going to do with a whole cured loin, I could slice it and freeze some, probably will, but I can spread it around, too. Little baggies with instructions and a can of papaya nectar. I had the thought, I may have mentioned before, sometimes I find myself with too much of something, I live alone after all. If I make a pate, the smallest I can make is 3 pounds, that's my terminal shut-off point, it doesn't taste right less than that, so I suddenly have a lot of pate, and I give it away, there's a list. They either eat it or throw it away, feed it to a raccoon, I don't know. What I'm going to do is check out next day shipping, find a supply of dry-ice, and send something to one you, once in a while, there are only 39 of you, it's better than the lottery, you stand a chance. Haven't decided how to make the cut. I have enough stones from a GO game to carve initials with a dremel tool, I have a basket, I think I can do this; he doesn't need me (swimmingly, I'm almost absolutely necessary), hey, I been reading Skip all day, what the hell you expect? Myself, the reader, is slipping away, and every time, Skip shocks me, motherfucker hits me up the side of the head with a wet sock or something, and I'm reeling; that someone could do that to me, I generally try to stay on top, you know, so I can watch the horizon. Fall is too soon and nothing done.

Tom

What I think he's saying is that he doesn't have enough firewood. I'll get back to you later, I don't trust myself, I'm the weak link, wait, that glow, the setting sun, makes it, the dappled light, yes, a cartoon, our character, a dead woodchuck, arising from the roadbed, Lazarus in the Chip-And Seal. I saw him, he was there, my agent advised to not comment on what I had thought I had seen. Fucking agents.
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Nose, Grindstone

Try and get a handle on the day. We started, we worked very hard, we stopped. Not many breaks. Sensing deadlines, D and I had done a tentative arrangement for the show and Sara didn't change it much, we started hanging well before lunch, certainly a record. Also, late yesterday, noticed that fully half of the photographs didn't have the artist's name or the name of said piece on the back. Yikes. We managed to tag them all, using the catalog as reference, but the catalog only showed one piece per eleven photographers, then we had the price sheet, which listed titles. Just plain dumb omission. And not packed very well either. Argh. Sara looked at what we had done, changed just a few things, and I could understand the little changes she made, they did make it better, then everyone left us alone, so we could attempt to hang the show in one day, which we did, finishing just at four o'clock. I convinced D that he might as well do the lighting as most of the correct lights were hanging, he started, I went up and got Sara, she was thrilled. I had to get some janitor stuff done, the garbage out, stock the bathrooms, and when I got back they were nearly done. This is a good show, the lights reveal, really just one weak link, and we put him in the worst spot; I think museums must always have worst spots, and conversely, best spots, the nature of the beast. Dress rehearsal for the play tonight, and before we left we carefully educated The Brit on what to turn off and unplug. Whipped, but I had to go to the Library and Liquor Store or my evening would be meaningless. The Raven Haired Beauty was at the library reference desk and I talked with her a few minutes, describing the Wrack Show (D was her computer design teacher), and she liked the idea, smiled brightly and cheered me immensely. I got a new book on black holes. Stupid damned grouse camped out on the driveway and runs up ahead of me the last four days, I tried to hit the fucker tonight, grouse is good. I mentioned them today and Sara asked how the bird, grouse, became "to complain". I don't know, will look it up this weekend unless one of you know, and, of course, the gorse, you know what I mean, heather or various legumes lining a Links Course. So beat I just stopped and got a footer on the way home, some jalapeno poppers, be still my heart. Started the black holes book seated at the island, working on my cholesterol. I could make an argument but it would be bullshit. If I hadn't bought a hot dog I wouldn't have eaten, simple as that, what I really wanted was a drink. Actually, to be completely honest, I brought the dog and poppers home, and had a drink before I ate them, a cocktail, and what's that word all about? What would be really useful would be one of those ipod things that had the OED on it, the dictionary for joggers or picture hangers, I don't listen to music so much anymore, but I'd wear one of those things around my neck. Maybe a small earpiece and one of those almost invisible mikes, and I could just ask my voice-actuated OED -grouse (to complain), origin- and it would come back to me, very quickly, and I would turn, and say whatever it told me, to whomever had asked me that question. Weird. I just saw a short movie in my head, I went to get a drink and rolled a smoke at the island, doing my rounds, and thought about two or three characters, going about their business with these OED ipods, and the information, is, literally flying. This could be quite funny or very serious, maybe both, certainly sexy, we could go whatever way. Make a note we need to make a movie. A stressful day at the museum, there was so much going on just below the surface, I call back to my earlier comments about the combined arts, it's hard to work together, everyone has a different picture of exactly what's going on. It's always priorities, my experience, it all comes down to portioning time, exactly what are you going to do; my ego is not involved (it's in a storm shelter someplace in Iowa) but if I was us I'd dig a hole, bury garbage, wipe everything clean, stay clear as much as possible. Hey, listen, if I wasn't watching, I wouldn't see.
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The Space

