What?

Hot days blur in succession. I did some things, but I don't remember what they were. A little of this and that. The truck runs well and isn't overheating, something to be said for that in this weather. The green has begun it's mid-summer wilt and the bugs are beginning to take their toll. Old Charlie, who I apprenticed with, as a letterpress printer, and his wonderful witch of a wife, Margie, had found the perfect spot to winter, at 5,000 feet in Guatemala; where the temps were always between 65 and 75%. The distillery was just down the street and you took your own jug to be refilled; they had what would probably be called a drinking problem but what was actually just a compromise. We all make them. If you live alone you make less, but you still make some. I compromise when I go to work in the morning, when I have a dog that needs feeding, a fire I need to stoke. Cleaning the basement hallway at the museum. We still take on a little water when the storm drains are overwhelmed, and a sand plus various soaps and solvents is left as a layer, a stratum, on the floor. It's cement-like, when it dries. The hall is probably 6 feet wide and 50 feet long. D and I, years ago, had removed the broken tile, cleaned the concrete, and painted it with a floor enamel I've used to paint boats. A decent surface. After the seasonal floods, first thing you do is scrape the surface with a plastic putty knife, then with a mop bucket of clear water, you wet the entire surface, which smears everything terribly, but you've removed another layer of fines and now the surface begins to become cleanable. Four moppings by the end of the day today, and another tomorrow should finish the job. I'll have this hall clean. I'm sore, I haven't been doing enough mopping and I didn't have the snap in my shoulders that the modified chevron requires. My old teachers would rag me about this, I can hear them in my head, but they're all dead, and it's too hot to be sentimental. I may be ready to move, when I notice I have to put a good red wine in the fridge for 20 minutes to bring it down to room temperature. I don't suffer to make a point. Then what? Why am I here? If I was a little more comfortable I might finish two or three more books in the time remaining. I'd like to read the Janitor College book, because I always supposed I was serious and had never imagined myself as a kind of Thurber want-a-be. Thoreau and dear sweet Emily walking off into the pines. Makes perfect sense to me. They could leave Emerson to answer the phone. What he said is another book. Phone and electricity out in equal measure, so I haven't SENT in a couple of days, and managed to lose another page to the vagaries of isolated storm cells. There's a ridge-top breeze, and I'm hyper-aware of it, the smell and feel of it, big Royal Pawlonia leaves, flapping in the wind; I'm cheap and easy, if B can salvage a life from this, more power to him. I'd move to Arkansas and open a business selling concrete yard ornaments. Making moonshine in Mississippi, free-ranging sheep in Colorado, whatever. Really, I don't want to be bothered. A cheap hotel room in Kansas would be fine, as long as I had a few dictionaries and a diner that served breakfast 24 hours. Nothing means very much to me, consequently I notice what matters to others, looking for meaning. Read more...

Cool Reading

The museum is closed Monday, but D picked me up at the bottom of the hill and drove me in this morning; we dropped the truck off at the garage, had a smoke, and he headed home. A quiet day reading in air-conditioned splendor. And such reading! Dear friend and close reader for decades (as I am for him) Neil, had sent me a book and it was in the mailbox this morning. "The Cello Suites" by Eric Siblin. You know I love The Suites and this author is as addicted as I am. Wonderful read, a sketched biography of Bach and The Suites, and the history of Pablo Casals rediscovery of, and his subsequent first recording of all six of them. Well-researched, well-written. I was in a kind of rapture all day, reading in the coolth. Just the water pump on the truck, and it was done by the end of the day. Anthony was teaching last class of the summer quarter at the college, drove me down to get it, then we had a couple of beers at the pub. We amused the help with our mindful patter. Anthony can be quite funny and I have my moments. We did 30 minutes on aesthetics that was pretty good. Picked up some cold cuts and decent cheese at the market, I need to eat more, and I lose interest in cooking when it's this hot. Some excellent tomatoes. Summer fare. Roll-ups with a dipping sauce, a sliced tomato with salt and pepper, some saltines, some pickled jalapeno slices. I listen to a couple of The Suites, Rostropovich, and they break my heart; no music has ever spoken to me so clearly, though I'd be hard-pressed to say what was being said. Music is like smell, it makes you remember, and mixes things together. And the cello vibrates your organs, shakes your skeletal structure, the way the notes are sustained. And I always think about Change-Ringing, when I listen to Bach, the mathematical precision. New Age scientist, he had his finger on the pulse. Just like, if I could make a leap here, Thoreau, had a similar finger on a similar pulse. Just saying you should probably look to different mediums, a velvet cushion, maybe something with feathers, a pineapple perched precariously on top, I have to go; I can't believe you let me get away with such bullshit. Read more...

Iridescence

White scars where something happened. So many, and some so old I don't remember the actual wound. Solar shower on the front deck. Two days at 100 degrees with 95% humidity, then slightly overcast this afternoon and I can finally clean my sweaty body, examine closely for ticks, clip nails, wash my hair, shave, approach the societal norm for personal hygiene. D's making the extra trip tomorrow, to pick me up at the bottom of the hill, drive me to town, get my truck to the shop; if they can't repair it in one day, I'll just hang around the closed museum, walk to the library, spend the day in air-conditioned comfort, eat dinner and have a couple of beers at the pub, sleep on the floor in Tammy's office, not a big deal. Blues in the bottle. Something about a dog, a lost love, the sound of a train. Mississippi John Hurt, with that slack delta style, sloppy but perfect. Skip James. Robert Johnson already adumbrated that Chicago studio sound. That bottle-neck imitates the human voice, or at least human emotion. How it does it is a mystery, but it does. Watching a grackle, it's mostly black, but there's an iridescence on the surface that is amazing, every color of the rainbow, a silky pattern that floats above the surface. I know nothing about color, really, just what I seem to see. Doctor John makes me think I know something about human nature, what you're looking for, what you actually end up holding. Bonnie Rait explains it best, time these walls meant anything. Human kindness. And I think. That's the way to meet a friend. Read more...

