Changing Gears

Need to step it up a notch for the next several weeks. In Boston, a couple of weeks before the next opera, we'd put in 100 hour weeks, pull out all the stops AND still do good work. Always that edge. Doesn't mean as much if you work extremely long, hard, hours and turn out crap. You have to assemble the right crew. There were times that we were brilliant, and not that many screw-ups, considering the scope of what we were doing. Ms. Caldwell was generous with her diet pills. We ate well. We had a courier who brought us gold-seal hash from the middle east. One scene I remember, the orchestra was rehearsing and we couldn't do anything, make any noise, and my crew were all sleeping in the aisles of the theater, it looked like there had been a mass murder (and the music played on) in the darkened house. The number of impossible things we figured out how to do in less than a day, and the really impossible things that might take as long as a week: building an armature, sculpting, painting, and erecting a 25 foot high statue of Pallas Athena; for which we had to dismantle a pipe organ, to, you know, clear the niche. Normal day, things are going along fine, and then at the end there's a plumbing disaster. The fate of the janitor is to deal with shit. It's good to spend some time in a diary barn, consider the product, consider the circumstance. Consider pork. Fuck Leviticus. Prohibition against what? The people will not be denied, they'll god-damn well cook it up in the bathtub, or run it through the radiator of a dead 35 Buick. One way or another. No one has died from eating pork for a very long time. The solution is that we grow bunch-grass or Jerusalem Artichokes in the median, on the interstates, and use that to fuel the next generation. We need to more fully understand what happens when light strikes a surface. We need to be more efficient. Speaking for myself, I waste almost all of my energy, a black hole of what I might have been, who knows, maybe this is time well-spent. Real lessons are layered under levels of consideration. Sedimentary, Watson. Yes, yes, but was she fully settled? I wrack my brain for an answer. Read more...

Late Snow

get up to pee, go outside, and it's snowing, nothing significant, but still, I thought there was a rule that after certain things had bloomed it wouldn't snow again. Supposed to be warm and sunny later today, I'm confused, but get the laundry together, make some assumptions. This Russian theater movement, I wasn't aware, started with the Italian Futurist Movement, Giacomo Baila and his manifesto, February 20th, 1909, I just read it, nonsense mostly; but Tatlin taught a generation of stage designers. His influence was huge but he left little actual work, like Wittgenstein, mostly what we have is his student's notes. Lissitzky, Liubov Popova, Alexandra Exter, Moholy-Nagy, they extended his vision and theater was their medium. It's a dead end, but glorious, Moholy-Nagy's Light Space Modulator, Tatlin's wing, Malevich, this is cutting edge stuff, but then there was Stalin, and things were nipped in the bud. Artists, except for McCord, don't carry guns, and they are easy victims. Fuck dental and health care, we should give artists guns, let them shoot their way out. Before I say it, I know it's bogus, but I say it nonetheless. I was out watching the frogs mate, it's a hoot, and I heard the phone ring. It could be my daughter or maybe Glenn. What do you do with a show when it's over? Close your eyes and listen. A squeeze-box, who would have thought. Oh, that's me breathing, and I didn't catch the phone in time. My paper trail is huge. Dirty sock smell, I clean up, get the laundry together, won't have another chance for a couple of weeks, go to town. Stop at the museum (closed) to check the level of damage from the Saturday night Dessert, Irish Coffee, Celtic Music event. Not bad except for the wine glasses used for some sort of parfait and allowed to dry without rinsing. Bad form. Almost a glue, I don't think it was a healthy dessert, the sludge in the bottom of the glasses felt like plastic. Two high-school coaches talking basketball in front of the library. A lady I've folded sheets with, at the laundromat, we talk about the weather; going out of town, skipping all the other stops I might have made, I stop at the 2nd Street Diner for the lunch special, I need to eat more, drink milkshakes, and I had a few dollars. Meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes and a roll for $4, and I sprang for a glass of milk. It wasn't bad, if you have a soft spot for cafeteria food, which I do. We went to Morrison's Cafeteria once a month, when I was kid, and it was a treat, all that stuff that my Mom fixed better, but it specifically wasn't hers. Variety. Never trust a woman over 25 who still calls her father Daddy. Something's wrong. I'm not educated to say what, but something. That could so be taken the wrong way, by any number of people, but I was thinking about his barmaid, Misty, she's 28 and has an 8 year old and one two, whom Daddy watches, when she's away. She might have aborted these kids, but here they are, alive and well, and they compromise her in ways no one warned anything could. She has two kids and I'm off somewhere, safely in the sidelines, stuffing my dick back in my pants. Don't get me wrong, I accept responsibility, but there is something, a blur of colors in the trees, that makes me wonder if this whole thing wasn't set up. You and your fucking camera. Read more...

More Weather

Little originates here, mostly we're pelted from the outside, a Canadian system, something from Alberta, occasionally the remnants from a hurricane in the Gulf. Local events are more limited, generally drainage. Once or twice I was at the exact altitude where rain was forming, I could catch it in my hand, just before it fell. Awareness is all. Right now the wind is blowing. It woke me up and I went outside, stood in the dark and rocked. No particular plans. Tuesday starts a two-week grind, but that's Tuesday, and this is only early Sunday. I need to do the laundry and plan some meals, be good to have clean socks and a casserole waiting to nuke. Supposed to be thunder-showers, chance of tornados, but I don't smell it on the wind, more a placid scent, something white and distant, peonies far away. It's a solid wind that keeps you just a little off vertical, if you were sailing you might fly a spinnaker. Not a bad metaphor for the way I feel. I like the wind in my face, tacking for any advantage. Sailing into the wind produced the steamship, the rest is history. I don't want to be glib, but as Glenn pointed out, sometimes it's commas and sometimes it's periods. Trapped in a word construct with no desire to be recused, rescued, fucking letters, man, they fuck me up, resuscitated, replenished, replicated. It takes hours to dig myself out of the hole I've dug myself into, days, weeks. Mostly what I do is dig. SAVE. Maybe the forecast was correct. I had to log off while a thunder cell moved through. Intense weather is exciting, there's the chance you might die. That sounds wrong but you know what I mean, when thunder shakes the house and lightning strikes a white oak 50 feet away from where you sit, you pay attention. The natural world is what matters, everything else is dross. Dental floss. I pulled a piece of hemp from the debris field yesterday, before I realized the show was over. That doesn't sound right either. I'm not making sense. I need to consider things more closely, beware when the specific becomes general. There was this guy at Janitor College. Heartsfelt, he was a basket case, from Wisconsin or Idaho, someplace cold, always wearing earmuffs. Never could hear what you said. You had to yell if he wanted a hot dog, MUSTARD?, and make various signs. The point of my digression, what I thought I meant, I've forgotten, something to do with weather, the wind, whether or not I was awake. It's a blur. I'm sure the driver was white, either wearing a hat or with really strange hair. Never trust an eye-witness. We're individually concerned, wrapped in our own lives, what do you see, really? I'm out back smoking, thinking about frying potatoes, there's a drive-by shooting, several people are killed, there's a lot of blood, I think about ketchup for the potatoes, realize I'm hardened to the yoke. Maybe that's not quite true. I only imagined there was a shooting, everything else is true What I felt. What I felt like. What I felt like after I thought about what had happened. Subjunctive. Consider the eddies, what you understand now that you didn't understand then. Nothing is different but your point of view. There's a Major Meaning hanging around here but I can't quite shake it loose, bear with me. It's really dark, unusually, I go outside to see what my writing light looks like from out there. It looks sad and lonely. I know that's not the case, grin, write you. I'm not me. I see it, but I can't explain it. Back to bed. Sleeping in installments. Then wind wakes me again. Not meant for sleep. Driving rain. Call my parents, both sounding old and worn out, but I get Mom laughing about some food related thing and we discuss butter beans. I confess to her that I now put chili peppers in my cornbread. She hisses. Cornbread, for Mom and Dad, is self-rising Dixie Lily cornmeal, an egg, and buttermilk; cast iron skillet heated very hot with a blob of bacon fat. A thinner, crusty pone, less cake-like than elsewhere in the country. I like it all ways, but mostly now, I make corn sticks, so easy to eat, the perfect shape, I like the surface to mass ratio. I remember what I got her laughing about, we were talking about meatloaf, which I was explaining to her was actually a forcemeat and therefore related to pate; and how I now made a separate small meat-loaves for however many guests because I was tired of fighting over who got the ends. I mix equal amounts of ground chuck and pork, pre-cook onions, peppers, celery, garlic, mix it all in with a bit of instant mashed potato powder (the binder from heaven, deus ex machina) shape it into 8 ounce loaves, glaze it with red enchilada sauce repeatedly, 30 minutes or so, between 350 and 400 degrees, I'm looking for a crust. Let them rest for 10 minutes as the cooking finishes under layers of slightly solid sauce. These are so good. I think I could do them on the grill, off the heat, on foil boats, might be even better slightly smoked. A very good dinner, skinned and boned chicken breasts on sale so I bought a pair, a brace, whatever, with no idea what I might do, ended up cubing it out, browning quickly after shaking in a bag of spices, everything else I'd cooked earlier, mixed it together, served it on a bed of rice, excellent, and there's a lot of it. Something I can eat for a few days. Everything eventually becomes Fried Rice. All the damaged trees demand attention from the previous ice-storm, everything is dying, look around you. I hate to be the bearer of bad knews. Sorry, news; what you might have expected. Why is this any different? Something. Salt, I think, the bacon. It tastes so good, it has to be bad. Like dark chocolate with a really good port. Certain things, it's the combination, the way they fit together. I know you knew that, I only mention it in passing, how I'd handle granny's coffin, count me in, whatever corner I carry, listen, I own a graveyard, I can bury people at will. It's blowing up a storm, I'd better go.
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Automata

