Stable Relationships

I'm curious, I can't make anything work, talk about the kiss of death. I'd like for something to prove even moderately successful, but I can't lie, and that's the rule. I'm fine with inanimate objects, or even with my imagination, but when it comes to actual relationships, I never know exactly what's expected. I cleaned some windows today and the view is dramatically improved, the greens even more severe. Made a runny omelet with blue cheese, fresh Roma tomatoes, and basil, good, but hard to eat, I chased it around with toast. Then I read for eight hours, drinking tea and toking as necessary. I allow one thing to lead to another, surrounding things with space. I know I'm not stupid, but I surround myself with dumb things, a mushroom that looks like a nose, a heel imprint that looks like the virgin Mary, so that they might lead somewhere. The problem with an active imagination is that it might lead you somewhere. The headaches, I'd wager, always followed the dreams. Just a guess, but I've noticed one thing follows another. Read more...

Idiopathic Current

The contrary gene. A Native American woman I knew once was never satisfied with anything or anyone, loved to complain and cussed like a sailor. Fun to be around, for awhile, but then it got old. Did it again, had to make the extra run to town, a load of laundry and stopped at the grocery. Some haddock on sale and a bought a couple of fillets to turn into fishcakes. Caramelize a shallot, add any fresh herb at the end, then mostly fish with enough left-over mashed potatoes to hold everything together, fried gently in butter. With a fried egg for breakfast, the yolk serving as sauce, this is exalted fare. I had them almost daily for years on Cape Cod. Night fishing for cod off Nauset Beach. I liked to sell 50 lbs, for gas money, the rest I'd eat in cakes. Blue-gill perch make decent cakes too, little fillets poached in chicken stock, served with lemon slices. I'm negotiating for a box of salted cod, a winter's supply of breakfast food; remember learning to salt cod, from a newspaper guy in P'town with a family place in Wellfleet, kosher salt and the clothesline, a simple system. Mostly I just froze them, cutting the tongues and cheeks out, for an excellent chowder. What we do with our time. It's amazing, isn't it? I've always leaned toward hunter-gatherer, I stop and harvest what I find, it's not a big deal, I got a great salad, Friday, in the parking lot, some beautiful dandelion, which I washed several times, in several quarts of water. I hate wasting water, but this batch was dirty. Power went out, I read for several hours by candle, slept on the sofa, this morning continued reading about likely Bronze Age world travel. Finally got a copy of Thor Heyerdahl's serious book on Easter Island, "Archaeology Of Easter Island", on inner-library loan, and it's a keeper. He asks questions and refuses to accept pat answers. That pesky script comes up again, an almost exact parallel with an un-deciphered early Indus writing, but larger plates, so I can see clearly that they are the same. The provenance is good too, because the discovery of the Easter Island text precedes by decades the discovery of the Indus Valley text. First leaves are falling, had to get up in the night and shut all the windows, 49 degrees, the last day of August. Feels good, but I have to put on some socks and worry about firewood, which means another drink, a couple of cigarets, staring into the dark. Nothing clarifies. Everything of unknown cause. Dawn, the slanting light announces a different season. The world looks different, long shadows and a hint of change, just after first light I put on a threadbare and tattered sweatshirt, seems appropriate, though early to kiss summer goodbye. Sara says I seem to have a plan, but I think it's only seeming, my actual plan is merely watching where my foot falls, staying upright and not breaking something, that should be enough, being careful, until my habits catch up with me, what is it Greg Brown says, "I drink too much and smoke too much and play too much guitar". The leaves are dancing outside my window, an animated green, they seem to mean something but I can't tease it out, something that seems apparent but isn't clear at all. Not transparent, at any rate, but more the usual muddle, where you try and make sense of what's happening but nothing springs forward. The whole concept of making sense is called into question. I write blocks of text, other people carve things, or make music, it's all the same, a painting called "Paint On Canvas", by extension, "Actors On Stage", "Dancers Dancing", you get the drift. Our best intentions are chaff in the wind. Read more...

Maria Muldaur

There's a tree down on the driveway, I'm trying to get to D's 30th birthday party for a free beer and cupcake but my way is blocked. Look out kid, it's something you did. Life becomes a Bob Dylan song. I finally clear a path but I'm already late and I haven't left yet. Mom calls and we talk about crab cakes. Maria on the radio. Scat. Some things aren't constellated. I've missed a great many parties, my reasons are legion. The cat ate my homework. Nothing works. Whistling Dixie. Revisit your original diagnosis, it might not be just a headache, consider the possibilities. Certainly you're dying, all those French guys got that right, the one certain thing. But listening to Maria, I swear there's hope. Mac sent a New York Times review of a book about crows. I know crows, I actually speak their language. I specialize in useless knowledge. Early on, I realized it didn't matter what you believed, one thing as good as another. Left, right, off the scale, makes no difference, whatever gets you out of bed. I won't change my life, at this point, I'm comfortable. I like installing art, it satisfies a particular need. Van Morrison talking about the actual, high in the art of suffering, wipe a few tears and buckle up. Mocking bird in the background, singing the songs of rain. Just a crow, complaining. Listen, I don't give a shit what they say, the river flows to the sea. They've tainted my dream, with their carbon, their global warming, still, living amidst this is better than blowing your head off. If I understand the dialogue correctly. I'm a fat cat, really, I don't even apply for grants, I wouldn't want to compromise anything. I'm fine without running water and cooking on a woodstove, just don't hold me to your standards. The sun is shining and things are going my way. There's no place I need to be. Didn't know I was lost until you found me. A bluegrass song, something about that sound, a mandolin, a bass in the background. Crossing borders. What you need to know. Look here. Smokey, but still not transparent. Even what's clear is opaque, what we miss. Change is the coin of moment. Sitting on the dock of bay, watching time. Tide. What flows. Say what you will. Garcia is a genius. Read more...

Raphael's Handwriting

Raphael's handwriting really was beautiful, so was his mistress. Speaking of beautiful, Rossetti's wife, Elizabeth Siddal, was stunning. After a still-birthed daughter, she became addicted to laudanum, depressed, and killed herself. R was despondent and threw a manuscript of poems into the grave. Seven years later, he's addicted, depressed, and suffering a huge bout of writer's block, gets an exhumation order, digs her up to get the manuscript (she's still lovely, according to witnesses, but smells) and we get the dramatic monologue "Jenny", which I quite liked when I was younger, and still like, a little, in much the same way that I occasionally still read Sidney Lanier. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Best that no one tell the rap singers that the trilby was originally a hat worn by a diminutive actress with no shoes. Talent doesn't correspond to hat size. Something dead nearby, because the vultures are circling. I only notice because of the shadows sweeping across, as large low-flying birds come between me and the sun. Probably a gut-shot deer shot by a poacher. Must be south of me because I can't smell it, maybe a dog on Upper Twin. Glenn is premiering the Wrack Movie at the museum September 25th at noon, all of you who can should be there. Interesting, I think, that this will also be a film about place and process, which Liza's movie was, which indicates a direction, a field of interest, one that has always been an interest of mine, people in a particular place. I don't aspire to anything anymore but I do observe. What we have, locally, is a lot of really poor people, trying to get by. They rob each other. It's a cycle. I understand hunger, but I keep a shotgun by the door. The sun is playing havoc with my thinking. The slanted light of late summer and fall, is one of my favorite things in the world, the way it cuts across everything. I always forget, I'm not that smart, really, and this diagonal thing happens. I'm stopped dead in my tracks, Elvis singing from his black velvet, I love only you. Message in a bottle. I can't be any more specific. Something you found washed ashore. Maybe a piece of amber with an embedded flea. An old shark's tooth. We should talk later. We might have something in commend. Read more...

