Zoning Out

Don't know what it is, a propensity to drift off. I just spent over an hour in a reverie, designing a roof and ceiling system in my head. It looked really good, by the time I was done with it. I build things in my head all the time, it engages me. Building this house, without a set of plans, was a wonderful experience, because I had to be hyper-aware of everything I was doing. I wrote about that, but it was stolen. Why anyone would steal from me is a mystery. I'm down to books and a really nice staircase. I keep a ladder under the house, in case they steal the staircase. The books are just too cumbersome to steal, there probably aren't that many people in the county that would know what books to take. You probably can't imagine, there are piles of books everywhere. I live in a sea of printed matter. I'm a dinosaur, I need hard copy. One place in the house, you can hear everything, is the girl's room. A freak acoustical event. But sound collects there. I don't even know what happens, I'm looking for the rule. I just go to sleep, my answer to most questions. Read more...

Dream Sequence

I'd turned off the AC, opened the windows and doors, I hate losing track of the natural sounds. The bugs now, and it's not Romantic, what did Sara say Jed's piano teacher had told him? That when playing Bach, you didn't use the peddles. I might beg to differ, not about using the peddles, but about whether or not 'change-ringing' could be romantic. In the Cello Suites, every one, there is a dance, and there's a certain romance there. Also, in my defense, if you listen to the Fifth Suite, alone, slightly depressed, off your feed, a little drunk, it's not a big leap to Stravinsky. I'm not a critic, just someone who listens to things. I love working at the museum, I handle all that stuff, actually touch it. It both is and isn't a big deal. I could be a character in a movie, thrice removed, or your boon companion, or both. Doesn't matter what I am, nor exactly where you place me. I am what I am. You know, squirm until you find a comfortable position. I reveal too much, my life is an open book. Make what you will. Read more...

Punch List

The show's done, 17 pages of labels today, a goodly batch of information, which a photography show needs. An archival show like this one does. And Sara edited out the liner notes from my various postings. Still need to do a few little things. D is staff tomorrow and I need to do a load of laundry, so I'll stop by and work an hour or two. Free coolness. The punch list is always just pesky little things that usually take 30 minutes or less to accomplish. D's truck had lost a bearing and axle boot and he had been driving his Dad's old beater truck and the starter died on that at the museum. He'd picked up the parts he needed for his truck, so I drove him to his Dad's garage, so he could effect repairs. We stopped and got a six-pack, sat under a shade tree and drank a couple. Almost too hot to breathe. I headed home. We'd stopped to get the beer at a Quick Stop that has grown huge, almost a grocery store, and with the largest spread of fried food in a three-state area. I haven't eaten much of this stuff in years, but the smell had gotten to me, so I stopped back in, on the way home, and picked up some chicken gizzards, some mushrooms, and some broccoli, battered and deep-fried. Ate it all on the way home, stopped at the lake, to throw away the pile of napkins such a venture generates; I felt a touch bloated and a little sinful. Not a bad way to feel. If I ever owned a restaurant, I'd want the clientele to stagger out, feeling that way. It's 90 degrees inside my house when I get home, this is a Spring and Fall house, there's way too much glass, so I go into my how-do-we-get-the-computer-cooled-down mode, and pull out all the stops. Turn on the AC unit, turn on the overhead fan, put a bowl of ice next to the main-frame, and a small second fan, blowing the cooled air across the ice. Of course I use too many commas, I'm just trying to be helpful. Understanding anything is difficult, and language is a barrier. No, not a barrier, more like a hurdle, something you had to jump, to get to meaning. Doable, but barely, you man whatever rudder you possess and steer a curse for shore. A course. I knew that. It's not far to shore. Power went out again and I couldn't send last night. 7 straight days over 90 degrees has the local grid screaming and I'm at the end of the line. Another thunder storm moving through and I have to shut down. A sudden wall of water moves through quickly, it couldn't have been 100 feet wide. Refreshes the leaves. Couldn't see across the yard for a few seconds, then it was gone. Did the signage today, touched-up some paint, then touched-up out in the Carter Gallery; we have to hang another painting to fill the wall space where we stole "River Boat Pilot" for the Steamboat show. I wasn't even supposed to be there, so I felt no guilt about going online and reading about diesel engines for a couple of hours. Some interesting players. Mister A. Busch himself bought Diesel's patents for North America. Because he ran a lot of machines, needed power, and diesel engines were/are up to 50% more efficient. The propeller was invented early on, but the deep long stroke of a steam engine was better at driving a wheel. Diesel power changed that equation. This must be boring to most anyone, but I find it interesting. How do electric turbines work? How do you 'scrub' the air in a submarine? How much more efficient is a propeller than a stern-wheel? I don't have any others hobbies, other than reading, and writing you. A woman came in today, the upstairs gallery, where Sara was talking to me, I was on my knees, stirring paint, and I sort of generically recognized the person, but I often docent with my mind on other things, and I don't remember everyone. She pointed at me and said to Sara that he was here, the last time you were installing a show. Sara said I was a secret weapon. Secret means limited, what secret means. I had a recurring dream once. Right, you know what I mean. Sometimes I just don't make any sense. Read more...