Tatlin claimed to have a machine-heart, said, long before McLuhan, "the material is the message". Material is certainly a medium. His effort was to move from the abstract to the real and leave aesthetics behind. The fusion of art and life. His followers in Germany, Lissitzky and Moholy-Nagy (a Hungarian, they're always lurking) formed a Constructivist group in Berlin in 1922. Moholy-Nagy taught at Bauhaus where the program was based mainly on Tatlin's ideas. The ideas still percolate, the sense that materials determine how they are to be used has been increasingly important to me for the last several decades, almost everything in and on my house has a natural edge. The Wrack Show is all about the materials. Too much time with the 11th Britannica, small print edition, hard on the eyes. Headache. Take a walk, air and birdsong to relieve the pain. Some self-medication. Volume 27 (my favorite is Volume 26, SUB to TOM) where there's no entry on Jacques Vaucanson, of the famous Duck, automaton of the first water. I manage to waste an hour, reading the entries on Typography, Utah, and various Vampires. Finally get some information online. Pierre Jacquet-Droz made a writing child that scripted perfect letters. Duchamp worked on a piece for nine years, became 'The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even' usually called the LARGE GLASS. By mid-afternoon my brain is a bowl of pudding, I eat a cold can of pork-and-beans directly from the can, another of those awful habits I picked up camping or when I was living out of my truck after the separation. When you're on a butte, alone, in the middle of nowhere, no one cares if you fart. The cookstove is acting up, not drawing properly, need to take it apart tomorrow and clean the smoke chase (the envelope that takes flue gases around the oven before they exit) and as that is a messy job, I postpone the Saturday bath. I would have worked on the stove today, but I had already started a fire and buried my head in a book before I realized there was a problem. Not a huge problem because there is a second damper that by-passes the chase and sends smoke right out the chimney. An important feature as it allows heating a small area on the stove-top hot enough to cook, without a lot of extraneous heat. Spring and Fall. In the summer I grill and eat a lot of raw things. I took in butter beans and a Key Lime pie for the staff, they squealed and ate the pie first. Good call. The beans were very good, Pegi asked how I did them, I blenderize a small onion with a couple of cloves of garlic, add that and a can of chicken broth to a bag of frozen Baby Limas, throw in a bay leaf, lots of black pepper, a couple of chunks of smoked jowl, bring to a boil pull off the heat and simmer for several hours. I stir them occasionally and sample a few, until they dissolve on the tongue in a satisfying way. The skin explodes, in a minor eruption, and the interior magic reminds you of home. The best fried chicken is like this, in a slightly different way. Aunt Pearl did chicken that well; I do a thing with eggplant where your tongue is surprised and sends mixed signals. Next week begins several weeks from hell, but it's on the schedule and we're not surprised, so we should be able to do it. I could hang a show in purgatory, if that's what the job was, in and out, you wouldn't even remember what I looked like, tall or short, heavy or thin, he may or may not have been wearing a hat. That's me. No one ever sees the birthmark nor the tat. Some things are left better unsaid. What we thought we might be looking for. Hey, I'll let you in on a secret, I never had any expectations. I was just watching.
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Watershed

About drupaceous, it popped into my head, thought I was making it up, then looked it up, my god, there it was. Rapid draining of all the hollows, even my little rill was running, and Mackletree Creek flowing in spate, cloudy where it hits Roosevelt Lake; solid 6 inches of napp over the spillway, crashing down into a standing wave. Becomes the old Turkey Creek again then, I say the old because they damned it for the lake, but after the spillway it regains its bed. Out early to drive below the floodwall and check the fluid dynamics. Lots of water, a mini-flood, nothing, really; but there are some small debris fields and I poke around for a while. Several groups and several individual parties looking at the Wrack Show, mostly second timers, coming back to see it before it goes away. One three generational group, grandmother, mother, son, came in and asked for Tom. They were very specific about that. Grandma takes piano from Barnhart, they all live on the river, mother was a marine biologist. We spent a lovely time, talking about wrack, specific gravity and attachment. All the county art teachers used the board room for an in-service (?) day and I docented them through the wrack. I pointed to the goat head and said that if they didn't see a goat, they wouldn't get it, then talked about form and natural edges. I think some of them knew what I was talking about. Interesting to me that I assume structure from component parts, knowing full-well that the parts are going to be disparate. What I love best is imagining for that, conceiving a solution based on not knowing. I don't so much write, as I select. I choose things to talk about. By doing that so much I've learned to talk naturally, I rarely tangle my tongue anymore. This is what I do, come home and write you. We all know what I'm talking about. Frogs or maybe the fox. We were talking about something, a Henry James moment, one of those flashes. I do a great three minutes with the bowling ball: dude, I'm in the moment, my teachers would be proud. I nail an imagined construct and it stands. I needed to feel better about myself, and that three-generational group put me over the edge. It's a good show, despite what's gone down. Make what you will, it's all drainage. Standing in front of a group, holding a bowling ball, explaining specific gravity, I feel like a ninth grade Earth Science teacher; I like it, I'm oddly comfortable, rambling on about air-entrained concrete. Talked with a cop today, about releasing the balls, and he thought it was odd, but couldn't find a problem. I might have to talk with the chief and I don't have a problem with that, I can pretty much talk to anybody, about anything: the chief, about the balls, is cake. Putty in my hands. You make a mold, you pour the molten iron, it's not a big deal. It is, of course, but they don't have to know that, the way you create a void and fill it with metal. I'd like to cast the Wrack Show in bronze, the individual pieces are so special, but there's an ephemeral element at play. Organic constructs disappear, things rot. We're left with only the hard things, rocks and such, that survive. We draw conclusions that are wrong, ill-considered, incomplete, stand by our man, however incorrect he might be. I don't know why we do this, but we do. If I had running water I'd just burn the whole damn thing. A simple fire. What do you do with a show when it's over? Storage is always a problem. You can't save everything. If you draw the map large enough it's as big as the world and there's no place to put it. Who has a wall that large? Mostly, I have windows. I wouldn't trade the world for what I see. Reality for a cup of tea. Are those almond cookies? I could reconsider my position. My ass hurts, and my legs, and my feet, I'm doing everything and it's not enough. A coup-stick with many feathers.
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Hard Rain

Rain on a metal roof, even with insulation, if it's hard enough, is going to wake you. A pleasant sound but loud. I get up at three in the morning and wash my hair, eat some butter beans and left-over corn bread, reading a really bad novel at the island. I could wonder that my life has brought me here, but I don't care: what is. To bear isn't that far from to bare, what we're left with, when everything is striped away, we're all the same, lonely, isolated, self-contained. When it's dark and raining, you have to get up and pee in the middle of the night, feel you don't have control even of your own body, your mind spinning out of control, this is the test. What do you do then? Camus all over again. You don't want to embarrass your family, so you get dressed and go to work. Stiff upper lip. No matter that inside you cry like a baby. I still have two weeks of vacation I have to use before the end of June, two new tires for the truck and I need to visit my parents, responsibilities, life is a constant demand, the next thing you need to do. I'm not sleeping well, bad dreams and a general sense of failure. Probably something I ate, bad seafood or a bug I picked up somewhere. Fucking kids, they are a vector for disease. I docented a group of them through the wrack. High School art class, lots of facial studs, pretty girls and ugly boys with drupaceous pants. A dozen pedestals we had loaned out came back, three elevator loads down to the basement, organize the ped room, stack; collect garbage from the 13 stations. I needed to sit for a few minutes, I'm the only one without a specific chair at the museum, so I usually sit in the library and flip through an art book. Read, last weekend, an essay by Guy Davenport on Vladimir Tatlin, wanted to find out more but not very likely, as Davenport found any information difficult to find. I looked up the crazy Russians. Got a hit for a MOMA catalog, a 1968 exhibit, The Machine: As Seen At The End Of The Mechanical Age, and goddamnit if we didn't have a copy in the library. Excellent. Interesting book, hinged metal covers, an idea I'd thought about for many years, very nicely done. Brought it home. This weekend I'll be reading about Tatlin and the gang, Russian art between the World Wars. They were out there, pushing. Davenport also wrote a fiction, called TATLIN! and I'm sure I have a copy but I can't find it. Which is strange, because I keep the Davenport together. Hope to god I didn't loan it out, I'll never see it again. I lost my great copy of the Icelandic Eddas, I either loaned to a visiting prof at Oxford (Missip) or Ted Enslin stole it. I've narrowed that one down. Usually I don't really care. If I liked a book and I find it remainered, I buy as many copies as I can afford, and press them on people until my stash is gone. I've given away 18 copies of McCarthy's SUTTRE, and 14 copies of Pynchon's VINELAND. I got four paperback copies of SUTTRE at a library sale, for 25 cents each, I can afford to be lavish. Pegi was cute today, she batted her lashes and demanded butter beans. I make a note to take her some tomorrow. The future is thus imagined. What I will do, what he, she, and it. I command the high ground, I chose it with that intent, everything is downhill. This was a watershed, drainage day. I left the truck at the bottom of the hill, so I walked down, with staff and pack, poking at things; don't give me a pointer, I'll use it as a drill, to see what I might uncover: are those really dinosaur footprints? where do you keep the mummies? What is the plural of mummy? Listen, I'm happy to be alive, odds are you die, eventually, composted matter. I don't subscribe to any belief. Maxwell saw it clearly. I call your attention back to the previous document, something must have been said, if there is no record does that mean nothing was said? I thought I meant something. Does that count for anything? Read more...