Archival Spit

In the museum business, it's archival everything. Very real, but the word almost loses meaning. D was showing a couple of us the Baker Method for cutting mattes. He's quite good at this, and we were using the demonstration to matte and frame a letter-on-drawing by a name artist, found a frame of the appropriate size with archival backing, trimmed the un-square letter, cut an archival matte board. The last step is hanging the paper on the backing using archival rice paper tape; carefully marked, turned over and the tape is applied to the back. It must be moistened slightly and D merely licked them, looked at me, said "archival spit". Cracked me up. New part-time temp to cover our computer asses while D goes back to school, James, a Library Science guy, and bright; he'll help me hang shows too, make some pick-ups and deliveries. Breaking him in today, second day of packing the show from hell (the packaging, the show is great) and he helps me so D can design a bunch of mailings for upcoming events. I can only teacher by example. I explain the steps, some of the possible problems, explain that mostly problems will come up that you haven't seen before and how it's necessary, to do this work, to extrapolate from the known into the unknown. I've learned to give my problem-solving instincts free reign, and I'm good at this, I'm told; I know, actually, because of the dozens of times, in remote places, that I've solved problems, often using baling wire and a piece of bacon. Sunday night projected in the 40's. I think about firing up the cookstove. 6 weeks at the end of hot weather and cold weather, merely cooking is enough to heat the house. The cycle comes around, when I need to heat and when I need as much heat as possible. My menu, my diet, changes with the way I cook and the way I heat. I just went off into an extended reverie about bean soups, I make a dozen of them, or more, and I love them all, and Mom had foisted this crock-pot off on me, when I was down there in June, and I decide to get a jump on winter and make a white bean and ham soup for the staff, a kind of what-do-you-call-it, pot luck. It strikes me that it's quite strange that I'm here, right now, smoking in the alley, with the director, talking about toe-nail polish. I joke about a great many things, I assume you understand. At root we are serious, the things we talk about, you and me. Talk to Brandy, it's still possible to misunderstand almost everything. Sharee asks could we build a certain table, of course we could, we, actually can build anything. I understand doubt and miss-trust but there is no doubt we can do what needs to be done. I meet you on the street later, you're dancing with someone, he wears a strange hat, I see you make a strange hand touch thing. My only clue is meaning. Read more...

Feeling Better

Felt like dog poop this morning, stiff and sore, but that was from all the time abed or asofa with too many books on my chest; coffee and a shave, I was a little better. Left home early, enshrouded in a deep and abiding fog. Thickest in the lower dells where drainage carves hollows, creeks seeking the river; and thick enough at times so that travel was 20 mph so as not to out drive the headlights. Beautiful, the mantle, like a blizzard only still. Wanted to see the river so I drove down below the flood-wall, to a boat launch, where I could have a smoke and drink coffee in the imperfect quiet. These new riverboat pilots, the tug skippers that push a string of barges up and down in the world, even granting their state-of-the-art electronics, are amazing. I could almost see and certainly heard two strings, one going in either direction, pass, in front of me, in pea soup so thick you might be able to recognize a human shape at 50 feet. This time of year, in thick fog, humidity at 99.99%, warm even early, the dew point is at eye level, my glasses fog. And I'm feeling better, which is good, because there's a lot to do. I'm anxious to get the packing boxes out for the ODC show, so I can try to remember how some things were packed. Artists suck when it comes to packing their work, our intent is always to repack better than what was given to us. With this show, "Best Of", the artists package and we deal with it. In the best crates, there are specific pieces of dense foam, coded for position and numbered in sequence. When artists pack they use a lot of egg cartons and old towels. This particular show maybe 10 pieces actually stick out of their boxes, with instructions written on the side: FRAGILE, Don't Stack Anything On Top. Like we'd do that, stack another box on top of an exposed ceramic head. Five elevator loads of boxes and the oddest sensation, with a head cold and taking antihistamines, my equilibrium was off and I couldn't tell if the elevator was going up or down. Being sick is exhausting. Almost completely shed of it now, but after a long day of packing I'm weary and in sore need of drink. Still, D brought his truck so we stopped at the woodlot and loaded four pieces of oak that nearly filled the bed. One never refuses free wood, it just isn't done, bad form or just plain stupid. A local, gifted, painter was in the gallery, yesterday (I think) and he had just bought a place in the country, a great deal, was asking about my wood cookstove, a Stanley Waterford from Ireland and my most cherished companion, which I bought from the Amish Non-Electric Hardware Store in Kidron, Ohio, 10 years ago for $2100. D went online to get the email address for him and the damned things now are over $5900. My advice is to invest in wood cookstoves. My used (hard-used) stove is worth more than my truck. My first cabin, that I lived in for 3 years and sold for a profit, cost $4200 total, turn-key price, including bill of lading to the island, where we reassembled the damned thing (built in the driveway of a rented house on the mainland) and moved in 3 days later. My life is a shoe string, I think. Which reminds me, both D and I did rants today about shoestrings and rubber bands. When artists pack their work, they often secure the "lid" with either a rubber band or a shoestring. Like they never heard of tape. I'm old enough that I worry about the next generation, I fear they won't remember how to wipe their ass. I acted out at the staff meeting, I have to admit, there was no reason for me to mention toe-nail polish, but I tend to look down, and notice feet. It's not quite an obsession, but a card I play, to keep things light. I can do almost anything but I need a little warning. I'm an aging hippy, if you call me too late at night, I'm probably going to be stoned. I could probably help but the solution is questionable. I talk to ducks, I read story-sticks, I'm not a good median to use, to establish parameters, one thing I'm not. But you could use it, as a kind of lover's leap, if you wanted to. My sole goal is just to go asleep. Harvey's poem, I can afford the signs now, coming up the hill, this is the best place I've ever lived, I'm cool with this, what constellates, hey, you know me. . Read more...

Oblivious

Took me half the day to figure out that I was coming down with something. Rarely sick and I forget the symptoms. Running a fever, but finally it's the running nose, knowing I've never suffered from pollen, that clues me in. Cranky. Actually a boat-building term, usually from getting the center of gravity a bit too high and the boat would tend to wallow, a nightmare for the helmsman. Samuel Pepys had a great library for the day, mid seventeenth century, 3,000 volumes in 9 and then 12 free-standing "presses", glass-fronted bookcases. Had his books uniformly bound (books usually sold then as unbound sheets) and arranged them by size. Though to his credit, he had a complete list, chart, and number system. Doesn't matter what your system is, as long as you can find the book. I have a half-assed system, as most of us do, I imagine, with large private libraries. I have several thousand Small Press items, I keep them together. I keep an author together whether fiction or non-fiction or poetry, there are various sub-systems which, frankly, don't make much sense. A lot depends on the way the boxes were unloaded the last time I moved, and before that they had been several times shuffled, into and out of storage, while I built yet another set of bookcases, in yet another house I had built from whole cloth on some cheap piece of land somewhere. I begin to see a pattern here, but it doesn't help with the books. Glenn called, said the movie about the Wrack Show was almost done, we needed to schedule a screening; said he thought that late night piece I wrote to other night was really strong. I had no idea what he meant, since my printer is down, I have to go to the blogspot he posts, to see what I wrote. Then I remember listening to the radio, grabbing names and phrases. It's a sense of rhythm. Late at night, I can occasionally fall into an almost fugue state, where things make a provisional sense, if you post them in the correct position, flip through the cards at an even rate of speed, it seems to make sense. Almost a movie. Things move. Didn't Send, came down with the crud, nose leaking onto my shirt, splitting headache. Not much better today, but I had to go in, get some things done, the main gallery show comes down Thursday. Museum, through Latin from the Greek mouseion, in the third century B.C. mouseion referred speciffically to Ptolemy Socor,s place at Alexandria, the Library and Cultural Center. Knew there was a reason I was reading about bookshelves. Arena, by contrast, comes from the Latin harena, or sand, which was spread around the lion pit to soak the blood of victims. Gamut means all the notes of the scale. Orchestra pit, may come from the fact that the Old Drury Lane Theater was built on the sight of a famous cockpit. Slapstick was the two pieces of lath that clacked when Clown hit Harlequin on the ass. Talent, is, of course, the Greek name for a unit of money. I came home early to take a nap, but my head was exploding and I needed to eat something. A can of beans, bread and butter, sweet tea, took some antihistamine, which D had advised. I don't know how to be sick. Retired to the sofa with several dictionaries and a list of words I needed to check. When I read, or am seriously researching something, I forget my body. It's a good way to escape pain, but I get up to roll a smoke or splash a drink, and I remember I'm sick, or damaged in some way, and I pour a small libation in the sink, address the household gods directly, tell my immune system that I'll hold the pass, they just need to get to work on the wounded, take care of business. Acute is the way to go, chronic is a can of worms. One medicine I do keep around is a nice thick root of ginseng that's been floating around in an ounce of very good whiskey, 100 proof, for several years. I sip it through the evening. Teeny sips, I drink maybe a quarter of it, in the course of an evening; of course I'm drinking cheap whiskey and toking on the side, because I really want to feel better. And I do feel better, indulging myself, like anyone, I need stroking, fuck, it's the human condition. What we want is to be stroked. I mentioned this to three crows on the way home, they were dining of some carcass in the road. I understood clearly that I was the fifth wheel, left as quickly as possible, maybe I didn't wipe all of my prints, but I was certainly gone. This road-kill was under control. Let me be clear on that. You, it, whatever; crows dining on a flattened thing, a strange parchment of carp skin. Nodded into a stupor. Not great this morning but no longer leaking clear fluid. I'd best Send this and eat some dinner. Read more...