Years ago, under the influence of some drug, before I'd seen Andy Goldworthy's work, I did a couple of outdoor installations, three maybe. One was just string, wrapped through an orchard, lines in space. The major piece I've described somewhere, tree-trunks cut slightly higher each one, in a perfectly straight, marching away from the window where I wrote at the time, with a lovely head-shaped glacial erratic sitting on each. The third was a series of photos, encased in plastic, thumb-tacked to trees along a path. I'm going to do Burma Shave signs coming up the driveway, that great poem of Harvey Albert's, "Seven tigers, / nothing unusual, / never mind." D and I for a few minutes today, in the Richard's gallery, where the Wrack Show is to be installed, talking very seriously about extremely ephemeral things. Did a bit of on-line searching for sand-blasting techniques. I've blasted wood before, several times, but I'm not too proud to learn. Being self-taught in so many different areas, I really don't know how to do certain things, I just do them. I learned book-binding completely from books, looking at pictures of the various steps, decades after I learned, and had bound hundreds of individual volumes, a woman visited the farm in Missip, Anselm Hollo's wife at the time, she was a restoration binder for Brigham Young University, and she was watching me bind a book, ask me where I'd learned, told me I was good enough to teach the subject but that I did everything wrong. Wrack Show. So we're standing in the space, the gallery, for an installation it is A SPACE, and D asks -where's the inside and where's the outside?- we discuss options, agree the outside needs be larger, a Sculpture Garden, the pergola, the suggestion of porch roof, then in the two eastern corners, two more small walls that seal off the corners, skeletal walls, a few sticks, with a window, and inside the space would be an object. These would be like the back of other buildings, at the edge of the outside, peeking in the neighbor's house kind of thing. Peeping Tom. Inside will be two rooms, again skeletal stick walls, doorway openings, maybe arches if we can find the right sticks, I'm sure we can, a bedroom and a sitting room. D is building a bed, end tables, and a lamp for the bedroom and we'll conspire together on the chair, one of the premier finds for the show. Outside we have the sand-blasted objects, on stump pedestals, at least four so far, a horse head, a cow, a blasted walnut stump, and the prolate sheroids, each, I think, on a separate stump, in a cluster, a Sara Grouping, different heights. And we have the balls, D asked, and I'm not sure how many, I don't count them, I just retrieve them, maybe 42, maybe more. The bowling ball. And there are wall mounted pieces, several frames, a magnificent burl that will be blasted and finished. Coming together. Show opens November 14 and we have three weeks to install. 100 hours of prep work and 100 hours to install, I think, is about right. I'm excited about doing this show even though I know there will be interruptions in my writing, but I'll be writing about it every chance I get. The Combined Arts, I've preached this sermon, require working with other people, and I'd rather be alone, but the chance to do this show, define that space, pulls me from my isolation, probably a good thing, I might do another play, a Pinter in the basement, I'm not anti-social as much as I'm tightly focused. I ignore almost everything. Increasingly I rely on D and the Deputy to keep me informed, though the Deputy came back at me today, for something last night I said about something Pegi had mentioned. Childbirth, god help me, this is a no-win. All I was saying was that if you had roofed a house in mid-summer, sliding backwards up the black tar-paper, nailing courses, and using short nails, you would hit your thumb, and then, because your thumb wasn't working exactly correctly, you'd hit it again, and several more times, and probably a blood blister below the nail and you'd have to drill it out. You worked eight hours, and then you dealt with the injuries, patching yourself up, not bleeding through, and finally the waves of pain are linked to your heartbeat, you get a couple of drinks, smoke some dope, whatever, pain is not a gender thing. Something D said I will not mention here, it was very funny but very incorrect. Oh course, Dear Deputy, I will defer to whatever. Count me in. As an indicator: when Palin's name came up, I lost electricity. She was disappeared. I lit a few candles and wrote longhand. What are you going to do? Deep into imagined responses I uncover what I imagine to be myself, someone like me, throw it up as a decoy, a clay pigeon, see what happens, have I ever advised you?
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New Show

