Cognates

A Spanish Web is one of those thick ropes with loops spliced in, a comely lass climbs the rope, hooks either a foot or a hand in a loop, a strong usually guy on the floor swings the rope and the girl whirls. The results are stunning. Vertical force on the rope is transferred into energy the girl can use for various horizontal stunts. A lesson in dynamics. Doing a big circus show next year and we've all been reading up. Sara brought in a huge book, a Tashcen product, must be 14 inches wide by 20 tall, 2 inches thick. Call it the history of circus. It resides on a chair in Pegi's office and I spend breaks flipping pages. What amazes me, more than even the fact of circus, is the incredible rigging, like a full ship under full sail, with lives at risk. Pegi does a lot of rigging, for her Cirque, and I'm going to a performance next month. A lot of rigging in theater, and I've done my share, but nothing like trapeze. A friend made his living flying Peter Pans. Before my late onset Fear Of Heights I enjoyed climbing with ropes, always with ropes, free assents scare the shit out of me, always have. Get half way and have a panic attack. Still enjoy knots, tie them occasionally for pleasure. That sounds ambiguous. I'll leave it that way. There are new knots, still; a famous one invented (tied? discovered?) in the 1980's, I forget the name, that climbers use. Knots that release under load are important. I'd like to rig the Richards gallery while the circus show is downstairs, with a staircase or two; pulleys and lines going everywhere. If you find any pulleys at a yard sale, and they're only a couple of bucks, send them to me. Send them to the museum, care of me, Southern Ohio Museum, Portsmouth, Ohio, they'll get here. Any size, I think about this, I've collected quite a few pulleys. I hadn't thought about another show, but I want to do one, a rigging show. The fact that it might have nubile young things swinging around has nothing to do with it. I'm only in it for the knots. Couldn't send, power being out, but I only lost a couple of lines, as I had just printed, to see what I was saying. Too hot too soon, high eighties, the green has darkened and thickened. Seems like I spent most of the day in the basement, so I probably did, consolidating, throwing some things away, clearing a path to the pedestal storage room, because between the pottery show upstairs, and the ODC (Ohio Designer Craftsmen) show downstairs, almost everything in both galleries will be 3-D and require peds. We'll use them all and then some. Much painting and repair, no doubt, it's been several years since we had them all in play. D away judging an art show, back after lunch and we share a few laughs, a couple of cigs with Sara. Discuss the near future, Pegi needs a new computer, next winter we're looking short-handed. More budget discussions on Tuesday, before D leaves for two weeks, earned vacation, I might sit in, I'm good with simple math. I don't much like Trish's new protege, Penny, who sits around a lot; she actually thought she could mop, used to much Damp Mop and left a scum. I tend to do things myself because I don't want to comment on the incompetence of others. I don't care what you can't do, don't want to be bothered; there are a great many things I can't do, and I don't want you to suffer them. Invade my wheelhouse at risk, get my dander up, even though I think there is no intent. Trish thought she was helping, to get one of these state, fed, supported people, to do some of my job. Fact is Penny's lazy, incompetent, and dresses badly; I have to clean up after her. But she gets the museum mail for Trish, and runs errands, I don't care, one way or the other. It empowers to feel you control another. Fact of life, what those of us, in The Ohio Post-Modern Study-Group learned. I would never point arrows, usually just assume I need to find a solution. Ignore everything and only speak when you're spoken to. A patois. I was listening, behind a pillar, fearing for my life, I caught the rhythm of the language, long before I caught meaning, I have to think about that, what I might have said. What you thought you were meaning.