Flower Petals

Whatever that lovely urban tree is. Non-fruiting Chinese Crab-Apple, maybe. Oriental Pear. I've heard it called a great many things. Perfect urban tree, perfect round crown and never needs trimming, Lovely white flowers in spring, falling off as the green emerges from under. Snowing petals today. Rain all day, brought the truck up last night, with liquids, so down the slope barely under control this morning, gets the blood flowing. Suddenly green starting many different places, first blackberry leaves, so the understory closes in, burned farm land in the bottoms, seeded in rye; early bulbs blooming in shocking colors after so much black and white. No fire for several days. Bad choice of wardrobe. Wore the heavy tan Carhartt sweatshirt (from Steph, who keeps me looking decent on the outside) but it's rainy/drizzle all day and I wear it out on errands and when we smoke, by the middle of the afternoon I smell like a damp dog. Late this afternoon, someone had gotten a catalog in the mail, I love catalogs, for the potential lists, and this one was make-up and underwear and perfume products. That new generation of scent sniffing where you rub a spot on the page. I was standing there, just before closing, passageway of the common room, rubbing and sniffing. Everyone at work knows that I study scent, a decent nose. D came out of his office, saw me, came over, -what you got?- -some smells, where you rub the spot, but I don't know whether to sniff my finger or the spot- -both, obviously- and he took the catalog to get a whiff. Oh fuck, what was it called, green, right, Absinthe. Not a nice smell. They missed it. Failure is good, because it gives us a spectrum from which to form opinion. Did a wonderful docent with two older ladies, coming back for the second time, before the show closes. The wrack endeth, the lord knoweth. Fuel for a later soup. These ladies were keen on taking a piece away, and I had the thought that we could get rid of some of it that way. Tomorrow I want to go to the Police Department and discuss releasing balls back into the river. There might be a crowd, so we'd need crowd-control, a generator and flood-lights. If we could get the Army Corp to release water from Greenup, at just the right time, we might achieve a standing whirlpool, and the balls would swirl. D asked if I liked the scent, no, no, I assured him, it was awful, but it was better than damp dog. I rubbed the spots on the outside of my clothing, so as not to be offensive, which would be my objective almost all of the time. A certain line of reasoning leads you to a certain place. I had to brush the white petals off my windshield, I couldn't see. I didn't mean anything. I rarely do, I'm shallow, actually. I'm more intelligent when I act something out, knowing what's coming, having my lines, than I am in any actual confrontation. It's good to rehearse what you might say. Like the Boy Scout said. Or was that the Girl Scout? I wouldn't imagine you exist anymore than I do. I do everything I can, but I'm stopped short. I had left the driver's side window down, to catch the breeze, and the wind, catching a loose gasket, sang a merry tune, I had the thought that I was in someone else's movie, I'd wake up, or something. Stopped at the lake, to gather my thoughts, but we were way beyond that, we needed to get home, to write to you. I'm confused, the conflagration of meaning: I thought I was looking at a wood-pecker, your honor, if you look closely, I just want to get shed of these flower blossoms, they obscure my vision. Flower petals falling like snow.
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Later, Dark

Before I turn on some lights inside I go for a walk outside. The gathering gloom, so quiet all I hear is my own footsteps, then a bird, another, then a squirrel chattering. You interrupt the natural world with your loud body, you have to be very small and quiet to hear what's actually going on. The more noise you make the less you hear. It never fails that I walk into the woods, sit on a stump, stop moving, start listening, that the world unveils. Never fails. Sometimes you have to listen closely. The problem is yours, not a problem with the world. It's officially Spring and there are several million life forms per cubic foot. If you listen you can hear them, shifting the leaf litter. Listening to the radio, low in the background, it's Tom Petty, touches a chord. Then a Brit with some changes, pretty sure that's Clapton in the background, nobody else plays the guitar that way, such smooth progressions. The way music can say things. I have to sleep. We'll talk later. I'm switching my water system completely over to five-gallon pickle buckets, a superior bucket in several ways: better handle, ergonomic, pleasant to carry; gasketed lid, so less sloshing; and I get to use pickle water when I'm breaking in a new bucket. That last might seem a negative quality, but I actually like pickle water. It smells almost antiseptic, certainly acidic. I like to wash my hair with it, I like dill pickles, I don't mind smelling like one. Two painters, camping in the forest, said they would stop by tonight. Can't imagine they actually would. It seems like a good idea, visit Bridwell, have a couple of drinks, but then there's the driveway from hell. A wonderful older carpenter I docented through the Wrack Show today, had a Pomeranian in a satchel. Looked like a fox. I told him about my fox, a few details, he said -Jeeze man, that's cool, foxes are difficult, you got coyotes? -Yes- I allowed, -I see them occasionally- -very powerful together, if they both allow you to see them- I didn't know what he was talking about, some shamanistic crap that I'd dismiss in a heartbeat, but that wasn't his point, he meant that I was seeing the natural world, which I think is true, mostly. Nothing breeds like contempt. There's a hard stop. I read it back over and think it means a great many things. I don't mean any one in particular. The freight language bears (bares) accumulates. I can't mention the fox without consideration, because you know my thing for her, so I'm careful in what I say. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea. Whatever that might be. Can there be a wrong idea? Nothing is set in concrete until it is. We watch these layers of fashion as if they mean something. They don't. Truth be told, all that matters is what you hold dear. I trust my readers, everything else is dross. I'm losing track of time here, but it doesn't seem to matter, you know what I mean. The important things.
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One Way

I needed a couple of things, could have waited until tomorrow, but, unusual for me, feeling a bit stir-crazy, so off to the library, pick up some cream at Kroger. There's a large dead raccoon exploded on Mackletree. It's on one of the numerous 'S' curves and coming back home I surprise a huge Turkey Buzzard with its head buried in the raccoon's body cavity. I slow, the bird flaps slowly up and away, barely clearing the truck, with a dripping rope of intestines hanging from its jaw. Must have been a six-foot wingspan, bright red wattles (or gills, as one dictionary calls them) and it's clear in a flash why this vulture is called a Turkey Buzzard (Bustard), Cathartes Aura Septentrionalis. So close I could have touched him, or snatched away some raccoon chitlings (chitterlings, chitlins). Chitlings is properly only those of swine, prepared as food, so probably more correctly guts. Strong visual image. For several hours I can close my eyes and replay the scene. If someone else had been in the truck with me, what would they have seen? The bird fly over the driver's side, so the angle would have been different. I didn't notice the feet. Interesting that Carma asked me last Friday to recount the incident with the eagle in Colorado, but there I was almost completely focused on the feet, as I was reasonably sure they were to be the instrument of my demise. Big buzzard, little head. A giant pea-hen (large African Chicken with a very small head, excellent eating, all dark meat), but I never ate a buzzard. Ate a crow. Ate an Anhinga once, on a camping trip in Florida, it was all right but we'd been drinking, also, that night, ate a rattlesnake and fried some minnows. An owl hooting over near the outhouse, mid-afternoon, must mean something. Bright day, light cloud cover seems to intensify the sun, very still, 60 degrees. The fox dug through the compost last night. I was taking out some ashes and there was a neat hole in the center of the pile, her dainty footprints everywhere. I can read her tracks now, having followed her in the snow, I can see where she danced around, digging from all sides. There wasn't much there, some rib bones, a few withered parsnips; everything was gone, the hole was completely empty. Holes are always empty, by definition, what is a hole? An empty space in a solid mass. I do a Wittgenstein on that for an hour, define each of the words in the definition to see if I get it. 89. In Zettel "(Thoughts, as it were only hints.) Isn't it the same here as with a calculating prodigy?--- He has calculated right if he has got the right answer. Perhaps he himself cannot say what went on in him. And if we hear it, it would perhaps seem like a queer caricature of calculation." Zettle keeps climbing back to the top of the pile, I never put it away, it doesn't have a place to be put away to. There's an actual Wittgenstein section on one of the shelves, but this book has not been there. It's a great shelf too: James Clerk Maxwell, Claude Levi-Strauss, Pound. Interesting company. I have to get a writing hat, the afternoon sun is killing me, a long-brimmed sword-fishing hat, my favorite for this is Head-Smashed In Buffalo Jump, with thimble sized buffalo falling off the edge of the hat. Pay homage to the household gods. In the library at the museum, the other day, I was telling Sara about the Lares and Penates, the Roman household gods, after Janus at the door. Ritual. I have to think about that. I'm habitual, which teeters on the edge of ritual, but I don't subscribe to any dogma. I only do what I do to get to a place to write. It's hard. It means giving up everything else, drawing down the focus to a narrow point of survival. I'm oddly alive there, aware in my senses. There are risks involved in everything. I'm careful. I choose this life. Glenn said the footage from the graveyard was good, I reread the transcription of Lane and Linda, I think he's on to something. There is a sadness about the wrack, the used, floating away. I'll keep a few, as testament, but the rest of the balls should be set free. I'll burn the show, but I'll know where it came from. Making sense out of things. To make it hard for myself, I have to start over, almost every time, that's the rule. Just one way to do it, you could do it any other. I can think of a dozen. There is no path, everything is overgrown and impenetrable, like green-briar in the spring, we can agree on nothing, but we finally carve a trail, look at scratches on rocks, nod, and seem to agree. Something is buried here.
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Fact Check