Burma Shave

Knew Friday that I needed some things, but too exhausted to fight crowds and now that the liquor store is open Sundays, and knowing town is deserted then, make the extra trip. A box of way out-dated can goods for the dumpster, a few supplies for the pantry, getting an edge on winter, a bonus load of firewood, whiskey. A leisurely drive, stop at the lake to admire the ragweed and wild mustard, the lovely blue phlox on Mackletree. A splendid sunny day, low humidity, cooler temps. The added joy of a set of temporary signs, spaced like the old Burma Shave signs, a hundred yards apart. Some rural roads are paved by a method called locally chip-and-seal, whereby hot asphalt is spread over the road bed then covered with a layer of limestone gravel which is rolled hard and smooth. The "hard" part actually takes a few days and for those days, the gravel flies a bit, you need to drive slowly and not tail-gate, and they can't repaint the lines until the surface is stable, thus the signs, in order, read: Fresh Tar, Loose Gravel, No Center Line, No Edge Lines, which I read as a poem. It's seems almost profound, and I repeat it as a mantra over and over. Dimwit. But not, as it turns out, in my special care of the piles of books. From "The Book On The Book Shelf": in 1968 at Northwestern University where an empty section of shelving was being moved and it fell, starting a domino effect that resulted in spilling 264,000 books. Or a similar incident, 1983, at the Records Storage Center of Ewing Township N.J., where an employee was killed under an avalanche of books. Deeply engrossed in the development of book furniture: the lectern, the chained books, the benches, the spilled ink-pots. Scrolls required a different storage, the first hand- lettered books were literally bound between boards, often inlaid with various precious and semi-precious stones, needed to be laid flat, very rare and valuable, needed to be chained. As books became more common, especially after moveable type was invented, storage became a problem. It still is, look at my house. So, book shelves, as we begin to know them. Public reading rooms, and the private spaces, the carrels, where one might copy a book or read in peace. My house is essentially a carrel with a kitchen. Lighting is a big issue, you have to be able to see to read, and before electric lighting, it was a serious problem. No candles, no lantern, everything is flammable (or inflammable) and it just wasn't done. Daylight was all. Dealing with apsidal church geometry was a pain in the ass, what you needed was a library. Eventually you end up with a specific building doing a specific thing. Carnegie covering his tracks. Always that distinctive fenestration, to allow light into the stacks, you notice the long narrow windows, the fire-proof stone. Wood, then cast iron, then enameled steel shelves. Fire is the enemy, always has been, always is, probably the way the world ends.

Tom

Or ice, I could take either way,
name your drink. Read more...

Nothing Prepares

The real world is a mystery, what the crows speak, the darting chameleons, spiders spinning webs, an unknown thing, just beyond our imagining. You'd never suspect I knew what you were talking about, what was meant by any particular thing. I merely watch, nothing more. The future. Thoreau saw something, a world denuded, still, I hold my ridge. Just before dark tonight, the fox came to the compost pile. I'm in the throes of rotating stock in the pantry, cleaning the fridge, I hate to throw away food, but there comes a time. Sling-bladed a path to the outhouse and out to where I park the truck, what passes as yard-work. I'm green from head to toe, the sap still rises. Try to fight it, but I fail in almost every particular. Skink and mouse shit mocks me. Betty Crocker I'm not. Something bit me but it doesn't seem to be serious, a welt, nothing more. What you can live with. A sliding scale. The fox does her dog-like digging to recover some moldy beets which she seems to enjoy, I'm curious about digestive systems but have no one to ask. An older couple came into the museum, they'd bought an old building in town and there was a painting on the wall, vaguely like a Bierstadt or a Francis Church, that school, the romanticized west, probably a copy, but we have to go see. I'm amazed how quickly I see what it might be, the schools we fall into. How Picasso was taken with Chauvet, the way the line changed. A quick stroke then away to the hunt. It's never over, you claim the ridge, and immediately there's discussion of drainage rights. There's a limo waiting for you. Do you want to take it or not? The ghetto or China Town. The sound track shifts, a samba, whoever you're with moves her hips in a certain way, something takes you attention. I cry at the drop of a hat, one reason I live alone, I wouldn't want anyone to see my misery, but did you see that, the way I cried out in the night? Elvis Costello. Emmy Lou. I could never be a lawyer but I'd be a good judge. Okay, Tennessee Jed. Drink all day and rock all night. No place I'd rather be. I want to sit right down, make a pallet on the floor. Set this heart on fire. Nothing but sugar cane. Wrap you up in cellophane, no place like home, are those handcuffs or are you just happy to see me? It's not very far, sugarcane. I'd like to be more removed but I find myself in the thick of it. Tell me, darling, is it true? In the gloaming a shaft of light. What do you believe? Why? There's an ambiguity between what's seen and what might be seen. I don't have the time to go back in time, but memory is everything, a cover of a Grateful Dead song, where I come from, I'd know you. Read more...

Limid Pools

I miss the littoral, tidal pools swarming with life; and the high-country streams, above the beaver ponds, where, in the early spring, native trout take even my badly presented fly. Miss may be too strong a word, I remember them. So much time alone allows reflection. Sara asked me for a bio for the newsletter and I was at a loss. "Formerly a goat-herder in Colorado, an oysterman on Martha's Vineyard, a bookbinder, a paper-maker, a letterpress printer, designer and builder of two dozen houses in six states, several of them off-the-grid, writer of some twenty books and pamphlets, publisher of seventy titles, recipient of numerous NEA grants, stage manager at the Opera Company Of Boston, a good cook, a lousy house-keeper, total failure as a partner in numerous relationships, a pretty good distant father to two daughters who still love him, the guy who noticed that Fritz's pocket was on fire. An expert on carrying loads through a crooked post. Very good on what's being said. Exceptional on processing simple numbers when you're trying to hang everything exactly centered at 57 inches." D and I are brilliant at this, we amuse ourselves, with Sara and Chuck watching today, and carrying on conversations, we hung a show. It was magic. The numbers were flying through the air, D would call and I would respond. We're Olympic caliber at this. Chuck knew something was going on that he didn't quite understand, Sara pulled up a chair to just watch. Interesting, note to self, I'm referencing things a little differently, why is that? I don't know. Wait, yes I do, it's this damned book on the history of libraries, which took me to another book I remembered, and actually found, on the history of bookshelves, which, naturally, shares a great deal of information. One factoid I particularly enjoyed, appearing in both books, and justifying one my methods of organization, was that at the great library of Nineveh, one of the earliest, 30,000 clay tablets, books were separated by shape. I almost always remember the color of a book, too, and that system, it seems, is not unique to me. One system I haven't used, but am now inspired to try, is the "incipit" method, which seems to be based on the first few words of text. Nineveh was Assurbanipal's passion, there's that wonderful alabaster relief there, of him hunting lions, a beautiful thing that leaps off the wall. My systems with books is exasperated by my divided interests. I require discreet piles for separate subjects and I tend toward the excessive: right now the Prehistoric Art stack is dangerous, I always approach it from upslant, less I be pinned and die of dehydration. Never put a door flat, as a desk, on legs of books, it's a disaster waiting to happen. First you have to find another book of the same thickness, picking one you don't think you'll need anytime soon, then you have to get down on all fours in the well, and lift with your back, slide out the required book and insert the substitution, but they've usually gone sticky and what should be a fairly easy extraction becomes delicate surgery. The great library at Alexandria (it wasn't a single fire, by the way, it was a lot of fires over a long period of time, libraries burn really well) required an almost total control on the flow of papyrus, sending scribes everywhere to copy things for the archives, was also proud to a fault, and when they were challenged by the new library at Pergamum, cut off the flow of paper; as a result Pergamum developed parchment. Parchment is pergamenum in Latin and pergament in Germanic. I recently saw an old bible, scribed on parchment; other than a particular girl, I forget her name, in my senior year of high-school, I've never wanted so much to touch anything. I've made paper, but I've never scraped a hide to parchment. I bound a blank book, once, in beautiful leather, someone stole it. I probably would never have written in it anyway, my notes are designed for scrapes of paper, napkins, better someone else should violate what I never would. Living where I do, I shouldn't complain, goats don't moan about credit card limits, any port in a storm. I'm just putting facts together, Kim said the bricks were slightly larger, I trust his feel, and I wonder what that means. Smaller grout joints, or some manipulation with the saw. I saw this coming, nothing is ever the same. It's a small step, from Janitor to Assistant Preparator.

