Acorns

You have these grinding holes wallowed in rock but there was no grain, nothing to grind, you have to wonder. Maybe they were eating nuts, maybe for several thousand years they were eating acorns. Look at the distribution of oak trees since the last glaciation, the spread of humanity. There seems to be a connection. The acorn view of history. The missing link, that whole transition period, we were eating nuts, dandelion greens, seriously, look at the record. Euell Gibbons mentions in passing that some acorns are sweet, the occasional white oak makes a decent gruel. He was correct, I've found a few trees that were less bitter, easy to leach and make a meal. Get home totally wasted, the ODC show arrived at noon, we had taken an early lunch, calculating the timing and wanting the afternoon to start unpacking. John is there with the truck when we get back, a 15' Budget, and we unload it in twenty minutes, all highly motivated, him to get back to Columbus before rush hour, and us, to start seeing what we've got. This show is different, in the first place, because it is packed individually by the artist. A show put together by a museum to tour is packed by that museum, a certain uniformity, maybe a little pride; but artists generally know shit about packing and it's actually quite funny unpacking this show every two years. I love it. It's wonderful and awful at the same time. Shredded paper, foam peanuts, egg cartons beyond number (the single most common cushioning agent, go figure), blankets, towels, pillows. We see a lot of that foam substrate they use when laying carpet. Old phone books, junk mail, crumpled newspaper. That last is an interesting one for me, because I don't get a paper and tend to read anything, so I usually flatten a sheet, once in a while, and read a filler. Megan spiked 17 kills in the game Valley won over Northwest. Other stuff you might or might not notice. Artists must keep bags of this shit, hoping to send work to some juried show. A few of them pack their things really well. Two pieces today, very delicate, encased in plexiglas and she didn't want any scratches, so the final layer, the innermost wrapping, was a pillowcase made out of tee-shirt jersey. Excellent. As usual this show is off the wall, the judge, we just call him a jury, was fond of ceramics, and several of the pieces, so far (we haven't finished unpacking) are beautiful, exquisite even. There's a pottery lady, bending over slightly, she's maybe 10 inches tall, wearing a ball gown and picking up the hem, peaking out are maybe a dozen fox heads, the piece is called Hen-House, and I'd buy it if I had $1,250 that wasn't spoken for. Seems a fair price to me, too, which is another aspect of this show that appeals to me, that the artists have to place a price on their work. In my personal experience it's the writer's significant other who actually fixes a price, but somehow we arrive at a value. We set up two 8 foot tables, 30 inches wide, covered with shipping blankets, started unpacking. I doubt that there is a better team at this, at least as good, D and I work so well together; unpacking, when one needs the other's help, only a grunt is necessary. In this case means hold the box while I slide this sucker clear, or could you please get that tape off my mouth. Staggering quantities of tape. My personal corner of the electric grid is nothing if not undependable, leaving me unsent and irritable. Read more about oaks and acorns, trenails, which I can't believe I never looked up, were usually oak pegs, used for a great many things, one of which was to hold the keel upright while the ship was built around them, used, also, of course, in the joinery. Red oaks are younger than white oaks, came into existence for a nice Darwinian reason. Sometimes weather wouldn't allow ripening of that year's nuts, red oak acorns take two years to mature, a margin of safety. Unpack the rest of the show, some lovely things, some peculiar things, remains to be installed and all the rest of it, but I've seen and handled all the pieces and there is a good show here. Picked up the scenic unit we had farmed out. I felt like a magician and I really had nothing to do with it. Talked with The Damned Brit and figured out what he needed, scrounged the materials from the basement. I'd contacted Todd at the college painting lab and asked him to paint Toad Hall, D took the horrid panel home, he has a decent shop, trued the edges, sanded the surface, attached a frame, we downloaded some images of British Estates. Five hours work for Todd, who likes to paint, using oil washes and stencils, pencil and spray paint, and here is this really fine piece of scenery. Toad Hall may never have looked so good. A benefit auction coming up and Sara thinks we might get an piece in the local paper with a photo, and then auction the piece. I clear the ways for that. Talent is always vain. Lest my organizational skills become over-inflated, I learned a lesson as a janitor today. Your usual clogged toilet, half a roll of toilet paper and a bunch of shit, I was going to bail it out, flush several times, then feed the bucket a bit at a time. D, thinking outside the bucket, used the plunger in a way I'd never seen before; he'd flush, then release some of the debris he was holding back, then block the flow of solids with the plunger, masterful. I felt stupid. There was a great course in plunging, at Janitor College, "Don't Get Your Feet Wet", taught by this doddering Swede, I should have paid more attention. After we wash our hands we go outside for a smoke, talk about shit for awhile. I'm going to send this now, fraught with mistakes, because I have a window between thunderstorms.