Logistics, Again

D thought a new radiator cap might be the fix for my truck. He went and got one, this afternoon, while I was setting up chairs for a music event. Refilling the radiator he's concerned my temperature gauge wasn't red-lining, thinks the thermostat is dead. The water runs right through, leaking underneath the truck. Something probably serious, water-pump, seals. Can't drive my truck and it's Friday afternoon, car rental place doesn't have anything for me to rent, and I'm prepared to sleep at the museum, when D says he'll drop me off at the bottom of my hill, then pick me up again Monday morning, to take the truck into the shop. Excellent boss. A couple of days isolated on the ridge, but there's nothing odd about that. Need to make a batch of cheese grits, because I didn't do a weekend shop; had needed to run to town tomorrow, to do laundry and shop, but fuck a bunch of dirty socks, I have enough booze, tobacco and papers, I can eat beans on toast. An added spice is that it's the hottest day of the year, over 100, with 90% humidity, and I have to walk up the driveway. It's not bad, I stop a few times, take a swig of water (D had sent me up with a bottle of water I had forgotten that he had remembered) at every stop, and at the top, I give a little bow, thanking the gods. The dog is confused but mostly wants to be fed, so whines, and spins in circles. When I get to the house, and stop moving, I sweat from every pore. Like my truck, the water moves through me. I have to strip down, drape my already sopping clothes over the backs of chairs, and stand under a ceiling fan before I can even think. Then I go out on the deck and pour a gallon of tepid water over my head, then go back and stand under the ceiling fan. Fucking dufus. Standing naked under a ceiling fan: the center of attention was a recently discovered Greek bust, a real thing. If you live on a major river-system, eventually everything floats by, I can ignore almost everything. I couldn't live near an airport, because I hate planes, hate being near an Interstate; what I require is none of the above. Always and forever. You remember me, right? I'm your friend Tom. You remember him, right? there's a connection? You're close to heat-stroke, when the sweat fairly pops. I lose power and phone, fucking boonies, lay on the sofa, with damp wash-clothes placed just so. Lately, I find myself removing my character from any situation, and inserting a fiction. Realize that's mostly what we do, substitute fiction. I don't have an argument with that. One thing, really, is as good as another. It's a hard town, down in Buena Vista, I'd rather be alone, but here we are. Scratching at my door. Spare me little girl voices, Jewel and Pink, I might trust Bonny Rait. I trust Beethoven, right at the end, those last pieces, when he couldn't hear. Read more...

Thinking, Later

The cook's tour. The janitor's perspective. Look at the physical plant. Is the arrangement adequate for actual needs? Is there sufficient natural light to keep from losing a finger when chopping onions? Consider access. A knotted rope to throw out the window, a flashlight in every room. Check the reception: kill the main breaker and sit at the exact aural center, is there still a signal? Where is it coming from? Which direction do you naturally lean? If you got shed of everything you didn't need, what would be left? Would there be enough? Do you care what anyone thinks of you? Who would you even try to impress? If some of the answers are no, you might consider a cave. Plato has one, where the shadows loom large, and there's always the tree-tip pit that might do in a pinch. Camus was correct, about that first step, the first decision, after that, things get easier, one foot in front of the other. It's dawn on the ridge and everything is saturated. The mist rises as fog, smoke from the hill-tops; the humidity is tangible and smells of the earth. Soul-searching. Where do I belong? This place or another. I consider hundreds of options. Dawn, after too little sleep is like that, make a double espresso and a tomato sandwich, lightly toasted multi-grain bread, with a thin layer of pate on one side and mayo on the other, great pink tomato, and a slice of sweet onion, salt and pepper. I resolve to eat one of these sandwiches every day until there are no more vine ripened tomatoes. It's messy, and I need to eat over the sink, but my god. Need to get some thick-sliced baloney, so I can fry a slice, make it a more than complete meal, rapture. If I lived in town I could walk below the flood wall daily, collect shit I might assemble into another show. I don't like living on the ridge with someone I don't speak to. It's counter-productive and I don't have time for that. I imagine various futures, some of them more attractive than others. I want to work at the museum as long as possible, I love the job, but eventually I'm just an old guy, living in a rented room, on Social Security, with a shopping cart and a gimp leg. At least I'm not suicidal and a mess that someone else would have to clean up. Little Sister is another story, she has a strangulated intestine hanging out her ass, and this is where we part company. I'll shoot her in the back of the head when she's eating something really good, you'd probably say I should get a vet to operate. I have a hernia, for god's sake, and I can't afford the operation. Little do I care about a fucking dog. I've killed so many dogs, it's a pastime really, actually pulling the trigger. I'm concerned about you, you don't seem to know how to hide.  Read more...

Recipes

The Barnharts had given me a bag of books and I was reading some Thai recipes, they all sounded good. I think I'm on the brink of doing an Appalachian / Asian fusion thing. Ramps and lemon grass; acorns and shrimp, with coconut milk. Such rains, last night, that the driveway needed a bit of repair, and I was late for work, which is a rare thing. Even the truth can be a valid excuse, but sometimes, for the sheer joy of it, I make up stupid and improbable excuses, as an alibi, until, usually D, pops my balloon. Actually I was just writing, or up half the night writing and needed to sleep. But this time I had to shovel a bit, the top catchment basin for the top culvert was clogged, not a big deal, but I was already hot and sweaty when I arrived, and D was in work clothes, scraping the various grasses from between the bricks and the sidewalk at the back door. I'd already shoveled, for god's sake, I thought I'd already done my bit. And then, the bastard turns to me, and says we should do the front. Caught between a rock and a hard place might be the right phrase. I use a dulled chisel to scrape vegetative matter from between bricks. This is the best use of me you can use, squatting on a sidewalk, scraping weeds, with a .308 behind the hedge. I'm not a violent person, generally, but if you caught me at the right time. My phone is out, Then the power flickers. I SAVE before everything is lost, the very idea that a storm could rule your life. Read more...