Tom

Michael lost use of his foot in a related undertaking, something about bulls in a barn, and was told never again to pound nails, he smiled and made wine, I take comfort in this, what I do now is don white cotton gloves and move things from one place to another. Never draw conclusions, the objects, concern yourself completely with subjects. Read more...

Absquatulate

Bailed 30 minutes early from the museum to miss a heavy squall, got to my door just as the first drops hit, then weirdness, hard rain in sunshine, everything glittering. So much rain the box turtles have reconsidered their positions and are moving to higher ground. Stopped on Mackletree this morning and moved a dozen off the road. I've never seen them migrate at this time of year. The good old boys like to squash them, so I move every one I see out of the road, in the direction I'm pretty sure they're going. In the spring they move off of the hills, going down to water, but there burrows in the bottoms must be flooded and now they're moving back to higher ground, where they do their turtle hibernation thing through the winter. Their heartbeat is very slow, even when they've excited, when they're sleeping. they're hardly alive. What does the frozen minnow think? What's in their veins that they can freeze and thaw and still live. Sugar, actually, this bothered me and I did some research. Sara got me today, I was recounting some probably apocryphal story concerning carp, and she didn't believe me, thought I was making it up, for once it wasn't true but it made me doubt my source, which I don't remember because I read too damned much. Come on, get a life. The only Juan to blame is Juan of the two beauties. They caption the dialogue, no sound, and the captions are often really funny because it must be a voice recognition program or something and it screws up often. Amazing technology, nonetheless it's less than perfect, so you get this slightly abstract language. Today one became Juan and I remembered Juan Of The Two Beauties, one of the guys I worked with long ago. Language. The fact that I now read a little Aurignacian is amazing to me; I don't speak it, but I'm not sure it ever was spoken, the story-stick was all. I think we started speaking maybe 40,000 years ago, rough, at first, nouns: lion, mammoth, specific hill; but verbs are difficult because they factor time. The ablative. Consider verbs generally, they advance the cause. Time, space, all of that, the way language became a fact of life. The last thunder cell moves through, three in the morning, wakes me to shut the windows again. Ozone. I was napping on the sofa, exhausted from a day of moving heavy things, waiting for the power to come back on. Wanted to write, but after a single drink, a dinner of plain yogurt and fruit, I was out like the lights. Somebody into serious overtime, because it wasn't the thunder that woke me, but the refrigerator laboring back to life. Then thunder, then lightning, more rain, 3:47, I'd better go. Another nap, then the susurration of wind and wet trees, up for good just before dawn. One dream, I was in a robe, examining the entrails of a chicken, a soothsayer, specifically, a haruspex, a Roman priest. Rain was indicated. Read more...

Proper Loading

More and more we see this, artists working in larger forms without a sense of how the weight is carried down to the base. I visualize this in three space, with an imaginary plumb-bob. If I golfed I might use a putter. For decades I've used natural crooked tree-trunks as posts and it's important to know that the load is carried correctly, I've developed methods for cutting parallel tops and bottoms that are arcane but empirical and accurate. Some potters and glass blowers seem to think it's enough to have a flat bottom, without any consideration of load. The pieces don't stand or wobble, and that doesn't work for me. Balance is a consideration. Rains, maybe a thunder cell in the offing, I might have to close down. I need a lap-top and a couple of batteries, then I could write by candle-light. Sara warned me that two patrons were coming by and that the fate of a wood sculpture we had stored for years had been settled, she hadn't warned me that the sculptress, the daughter of one of the patrons, was beautiful and very bright. We talked about loading and made a date to go to the quarry next time she's in town. I'd love to fix her dinner, which sounds like something hot and steamy, but isn't, I'd like to talk with her. A day filled with women: I spent my entire day without any male contact, and I only mention it because it is the story of my life, working/interacting with strong women. I consider it a matter of course, I love listening to women talk, the concerns are different, much more interesting than talking about football. I cautioned a friend to fuck often but with great care. That would cover some bases. A board member came in today and wondered what web-site her sister could read me on. I know why I think someone should read me, but I don't know why they actually do. Proper loading, hell-fire, what we think is said. I can deflect anything you can throw. It might not be a hit, exactly, but would at least be a foul ball. I, at least, as they say, got my bat on it, maybe a day late and a dollar short, but I saw it was a change-up; some tell in the delivery, managed to knock it aside. I read too much into things, I know, but confronted with a crow, squawking, I'm putty in her hands. We either over or under estimate things. Going up to that spirit in the sky. Who's to say what doesn't work. Love your toe-nails. Nice sandals.. Read more...

Gathering Mushrooms

The perfect year, late summer rains. I've never found so many Boletus. They're huge and they're everywhere. Made a couple of racks to dry them on, in slices, for mid-winter risotto. Very much like the dried Porcini from Italy, the recipe I first read. Another favorite is from "The Joy Of Cooking", a risotto alla Milanese, adding cooked chopped chicken livers and gizzards at the end. Often add a cup pf green peas because it looks so nice. Important if serving, as I do, the dish as the main course, with just bread, because it looks like a big plate of slightly yellow library paste. Little cubes of butternut squash make a great addition. I think that's John Thorne. Risotto gets a bad rap because it does require attention, but I read while I'm stirring, a paperback I can hold open in one hand, and besides, the stove is warm in winter and I'm often hovering over there anyway. Left-over risotto makes a superb pancake the next morning. Usually make a quick gravy for these, because maple syrup doesn't work, a scant spoon of bacon fat, some chicken broth, a little corn starch: I know, I know, I just railed against thickeners, but this is a breakfast gravy, not an evening sauce. I cheat. I'm a cheap date. A decent cook with no pretense. I don't want to work in a restaurant, own a restaurant, cook in a restaurant. I like to cook and eat, I enjoy cooking for a few friends, but I hang shows for a living, tend the needs of a museum, then, the rest of the time is my own. Wanting to spend most of your time alone is viewed as an aberration, I know, but I make no excuse for leaving whatever function, and no one expects me to, they're surprised I'm there in the first place. It's a perfect fit, me at the museum now, I hope Penny stays and I can teach her to clean toilets and to put away her tools. I never was a teacher. Frankly, I'd rather do it myself. I'm generally flying in this zone where I might be, for instance, trying to codify a prehistoric artifact, or looking at a painting. Pegi was cute today, I love her, she was making amends, combing her hair, wanted me to understand that both she and D felt that I should earn more money, but times are tight. Right. I got that. What about the next show? Everything is always the future. I sit back on my ass, but the future is always what you might construct. I want to do another, better, river show. Less compromise, I'm always suspect of compromise. Read more...