The new show arrived early, unloaded before lunch. Did have time to paint the walls (we're very fast painters) and move the tables out of the theater. Cooking. After lunch (free, because Jim thought it took to long for us to get served) we brought out two of the sturdy six-foot tables and covered them with a blanket, ready for unwrapping. We sneak a smoke in the basement first, where it's cool and we can sit down, because it's hotter than hell outside, hottest day of the year, then unwrap 57 photographs. The smallest are tin-types, 6"x6", the largest are 3'x2', and everything between, can't tell much about them yet, won't be able to until they're hung and lighted. Several of the larger images are striking, the tin-types are wonderful, had no idea anyone still did them and need to read up on the process. D retires to his office, to nurse tired dogs and work on the newsletter, I make a half-hearted start on cleaning the theater. With a kid's show, there's going to be a mess, and the theater, the back hallway, and the classroom-used-as-dressing-room, are testament to clutter and trash: fast food wrappers, colored pencils, paper airplanes, feathers, bits of faux flowers, headbands, a cell phone, candy wrappers, pop cans, what seem to be crushed Cheerios, parts of scripts (in that final stage of deterioration that working scripts achieve), a rubber lizard, a plethora of various bobby-pins, one empty beer can (a parent I hope), bits of aluminum foil, and one origami stork. I might list the prop table for you because it's spectacular. Another day. Also, the Moms have covered the gate and frame in multiple layers of real and fake ivy, it's supposed to be hidden and EVERYONE brought stuff, huge garbage bags of ivy. It looks great, they've done a really nice job, but there is fucking ivy everywhere, and I'm talking large quantities here. I'll have to bag it up and take it home to compost, probably two of the 55 gallon bags we use in the large (49 gallon) trash-cans full. Grubby clothes to work one day, maybe tomorrow, because I need to get down on my knees and vacuum under the seats with the little shop-vac we bought for just that purpose. Last time I did this I found 57 cents. I often find rolled up baby diapers which is not as bad as it sounds. The new generation of disposable diapers roll into a tidy ball and seal well, so I use them as an opportunity to practice my jump shot. I bring one of the smaller trash cans into the theater when I'm cleaning beneath the seats, there are always a lot of those single pieces of candy with the paper rolled at the ends, and I can shoot them really well from about 20 feet. At Janitor College there was a course, "Walk Or Shoot", a four-hundred level philosophy course, where we actually shot diapers from the free-throw line and kept score. What it comes down to, is there are two kinds of people (I take no credit for this, I merely took the course): those that walk a piece of garbage to the can, and those that shoot. Distinctions are always so apparently sharp, knife-edge, I mean, they appear clear, and yet most things are gray, muddled. I was watching the ducks, on the way home this afternoon, I stopped and rolled a smoke, no one was there, way to hot to turn on my black Dell and write you, so I lingered, I looked at sticks and pine cones. Sometimes I think I'm crazy, because I'd rather look at sticks and pine-cones than look at anything else. Is Below The Spillway somehow similar enough to Below The Floodwall. I would need to ask my co-conspirators. There's some great stuff there. It's my show, I could cheat. Wanted you to know. We all lie. The Wrack Show is going to be pretty pure, but there will probably be some embedded lies. Even if we didn't intend them. Why do women shoot free-throws better than men? Pegi and the Deputy were 'talking loud' between offices and I was collecting trash, Pegi didn't know I was there, and she made some horrid sexist statement about males, something about childbirth, and the pain, I wondered if she'd ever smashed her thumb, nailing those impossibly small roofing nails. Yes.Yes.Sure. What I think I might be capable of thinking about.
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Hell Week

