Harrison

I have all of Jim Harrison's books on a separate shelf so I don't lose them. I could level complaints but I keep coming back, reading an essay or a poem, and being blown away. This is what words can do. I'd been busy, stacking wrack, wasn't expecting this book, "The English Major" but there it is, and it's a wonderful thing. Listen to the voice. The natural voice, which is where he has been leading us, always more natural. Attention to detail, listen, sometimes Barry Lopez comes close, or Terry Tempest, but Harrison nails things, like Hemingway should have done. It's true of all writer's, isn't it, you're just trying to be clear. What I think you mean. What I thought I meant. He cuts though the fabric, though I sense he is exhausted. Like Proust in that cork-lined room. Now what? This is a mature piece of writing. The voice is everything. At my age, doing a book review, fuck me, I liked it. I love his poetry too, and his non-fiction, especially when he talks about food, which he does often. Quiet day at the museum, just the Deputy, D and I there. Both of them in their offices all day, I cleaned corners, went to the grocery store early, to miss the holiday crowds, but they were already there and it was a zoo. Liquor store for a bottle of Wild Turkey. Got everything to make pate. Tomorrow I figure to cut wood early then cook the rest of the day. I'll be dining on Wild Turkey, cream of squash soup, chicken thighs simmered in enchilada sauce, maybe asparagus, maybe a sweet potato. Probably get tanked making the pate, three hours from the start to cleaning all the pans in the kitchen. I make several different pates, spreads, force-meats, this one, my favorite, everything is cooked separately then mixed together, cooled, processed, and packed into used plastic containers. Fucking mess but excellent product. Looks like I'll be making nearly six pounds of the stuff. Need some egg yolks for the Key Lime pie, so probably start the day with a three-whites-one-yolk omelet, brie and jalapeno, do my chainsaw stuff, split a few rounds, then clean up, shave, and though I don't wear an apron, I do stick a dish-towel in my back pocket, start cooking. Need to do the pie first, hold the heat of the oven fairly low (350) and that's the only thing I need to do in the oven, everything else is stove-top and this is where the cookstove excels, times tomorrow I'll have five cast-iron skillets on it at the same time, all of them at different temps, a kind of infinitely variable thing. Almost nine years I've been cooking on the Stanley Waterford, and I recommend it as a tool, best damned stove I've ever owned. Handsome, too, centering the opposite end of the downstairs from where I write, the house is 36 feet wide, 30 feet away, I can tell from the sounds it makes, from how cold my legs are, when I need to stoke wood. Wintertime, I'm a slave to this, if I don't stoke the fire, I die. But not really, because the Richard's clan would rescue me. I know they would, maybe that's why I settled here. It's like having a family without paying the dues. They know they can't depend on me, but they like me anyway. It's curious, then I realize what's happened, that B was the brightest among them, they all knew, but he was an odd duck, and then this ringer comes in, from western Colorado, and his line of talk, his attitude, is, more or less, the same. Meant B was right all along. I see myself as a shadow character. I love the periods ability to stop things. I'm less secure with commas. I'm not sure why the mag article had to sound so much like it was D's piece, I don't deal well with egos. Why I hate the combinded arts, where more than one of us has to say something. I know what I thought I meant. Those are my words. You can't use them. I'm being picky here, but you at least have to credit me. This is my show, I assembled the talent, I held it in my diminished brain, I worked over-time, this wrack installation is me, I'm on display here, not you. And that's the point, me, not you. What I thought I saw.