Turkeys

Sitting in the outhouse, just after dawn, loud scratching sounds approaching. Small army of gobblers coming up the logging road right toward me. Sounds like a young war, expert grubbers, they leave nothing unturned. More than twenty, seem to know where they're going, they turn of to the west, before they get to the outhouse. One hen comes too far, my outhouses never have doors, she looks around the corner at me sitting there, five seconds, I don't move a muscle, then whisper "bang". She turns around, a no fly zone in a stand of young poplar, and runs away, with that high-stepping awkward gait turkeys have adopted, with quite a waddle, to keep their large bodies centered over the one foot that hits the ground. Excellent balance but not really elegant nor graceful. I watch wild turkeys whenever I can. Spend over an hour making a huge brunch, country-fried steak, potatoes, eggs, tomato, toast, then another coffee, sitting outside in the last of the cool shade before the day gets hot. A very little house-work, then Warren Chapel's "A Short History Of The Printed Word" which pretty much takes the rest of the day, one book leading to another. Four pair of frozen French frog-legs in the freezer, about a serving, I'd say, pull them out. I'd put a small crock pot on this morning, navy beans, smoked jowl, onions, garlic; an avocado, another tomato, both with just lime juice. Brown the frog-legs in butter, then build a sauce with chicken stock, shallots, and a nice Boletus, previously sliced and browned in butter. I'd rather not thicken these sauces, other than by reduction, I don't want them to taste white, chalk-like; a little Madeira would help, or something flinty, a dry white. Listen to Greg Brown. I don't sleep so much as nap, in the heat, losing track of time. High summer. Raphael had a lovely hand. Looking at some letters he wrote, I'm ashamed of the way I write, embarrassed that I'm barely legible. Content doesn't count for much when you can barely understand what's said. Tyler is supposed to grade the driveway, which would be good, because the driveway is very bad, but I don't really hold out much hope for easy access. High in the art of suffering (Van Morrison) has tempered me to a certain level of difficulty. Paving the road to hell, which I always think of as that mule-track down into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, or that back way into Telluride, from Yankee Boy Basin, where the road is so narrow you have to make three-point turns and the drop, off the edge, is significant. I couldn't drive it now, my fear of heights, but it's worth something, to see your life flash before you. Courtship. Access. You sound pretty good but it doesn't look right, someone my age, still in love with you. I never lost you but you were never mine. Listen, the bugs make a point, background sound might be more important than anything you were thinking. Where were you when? A motherless child. A long way from home. Nothing means anything, simply a backwash, an eddy. Might save you, but who's to make the call? Read more...

Blind Spot

I need a research assistant. And a yard guy. Typical late summer mess, the yard overgrown, books piled everywhere, the outhouse needs mucking. Computer needs an ice-pack today, 95 degrees, 90% humidity, considered going in and reading at the museum library, what with the AC and a fridge full of beer. Nixed the idea, as D would find me sleeping on the floor, though my image could hardly be more tarnished. Last night, did I write a second time? Can't remember, really must get a new printer, I feel out of touch with myself. I do remember getting up, a great blues run on NPR, Michael Burke, lord have mercy: an out of body experience. Maybe a flashback, whatever. Didn't catch the title of the number, but it was long, 10 minutes, maybe, incredible, blues-rock. Leif (the Norwegian Finish Carpenter) would dismiss it as noodling but it caught my attention. Caveman logic and there is no accounting for taste. I listen to Bach, usually, occasionally Berlioz, but I do like extended jams. Like long poems, they build meaning. Always liked long poems too, though I heard vintage Robert Bly on the radio today, and fell in love with short poems again. I'm a fool for love. A wealth of insights and not quite enough money to put a roof on the back porch. Practicing liberation biology without a text, a naked relic of Eden. Once you taste that forbidden fruit, you get a serious jones. Passion brands us, we become what we do, certain considerations can be drawn, the coffee talk of gifted hands; what you do is put your feet in the fire, to get motivated, then hop about, like Mister Crow, and squawk your discomfort. It's the American way. I'm not even cynical and the field looks bleak. I worry more about my driveway than I do the Middle East. The joy of chemistry has pulled me through, time after time. I suggest you consider your quantum legacy. I'm shooting for a zero-sum thing, where I come out even. Reality check, when's the last time you helped a lady across the street? Abnormal pap smears are a pain, like incipient hernias, those various cancers, you get sick, then you die. The secular conscience affirms life as it happens; what might be considered the Humanist Manifesto, you till your plot. It's a metaphor but it seems to cover the situation. Nothing prepares you. What's that all about? You're less than a piss-ant and no one ever tells you. Nothing, then forced into a kind of faith, maybe a bad faith, but who's to be the judge?. I can't explain it but feel violated. Bad faith is an awful condition, first thing you know, you're looking at thunder clouds. Degree Mills. I can't see you anymore, you're a blur. The nature of reality is that it fails. Read more...

Nothing Anyway

The way you might have felt. What you thought. I grin and turn the other cheek, really, you can't trust anyone. Or anything. Consider a single crow, pecking the eyes from a road-kill possum, a certain transference, you could be him, but you'd never swear like that, up against the pressing wind of passing cars. Nothing prepares you for the rodeo, one more bull to ride, chinch up, reach for the stars, there's always the corner of the bottle, a place you can hide. It's not often that you feel this pain, a deep retching thing that stirs you, a guitar solo with harmonics. You play along. The radio fails, cuts out, Elvis Costello, Greg Brown, nothing makes any sense. I grant it's late, my seeds are all sown, still, I see something, I miss being broken, a bonfire, a quiet flame. It's god's hand, what happens. The language is strange, but I can make sense from anything. Trust me. Just the other day, the sunset from my window, I wished all my pain away, something changed, I felt better. By morning the fog had lifted, all dressed in shimmering things. Either an accordion or a saxophone in the background. Keeping time. Nothing you could see, something unspoken. Come on up to the house. A base blues line. Forever lost. Tom Rush. Listen.

Tom

A solo piano in the dark, harmonics, listen closely. Read more...

Take Down

Uninstalled the pottery show, 11 or 12 pedestals with bonnets, 3 shelves, 50 or so pieces. This is the first breakable, 3D, I'd installed solo, so that in the use of museum wax, to assure myself nothing would fall if accidentally bumped, I probably erred on the side of using too much. We use single-item mini-peds to vary heights when several items are on a single ped. Small painted boxes, blocks of 4x4, plexi holders and shelves. At one point today D was getting a pot for us to wrap and when he picked it up, with a slight twist to free it from wax-attachment, the mini-ped came away with it. Talk about secure. The good news is that nothing broke. Remembering back, I spent an entire day making small balls of Museum Wax and setting the pieces. I sing the virtues of this stuff, it's micro-crystalline structure, can't remember the label exactly, but it stays flexible forever, is aggressively tacky, doesn't stain, is archival, clearly a very good mouse-trap. I've mentioned before, but worth noting, I'm so old that when I started in theater, we used mortician's wound filler. So maybe I used too much, to be on the safe side. Maybe an ounce, total, rolled into maybe 99 or even 66, small balls. Downside is that I have to spend part of tomorrow, while D returns pots to Springfield, de-waxing philosophical. Nothing broke, but how much less could I use? I don't know how to find an answer, I do, really, but how could you learn without breaking art? Err on the side of caution. Nonetheless, too much wax. Remember, my training is theater, and actors are sometimes awkward, so we tended to screw things down. Emily said:

Nothing is the force
That renovates the World.

We could argue meaning forever, or could agree she was talking about nothing. I tend to trust my fellow inmates, we have similar tats, which implies something. You thought I knew. For the record, I didn't know, I just look at things. You have to allow, I'm a simple observer. I merely watch, what I see might be merely actual. How much time do you have, we could talk about about this forever.

Phone out again, the dead burned trees on Mackletree falling in every high wind. Verizon has promised a crew to clear the hazards, but I'm the only phone for a two mile stretch, and the end of the line, so not high on the list. De-waxing philosophical went well, step one is scraping with a dead credit card (the stiff plastic we all carry) and I have a Discover Card I didn't ask for that was canceled from lack of use. I keep it in my wallet for odd jobs, it's opened many doors. Step two is wiping, forcefully, with a cotton cloth; step three is cleaning with Orange Cleaner. The ped tops will need repainting, but they always do, especially after a pottery show, marks and scars. Maybe two hours cleaning something that I might not have needed to clean, had I not, let's say, over-waxed. No big deal, fact is I'm happy to be doing it, nothing broken. "I love talking about nothing... it's the only thing I know anything about." Oscar Wilde. "Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being --- like a worm." Jean-Paul Sartre. A couple of breaks, during the de-waxing, for a smoke on the loading dock with Sara, discussing the state of the museum, what could be done for whom, in support. One thing that makes our relationship so special is that there is no vested interest, we both just love the museum. Speaking of love, or at least lust, I was thinking about beauty, docenting a lovely German exchange student through the main gallery, her English as good as mine, except for colloquialisms, which threw her, and her laugh was a lovely thing, reverberating in the open space. I wanted to get her a green card, marry her, and have her organize my library. nothing wrong with a brief fantasy. She left with her keeper and I went outside for a smoke. I'm thinking about beauty, probably just in an iconic sense, SI, February, being cynical, and in the parking lot across the way, in pulls a tinted Camaro, I don't know the year, I don't keep up, and this lady steps away. This is my point here, she's nothing really special, not even the most attractive woman on the block, but she walks like she means it. Her carriage is beautiful, she flows, and I stare at her because she demands presence: fuck, how could you not? And it's because of the way she moves, she inhabits her body, and because she does, she becomes beautiful, she fills that breaking crest of a wave. You and your little board coming through the tube, as if that was something, she is, you, my friend, are a dream. My intent was just to be obvious. I'm sorry if I don't respond quickly enough. Listen, that world, out there, is important. What I might call up. I like, for instance, the way I'm called.