The ship hits the sand. Delivery tomorrow of the big photography show for the main gallery, probably late afternoon. Before it arrives really need to finish painting walls and get the theater cleaned up, some tables moved, and about a dozen other things done, on a list I left at the museum. Unpack the show on Wednesday, install it Thursday, lights and labels on Friday, it opens, play performance on Friday night, two shows on Saturday. Must ask The Brit about a program, I think everyone has forgotten that. D will need to get the newsletter out, probably design a program, but it will surely take both of us three days to unpack, install, light and label a major show. Also, dress rehearsal for the play on Thursday night but I probably don't have to be there for that. Should have fixed a big pot of something today, but I didn't feel like cooking. I do have the pork loin curing in the fridge, so I could just take slices cut off that, soak them in sweet milk (takes the salt out, from the cure) and fry in olive oil, steamed vegs and cous-cous, would get me through the week. Next weekend I really want to cook some baby-back ribs, fry up some fresh sweet corn with onions and chiles and a sweet red pepper, skillet fry some cornmeal johnny-cakes as I can't fire up the wood cookstove when it's as hot as this. Had to break out the three pound block of ice in the coffee can (plastic) to keep the computer cool, and put a fan on it, blowing into the back of the computer, works really well. Must buy the metal roofing for the Wrack Shed and for my back porch this week, can't afford it, but that's why God invented Visa. Got to step it up. Got to get below the floodwall and collect the missing pieces. 6-8 posts six feet to eight feet, with a crotch at the top, would be really good, also, I looked at the pile today, we need more rails, for suggesting walls, also we need a can of rusty nails, which we surely should be able to find in a section of dock, there are always two or three sections of dock down on the first terrace, below the access road, ripped from their mooring and trapped in the trees, note to take a crowbar, wait, I have one in the truck, D saw it last week and wondered if it was his. It's not, I've had that crowbar, forever, nearly, I know it's scars, could tell you when what happened, to gouge the hard metal so deeply on the prying end. It's my fucking crowbar, and I have several others, almost a full set, some of them horribly distressed. I tear a lot of things apart. Also, I realize, we could use very primitive pegs in many places, a hole and a stick whittled to fit. Maybe some monofilament to hold it in place, the trees are full of monofilament, fishermen generally drink, and you'd hardly see it. This is an installation, not a house, people aren't supposed to lean on it. I think they should be able to touch it, that should be part of the experience, but in the way that you touched your mother's good china, with care. Not lean on it. I can build a set of stairs but this isn't that. This is a construct. Thought about this a lot today. What this was. We cleave a space, by our actions and the materials, we divide into spaces, we fill those spaces, or maybe not fill but put something into them. It's hard to be coherent, everything works against it, for three solid years, working hard, every night, I've tried to be coherent, and it isn't easy. I'm not sure the Wrack Show says anything, it merely is, a collection of debris. That it would look like something is actually your problem, the reader, I don't envy your task, I just drink and smoke and write this shit, I really don't have a clue, you have to figure out what the hell I mean. I never think about that, I just Send and forget.

Tom

Of course I don't forget everything, some things carry over, like the need for salt. Certain grievances. Things I could never forgive. I was raised in such a functional family I had no idea everyone was so fucked up, I've been over this, it marked me, being almost normal. Find myself on the outside looking in.
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