Field Reporting

The sand erodes. Ancient forests are exposed, then the ice melts and mountain tops become islands. A cycle with little regard to humanity: a cow farts, a butterfly dies. Ever so. You can see it coming, a black cloud that makes the Dust Bowl look tame. What Cormac McCarthy was saying in "The Road", a Faulkner of the future rather than the past. It doesn't take a prophet to see, all you need are eyes and sometimes a magnifying glass. My carbon footprint is suspect precisely because I'm burning the Wrack Show, all that residual crap the Ohio carries, that collects, adheres, to wood. Trying to stay warm, I do more harm than good. Don't let anyone tell you they know what they're doing, no one does. It's not so much a depressing thought as it is a fact of life, we jiggle around like puppets, then we die. Look at the record. In my cups, I always turn existential, a saving grace, then I usually split kindling, because it's mindless and I need some, to start the next fire, light the cave I consider my life. Blackbird singing in the dead of night. An abnormal year, if the basis is number of dead squirrels per mile; maybe relates to the quantity of nuts per acre, but I don't know, maybe squirrels are the inland lemmings. Another urban myth. I collect roadkill, cut out the loins, throw the carcass on top of the outhouse for the crows. I do this as a matter of course. Not that there's a plan. A bisque is a thick cream soup, you could make one with a shoe, thickened with nuts, I choose acorns, available naturally, treated the usual way. I'm after a soup, here, that is both hearty and tasty. The shrimp were a gift. Great blues when I turn the radio back on, Mississippi John Hurt and his pallet on the floor, a song that always makes me weep. I probably need to think about that. I'm not particularly sentimental, but I do remember things. Suddenly everyone is making books, well, not everyone, but D is making a book for some class and we were talking about methods of binding, and I just got a call from an art teacher wanting a mini-tutorial in bookbinding. I need to do some binding this winter, as some of the old press books have gotten quite pricey and I have unbound copies. Cottage industry for my dotage or a windfall for my daughters. A couple of the last books, because of the break-up and divorce, were scarcely circulated and are wildly expensive. I'm holding. Cleaned out the fridge and buried the dumpings into the compost pile. The fox was there within an hour, dug up the pile, took a few bites and started shaking her head, took a few more bites, more shaking of the head. Then she heads over to the nearest mud puddle (my 'driveway') and gets a drink. I owe this show, I'm sure, to the remnants of a very hot chili that I forgotten about. Poor thing. It was really hot. She'll have a couple of uncomfortable days. The shrimp are very large, so I take off the tails, and cut them up, cook in butter, add a couple of caramelized onions, some chicken stock, some of the marinade they were in (lots of garlic, red and orange peppers, lots of lemon) and let it all slow cook together for a while, I was reading, I don't know how long, a riveting read, Maxwell on thermodynamics. I found it while putting away another book. Net effect, zero, but it is a smaller book, so the pile isn't quite as high, so maybe there is a small net-effect. Then into the blender, after cooling; heated back up, and added maybe a pint of half-and-half. Got it quite hot but careful not to boil as I suspect this would curdle like a bastard. I stole, from D's office, a bag of oyster crackers from last year's wine tasting; they're stale, but that doesn't affect their ability to soak up two or three times their weight in bisque. I develop a technique whereby I keep a bowl, on the island, of replenished hot bisque, with a layer of crackers on top; every time I walk by, and I make special trips, I turn them over with the back of a spoon, and eat a few. Grazing. This is a very good soup. And the stale, saturated, oyster crackers, are the perfect medium. I'm a born-again freestyle whatever. They dip you in the Ohio, and if you live, you're a member. I can digest horseshoes, you should know that about me, I'd probably be the last man standing. It's probably nothing, but a heads up, what I was thinking, I needed to play closer attention. Tom Bridwell, reporting from the field. Any mistakes are covered, right? we have insurance?