Praeteritas Turas Fecundant ---the past fertilizes the future--- motto for Marshyhope State University College in John Barth's Letters. Took me a good while to track that down. Looking up shit in several Latin dictionaries and it came to me that it was Barth, then remembered the book. Read around in him for a few hours. That great opening line from The End Of The Road: "In a sense, I am Jacob Horner." Then got out the huge Raven Map, Landforms And Drainages Of The United States and spent an hour with the magnifying glass, found Mackletree and maybe my hollow. Amazing map. Incredible detail. Answered email questions, the modern equivalent of writing letters. The form has morphed, most emails are like postcards -wish you were here- but I get asked a lot of questions from people I don't know -what did you mean by...- or -were you referring to...-, sometimes I answer, sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's the wrong question and I ask them the correct one. I like the edge I walk with my readers. Neil got up early, specifically to check his email and there were two postings from me, the Maxwell story. He didn't say much but I think he liked them. Fleshing out that Janitor College stuff, it's hard to remember what never happened, but then gets easier when you remember it's fiction. We don't have a problem with that. B is not Brian. D is not Darren. Sometimes, maybe. The edges are fuzzy. You know, when I talk about the frogs or the crows or the Pileated woodpeckers that I'm shooting straight; with the fox it gets a little more complex; the whole janitor thing is under review. Always a mistake, I make certain assumptions, I do this in a cyclical way that even I can see, and then respond incorrectly to a situation. Like I wasn't paying attention or something. I wasn't. As soon as you take something for granted, it isn't. Relationships are difficult. Being in the moment requires a brutal self-centeredness. Nothing else matters. Tough on other. I've thought about this a lot, I'm so much better alone. I don't lose my temper, I don't eat babies. We wouldn't have a lot of art if creature comforts were the most important thing in the world. I assume you'll make sense of me. I'm comforted in the fact that you are there. Like a net, you know, I'm afraid of heights now, there'd have to be a net. Someone would have to teach me how to fall. I fall like an idiot, it's the only way I know. Failing miserably. Ends the conversation and I can go to bed. Pretty sure nothing was settled. I listened to myself closely. Just a murmmer, nothing serious, what you thought your heart could do. I over-tip and walk away, my solution. I don't want to argue.
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Remembering Harvey

Glenn called, 25 years since poet and dear friend Harvey's suicide. "Seven tigers / nothing unusual / never mind." Which I will celebrate by getting three metal signs, a line each, and put them coming up the driveway, like the old Burma Shave signs. Built him a little cabin on our property in Missip, and he spent 6 months with us there, after the years on Cape Cod together and visits to The Vineyard. Read many of his poems today. He could sit in a dark room and recite pages of his own work, and then do Lorca, in Spanish. I published many books of his, a great many broadsides. His death was a cold thing, just days after leaving us in Missip. I'd installed a composting toilet in his cabin, what became the guest cabin, homemade device (I've built a great many, of several designs), his model was the raised platform with toilet seat, cut out below, with a rubber gasket underneath and a vent stack behind that went straight up, underneath was a 55 gallon drum held tight with a small jack. When it was three-quarters full, take out that one and install another, then the shit was composted twice and used on non-root crops the first year. Mind-numbing rotational charts, we grew so much there, an acre truck patch and an acre of corn; body-numbing work load but we were young and stupid. After Harvey's death I had about 40 gallons of his shit. Turned part of him into soil. Read a Sandford novel, that fucking Virgil Flowers. A good plotter, a decent writer, acceptable escapist fiction. I needed a day of not thinking, worked wonderfully, recharged and calm. Still don't understand some of the things that have happened recently, never will. Events viewed from different points of view are different events. Everything affects everything. Talk about over-lapping Venn Diagrams, talk about fractals, talk about Brownian Motion, the 2nd Law Of Thermodynamics, and on to entropy, post-structuralism, and the global recession. Many communications wondering what the hell was happening. Riders Of The Storm, was that the title? Jim Morrison and The Doors, I probably have that somewhere, but I'm not listening to much music except when I cook, the CD player is toast. I need a wind up radio, for when the power is out, and a boom box that will play both CD's and cassettes and accepts batteries; I need a lot of things but most of them are unimportant, that's the human condition. I just put away the food, the film crew didn't show, maybe tomorrow and if not then I have meals for a week, had one last bite of butter beans. Near as I can tell butter beans are baby limas. If you buy a can of butter beans, which you can, in the south, and read the label, it says lima beans. There are many varietals, all with different names, a can of beans, no, worms, and I've grown dozens of varieties, I love them, they melt to a smoothly butter texture in the mouth, a great feel. They need flavor enhancement. I cook them with smoked jowl bacon and lots of black pepper, test them for salt after an hour, don't add any before then, the bacon will be salty. You can cook them in two hours, if you're in a hurry, but they're better cooked for four, at a lower heat, and eaten tomorrow. So much of what I do is better later. I've learned to let things rest. Harvey was The Zen Butcher, cut meat for a while, at a neat little shop, when his mate at the time was going to school, or something. Realize I don't know anything about anything. Remember she was a vegetarian. What was I cooking? Probably a proto-ratatouille, what I thought I would make. Eggplant is the guiding principle, what you thought you meant. I'm sweeping, later, something is different. Probably nothing, but a few things that seem to fit together. Did you see the license plate, when they were speeding AWAY, pretty sure they we hadn't seen that the same way, whatever it was. What I thought about you.
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Burial

Maxwell's burial was an iconic event. Someone researched the regulations, and because certain Nordic practices were grand-fathered, we could cremate the body, IF the pyre was a boat on a private body of water. Took some scrambling, but we found a farmer with a stock pond and a dingy on its last legs. Picture the scene. The entire student body and most of the faculty, in their cups, tossing back beakers of schnapps, a fog machine, fireworks, and for that personal authentic remembrance, we all ate pickled quail eggs and bean soup. The miasmic cloud was palpable. Never has anything smelled so bad. At the end, when the final embers had sizzled, we threw our clothes in a bonfire and danced naked until dawn. No one that was there will ever forget. Which is strange, when you think about it, because we didn't even like the guy. Any excuse for a party. First time in years I've deleted names from my list, but as Sandburg (I think) said, the past is a bucket of ashes. I'd build another house, but I'm happy in this one, until you float my boat. I meant to leave work early today, to drink and think about things, but one thing led to another and I ended up closing up shop. I like my job. I was mopping, this afternoon, creating damp chevrons pointing nowhere, and a young couple that had never been in the museum were questioning what something meant. In good janitor form, I leaned on my mop, and pointed out that some things merely were. Their baby was crying. I asked if I could hold him. They agreed. He needed a burp, I quieted the baby and walked them through the Wrack Show. They'd never been in a museum before, had come just for the music, were amazed people could do this. Yes, I said, as a matter of course. Liza said that the film crew had no dietary restrictions but they preferred vegetables. I'll need to run to town. Butter beans, I think, and scalloped potatoes, slaw, the left-over ribs, who couldn't be pleased with that? A nice sour-dough and booze. Life goes on. Light some candles. Laugh. Read more...

Janitor Stuff

Too many things. Need to adjust my will, so I have D look up burial regulations for Ohio. You don't have to be embalmed, you don't need a casket, if you're going to be cremated, you can use a cardboard box (a crematorial vessel), and they don't care what you do with the ashes. Bottom fee, if you shop around, for cremation, is about $500. It takes high heat for a long time, you're mostly liquid. With the furniture store next door to the museum, a cardboard box is no problem, I could be cremated in a Lazyboy box. There was a dude at Janitor College, Maxwell Compton; English parents who had moved to Sweden for the sex and drugs, he was the result, fat and dim. He farted constantly, these great reeking waves that smelled like something had crawled up inside him and died. No one could stand to be around him, he had no friends and a large collection of inflatable dolls. The brunt, as you might imagine, of a great many jokes. He died in an explosion of cleaning products, that combination of bleach and ammonia on a hot day that sears the lungs completely. It was no huge loss, but we janitors, like cops and firefighters, always show up, in our starched dinem shirts with name tags, to honor the dead. This was a guy whose idea of a good time was watching traffic. None of us liked him, but we all show up to sing the Janitor Requiem, which is a haunting piece of music. As many things had fallen on my plate, janitor shit, I needed to crank it up a notch. An observation from the field: most people sit on their ass most of the time. Which says something. The crows were back, at the lake, and it was good to see them, members of my family, and I was saddened by the death of a fox in Florida. Janitor 101, you learn to disassociate the pangs, the pain, your job is merely to clean the mess. I don't understand my position at the museum, not completely, but it allows me to write you. Who was I talking to, someone knew exactly what I was saying, it was scary, the way you understand me. Hey. Listen. I'm just trying to be clear. It makes a certain sense, when reports are admitted from afar. What I'm looking at, what appears on the screen. Calls into doubt what I thought I was saying. A particular period took me over an hour, sleep on that; I did, absolutely. Sorry my list got used for a personal tirade, I consider the list something almost sacred, held in trust, but I don't control the action of others. Liza thinks I can blind copy, which would be better. I've got some people on it. Before the ugly email, before I left the house, I had lost a sock. I hate losing socks, so I mounted a search. It wasn't completely light yet, so I was using a flashlight and I looked everywhere, retraced my steps, as I remembered them, looked in all the odd places: could I have put it in the freezer? could I possibly have burnt it? under the bed, under the chest, under everything. I'm maybe a bit compulsive about my socks, but I try and stay on top of the little things, hoping the best for big things. I stopped looking and sat on the sofa with a quad espresso, wishing Linda were here to roll me cigs. Then I realized where the sock was. I had worn them to bed because I'd listened to a Greg Brown song about sleeping in just your socks. Warm under quilt and comforter, I'd peeled off the damn things and one of them had slipped into that zone beyond the end of the mattress, down to the tuck of the sheet. Yes, goddamnit, it was there. I'm at least as smart as a sock. Still before the email, I'd wondered, seriously sitting there pondering, before work, just as the sun cleared the opposite ridge, how many more people I'd manage to disappoint before I died. A circus day at the museum, setting up for a luncheon music thing, Dr. John and Robin who everyone calls Tommi, did river songs and told tales, nice, rooted local stuff. She had written a song, for the occasion, that was beautiful, nice voice too, an alto-soprano with vibrato. John did a nice musical interlude for me and D, a banjo piece, The Two Rascals, I blushed. Nothing is what it seems. Glenn noticed the slight delay, what wasn't said. I defer to anyone, someone that could have said something. Nothing matters. Read more...