Other Things

Was friends with Edward Gorey and published a couple of things of his. He designed the box for a conceptually packaged magazine I did in the 70's, his first silk-screen. My mentor in the book business was Edward Darling, CEO at Beacon Press in Boston. He wanted me to do a biography of God, consequently I've read almost everything that wasn't included in the bible, and several translations of the book itself, the best of which is "The New English" and also, because Darling was publishing him, all of Claude Levi-Strauss. I'm a pretty good hunter of mushrooms and eat a dozen varieties, probably more, seasonally, including a lovely little thing with almost pink gills that I collect from cow paddies in north Florida, mid-winter, when I visit my folks. I've farmed and ranched on a large scale, harvested acres of crops and herded many hundreds of animals. I'm a good shot with a long gun, a couple of documented times I've made impossible shots, and I know several people that are better than I could ever be. A former friend shoots open iron sites at a thousand yards. I can't even see anything at that distance. I'll be frank, it's a blur. I published some great poets, I remember that, but the actual books fade from memory. Have always gravitated toward people with which good, witty, intelligent conversation is the norm. I'm a story teller in the southern tradition. Since the divorce, I've mostly lived alone. for the last eight years absolutely alone, on a remote ridge top, far away. It suits me. I heat and cook on the most beautiful wood cook stove in the world, a Stanley Waterford, built in Ireland. Not being in a relationship, means that there is little compromise, especially of time, especially at night, when I usually write, for three or four hours, almost without fail. I've lived without power, or without running water: seldom both at the same time, though my standard is different than the norm, I do require creature comforts. I've built any number of beautiful staircases, and several hand built, plastered showers of which I am truely proud. Building a bathroom, a really nice bathroom, is an intimate affair; I usually built in a small bookcase within reach of the toilet and stocked it with books and magazines that seemed appropriate. I've built half-a-dozen composting toilets and have a large library on shit management. I could honestly say I know more about shit than anyone else I know. People talk to me because I listen: I'm a janitor, come on. I love nothing better than resting my chin on the top of the handle of the mop, and listening to some sad sack of woe, or some critical opinion of a piece of art. There's a point here, I want to be making, about the way we spend our time. Everything distracts, nothing furthers. You see what Harvey meant. Period, right? You stop the sentence. Then you're curious it might have been a comma. I'll grant you this, there are more borrow-ponds in Ohio, than any place I've ever lived. Read more...

Nolo Contendere

Not under oath, I would freely admit I'm guilty on all counts. There's nothing I didn't do. Sara asked me for a resume and I started a kind of list, in my head, but it sounded like fiction. Be easier to say Yale, class of '64, Bear, Sterns, retired '94, a private island in the Caymans. Missed my high school graduation for my first summer in professional theater, missed college graduation to teach a graduate course in opera production at FSU, spent several years gigging eels on Cape Cod, met the love of my life. Became one of the better letter-press printers in the country, 7 National Endowment for the Arts grants in 12 years, 70 plus books, 100 plus broadsides, became a paper-maker, a book-binder, everything but a businessman. Moved to Martha's Vineyard, got another grant, and I became an oysterman, a vinter and brewer, so we could eat regularly, the barter system. Moved to Mississippi when the guest list got too crowded, designed and built some interesting structures. Managed to vote for Mr. Jackson and not get shot. Then the move to western Colorado, where I was a mover and shaker, building places so far off the grid, people actually asked me for advice. Built a boat once. A pirogue. Equity Stage Manager for maybe a hundred shows. The Opera Company of Boston. American premiers. As a writer, published 20 books, as a designer, built 24 houses. Built a show and installed it Off Broadway, stayed one night with Jane Curtain and met the original cast for SNL, tried to sleep while they worked on their act, couldn't sleep because they were so goddamned funny, ended up rolling doobies as an audience of one. Stage Managed Beverly Sills' last "Traviata". Fathered two lovely daughters before the love of my life asked me to leave. Studied with a Zen master, a butcher, who taught me to expect nothing. Built a goat dairy and made cheese for which to die, along the way became a decent cook. Ran a black bear away from my compost heap. Once, in a fit of spite, I bit one of Cunningham's dancers on the ass. No charges were filed. Mounted a "Peter Grimes" in the wilds of Maine, outdoors, far from any safety net, without a hitch. I could do 'Aida" on the moon if I had the A Team. I prefer Bach's "Cello Suites" over all other music, especially Meyer's transcription to double bass. I held book for Hume and Jessica before they took "The Gin Game" into New York, spent hours with John Cage talking about mushrooms. A normal life, anything less would be boring. I've plastered some great showers, make what you will. A cascade of meaning, nothing, is really what it seems. Read more...