Tom

I have to go now.
Read more...

Afternoon Showers

First really hot night, sleep impossible, then a day where you sweat sitting still, and the showers make things worse, steaming off and seeming to heat things up a notch. I resort to sitting around in my boxer shorts, wearing a wet tee-shirt, a fan blowing across me. Days now of studying prehistoric paintings and there is a language there, a representation that is credible, operating in the visual and tactile domains. All I'm bringing to this table is the fact that I live close to the natural world. I look at some Innuit drawings closely for a very long time, they carry a huge amount of information, they're storied, they show a sequence, impart knowledge. Letter form probably develops from the cuneiform, a mark comes to mean something, the Paleolithic "P", which is fairly common, comes to mind, it's probably either a woman's ass or her pregnant belly; turned on its side it's the swollen belly of a horse in spring. A sign carries meaning. It took thirty thousand years to develop an alphabet and it wasn't easy. We all had slightly different meanings for things, we still do. I don't know exactly what you mean, and you don't know exactly what I mean. An alphabet gives us a step up, but no guarantee. I misunderstand everything as a matter of course. It's a kind of test. I don't really want to waste my time. Or yours. But thinking about this need to express, I thought about the Mayan carendar, talk about factoring time. Almost a waste. But something. Power out so no Send again, also no fan. I strip down and pour a bucket of water over my head. Another day, stop and the lake, study the dissilient seed-pods of various things, milk weed, dandelion. The Wind Solution to getting around, little monads blown from the mother-ship. Noticed that I selectively recuse myself from most matters of taste, what I mean, actually, is that to my inner circle, which includes you, I'll pretty much say anything, but when asked questions from people outside the circle, I usually beg off, one way or another. When I'm docenting, which I do well, I present things as open questions. It is often an insult to a relationship, to take that all-knowing pedestal and forget to listen. After the power went out yesterday, I still had light to read, finished this Randall White book on Prehistoric Art and the damnedest (ugly, is that really a word?) thing happened: Over the last three days I've spent maybe 18 hours looking at prehistoric art, reading text, studying things with a magnifying glass, and at the end of that, this was last night, I found myself able to read a little Aurignacian. It was weird, I knew where to be, when, reading an artifact; I wondered what constitutes text. I won't argue again that I'm a simple guy, but in so many ways I am. This was a really large moment for me, the level of understanding was like writing a very good poem, like really hearing opera that first time that you really listened, like finding yourself standing in a particular spot in the woods and you already see thirteen morels. Magic moments, and at those Magic Moments, someone brought out a story stick and handed it to Gramp or Gram, or someone wearing a lion-deer outfit that was really cool; and they felt the notches, looked closely, told a tale. I saw this so clearly I think I can make it happen in your dreams, it's tangible for god's sake, I can knead it, turn it into musket balls, the nature of reality. They knew as much about the world they lived in as you or me, more, probably. These story sticks humble me, the demand made on memory. I can barely remember my name, they remembered whole seasons. I'm sure this happened, I was reading a book, I may have been distracted, usually I'm a good shot, I'm sorry, where are you calling from? I can hit a six-inch circle from a thousand yards, I shoot well, but you wouldn't, understand that, what was clearly presented.You and this geek. Wow, I'm way stupid. Read more...

Two Birds

One wasted person. Not the way to start a day, two trips down and up the driveway, first with loppers, to clear the arched brush and examine the extent of damage, the second with a shovel to clear fines where they clog the grader ditch. Between trips I cook a mammoth breakfast, slab bacon, potatoes, eggs, fried tomato slices, toast. The shoveling is very difficult, because it is below the level of my feet, but the lopping had warmed the muscles enough that I didn't pull or pinch anything. Three crows watch me from a shattered oak in the hollow, either shouting encouragement or laughing at my folly, I don't speak enough crow to know for sure. If I ever had another pet it would be something from the Corvid family: sensible birds that avoid extraneous effort and don't care about their appearance. I'm not one for preening. Must stop at the lake because the overflowing napp is significant and shaking the ground, I get too close and lose my hearing for the entire drive to town. Make a note to ask Barnhart, the music guy, if there are some cheap waterproof pick-up microphones we might use to get a sample. It's an interesting sound which at first seems like a drone, then becomes composed of discreet sub-sounds. Subtle variations. I'm a Change-Ringing, Bach kind of guy, but suddenly I'm hearing Philip Glass and actually liking it. Nothing says you can't continue to grow. I never did any Wagner, but I wish Sarah Caldwell had done the cycle while I was in Boston, I listened to the overtures today and was completely blown away. They reach deep into the collective unconscious. Music and probably dance strike us with no mediation, I've learned to look at things with no mediation, what I think of as a base line. There must be some calibration, you have to allow for some variation, nothing is ever the same. I have previously stepped foot in these waters and I noticed it was never the same, not exactly, always slightly different. I could slide my card, punch a code, but what is actually going on? My address stays the same, a drop-box in Queens. Only the names are changed.

Daft electric grid and I couldn't Send, then forgot this morning, fixated as I was by another large breakfast, finishing the new Lee Child, vacuuming dust bunnies, shave and a sponge bath. Garbage Day at the museum, full-tilt janitor mode, finally getting shed of the last, two-party, weekend. Another clogged toilet and I want to post a memo to the staff that shit doesn't clog toilets, paper does, but can't decide on the wording. Sara asks me about doing a show of my Salt-Works Press books and I think that might be interesting; talking letter-form with D, off to grad school next month, and I mention several ephemeral projects we did with the press, where letter-form was exactly the issue. We once printed poems, in non-toxic berry juice, on cabbage leaves and served dinner to a select few. More than once launched messages in bottles into the Gulf Stream, posted laminated water-proof poems on trees in the state forest, sent an edition of styrofoam heads out into Cape Cod Bay with a meaningless page of text embedded in their skull. We weren't thinking, we merely did whatever. I'm guilty, I never had an office job, but I've tried, always, to stay foot-loose. The time I don't spend doing yard-work is more important to me than all the tea in China. And it's worked for me, next time I call rooster, you'll hook up the plow. I don't watch my backside, skinny and useless, I wonder what the next thing means. Nothing prepares you for what you actually confront. I scramble to make sense of myself. I know we all do, the nature of reality is so strange, that you ended up here. Suddenly you find yourself onstage, explaining something, or worse, down at the station house, bailing out a friend, answering questions about where you were when. D rescued a kitten that had been dumped in a window well, this goes to show you what I mean, and it was cute, as most young animals are, baby goats, for instance, are to die for, everyone suddenly talking baby talk. And because it was the day we premiered the movie, the kitten achieved a certain status, The Premier Kitten. These things escalate, first thing you know, we're booking a ride to get the cat to NYC where it might live the life to which it isn't accustomed, red carpets and such, cans of tuna and a litter box lined with cedar shavings. I don't object to things, generally, and I don't object to this small cute orange critter escaping his/her fate (we think it's female) which would be probably a feral existence, in the woods, until something ate her, a red-tail hawk, maybe. You can take the cat out of the country. Phone line is down somewhere, so, again, I can't Send.

Now I can, get this off and start all over again. Read more...

Tolerance

Once a month I eat a catfish
from the Ohio. Mercury is only
a toxin when you eat
too much. Taking a risk, I
stand in the sun, no
sun-block


Read more...