Judgment Call

I chose to not swerve and hit the squirrel. Messy. My little truck has tight steering, easy to over-correct. Birds and critters everywhere, second day above 70 degrees, people smiling. Nothing went as planned today, a perfect slate. I always under-estimate the time to prepare for functions, then run around like a chicken. First there was a staff meeting and most of the items under discussion fell to my plate. The janitor serves everyone's discretion. Goddamn imported fake lady bugs are coming out of the woodwork. They taste bad, they get into my drink, I have to use a coaster as a lid. My other favorite film-maker is coming to town and I hope to get her out for dinner. Last weekend off for a few, changing out the shows. The Wrack Show becomes next year's firewood, Local Stars gives way to Folk Art. Things change. It was a raccoon under the house, neon green eyes in the flashlight. I ran it off with a fire-cracker. The Wrack Show will live in Glenn's film. I thought about that today, holed up in the library (cub-scouts down in the classroom, a college class doing the tour, a reception in the back hall) for a few minutes today, how ephemeral things are remembered on film. I've a bad copy of a bad print of Tom Mix jumping his horse across the Cahuenga Wagon Cut, catching a moment of time. He should have died but he didn't. We never hear of the horse again, it must have broken all four legs, it was a huge jump and the impact must have been terrific. The best jumping I ever did, if you could call it that, a stupid gamble, Sesuit Harbor had frozen and the ice was moving out on the tide, big blocks, 15 foot cubes, the surfaces all disarranged, different heights and angles. I had discovered that wearing moccasins gave good tack and figured I could get across. I did, writing now as testament, but I never should have survived. I've always been very quick to adjust to circumstances. I thought it was good thing. I'm probably going to stay here, I've looked at all the options, but the fact is, I love this ridge, and I'm tired of moving. My vision of the end-game is different, but the end-game is the same. I'm just trying to find a way to die comfortably. I feel so Raymond Carver. So Dorn. There's an other house I'd like to build, another, maybe I could. But really, I'm comfortable here. The first thing I do, when I discover the time, is write a paragraph. I need not mention they had positioned me that I would be violated. Fuck you and the robber you came in with. I understand that, where were we going? Read more...

In Conversation

Everything comes up. Blame. What you might have done differently. The odds. Periods and commas. You forget how well you know someone, the years of background, until the shit hits the fan, then you remember. The concrete construction is a foundation, what lies below, rebar suspended in a matrix. The strength of any system is where the first failure occurs. You're no better than your weakest link. We forge ahead, using language like a hammer on the anvil, assuming. Meaning is a kind of wrought iron, pounded into shape. Family or friend. Whatever can carry the load, whatever attachment. Stress failure analysis. What happened in what order. A bridge, for instance, fails. The sequence. A certain harmonic and the truss vibrates, rivets pop, the structure falls. We understand in theory but the reality dumps us in the river. Women and children first. Lane's life-jacket knows limitations, can't guarantee you'd be face up, you might well be face down and drown, deader than a door nail, but suspended. We recover a body but it isn't the same thing. An empty vessel tells us almost nothing. It's a bowl, your point is? Nothing makes much sense. Green-briar clogs the path, I stop the filming, go back to the house for clippers, there's a way through this. Listen. The dead speak. Harvey would have said. We're dealing with periods here. Hard stop as an anodyne to the convoluted. The Board Room needs painting; patching, then painting. I patch and sand. Leaks of unknown origin. I suspect chalk failure. Can't find the right color chalk. Brain dead today, and not the only one. Ready to start painting tomorrow. Enough food cooked for the week and cooked ribs in the freezer. Three single-malts and one of them not opened, a bottle of Beam Black. Stopped at the lake to watch the ducks cut large V's on the surface, where they overlap there is a brief W which would make a handsome logo for some company, the name of which started with a W. Or maybe a company dealing in duck supplies. I think about a book I could do from the text: The Janitor And The Fox. Some Confessions: The Diary Of A Janitor. What They Thought I was Too Stupid To Hear. Shit And Dust. More seriously, I can see a book about Janitor College, framed within the museum day-to-day, coming home during that run when the fox was common. The book is already written, I just have to find it. Correctly recognizing the intervention, no mean feat, because it was so well played. Dear friends were concerned. I'm touched by that, you know? because I work in a vacuum. I can only work if I separate completely from social constructs and live in the natural world. It's a habit, and after what Linda said about wearing the costume, straight-pins in the dark. I probably seem more troubled than I am. The injuries are not serious. I have to think about that, they actually are serious, everything becomes relative. What I was saying earlier. Don't make me remember. You, and your restraints. It took me years to order for myself. I actually like tripe, when it's cooked right. I'm often aware of my surroundings. True Story: I heard this hum, a drone, probably the fridge, maybe something that I hadn't considered, dying bugs or strangled birds, don't get me started. I wanted to check the basement, but I don't have one. Under the house? What are we looking for? We'll talk later, make a note. Read more...

Shit Happens

Don't paint yourself into a corner. Maybe the last stew of winter, my diet is seasonal. The Key Lime pie is a hit. Tomorrow I must watch the intake of single malt until the food is on the table. Three hours, to prepare the meal, but Glenn will be keeping time, in my head I have what needs to be done. A matter of course. This conversation is unusual, that we talk about the things we do. I have to remind myself. Fuck, yeah, man, that's what we were talking about. Other. We talked tonight about writer and reader, drew no conclusions, but something is happening, where I meet you, a congress. I'm amazed, what you understand; I often don't get it, then I understand, a delayed response. What I don't understand is legion. What I do understand is good food, good drink, and conversation. Last night they broke into song, dinner was ready and they broke into song. Catches or rounds, Purcel? It was enthusiastic. The ribs were very good, near perfect, Baby Backs, three slabs, and the butcher had trimmed one slab badly and there was a sizable vein of loin running down the middle. I brown the slabs quickly, over very high heat, brush a mixture of lime juice and butter over the seared surfaces, wrap them in foil, cook them two hours, off the heat, turning them every 15 minutes. You end up with this liquid, in the foil boat, that is very good. Worth saving, better than that. To die for. Glenn and I rack it off, he supports the back of the boat and I control the spout, we get it all. It becomes the sauce for the ribs and I save some of it, to start the sauce for the pork tenderloin medallions tonight, with scallions and mushrooms. It was the best sauce I've ever made for anything. Not reproducible, because it was built over several nights, but I think I know what happened, so I could approximate something close. The eggplant, Diana, was divine, slightly too salty for my taste (when I sweat the eggplant I need to wipe it more carefully) but everyone likes salt. We're salty, when you get down to it, blood and seawater share the stage. Nothing profound, just that. Sodium. Confronted thus. You can laugh, but sometimes things are serious. I might move, for instance, because things are uncomfortable; we all do this, get up, walk around, wet a finger and check the wind. What Glenn preaches, and it's true, that everything is local. Linda knits, while we talk, mutters over a mistake, I wish I was repairing a fishing net, something useful. I do cook several spectacular meals. In particular, the sauce for the tenderloin medallions is a work of art. It starts simply but after considered attention takes the floor. A layered flavor. So good we have to remind ourselves that it's real, not a dream, but an actual sauce. One thing leads to another. I prepare a meal for someone who isn't there. Nothing unusual, never mind. Heat some water, wash some dishes. I'm lucky there are people I can talk with. A quirk of personality. Nothing is what it seems. I really must go to sleep. Much food left over, must have thought I was feeding an army. Achieved a first in cooking on the wood-stove. The surface is 22 inches by 36 inches and every square inch was being utilized, an astounding assortment of cast iron. Everyone, at every meal, eats seconds; ribs snatched from the tray as food is put away. We use a roll of paper towels desaucing ourselves. More singing, interrupted with soft belches. Sunday night is a luxury of conversation. I love this company, tireless in the pursuit of connections, Linda knitting. She did a monologue on the death of her father that was brilliant, heart-rending without the least taste of sentimentality. Extraordinary. At one point Glenn and I were 13 stations deep into a conversation, and he, to his credit, with an assist from Aberlour, pulled, point by point, the thread from the morass. Like that. Non-family becomes uber-family. Even in my life, having been the janitor in a great many places, and always finding people for a great evening of dining, drinking, and conversation, this weekend stands out. Today I cleaned, did the dishes, repackaged the left-overs, froze some marinara (what was I thinking, a gallon was excessive), and finally did the laundry. A still overcast day. Perfect. Lots of birds and the attendant song. A quietness floods the ridge. Palpable. It was an intervention, that Diana had planned, I think. That she sensed I needed friends around, to cook for, to drink with (my god they brought a lot of booze), to talk with. What can I say? She was correct. And Glenn hooked up my new printer. I was reading myself at the laundromat today, hard copy. I seem to be transparent. Yesterday, afternoon light, Glenn filming, Linda had not seen the graveyard, we walked over there. Owning a graveyard doesn't have to be strange, but I would think it almost always is. I don't think about it for long periods of time, then I walk over there, graves, natural rock headstones with crudely etched dates. Primitive burial. The best that could be done at the time. Minerva was buried mid-winter, how did they get the coffin up here? Who dug the hole? Coffee cans and plastic flowers. What do they mean? If we have a clock, we can note the time, if we have a map, we can note the place, but the nature of reality is a mystery. What Ralph saw is not the same thing Linda saw. They come to the table with different maps. Read more...