Duck Duck

First you clean your goose. Guy goes into a bar with a goose on his head. Two geese and a duck go into a donut shop. Bach, "The Waterfowl Variations." I remembered that I was actually in possession of an actual goose liver, also the heart, goose fat, a fine gizzard, and a truly magnificent broth. Before I turned all the remnants into dog food, I reserved out a cup of the broth. Bull in a china shop, last thing last night, cleaning the kitchen. Little smears of goose fat everywhere. Next time, I'll do this in someone else's house. Up early this morning, with pate on my brain. A couple of things first. I keep one of those orange-rind based cleaners around, very green of me, because I've never found anything better that you can use for cutting grease without wearing gloves. Clean the stone surfaces and bleach the cutting board. Then breakfast, a simple thing, really, plain omelet, pan-fried goose breast slices, all cooked in goose fat, toast, pan-fried in goose fat, with a lovely hot-pepper jam, a perfect ripe tomato. I'm sure this meal isn't very good for the actual physical body, but my god is it good. Heat water, do the breakfast dishes, shave, wash my hair, take a sponge bath, standing on a towel at the kitchen sink. Life, as I know it. Ready to tackle the pate, knowing I will, once again, trash the kitchen. We sacrifice for our art. The janitor in me cries out in pain, but the artist part tells him to go fuck himself. I only make pate a few times a year, because it is such a mess. Mid-winter I might do a baked game version, with rabbit loins down the middle. I have almost a cup of organs, split and cleaned the gizzard, the liver is huge, the heart I almost pop raw into my mouth, an Aztec candy, but I saute them slowly in goose fat. Add maybe half a cup of thigh meat, some reconstituted morels, half a stick of butter, a large sweet onion caramelized in goose fat. A cup of broth. I add some things, make it up as you go along: a few drops of hot sauce, some ginger, several grinds of black pepper, maybe a little balsamic vinegar, the good stuff you keep hidden. Run everything through the food-processor. Pack it in a hand-thrown bowl. This may be the best thing I've ever done in my life. Or it could be a fiction. You be the judge. The pate is very good, but the mess, my god, you'd think a wild animal had come through. I don't mind cleaning the kitchen, because it usually means I've done something, and that means there'll be something to eat. I make no claim to fame, I'm a janitor for god's sake, you can't expect me to pick up on the nuance of conversation. Listen, I don't care, the way you shrug your shoulders, I really don't care, you could be a serial killer, for all I care. Read more...

Constant Thunder

Summer daze. Squall lines moving through. A close lightning strike in the early afternoon produces the loudest round of thunder I've ever heard, feared my windows would shatter. Power on and off. The house shaking. For all that, it's a fine day. The green wood is dripping water and the sound of that is a calming thing. There's a quiet place, beneath the noise of nature, a centered place, where noise makes sense, and the spaces between are precious. I suspect I could find the same balance in an urban setting, but I'm a country boy. I crush leaves almost every day, to see what they smell like. The geese have taken over the swimming area at Roosevelt Lake. No one goes in the water because it's rich in goose shit. It's like a Monet painting, the swimmers are blanketed, up the slope, and the geese control the shallows. It's not a symbol, it's a metaphor for something hot and steamy. What we did on the blankets before we used the waters. I was thinking about that, considering how I'd cook this road-killed goose. I hate plucking birds. But I pluck this bird and save various organs. You have to make gravy, that's a given, using body parts. It's a small bird, maybe 10 lbs. live weight. I didn't try and kill it, but had stopped at the lake to feed some excess buns, left over from a noon-time music event at the museum, to the various waterfowl. This one was greedy and ran in front of the truck as I was leaving, and I clipped her head with my bumper. Felt bad, but threw her in the bed. I want, for myself, just a skinless breast and thighs, but I could use some goose fat, for cooking other things, and the dog would certainly eat everything else. Bad idea, in terms of the mess, because it's raining and I have to do all this indoors. A Third World scene from the Food Network. At one point I have the skin and various lumps of cavity fat rendering in a kettle, another pot cooking unwanted bits and bones for the dog, and, finally, a breast and thighs that I want to grill with a butter and lime concoction that I invent on the spot. I advise you don't do this, it's a fucking mess and takes forever. I end up with a jar of goose fat, less than a cup, a couple of days of dog food (added corn meal at the end), and two dinners that are really spectacular but required every pot in the house and all the flat surfaces. Big birds are a greasy mess. I'd rather eat crow. You impale them on a stick, roast them, and pick the meat with your fingers, not good, but not that bad. 24 blackbirds baked in a pie. Rolling thunder. Random lightning strikes. I have to go, dawn is breaking. Read more...

Strigilized

By the time I got home I was covered with a thin layer of sweat and the attendant layer of particulate crap. Working class hero is so hard to be. The darling of a particular class, I poured a pail of water over my head. Listened to some hard driving blues. Strigilis, currycomb, flesh-brush, scraper. In the museum at Janitor College, I'd forgotten, there was a display case filled with cleaning implements, and I'm sure I remember a strigil, a bronze piece with an engraved handle and a curved unsharpened working end, it looked like a gardening tool. Wooden ones would be easy, from any crook of branch, and probably Nero had one in gold. Living alone, a strigil would be nice to have, like a back-scratcher, to pre-clean myself before I poured a bucket of water over my head. I realize I could leave the ridge, I could go anywhere, I'm a Navy brat, I've always moved around, moving is not an issue. I love my job, so I'd probably just move to town, get an apartment, sell my truck, be a city person, get a bicycle. I could do that, not worry about firewood, have a thermostat. I can't survive another winter like the last. They'd find me fairly soon, because I'm part of a team that needs me, but I'd be frozen stiff as a icicle. "Poet Found On Ridge-Top Within Twenty Feet Of Home." I'd rather write a few more years. Fuck a bunch of parties, I'd rather be alone. Read more...

Strigilis

Either power or phone out every time I try to SEND, life at the end of the line. Brutally hot again, so doubly glad we restored the air conditioner. Huge benefit party for the museum at the Board President's house, Chris and Marilyn, on Friday night, so D and I spend the day running around and delivering stuff: booze, wine, beer, coolers, wine glasses, items to be auctioned, glass coffee mugs (I think glass coffee mugs are stupid, a prejudice based on having known a lot of potters), printed bidding sheets, a small amount of signage. Some of us are confused and interested that this particular party/fund-raiser is panning out to be so successful, maxed out at 140 guests, $100 each for finger-food and free drinks, hot mid-summer, outside. A beautiful place, maybe that's enough, on a high ridge looking right out on the Ohio River; a beautiful house too, as they say, 'well appointed'. To start the day, as I usually do when I get to work: we have a Met Museum day calendar, cards in a plastic holder, the permanent collection at the Met; a pic, provenance, dates, materials, and I shuffle the front card to the back, revealing a new art work. Today was a Roman, I don't know what to call it, large handled thing, in marble, and the description said 'strigilated with snake handles'. We were right on that. What the fuck is a strigil, because there must be one for something to be strigilated, and probably a strigilator and a strigilatee. Latin is my only other language, before I went to Janitor College, I was studying to be a monk, so I have good Latin dictionaries, I can't wait to get home, but because D and I are comic by nature, we start doing strigilation riffs that really are quite funny. Strigilis is a strigil (as I thought) a scraper for the skin used by bathers. More than that though. Also used by various gymnasts, runners and boxers, who had oiled their bodies, then performed in dirt arenas. You get covered in crud. Before you dip in the common hot tub you need to scrape the shit from your body, and there was a tool, a strigil, made of bronze, used for that. The working end, beyond the handle, carried that curved line, just like what appears on that Roman thing. Marble is fairly soft. I can scratch it with my Swiss Army knife. A bronze strigil would be fine. The next hardest thing is always better, if you're trying to wear something away. One thing harder than another. Read more...