Not Sleeping

Fat dark-eyed coon caught in the porch light gnawing my steak bone. Sitting back on his haunches, dainty front paws gripping the find as though it were a hymnal, eyes laser red in the sudden brightness, then back to business, paying me little mind. My compost raccoon, chubby as a favorite house cat, marrow and grease furrowing his chin. I see it is a male from the erection this meal engenders. At the edge of the cone of light, two rabbits work the weeds, both, also, slightly over-weight. I go pee in the sink, so as not to disturb their repast, then roll a smoke and watch through the glass. They can hear me move around but are little disturbed as long as I don't open the door. It's very quiet, but not quiet enough until I kill the breaker for the fridge, pull up a stool from the island and stare. They can't see me, I'm in the dark, and they're in the spotlight, a Mamet play, an adaptation of that popular children's book, "No Wind In The Poplars", you've seen the movie, the raccoon loves the rabbit, but it's one of those ill-fated love stories, cross-species angst, the coon settles for a fence post with a knot hole, and the rabbit runs away, becomes a whore in LA. She contracts every possible STD, comes back to die in the country, and the coon is there, to comfort her last days. I scramble a couple of eggs, with the left-over mushroom gravy, read the new Pynchon, drift to a dream state. Yes, yes. I stopped for a beer at the pub, on my way out of town, a draft Stella, Linsey serving, mutual flirtation. In my capacity as janitor, I notice that nothing is really clean, every single surface is tarnished. Makes you wonder. If every single corner is dirty what does that say about your skills? Maybe the corners don't matter, maybe nothing does. What you're left with is glitter on the floor. Almost nothing. Marshack makes the point that a great deal of prehistoric art is a product of factoring time, lunar time, menstrual time. Convincing argument. One thing Henri Breuil certainly got wrong was that a lot of male-organ sexual barbs that he saw were simple plants. When my old VW bug blew up in Nitro WV I camped out in the Marshall University library for a few days, got permission to cut the pages on a magnificent set of books documenting the digs at Dolni Vestonice and there were many female, sexual, statues, but it seemed to me then, and even more so now, that quite a bit of what was called male sexual depiction were/was simply plants, tying certain animals to certain seasons. Certainly, as Georgia O'Keeffe made apparent, 32,000 years later, plants can be sexy. But wait, maybe I'm falling into the same trap. Prehistoric is generally used to mean before written language, and there is a vast amount of storied, notational information in prehistoric art. I worry that thought until daylight, then go down and work on the grader ditch, an hour and I'm drenched with sweat, walk back up and take the two gallon over-the-head bath on the front deck. Another breakfast, featuring fried potatoes with salsa, and back to the books. These cave paintings, it seems to me, are proto-language, information exchanged across generations. Story sticks have an ancient history, the modern us, starting 40,000 years ago, were telling stories; we see this clearly, where Cro-Magnon overlapped Neanderthal. The latter learned quickly but we had better weapons. There must have been some cross-breeding, it's your duty to fuck the slaves, hybrid vigor, abs and a brain, cool, we can conquer the world. But we don't have a written language, we only have the stories, notched on a stick. A mere 30,000 years later those drawings become runic, hieroglyphic, we start recording transactions. Modern history, recent enough, an address: Tom, Dolni Vestonice. Third hut on the right. You can't miss it, it's painted pink. A primer I couldn't get beyond. I don't suffer stupidity well. I've made mistakes, legion, I would present myself as a failure, actually, if we were keeping score. I trust we're not keeping score., I might score higher than I should, I'm less than I might be, almost nothing.. So glad they got the cat. Read more...

Teetering Piles

Books are out of control again. I was staff at the museum today, but had the morning free to read and pulled way too many books off the shelves, everything I could find on Prehistoric Art, mostly large-format with color plates. Bad books to put on the tops of piles. Several seand one minor disaster when I got into a reverie over the subtlety and ambiguity in a pair of painted lions from Chauvet, reached for the magnifying glass and knocked over a pile of twenty or so that I had mindlessly stacked in a sort of inverted pyramid, caught Archeology Of The Eastern United States on top of my bare foot and thought I might have broken something, just a contusion but I'll limp for a couple of days. There's another pile that scares me, a kind of Goldsworthy thing I started at the base of the stairs, thinking to move something else upstairs, another subject or auuse I'm taking in books at a greater rate than I'm getting rid of them. If I built one more house, the 900 square foot pagoda design that I dream about, it would be a library with a kitchen. Two Boletus mushrooms I harvested today, between them, weighted over three pounds, Boletus Edulis, a really good mushroom, I like to dry them and use for a Risotto mid-winter. I cooked a portion, then browned some shallots, made a thickened sauce with chicken broth and browned flour, added the shallots and mushrooms, great spread for a small grill a portse, bread to sop. Christa is on the desk today, she's cute, those deep-set Appalachian eyes that have seen too much too soon, and I read a new novel Lauren sent from Utah, Truck, Michael Perry. Funny book, reminds me of myself. Almost too glib, but like a good shortstop he digs it out of the dirt and fires a strike to first base. My case is well rested, I recuse myself, I'd like to sit on the court, but I choose to sit of the roof and watch the ether. This composite is real thin 0 byou, uy, , but,b utever can be seen. I'm always that awkward other person, I've looked at the clips, I know what I think I see, but I'm not a decent bottom line either. Less like a pop-star and more like a bunker. There were some compromised dynamics. You thought, you knew, but what did you know anyway? Life, as we know it, is a crap shoot. Read more...

Adaptive Implications

Cave at Chauvet, Grotte Chauvet, not discovered until 1994, turned the study of prehistoric art upside down, too good, too representational, fabulous paintings. Using the scale that had been developed, should have been maybe 20,000 years old, but carbon from the pigment dated 33,000 years old. Good news is that the late discovery has meant the best ever excavation. A huge trove of stuff from the floor and buried, which, though it doesn't get us any closer as to why the paintings exist (the two current camps on this are art-for-art's sake, and hunting magic) but does tell us a great deal about Aurignacian life. An interest of mine since I read Alexander Marshack's "The Roots Of Civilization" in 1972, a great book especially for the time (we know a lot more now), that was called to my attention because he was searching for the cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol, and notation. I have to laugh: picture the scholar, reading the newest tome on Prehistoric Art, the book is propped safely elevated, held open by a rock, almost perfectly triangular, sandstone, rounded edges, an artifact maybe used for burnishing stiff pelts, to make them supple. I say 'safely elevated' because the scholar is eating a tomato sandwich (whole wheat, mayo, salt and pepper) with a sweet onion on the side, and he is dripping tomato juice from both sides of his mouth, onto a paper towel on a paper plate and the blotches look a lot like bison or mammoths. I'm in the Hunting Magic camp. There is seasonal information in some paintings, places where certain species might gather at certain times of the year. The best spot to get a caribou, 20,000 years ago, if you lived in France, was at a ford of the Seine, just north of where Paris would be. In the Fall, bring rain-gear. I think you need to have been a hunter (I no longer do) to understand, the over-rubbing of the lines is clearly an indication that the site was successful year after year. Marshack makes the point, shit, now I have to reread that book, at least I know where it is, I saw it just the other day, it's under my "Josephus", top middle shelf on the back side of the two-sided bookshelf wall to my right; over-sized, black jacket with silver letters, that time-factoring is the key. Yes it is, and I feel foolishly proud that I can find it, despite the wings and arrows thrown against me by upstarts with no life-experience, not the key, I can't find that, but, at least, the book. I'm staff at the museum tomorrow, which means I'm paid to read for four hours. I will exploit this to the hilt. The thing I do best is read. I can do a great many things, but reading is where I live. Nothing is real until I see a representation in my head; at least what I thought I saw. I only bother you with details because they're important. I don't like the imagined me, because he's so not me, something completely different.You and me babe. Read more...

Minor Flooding

Up early, shave, out the door, bad thunder cell to the west and fast approaching, need to get down the driveway. I can always read at the museum, shit, I can read anywhere, and do. Brutal day, moving hundreds of chairs and dozens of tables between floors, break down the tech equipage, return borrowed items. Torrential rains in the morning, then a partial clearing, then, just before four, Pegi's husband calls from their house, says another massive cell is upon him; they live a few miles west of me and I'm out the door in a heart beat. High winds, sheeting rain, and traffic is stopped for a fallen tree on 125. The Rural Electric guys make short work of it and I get to the bottom of the driveway, up in four-wheel drive but it's a close thing because the grader ditch has jumped right across where fines have clogged free passage and I'll be late to work tomorrow, shoveling my way down. This is the way my life is constellated: I knew the ditch was clogging, but it was too hot to shovel, so I let it go, and now it's an emergency situation. We should be dry now, but the jet stream shifts and we have the wettest summer on record. Water is standing everywhere, there are egrets on the football field at West High School, the ducks at Roosevelt Lake are complaining about the weather. Nothing like it ever was. Being the protagonist I get home safely, consider my larder. Some beautiful vine-ripened tomatoes, some slab bacon, some eggs, decide on a British Breakfast, frying the tomatoes in bacon fat. It's a lovely meal. Make the best of a bad situation. Probably trapped but cogent. Might make me easy prey but might make me dangerous. Keep everyone guessing. At a guess, tell them what they want to hear. Your essential self is not involved, they're only guessing. I have no choice, really, but to start the day tomorrow with clippers and a shovel, my passage is toast, the driveway is a war zone. Just before dark, I walk down, surveying damage, and it's extensive, what was passable before is now an impossible mess. Life reduced to egress. I don't mind, really, because a head-butt reality is what I expect. The cheapest passage. The most difficult is often the easiest because you're not thinking, merely responding to stimulus. I don't care about you, I only care about myself. We know that's not true, so what's being said? Minor flooding is a matter of course. You can't get there from here. Dig a trench, hide, it's global warming, man, there is no escaping. Escape? I don't think so. Nothing usually everywhere, therefore, you'd choose the easiest path, pure deduction, what remained was true. Mackletree runs like a river. The napp is a standing wave. The crows scream a warning. I'm done, you know, I think, established, planted, I'll play it out here. This will be the killing field. I don't feel one way or the other. Read more...