Final Prep

Just two things left on the list: clean some flat surfaces (sub-set, put away some books), and bake a Key Lime pie. I'm on it, like ugly on a dog. Good day at work, finishing things, starting things; talk with D about setting up the next main event, get the tool room in the basement quasi-organized. My new assistant, a state subsidized employee, a welfare mom on the dole, is quite good, a fast study, she could be a janitor but I doubt she aspires to that. Bright enough and a smoker, she fits right in; and she has the place looking good, next week I'll have her painting the board room. I docent a couple of college classes, strip out some failed chalk in the board room, patch the damage (toward painting), working, starting to work, on some things D and I had talked about, future things suddenly possible, things we'd talked about for years; and he's up to speed on what he needs to be doing. He and Pegi have become a team, fun to watch, they occasionally ask my opinion, which is cool, you know, the janitor chimes in. An interesting dynamic emerging over this show that is 18 months out, they're both excited about it, what they can do, how they can do it. While I'm mopping downstairs, I think, we're going to be ok here. Don't do theater if you're prone to hysteria, it's not a management of note. That was just the morning. At some point Pegi bumped her hip into mine, she's a dancer, a tactile person, I knew what she meant. Alright, to the task at hand, I really must put away 30 books, clear the table, make the stacks secure. Bake a pie. I can do this. Throwing books on the sofa to be re-shelved is something I can do, I heat some water to wash some dishes, I need to wash my hair. Hey. This is pretty much where I live, the universe I know. The pie is perfect, I sample a small wedge, tart and on the tip of the tongue, a perfect finish. I only don't eat the whole thing because I want some of you to have some. For me, this is the dessert of the gods, one of my favorite things culinary, and easy. Why not? Feeding your favorite people is a special place. Hosting an event. Going from no one to some one, nothing is what it seems. Read more...

The List

Right now, I'm doing three things, but I seem to be on track. I had made a second or third list and took off work an hour early, so I could get up to speed. An hour and a half to throw the stew together, because I insist that the cubed London Broil, shaken in a bag with spices, be browned before inclusion, the fond de-glazed with wine; and I roasted a turnip and a parsnip, knowing they would break down in the juice, adding complexity. I'm heating the gallon or so, to boiling, then simmer for a couple of hours, simmer again tomorrow night, should be ready for Friday. Boiled water and pasteurizing the sauce, cleaning the jars; I added several marinades, and, as it had gotten fairly hot, tempered it with fruit juice, papaya, and added some tamarind paste. The kitchen sink was disgusting, after cleaning jars, so I clean that, vacuum some dust bunnies. Tomorrow, I note, I must clean flat surfaces, there is no place to eat; I start tonight, by gathering several piles that need sent to people. I need to shelve 30 or 40 books, and find a place to stack off-prints. Hope I get my quantities correct, cooking for this many people. Talk about winging it, I make it up as I go along. Soups and stews are better if they're eaten a day or two after they're made. I think about making a Butternut Squash soup, and maybe a dessert, it's always good to shock, if, you know, it's not too inconvenient. I'm in a cooking mode, damn the torpedoes. One of my curses is that I'm southern and I want to feed you, cheese grits, egg in a hole, something: I'm always worried you haven't eaten. You look thin. The house smells great, the simmering stew, the sauce, I sample them, as time goes on, god should grant we eat this well. Still, I'm worried I don't hear exactly what's said. Are you thinking about me or you? I have flat surfaces to deal with, and bills to pay. Aralee was correct, when she talked about entitlement. What was expected. Neither here nor there. I just want conversation. Decent conversation. I've given up almost everything, at least we could talk. Read more...

Mixed Signals

Experimental geography. It benefits to study specific sites and memories. Every estuary has a story to tell. I'm a student of wet-weather springs and grader ditches: small drainages. Small enough to wrap your brain around. Read the landscape as text. I did once alter the course of a seasonal stream to save a house, it took five years and a serious study of actually dynamics (as opposed to what I wanted to believe, thinking I understood) and using the force of the water to deposit fines where I needed them, breaking the flow and slowing the current in a backwater. Sometimes it's all right to meddle, carefully, maybe even necessary. Keep the culvert catchments clear, that kind of thing, generally, it's foolish. In Missip, where I had a lot of land and more bottom than I could use, I just watched the creeks change their course, no reason to intervene. The New Normal, I was reading somewhere, grants access to the private sphere of the artists themselves. When Monteverdi first/finally asked -can this line be spoken?- opera was born. Everything before is liturgical. Access to private information is a kind of currency, the private line allows that. Words spoken against a certain back-drop. I have a list of things that I need to do, before the reunion, but my compulsion is to write while I can. Three nights I won't write, it already seems uncomfortable, but I'll be with dear friends, cooking. I operate from a position that is slightly unbalanced. Not quite a crisis. Barely under control. A rule I impose is to do no more than sample the single malts before dinner is on the table. Brandy can give me a neck rub. I feel a little like the Light Heavy-Weight, before a fight. I think I'm ready. There will probably be costumes, we have to dress one way or the other; there might be make-up, we might need to hide a zit, let's face it, we're way imperfect. My older daughter is in Iceland for a week, studying television production, the dollar is strong there. There's a question that isn't asked here and I don't know how to approach it. My family, with the exception of me, are all gathered at a locus, they support each other, and I applaud them, but I could never live there. When the Pileated Woodpecker enters the scene, I'm gone. The natural world takes presidence. Broadcast what you will. There was a really minor thing I wanted to call to your attention, but I forgot what It was. Something. A pebble? Too many mattresses. What you thought you felt. I'm a realist, if you can't swim, build a boat. I'll leave it at that. Life Preservers won't save you, look at what they say, the disclaimers, they disavow any knowledge. I'm tired, I need to sleep, I love you, but I can't go there. Read more...

Time Pieces

The wheels of commerce tied to time. A mystery to me. Cut and split some wrack for the reunion, realize I can drive in, make a list, quick trip to town. Supplies. Try to think ahead, fine tune the menu. Going to make a stew on Wednesday for Friday dinner, bread and salad. Need to check the weather, Linda wants ribs, I think, two hours on the grill, have to be Saturday, then the eggplant and medallions on Sunday. So many ingredients. Roasted root vegetables, parsnips, turnips, potatoes, onions, excellent dinner, sprinkled with a good balsamic. I graze, eating a few pieces every time I get up. Fucking dogs, man, they upset me, they run off the wildlife, they're stupidly loud. Two yearling does browsing the joke I call my yard, a few green shoots, here come the dogs, there go the deer. Goddamnit. I'd like to make corn-sticks one of the nights but I'm maxed out, and besides, I'd have to keep the stove too hot too long and they'd eat too many of them, I'd be at the stove forever. The next reunion, bean soup and corn-sticks, fried salt-pork, and wilted lettuce. Creoleization. Someone said about the Wrack Show, that it opened doors in the way he saw things. The thing about fall root vegetables is that they need a frost, to start converting the sugars, otherwise they taste like shit, chalky fiber. But if you've grown them yourself, harvested correctly, then you know how good a parsnip can be, a turnip. I trim off a small piece, with my trusty pocket knife, in the store, rub off the surface crap, taste. I got both parsnips and turnips for the stew, sweet. I might roast them before I add them, to bring that out. They'd dissolve in the juice. A kind of ghost. Like the bottle of Guinness I'll use in the stew. A whisper, two people bump in a hallway, maybe something is said, maybe not. Maybe a short piece of film that shows the master without any pants. I have to smile, me saying that. How far removed we are. Consider where you are, when that fits exactly, what I thought was being said. Read more...

Lost Time

Blue Grass, of a sort. Bela and his weird banjo, his amour, singing strangely traditional tunes. The sense that music makes is the same side of the brain I use writing you. If I don't pay any attention I can be in touch with it, when I listen closely, I lose contact completely. Floating off into a Partita, doing a high-step around the island. I see it's 9 o'clock and don't know if it's morning or night, make breakfast, always a good bet. As the darkness deepens, I assume I was wrong. I can deal with that. I'm wrong more often than I might casually admit. Any idiot could see it's night, but I was holding out for overcast, as it is, it's either today or tomorrow. It could be yesterday, but I rule that out as a matter of course, pretty sure I already did yesterday, or the dream was vivid enough to make me believe. I remember driving or pulling nails, hitting my thumb, the damage is apparent. I'm sure it's a recent wound, it's still bleeding. I use that knowledge to establish a time-line: I must have been there then. Some things fall into place, but what about the tattoo, and where did that earring come from? Not sure things mean as much as they are. Walking the bounds, today, I was struck with how little I know. One place I stopped, over near the graveyard, I didn't recognize a single thing, like I had slipped into another universe and nothing was the same. I'm pretty good on trees and bushes but I couldn't identify a single thing. The grasses were the wrong color, the leaves were wrong, the growth patterns. I stood quite still and looked for my tracks in the soft ground: the way you entered is often an exit, if you haven't stirred things too much. When I gain sight of the house, I squeak, a muffled high-pitched sound, yes, home again. Simple pleasures. Roll a smoke, get a cup of coffee. My chair is uncomfortable as always. I must want it that way. Time unfolds. If I'm lucky I gain a paragraph, if I'm unlucky I lose one. There's a joke there but I don't feel funny. Comic, maybe. Tragic might be closer to the point. Consider the janitor thus, a trail of shit or vomit that leads to a pile, immediately you think logistics, how to get this from here to there. I use a lot of paper towels. Everywhere but my house I'm neat and tidy, my own space is a pig-sty, I clean it twice a year, more than that seems redundant. I'm not trying to impress anyone with my habits. I shave almost daily, wash often enough to not stink. The very model of a modern major general. Get the beat right, it's all jazz. Prison Bay is a Buffet song, right? No place you'd like to be. A corner of Cuba for really bad guys. But wait, I'm not so good myself. Not bad enough to be imprisoned but bad enough, cut me some slack, would you trust me with your daughters? Truth be known, I'd merely poke them, to make sure everything was in the correct place, roll over and go to sleep. I have a busy day tomorrow. Preparing for the reunion. Cut me some slack, I want to be there, in the moment, but I'm drawn elsewhere. How many pounds of potatoes per person? What cheese? Simple questions. but the answers are never that easy.