Damage Control

D decides we should reroute the condensation from the air-handler today. Thought he would. Trip to the hardware store for a one inch masonry drill bit, thank god this is old brick we'll be going through, and a few plumbing supplies. A second trip to the hardware store, you always have to make at least two trips to the hardware store. Turn off the twin units and the air-handler (it's the size of a storage unit), calculate so we'll daylight outside above the wall flashing for the EPDM roof membrane. D drilled the hole and wallowed it a bit as three-quarter PVC is a touch over an inch outside diameter, we made the connections, and the damned water now drips out onto the roof. Lunch with Anthony at the pub, where they're having the same damn air conditioner problems, condensation leaking through the roof. Spent the afternoon taping the insulation on the air-handler with foil tape, a critical part of the system, which will probably save the museum $10 a day. Actually, that was yesterday, met Anthony for a couple of beers at the pub after which I realized how exhausted I was, went back to the museum and got my groceries from an early morning shop. Endless daze. Got home, grilled a small steak, made a vat of macaroni salad, fed the dog, and feasted, eating also the first really great vine-ripened tomato of the year from the farmer's market (40 cents for two of them) drinking to our success as Heating And Air Conditioning guys. This morning was another of the Butterflies Of Mackletree mornings and I stopped several times to look at them, lovely things, this new batch with spots of color against the black. They don't just congregate on the road, thank god, but also on the verges, where they're somewhat safer. The front of my truck is spattered with them. Off the road they congregate in clusters. Often a dozen of them in a space the size of the diameter of a bowling ball. Twice I saw circles of them, within that radius, surrounding a yellow butterfly. It was beautiful, the black color-spotted folk were flapping their wings and the yellow was completely still. I had the thought that he or she was in robes, teaching them a kind of flutterbye Buddhism, maybe last year's butterfly, passing on knowledge; but, in truth, it looked like they were going to kill him or her, probably eat the carcass, and shrink the head. I don't know anything about butterflies, and certainly don't intervene; I could save the queen, possibly, but then what would I do with her? I'm a janitor, I don't save queens, I merely mop. What kind of relationship could I have with a butterfly? There's both a serious and a light-hearted response to that. In a certain sense, whatever you want to hear. Meaning is a nebulous handle. Some things are, and some things are by implication. You and I are the same, trying to pick something out of the background noise. At what point do you explicate? I don't know. I mop a modified chevron because it seems the best to me. Anyone else could see it as an incident, a twitch. I'm sorry Svet died, but it wasn't my fault. You die when you need to. Look at the records. Read more...

Microbe Slam

Can only think I gave myself food poisoning. Hit early this morning, gone now. Drinking chicken broth and holding it down, trying to re-hydrate. Didn't really feel bad, just had to stay close to the outhouse. Didn't get to town. Lovely rain this morning, cleaning off the dust of summer and making the leaves lustrous. The driveway is terrible, B and I talked about it Saturday (he was at the top of the driveway when I got home) and agreed that we had to get it redefined and graded. Opening dialogue. I'm already behind on firewood for next winter, but we get the driveway graded I'll be able to buy a load. A mounded dump-truck is probably close to two cords, the backbone of my winter's supply, $120, so I'm not too worried about that. I'll do better with the pantry in the fall, I know that I need to weather a winter, two gallons of lamp oil, 50 candles, a bag of beans, various condiments, the occasional salad. People send me things, I'm not dependent on that, but it often serves to get me over a hump. I made cheese-grits in the crock-pot today, so I'd have something to eat next week. Refried grits with a fried egg. My side of town is, Chicago. I can take the train up from here and sleep the whole way, eat indigenous food and visit museums. They do a great hot-dog there, beyond your wildest dreams, street food of the highest rank. I go up under an assumed name, to eat hot-dogs in the park and visit museums. Call me crazy, but it's a good way to get to know an area, and scope out the food. I can mop anywhere, good enough to allay suspicion I might be something other than what I am. Infiltrate a museum in dark blue Dickies, with a Cubs hat and wrap-around sunglasses, find the cleaning closet, mumble a bit under my breath, no one looks at me a second time. The only situation I was almost caught I pulled out my pocket knife and scraped a bit of gum off the floor, the guards went right over my head; we slipped out a delivery door and caught the train back to Portsmouth. It's easy, once you get the hang of it. On a lark, Svet and I mopped the Pentagon. He found evidence of aliens, I argued it was bullshit, if there were aliens, who were we? Read more...