The Event

Went in at ten to tech the movie, everyone else left, after, but I stayed all day, letting people in and out. The circus moms arrived with appetizers, they were also to act as servers. Then the food arrived, full dinner, salad and dessert for 140, then the guests and patrons, then the Cirque talent, in a limo, decked out to the nines. Awards, then viewed the movie, excellent creative non-fiction. We see Portsmouth, in its gritty actual self, the surrounds, the families and trailers, the dysfunction born of dead-ends; then we see what the Cirque does for these kids, the promise of other, and people that care about them, then the final production number, a stylized dance-gymnastic piece that is wonderful. Open bar, the food is decent, by catering standards, the service is good. I make the rounds, once, saying goodnight, glancing at more cleavage than I'm seen in several years. A major success, but, also, I know, a major mess, so I went in today to deal with garbage and spillage. Appalling but not unimagined. Always the same mistake: the people that scrape the plates and stack the dishes never consider the weight and wetness of what they're scraping. You end up with 150 pounds of kitchen waste in a plastic bag, in a plastic container, and this is a disaster waiting to happen. Having fucked up several times, I test the weight by rocking the trash can, lift the bags slowly and with great deliberation, some I just double bag, others I must scoop out part of the contents, salad is the worst, so wet, so heavy. There was a course at Janitor College, "Public Events", a visiting professor from Spain taught the course, Jesus Frank, a totally weird person, capes and large flat hats, he kept ducks and I was always curious, but to his credit, he understood public space, recognized the common dangers. What you learn is a helixed thing, a curve of DNA, a spiral that opens new. Listen, I've thought about this. Potentially something could happen. You might or I could. What about would? That plays close to home. My play, always, in a new city, is to watch the shortstop; leave it to you to find the connection. Read more...

Losing Temper

Quenching in brine or oil is part of the secret. Steel is iron minus some impurities. It's all about holding an edge, pocket aces, say, or drawing to an outside straight. Over-building is the rule, consider the load, how it is carried, envision a line of arrows right down to bedrock: every joint represents potential failure. A good carpenter understands gravity. In the Cello Suites Bach builds inevitable changes, you can hear his mind work, when I close my eyes, the music becomes colors and I don't as much hear as see. It's the same as it used to be, layers filling in the background until the field is filled. Bill Evans leads the way to Miles Davis and suddenly there is sense where nothing was before. I think of Skip Fox doing a distorted imitation of John Wayne, grin despite myself, I'm not fooling anyone, I don't even like horses. There was a time I might have cared but I'm well shed of that, now I merely watch. Occasionally I might poke things with a stick, but otherwise I stay at one remove, wear gloves and overshoes. Too close to the sun, things tend to melt and become useless, you fall or fail and the result is irreparable damage. Peter Pan dead on stage because of a rigging problem. Beware getting too close to the flame. Trish and Pegi sleeping on the deck, I nearly cried, Liz took some pictures, maybe we can reproduce some aspect, but the whole is forever lost. I think about you and try to focus, but the edges blur, definition is a problem, what is meant. Call me, please. we can work something out, nothing is as bad as it seems. Tom Rush and all those singer song-writers come to mind, Norman Blake playing harmonics. Stripped of everything you are just a blob of shit, nothing, really. Careful what you ask for, what you get. Late, I'm listening to the blues, John Lee and Mississippi John Hurt, a pallet on your floor. Wait, nothing is really what it seems. I'm confused. I thought I had a handle, but it was illusion, nothing I could grip, the image of a paddle. I defer to whatever. I think I'm a fiction, down on the river, a janitor, nothing, really. Then they pick you up in a limo and your self-image changes. How many times do they pick you up in the limo before you change your opinion of yourself?

Tom

Nothing substitutes for the natural world. Three crows. Nothing unusual.
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The Past

I almost remember the 60's, purple haze, nothing is what it seems to be. On the Lower Road, in Brewster, Mass. I rented a room, traveled everywhere on a bicycle, printed books, gathered frost in my beard and stayed beneath the radar. Many times, walking Crow Pasture, I should have died of frost-bite, but an inner heat drove me. I still feel it, when I'm driven to extreme, a core that burns. Usually I call Glenn, to anchor myself, to laugh at the winds and arrows, find a center that doesn't waver. If it's too late or too early I read Emily or Wallace Stevens. The human condition. Poetry is a solace: this morning, 3 AM, I'm reading Skip Fox, "Delta Blues" and it unfolds like a mythic flower. Language is the denominator. Life is a word game. I think I thought what you meant is the course. We're never sure, when we touch someone else, what we mean, merely a gesture, implying the great unknown. I could die tomorrow and the only question is where to park the carcass. A couple more hours sleep, finally, then off to work early so I can shop for tomorrow's dinner. Rain and more rain, even my Low Gap Creek is running a torrent, and it's usually dry this time of year; Mackletree Creek is running spate and the napp at the spillway is liquid mud a foot deep. Another inch of rain between four and four-thirty, a deluge, big drops, straight down, a cascade. I can hardly see my driveway for the bowed saplings and bushes, leaning under the weight of water. A day of saturation, the scuppers on bank buildings are pouring into the streets, there's not enough pitch, down to the river, so everything backs up. A plumbing nightmare. Too much water in too short a time, when the drains are overloaded, they bubble up in standing waves. The alley is a nightmare. I've given up several close friends recently and I wonder what's that about, I don't make friends easily and lose them harder, so I hate when everyone commits to a course of action. I try to stay one step ahead and steady fall behind. The ladies all made it up the hill and it was a fine evening. I fed them well and retired early, exhausted from the effort and slightly drunk. A quick technical rehearsal proved D's equipage up to the task of premiering Lisa's movie, and the opening is already over-booked. The museum previously rented for a high school reunion tonight requires Pegi and a crew from the Cirque to strike one show and set up another, Summer Stock all over again. My plan is to take a clean pair of socks and spend all day tomorrow tying up loose ends, stay through the opening and dinner, mingle amidst the cleavage of formal attire, admiring ankles, and beat a path home. A clear case of life imitating theater. Nothing prepares you for the world better than starting as a janitor. A good omen is that I found a small diamond ring in the road. I hang it with the other jewelry I've found recently by looking down when walking past a bar: a large silver hoop earring and a silver necklace. I'll give them to my daughters, a testament to looking closely. The picture of an outhouse on the calendar they gave me at Christmas bothers me because the door hinges on the left and it really should hinge the other way, it looks wrong because it would require unnecessary structure. It isn't elegant, and I beg for elegance among all other attributes. Do one thing well and everything else follows, it doesn't matter what it is, raise watermelons, study ants; simply study something closely and the world is revealed. The last couple of years I've watched the Corvid family closely and now I speak a little crow; it happens, first thing you know you're eating snails. A curve ball. What I mean is that familiarity breeds intimate knowledge, what you see is what you get. What you get. I'm a humanist, actually, what did Thoreau say, something about accepting the scrub oak as his coat of arms. The way I feel, the natural world is the model; I want natural sound in a natural place; doesn't mean I'm against anything modern but almost. In the real world you smell the various grasses when you pee; squat, take a breath. All of them get it, realize I choose to live this way, authenic action justifies whatever preparation. Here I am. Read more...