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Crows, Wheeling

Blustery, and the occasional crow sails past barely under control. A large buck, in velvet, looks deranged or drunk, red eyed and careless; when I go out to dump the compost, he briefly looks like he might kill me, before he snorts and clambers down the driveway. The shopping list for the Reunion grows larger, more countries heard from. Next time we do this we should rent one of those cabins in the forest, they have decent kitchens, a bathroom, and sleep 12 or 10 people (rent for 2 nights and you get a 3rd night free, off season). Revising the menu, I need to make a stew or soup for Friday night, because I have to work and cooking time will be limited. A token attempt at housekeeping, clean out the fridge, vacuum some dust bunnies, make a note to clean the outhouse seat. The trees are bending through large arcs, the house shudders. A Conrad novel, substitute masts for trees, a nuthatch tries to land and can't find purchase. My sleep, drinking, and eating habits are not falling into a pattern; went to bed at 9 last night, got back up at 2 and read for 4 hours, drinking chicken broth laced with brandy, then, of course my internal clock was fucked, because we went on DST. My computer knew what to do, which scares me. Anthony Burgess falls into that Dahlberg camp: Opinionated, brilliant, and caustic. His book reviews are spot on. Before I disagree with him, I check my back. He and Nabokov were at a party, it was loud and there were a lot of people, famous people and great writers, but they wanted to talk in private, so they spoke Anglo-Saxon. I can say a few words of Latin, that's it. I only have English. I wish it was my second language. Conrad spoke with a thick accent, but wrote perfect prose. Different parts of the brain. My only skills are synergistic, terrible at math (except for simple numbers, at which I excel) and can't pick up Spanish, though everyone seems to speaking it, or a Creole with Spanish in the stew; I lumber along with a single vocabulary. It suits me; I think, if I used a lot of diacritical marks you wouldn't trust me. And you do trust me, which is important, because if you don't trust me then nothing is there, and we have to go back to Go. Trust is a major precept. I'm reminded off a joke I can't remember. Two blondes go into a bar. Something about a parrot. Honestly, I don't know. I've observed a sequence of events, I don't know what to make of them. We'd need to define terms. I think I know what I saw. This is difficult, pretty sure I saw things unfold a certain way, not the way you saw them. Me and you, babe. Listen, I admit that I never understood anything, I only ever made a guess. I wish well for you, whatever arrangement you've made. It's a mine-field for me, watching where I step. I don't want to trip and fall. I would, actually, rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else. The fault is mine, I didn't see this scenario. I look into the future, as we all do, what might happen, a fundamental aspect of the present, projecting thus. It's all about connection. What Emily said. I wish I could remember, something, dot dot dot. I'm a simple guy, I don't do well with complex equations. What is love? Fuck me. This is why I love wrack, there's always a pattern, something to be learned: look closely, something will expose itself.

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New Readers

Never cease to be surprised. All writing is local. Local enough, specific enough, it opens out. New reader in Moose Jaw. A complaint about my profanity from some asshole in Missouri. Continued fall-out from the reactor meltdown. I needed a day off, took a walk, March 7th, 72 degrees. The frogs will be copulating tonight, puddle waters are astir by mid-afternoon. Enough wind that I don't hear anything all day but the natural world, no argument, no whining, no bitching and moaning. Deep in the woods, I sit on a stump and roll a smoke, a moment of grace, the wind dies for a few minutes and the silence is sublime. Solitude is a bear, maybe it's human nature to want to be with others, I understand that, I look forward to the Non-Family Reunion, mostly because all the people are bright and the conversation will sparkle. I love good conversation. But to work, I need long periods of solitude. I don't necessarily do anything, I just need to be alone. I smoke and drink and talk out loud. Sometimes I can use the machine and forge it into a paragraph, sometimes I can't. I write best when I'm talking directly to you, notice in my cursory rereading, that when I'm talking to Linda or Sara, Glenn or Guy, I'm more transparent. I do want to be clear, if I could be glass, I would be. But I'm not, I'm just another confused blob of protoplasm. When I get up to stir the soup I forget an entire line of reasoning. I realize how devious Linda is, she set this up, she would buy the ribs, I'd be forced to cook them, the Failed Bet Ploy; we see this con all the time, but I would love to, so I will. Ribs and what? Slaw, certainly, some kind of potatoes. This whole sequence seems like something halfway between absolutely real and total fictional. Listen, I deal with this every day, we extrapolate, it's our natural system, and we're often wrong. Still, a pidgin becomes a creole. You can see the way things develop. Where was I? thinking about this. A rest stop in western Iowa. That time I was almost arrested for having an unabridged dictionary in Utah. Bizarre trip, I was happy to get back home. I'm always happy to get back home. I want my retreat. This is where I'm centered. Anabasis. Nepal. What you to say. Read more...

Start Again

Two large birds go into a bar. No. Stifled giggle. Two guys are walking down the sidewalk, one of them notices another person they both remember. Neither can remember her name. The moment passes, the characters too. It's as if nothing happened. I didn't drive in tonight because the driveway seemed delicate, carried a huge load, sherpa mode, like I was built for it. Wind in the night, but warm, 5th of March and no fire. Last of the bean soup heated on a hot-plate. Good enough. We must agree on a set of signs. The last vehicle should clog the driveway, that could be a rule, but we never know which is last. Always a problem, if you're not talking. It all comes down to usage. Imagine the scenarios. Imagine the punctuation necessary to make a point. I have a list, I know what some things weigh, I can extrapolate, I know I'm in over my head, still, it's dark, the wind blows. Fox prints around the puddle where tads had died, but no sign she ate them: just looking. Nothing is what it seems. I could be angry but I'm not, who cares? The robins are sure the season has changed, one today, below the floodwall, was a capon, looked large enough for a Robin Pot Pie, but I'd never. Song birds have a special place. Make a note. Just because you haven't doesn't mean you'd never. Whatever that means. A billboard, another sign, might say something, it might not. Meaning is a can of worms. Consider any interaction, what was actually said. Everything is called into play. Stick-ball on the streets, what you chose to cook for dinner, the depth of the river at flood. It's a mystery, the sense we make. I'm sure you think you understand me, I hope you do, I don't. A cartoon, close as I can get, if I understand that word correctly. Getting a leg up on tomorrow. I see where I think I'm going. Stick figures. Arrows. Janitor left to his own devices, as Pegi, Sara and D working on revised budget for next year. Cleaned. Basement mostly, as far away from the budget as possible. Needed drinking water, so left a few minutes early, before projected rain, drove up the driveway. The easy life. Need to start a list toward the reunion, get my ducks in a row. Great facilities catalog in the janitor's box today: portable posts and ropes, stanchion rope and chain items, clicker prize wheels, baroque metal display easels, classic banner stands, standard baby changing stations, literature display holders, I love this stuff. The new land, captured behind a dike, is polder. Ten years in western Colorado and Utah, where salt domes lurk beneath the surface and irrigation brings it to the surface, tens of thousands of acres turned to salt fields, and I often thought about what succession of plants they use on polder, to bring it into cultivation. Lots of cow dung, then something fast that would fix nitrogen. There's probably a book or several. Led to a consideration of tidal nodes, stay with me here. As a kid, on the Atlantic coast, then as an adult, living on an island, I've always been fascinated by tides and the littoral. Key West, where I spent 18 months in the water, I must have been 14, has almost no tide, inches. Highest place on the key, the cemetery, is maybe 14 feet above mean sea level, which is, I suppose, the average between high and low. Mean. A dike at Bear Creek on the Bay of Fundy, would have to be really high. But the dikes in the Netherlands aren't tall at all. Must be a node. What the hell is a node? It's the moon that's behind this, depth of water, currents, the flow. The push. I understand the principle but the algorithm is complex and I wish I knew more math. I can't solve for even a single unknown. I'm at the brink of being spam; if you look closely, I never graduated from High School, I admit that the sexual harassment suit against the nun was bogus, but I thought I was making a point. That the tables could be turned. Fuck me. I will not back nor will be backed into a corner. Take it to the bank. You and your family are not me. I really don't understand your family at all, nor do I want to, ignorance is bliss, what I don't know, better than what I suspect. We talked about this, what people had seen. Read more...

All Black

It's easier to turn white black than it is to turn black white. Wore out a roller. I don't have enough linens for the reunion and I need a pillow case for my writing pillow. I need a crew to clean off some flat surfaces, can't find the dining table, buried under paper. The paper/book situation is approaching hopeless. Piles. I brought home a dozen Architectural Digest today, Sara was throwing away, from the 80's. Outhouse reading material. I should put a shelf next to the back door, with the roll of toilet paper, which, currently, residing on the island, makes a connection most people don't want to make, when they're eating. So a shelf would be cool. I, of course, as a janitor, am a student of shit, maybe, even, at this point, old as I am and having endured, a master of shit. I have a nice little collection of serious books about shit. When I was researching composting toilets I became the go-to guy when it came to shit. Seriously. Having the theater black again is such a relief, all's well, set out the ghost light: usually a bare bulb with cage, on a stand, center stage, when you put a theater to sleep at night. I either wax or wane, depending on the moon. A creature of habits. Theater was the perfect formal education for me, prepared me for the world. I had no idea, then I did. That whole concept of vertical integration, where you learned to do everything as a matter of course. I see these tows, even though they're being pushed, going upstream, the churning wake, I'm sure I'm looking at a lot of horse-power, it's impressive, I get distracted, what's new? I produce a paragraph that describes whatever moment. I do this without thinking. What you see. The birds are important because they direct our attention, the way they flapped. Listen, I'm as stressed as I could be. Read more...