OK

My records show that I finally sent the mail I was holding. There's still something lodged in my memory that I can't seem to erase, but that's alright, there are a great many things lodged in there and one more won't matter. I need to rearrange my schedule so that I write in the early morning. Skip does this. Slyly working when his computer won't complain. My black Dell loves this time of the morning, just before the birds start singing. It's very quiet and you can hear yourself think. Fucking disaster with the air handling unit at the museum today. I need to get this out in the open, I love the museum, it is maybe the physical plant that attracts me mostly. I love the building, an old bank, with a vault where we store art. What's not to love? The floor drain for the condenser was clogged and water was draining everywhere. What we need is Tom Terrific, greatest hero ever, and I'm actually in town, because I have to do my laundry. Put on my tin hat and solve the problem. I can't believe me, what one hand doeth the other knows nothing about. I see the solution before the plumber, a professional, sees it. What we have here is a drainage problem, we need to move to water out and away. Doesn't take a brain surgeon. Drill a hole in the wall and drain the drip directly. I'm not kidding. If we ran the condensation out onto the roof it would be just like rain, and drain through the scuppers. Not to make light, but I could do this in my sleep. Once you see the solution. Got back to sleep for a while, then the sun woke me, birdsong. Awful headache from banging my head in the equipment room where the air-handler resides. Pipes everywhere, large protruding valves. Need to run to town tomorrow, check for further leakage, pick up 50 pounds of Jim Dandy dog food (a month's supply, $14) and stop at the library to get books they're holding for me. I seldom remember which books I ask them to get and am usually surprised. I don't work at the university any more, but they don't seem to know that. The new Melville book is in, the Peretz, I look forward to that, and a Dorothy Sayers, that if I've read, I only read once, a long time ago. Her translation of Dante was the standard for many years. The only time I read him. Like Milton (also will never read again) on a bad acid trip. That moldy bread. Ergo(t) religion. You get high, you start thinking about a prime mover. Hard not to. I breathe because why? Just saying. Problem is that if you mention something, it becomes real. You've noticed this, right? the way a stranger might notice you. D folds his napkin into an origami duck, I tear the record into small pieces and spell out SOS. Just a difference in personality. Keep that to yourself. I'm comfortable in my role as mediator. Nothing is the same. He mops from Up Stage Right to Down Stager Left in his modified chevron. Not a word is spoken. What you see is what you get. Almost nothing. I better go, surely I'll lose something. Read more...

Hot Day

Very uncomfortable, the air too hot to breathe, five minutes outside and your clothes are wringing wet. I don't mind, too much, stop at the pub for a pint, to kill an hour before going home, the closed up house will be torrid. Yes, I didn't send that page "Later, Cooler", and tracking it down, I have a hard copy. A filing system that is nothing if not surprising. Instead of copying and pasting and resending, I think I'll edit the piece and rewrite some sentences. Rereading, I'm not as clear as I want to be; thank god I don't reread often, or I'd never write a line, and decide I can 'improve' maybe the transition from one thing to another. The bottom line is I probably can't. The Mamet moment is just a pause between two words. Considering the space. Letters have meaning too, and was that a comma? Fucking punctuation flash cards, what you thought, the thin line between fact and fiction, annoying failures, mechanical break-downs. Life as we live it. Got a brake job done on the truck today, saving my ass and the truck from a careening trip down the driveway that could have only ended badly. Alerted by a certain screeching sound caused by a piece of metal that rubs against the brake drum when the pads are nearly gone. The piece is called, at least locally, a 'squealer tab', which is a cool phrase, and could well have been the name of the dose of a particular mind-altering drug in the seventies. "Hey man, I've got some squealer tabs, let's take a couple and go walk on the beach." I didn't get the memo on spring cleaning and my house is a sty. I almost embarrass myself, living this way, but not quite. Doing everything in my power to enable myself to live like I do. Mollify the critics by appearing useful. I started writing this page yesterday, today is my birthday, I'm 64, but Ringo just turned 70, John and George are dead. We could do a litany of the dead, but that seems counter-productive, when we're still living. Someone else can keep track. Here's what I meant to SEND on the 6th but probably started on the 5th. Saving a page is hell.

Late, Cooler

Something woke the dog. Nothing this way comes, but it's cooler, a little night time breeze, the sweet scent of summer flowers. Deep thick darkness, like black paint spread over everything with a palette knife. No moon, no stars, no sense of depth perception except for a distant whip-poor-will that sounds lonely tonight. Always sounds lonely, a needy bird, but tonight draws the heart-strings. Haunting. There was a guy at Janitor College, Svet Limric (this is why I did this, created work for myself, I had forgotten Svet). We ragged him with tales of Nantucket, unfairly, really, because he was a nice person, large and dumb, always had a sucker in his mouth, and sweet things to say, in halting English. We roomed together on several field-trips, and I had gotten to know him pretty well. I make no claim, but I knew him fairly well. His parents had both died defending a brothel in Norway that commanded a bit of useless high ground that a commander decided needed to be taken. I can understand almost everything, after the fact. In the moment I'm confused, but I listen well, and seldom interrupt. He always talked about them in the future pluperfect, as though they might have been. We were in NYC once, mopping at the Met, he had a technique I can only describe as sloppy and I covered up for him as well as I could. I hadn't won any awards yet, that all happened later, but it was clear I was someone you should keep your eye on. He was happy to room with me and I enjoyed his stories. We were that odd pair you see occasionally going into an Italian restaurant: a tall skinny guy, a short fat guy, and you immediately assume Mafia. Deals are being made. I still feel I should have caught his arm, when he took a step back to see if there were any voids in his dismal mopping pattern, to look for light reflection, and slipped, took a header down the stairs. The floors were tile, and I'm sure he was dead before the first landing. Finally got back to sleep but then slept too long and was late to work. In reorganizing the vault, finally freed up the four boxes of pieces that comprise a single ceramic piece by a local artist, now dead, that we need to document. We're going to install it, more or less permanently, in the board room, covered with a plexiglas bonnet (vitrine) and finally see what the damned thing looks like. This is what makes being a preparator such a kick in the ass. Take a bunch of breakable pieces out of a bunch of boxes and put them together, with no instructions other than a couple of two-dimensional slides. Excellent. My idea of a good time. I can barely breathe, the air is so hot, my computer doesn't like this heat. Sirocco. A cheap pork tenderloin at Kroger, over-stock from the holiday. Patted it dry, rubbed it with some homemade blackberry preserves I'd run through a sieve to get rid of the seeds, then coated the thing with a highly seasoned rub composed mostly of dangerous dried green chilies. These bastards are so hot, that if you didn't wear gloves, you'd scratch your eye and go blind. But because I slice a tenderloin very thin, the surface-to-mass ratio is acceptable. Like wasabi with sushi. Grilled it carefully, to caramelize but not burn. Did the famous potatoes gratin, which I do with canned sliced potatoes in the microwave and finish with the propane torch. The dog, of course, thought the tenderloin was for her and I had to kick her a few times in the ribs before she got the point. My tenderloin, you're the dog. My favorite current slaw, with a creamy horseradish dressing. The best meal I've had in a long time. A strange scene, actually, if there was any record other than my memory. I ate at the island, as I always do, alone, considering an algorithm that would somehow relate the surface area, the caramelized rub, with the bite you were actually taking. Had another drink, staring into space, went to bed. Fuck a bunch of nonsense. Butterfly day on Mackletree. I don't know which ones they are, I don't know much about butterflies. But every year there is a day that butterflies actually clog my radiator. Medium sized black ones. MSBO's. They congregate in large flocks on the road, and flush like quail, I hate killing them, but there you are; I don't know why they gather there, the warmth of asphalt maybe. Their shadows fall in dappled light. Read more...

It's True

I have a page in my memory that I can't SEND. I'll have to retype the damned thing because it seems to be a format that doesn't allow sending, I must have hit the forbidden key or something. I can find the page, but I can't send it. The address is wrong or something. As if I wasn't crazy enough. It's a good page and I need to save it. Did any of you get something called "Late, Cooler"? I was writing and saving during intermittent black-outs. Shades of hell. I'm going crazy, maybe it's the heat. Alright, I'm calm. I'm sitting in the middle of a blue plastic tarp and I just poured a gallon of tepid water over my head. I consider this normal behavior, what's the base line here? Is it important that the tarp is blue or is that red herring? The missing page might provide a clue. I don't know. Shadows sometimes indicate a direction. Whenever I look at a painting I always look toward the light-source. The history of art is where the light is coming from. Not to make too strong a point, but just look. Consider what you're seeing. Light over your shoulder. Might mean something. I don't know. Read more...

Johnny Jumping

I've lost pages in this recent run of power failures and the phone line going out due to large trees falling across the road. A nightmare. I'm trying to recover a particular page, I have a hard copy, but I don't want to type it again. I will if I have to, fucking technology. Read more...

Funny Attire

A couple of years ago my brother gave me a pair of surfer shorts. Jammies or jammers, they had a name, but I don't remember exactly. Weird long shorts like basketball players wear, or surfers. Black with sun-burst reds and oranges on the legs and butt. Not exactly something I'd wear. However, in this heat, with a threadbare tee-shirt off which I'd cut the sleeves and neck-band, I'm almost comfortable. D, Anthony and I at the pub, having a couple of beers, chips with extra salsa we'd weedled from the kitchen, amusing the staff, we help out where we can. I drift off into the ether, the two of them are talking art, the next installation, I'm thinking how hot my house will be, when I finally get there. It's worse than I thought, but my older daughter calls. There's a sub-text, but I'm not sure what it is. What's said and what's not said. Either the power or my phone's out. A bad dream. Oneiric divination. What the tea leaves seemed to be saying. Read more...

Muggy

No attempt to do anything other than breathe slowly and drink plenty of liquids. The electric grid is suffering from air-conditioner melt-down and the power goes out several times a day. I used to work outside in this weather, farming, ranching, building houses, now I sit very still. Same goes for deep winter, used to work right through it, looking like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, but nonetheless. Now, if the temps are much below zero or much above 90, I make no pretense at physical labor. The forecast is awful, sunny and very hot for the next week. Sign off on it. I need to eat more, but it's too damned hot and I lose interest in chewing. Switch to a summer diet, tomato sandwiches, raw vegetables and dip, cheese, pickles, deviled eggs, avocados, the occasional grilled steak. Once a week, or so, I make a batch of cheese grits in the crock pot, refry patties in olive oil and serve with maple syrup, often with a fried egg on top. Easy nutritious meals is the standard here. Big spooned lollipops of peanut butter, boiled ears of sweet corn dripping with butter and dark with fresh ground pepper. I chill cans of segmented oranges and red grapefruit for snacks. Baked beans on toast is a common meal. I make a protein shake, every day, that would stop a horse, probably keeps me alive, certainly makes my nails grow at a rapid rate. I consider a climate-controlled apartment in town, how my life would be different, being comfortable, not worrying about firewood, fiddling with the thermostat. I don't have a point to prove, I'd rather be comfortable. Even the argument that the natural world is what appeals to me seems pale in comparison to the comfort I might enjoy. If I sold my land and house, started drawing Social Security, I could be set for the rest of my life. On the other hand, it is living in the natural world that has always been of the most interest to me. What attracts me, takes my attention, always the fox over a house band. Just the way I am, born in the deep south and raised so poor that if we didn't make jelly there would be none. Read more...