White, Black

Glenn can hook up my new printer so I can keep track of myself. Couldn't talk today, otherwise fine, just my throat didn't work. A kind of croak. I liked the tone. Barnhart, you are supposed to make music on the 1st, they're expecting it, whatever that water music you sent Glenn, you did send it, didn't you? D had a wonderful idea today, but I don't think I can do it. Concluding event for the Wrack Show could be to release all the balls into the whirlpool eddy off the tip of the jetty. Maybe I could do it. I love the balls, it's a collection, for god's sake. But in line with cutting down on possessions, maybe. Don't know what I'm going to do with them if I bring them home. Fucking dirty ball collection. I could wire together one of those large tomato cages they use to hold balls at Wal-Mart, put it in a corner of the studio, thereby loosing space I don't have. If I put one of those outside I'd have to anchor it in concrete. Man Killed By Flying Ball Cage; and the balls, a couple of weeks ago, that wind storm, would have been double-ought buck shot. Most of the river sticks, I'll burn in the cookstove. I've collected and dried enough wrack to cook the reunion meal, seemed only fitting. I rarely cook for six, I like cooking for four, I understand the amounts, I don't have to think, but this menu, I can only serve two people at a time. Should be interesting. My favorite people in the world, if only B and Sarah could join us, that would make eight, but B would help me cook. I don't even have eight plates. If you eat off someone else's plate, does it have to be washed first? I don't know the rule on this. Yes, if they licked it? Linda will know what to do. I spent the day turning white walls black. I'm good at this. A certain attention is required but there's a lot of time to think about things, a perfect zen task. Mind. Not mind. Way early to town, walked down, got the truck, brought it up, unloaded the wrack, got my kit and out the door; so I went below the floodwall and gathered more wrack, time to kill, and watched this amazing riverboat thing. There's a wide bend, west of the Perkins Bridge, where tows might linger or barges pass, and we've often seen tows going upstream pull aside for tows going downstream, must be harder to control, sliding downstream, but today, a tow pulled aside for another to pass. Tow and push become problematic. I never trusted those guys. Knowing what I know, I'm willing to cycle back to zero. You are who, exactly? Could I see your badge? Do you have a badge? I'm pretty sure I saw a badge. I think I'm sick but I'm sick so seldom I don't know. D says I look bad, Pegi says I sound bad, I feel a little off kilter, but it could just be a flashback or something I ate. I feel fine, I just sound strange. Maybe I've caught a frog disease. I knew I should wear gloves, but I wanted to touch without mediation, otherwise I couldn't actually feel. I change the color of the walls, it's not a big deal. A trick of light or an illusion, I have a bag of props; a little make-up and a wig, I could be someone different. I can't afford to be sick, can't afford to slip and fall. Everything seems a bit close. It's like pulling teeth, sometimes, to get waited on. When you're in Jim's section, service is a joke. He does what he will and you eat what he orders. Either that or you switch plates. Read more...

Lucubrate

Nice word. Anthony Burgess used it in an essay I was reading yesterday. Problem with ruts in a frozen driveway is that they require the same wheel base and same size tires. Nice to drive, even roughly, up and down. Below the floodwall early and secured a nice load of dry wrack. Couldn't drive up this afternoon (33 degrees, frost coming out of the ground, mud) but will drive this load up tomorrow morning before work. A swarm of emails about the Non-Family Reunion, though I like what Brandy said -anyone who feeds you is family-. Need to think logistics. If I'm going to cook a major meal for 6 I don't want to leave the house Sunday, maybe an early morning run to pick up whatever I had forgotten, but I could send someone, probably. An eggplant marinara, cheese on the side, a rusty old block of parmesan I had washed several months ago, re-salted and stored, really nutty; medallions of pork tenderloin with The Sauce, which I will boil this weekend, adding some things, it's 8 years old now, hard to believe, and I've let it get rather hot. I'm not sure 'let it' is correct, it pretty much does what it wants to, but it has gotten too hot for 50% of people. What I think is I'll boil it, pasteurizing, then take some out, chop in some green onions and mushrooms, get a little fancy, I haven't done that in a while. The marinara for the eggplant will be orange and red peppers, onions, fire-roasted tomatoes, garlic and the usual cast of bit parts. I'll need five large pans. I need a quart of olive oil. I have walnut oil and good balsamic for the dressing, whoever is making, if there is going to be, a salad. Joyce is bringing a cake. I'm sorry B and Sarah won't be here, I wish they could. B and I cook well together. When I get home I realize I'm not hungry, such a huge lunch at the pub. Get a drink, log on, talk with you. Where I most exist is in this post. It's where I funnel everything, all of my energy, what's not required to earn a living. Every time, when I finally get to the keyboard, there's an electric connection that starts at the top of my head and travels right down to my toes. If I read Olson correctly, an opening out. In the Burgess, there were a dozen dictionaries that I didn't have, this might well bankrupt me, I need them, to refer to. It's all about language. There was this hick in Janitor College, from Arkansas or Missouri, he kept postulating there was a god, we kept shooting him down. He was an easy target and we kept plinking away. He killed himself, diving into a borrow pit with rocks attached. It was ugly, we were embarrassed, no charges were filed. Finally my hands are calm. I make a note to note the note. It's not that I'm losing my mind so much as there a lot of things going on. Life is complex. This and that, a compromise, forgetting what you were talking about, right, the reunion, specifically, the menu, sour-dough, to sop up whatever is left. Looks good to me. I can cook this meal. Read more...

Bitter

One advantage of the cold is that the driveway is frozen solid. Early morning I walk down and get the truck, to empty the wrack firewood, so I can get another load. Get to town in time to pick up some more tomorrow. Only 10 degrees but it's windy, cutting at exposed surfaces. All the wood stations need filling. Bibs over jeans, Duo-fold top, sweatshirt, new jacket (Steph, my costumer) over bibs, muffler, face mask, watchcap. Excellent outfit. Work thirty minutes, read thirty minutes drinking chicken broth. Yesterday I made a very good bean soup, Navy Beans, Great Northerns, with a lot of onions, red peppers, celery, a bag of those ham trimmings. Hearty. I made biscuits, as soon as the stove was hot, so several times today, and then again tonight, I had soup and a biscuit. First frogs are history, I broke through the ice, to check on the couple of egg-sacks, cell walls were ruptured, infant tads were black dots on the bottom. This is natural selection. The birds are all buffed out, like body-builders, they look funny, they don't look happy, and I, on the other hand, am. It's a glorious day of sun, despite the cold and wind, breathing downwind is easy enough, through almost closed lips, so the air is warmed somewhat. Bean note: I was a Navy Bean guy and then moved out west, where the Pinto is king, and I converted, now I've given up religion. Rarely is anything best, a lot of things are very good. Best to keep your options open. For instance, this upcoming Non-Family Reunion, I don't know how many people I'm feeding when, what meals, I have no information. They've bypassed me completely. I feel like that guy, chasing after a car that didn't stop to pick him up, when he was hitch-hiking, in some really awful B movie. I can cook, but I need to know how many and when. There's shopping to be done, specific fires to be built, I need a spreadsheet. I function in this world only because of you, you're my last connection, sever that and I'm adrift; I read Anthony Burgess all day, reviews and essays. He's caustic and correct. There should be more criticism but no one is willing to put their ass on the line. It's easier to give grants to friends, get one in return. The way the system works. Than it is to face reality. I balk at this, there actually is an authentic world, something to hang your hat on. Look outside. Read more...

Radnelac

Calendar backwards. It might mean something, what the crows squawk. I listen closely, sounds like bullshit to me but who am I to judge? The frogs fuck anyway, and there are egg sacks that will freeze, maybe some of them will survive, who cares? I find I don't. It's a real game played on natural turf and I don't give a shit. Rain turning to sleet, beats against the roof, all I want to do is crawl into my down bag and sleep. Actually, what happened, I wrote early and went to bed early and the frogs woke me later. Pissed me off but I needed to pee, so I suited up and went out with a flashlight; Darwin at work, you really can't not go out and see. We'll call this batch Early Birds, but I doubt that any will survive. Not a big turn-out and I suspect most of the frogs had better sense, still, if this batch, even a part of, survives, they could breed to mate earlier, leading maybe to two batches of tads a year. The frogs do this to me. I don't have time to pay as much attention to them this year. Easy one to remember though, March 1st. They were writhing over and around each other, croaking loudly. Crows also croak, of course. By definition, actually, they're paired in almost every dictionary I own (don't ask, and not nearly enough) in either the first or second line. Impressive agreement. There's always something croaking around here. I join in with my morning clearing of the pipes, a kind of throat clearing snorting that isn't pleasant to be around. This morning I made a strange tea just because I could. Clearing around a Slippery Elm tree, I needed to prune (man intervenes with nature) an early forking off the tree, to give the main stem a better shot at treehood (where ice-storms have failed), convincing myself that I'm doing the right thing. So I have some Slippery Elm inner bark, cambium (a layer of meristematic plant tissue), stripped and drying. Mid morning I walked part of the driveway, collecting dead saplings for starter sticks, pulled up a young sassafras for that burst of smell, took it home, cleaned it, peeled it with a vegetable peeler, drying those fragrant shavings. Made a cup of tea from the two, and with some honey it was good, medicinal almost. I added a splash, just a goodly drop, from the bottle where two ounces of American Ginseng soak in three ounces of grain alcohol. My anodyne against the world. Probably a false positive, but it works for me: writing you allows me to be myself. And a certain collage thing, that anything could to be anywhere. You understand that. Pavlov did good work, and it's true, we respond, I have field notes that go back decades, everyone usually responds, if you pester them enough. Writing is illusion, like all art. Who are you and where am I in this? What's the tell, the intent, what's being attempted? Recounting current events. A coup-stick is usually a willow wand, 10 or 12 feet long, with a unique set of feathers at the end, you touch something and it is your own. You know it, control the situation, knowledge from hell, but you can't say anything, because you're sworn to secrecy. Read more...