Lost Pages

I spend most holidays alone. People usually have plans involving family and fixed routines; besides I don't like to drink and drive, so my tendency is to stay home. Well stocked with booze and tobacco, I stopped at the library yesterday for another Thomas Perry novel and a book of essays on pre-historic art. Hot early on the fourth of July, no breeze; sitting still, reading beneath a ceiling fan, I stick to my chair. Full summer like this, I keep several sleeveless tee-shirts draped over chairs, changing often during the day, for one that's dry. Thinking back over the great many serious and witty conversations of the last week, dozens of them, touching on a hundred subjects, bifurcating in ten thousand directions. Talking about "Moby Dick" and "Clarel", the non-virginal Emily, wind-power and oil spills, the way the past is remembered, new authors we had variously discovered, the price of tea in China (really), cooking, graduate school, Janitor College, gullibility, compatibility, when (if ever) it was proper to intervene. More questions than answers. None of that arrogance from when we were younger, and knew everything. Now we know we know nothing and everything is flux. I was ready for this, I had an optopicon, through which I could view the world, all the lines of convergence came into focus. I said little and listened. A thousand fictions I could write, bottom line is that everyone is defending something, a small section of turf. I'm low-tech, holding a hand-held sextant, rather than a GPS; I still know, more or less, where I am. Sometimes there's not an exact correlation, things are merely what they are. A rock in the road, water over the damn. Fireworks are an odd celebration, an imitation of neurons firing. John Phillips Sousa. The band-shell. Be careful what you believe. That odd glow on the horizon, no sound, except for an impacted bass note, long after the fact. One thing we might associate with another. Too much time in the wasteland. No assumptions. Half a moon is better than none. I can almost see. The dog must have smelled something or heard something or maybe just imagined a situation where it was necessary to bark, a bad dream or a bear in the compost pile. John Prine, Greg Brown. It's a last resort to look for justice. An old blues song, everything you had is going south, the train, your ex-wife, even, by god, your dog. Get used to it. Loss is a matter of course. Everything is always moving away from you, you changed the tune, a red shift. Dopler. A Modified Chevron seemed a reasonable response. It might not be enough. The world is moving way to fast. Read more...

Subjective Reality

I was Saturday Staff at the museum and one of Pegi's cute Cirque girls at the desk. Very few guests, holiday weekend. She sent messages on a small hand-held device and listened to music quietly; I read, upstairs, and tried to eat pistachios slowly, a zen exercise I've been perfecting. The day was moving slowly, from Megan's point of view, she was bored, the two or three times I went downstairs, barely able to contain herself. Sitting upstairs, reading a good book, in an air-conditioned space, in a comfortable chair, drifting into thoughtful reveries, time, for me, was moving way to fast. Drove home slowly, a menace to traffic, considering different perspectives. Grilled a small strip steak, standing there the entire time, with a walking stick, tapping the dog on the nose. Gold and orange in the west through thick trees. Nothing to be ashamed of, uncalled tears coursing my cheeks, it's just a beautiful sunset. The horseradish jelly is very good on beef, I'd made a pasta salad, some of Carma's honey bread. It was a great meal, I Iingered, because the colors were so great out the west windows. Fucking light, man, will be the death of me. I follow it anywhere. Cogent and germane. When I went to sleep, the sun set in the west. This is only a belief, not something concrete. If your guy saw my guy see something wrong, incorrectly; I'm willing to listen to reason, nothing is what it seems. Read more...

Vault Day

Intense myriad greens against a solid blue field. Shafts of gold and yellow. Mackletree is completely canopied for the last couple of miles and the drive becomes a stutter step. One last night with G and L at the apartment, and Linda cooks Moroccan food for Sara, Clay and me. The food is great and, again, the conversation is an absolute delight. I love these people. Home late for the third night in a row, a modern record for me, bearing all the open bottles of things from their stay: half-a-bottle of single malt, most of a liter of Jameson's, some olive oil, some good balsamic. And presents, against my upcoming birthday: horseradish jelly, a bottle of Minnesota hot sauce, that probably, they warned, was not very hot. We're talking bologna and mayo sandwich country. Mashed potatoes. I like these things too, but I tend to add a thick slice of onion and fry the bologna, add herbs and cheese to the potatoes. The ribs were so good, the other night, the owner and designer of the building, who had eaten with us at the fest, caught D and I today, outside having a smoke, and told us a report had been filed with the police, the fridge in the conference room had been dusted. Seems he came over the next morning to get a few ribs for breakfast and they were all gone. Clearly theft, he had seen that there were left-over ribs. We promised to cook them for him again, on his roof, drinking his gin and enjoying the view. Vault Day is not fixed, but floats, rather like Easter, and once a year (we've been delinquent of late) it's necessary to organize and relocate all the art in the permanent collection stored in what must have been the major safe in our bank building turned art museum. Order out of chaos. Especially after photographing everything and shuffling things around, it was a mess. When we left, today, the storage space was a thing of great beauty. Every piece was stored correctly and there was a kind of beauty to the repose, items at rest. Art is sensitive stuff, requires consideration. One of the reasons I like my job. I'd rather pay attention than not. Damned goat-suckers descend in mass and I can't hear myself think. 200 repetitions and you begin to think these fucking whip-poor-wills studied under Philip Glass. I go bonkers, play the Grateful Dead really loud, "New Speedway Boogie", imagine the silence of winter. We were talking about memorizing lines and all turned to Linda, because she's an actor and that's what they do, and she said no, no, it was never easy, she had to post Emily's poems on the bathroom mirrors, they were so difficult, to learn them for "The Belle Of Amherst". The weight of hot humid air is enough to take your breath away. Sirocco. I stop to collect a dead squirrel for my dog's dinner and a pick-up roars by, yelling curses. This is where we've arrived. You stop to salvage a few grams of protein off the road and someone yells ugly things about your mother. I'm not easy to take offense, but I wish I'd had a shotgun. There are some ways in which I'm tired of saying 'this one will be fine' talking about my berth on a train speeding north or south, wherever it was I was going, when what I really wanted to say was 'is this the best seat in the house?' Fat idiot assholes bother me, I finally have to say something, and it always gets me into trouble. The new directive was that you couldn't say anything bad about fat stupid assholes because they'd sue you and then you'd be mired in shit. So let me be clear here, I have nothing against fat stupid assholes. I know they are the cornerstone of our great democracy. I bow to the wishes of fat stupid assholes. I need to earn a living, strive to not shoot myself in the foot. The broken toe was a warning shot across the bow. I wish you could hear this, there's a whip-poor-will not thirty feet away. Damn birds. 216 repetitions before there was a flaw, and I jumped on it, a clear mistake, the bird shot me a human, flew to a nearby tree, and started over. I'm tired of being mocked, but what am I anyway, a janitor with an interesting stroke. Read more...