Plow Capital

Maysville, Kentucky, for several decades, was the plow capital of the world. Pig iron from Pittsburgh, and they cast them there, in the tens of thousands. Shipped off to Cincy, then down the big river, dropping them off at every stop, especially after the civil war. You had to have a plow. I was telling Sara and D about the trade, off-loading plows and loading on bales of cotton. A lot of the cotton was shipped overseas, and Sara asked how. By sail, of course, until steam, but I didn't know when that was, and I knew nothing about the diesel engine. Rufus (something R) Diesel, 1893. The sense of empowerment that comes with having an office, a computer (a piece of shit, but nonetheless), and a high-speed connection is dizzying at times. The largest diesel engine, right now, is a Warsila Marine that generates 108,920 horsepower. It drives, of course, oil tankers. The illustrious Norwegian ship Fram, 1910, was equipped with an auxiliary diesel, the first ocean going craft thus. We lit the steamboat show. We changed out a locking door-knob assembly on a door that leads into a gallery. I've installed hundreds of door-lock assemblies, it's one of the mindless tasks at which I'm a master; but this lock assembly had pieces I'd never seen before, I don't have names for them. D does all of the work, I just stabilize the door and watch. I'm not only a great reader, I'm also a great watcher. No one that knows mwould challenge that. Still, maybe, I miss the point. I misunderstand everything, as a matter of curse. Course, right, what I meant to say. I can't even talk to myself. Read more...

Ice Run-out

I'd seen these before, in other rivers, and assumed them to be old bridge abutments, of which I am a great fan. They look just like abutments, but they are ice piers, which provide a break in the flow, when massive amounts of ice run-out, turn the river into a grave-yard. A great many boats just carried away and broken up. Staggering numbers. You could tie up to one and , the pier would part the river of ice. Boats liked to anchor in the mouth of Kentucky streams, anywhere to get out of the awful flow. A rough life, and everything constantly changing. Grew a strong batch of misfits that continues to this day. We have photographs, there's one photo, in this show, that shows a stern-wheeler, moored on Second Street, at the bakery. Donuts are the coin of the realm, even then. Holes, maybe not so much. Last night, I couldn't get the place cool enough to write until after I'd fallen asleep on the sofa. Exhausted from a day that I didn't feel 100% and there was a lot to do. A good night's sleep (I left the AC on, I'd never done that) and then a good breakfast this morning, potatoes and eggs, and I was back in the race. I open up early, all this week, for the Art Camp teacher, a lovely April. I volunteered for the job because her comportment is so jaunty it makes me giddy. Got rolling on this installation, set the show in the morning, tweaked in the early afternoon, then hung the entire show before quitting time; 27 pieces, not sure exactly, we added one, I think I remember correctly. So punch-drunk, at the end, doing the 'main' wall, the big front wall, which we had agreed to put off until tomorrow, but it wasn't as late as we had thought, and there was time to hang that wall too. I said to D I was OK with that (we usually don't hang anything after 4 because the hanging algorithm is such a complex set of numbers) but that we had to do the math twice; we ended up doing it three times, and still, the result is three sixteenths off, over 223 inches. Acceptable. The show looks great, you can tell even without the lights and labels, but the lights will change it dramatically, and the labels, this time, carry a huge amount of information. We're all over this information thing. Now, I can't even find Way's "Packet Directory" because it's buried under other materials on Sara's desk, she's gone through 10 or 12 drafts of these labels, as we keep adding information. You need the information for the show to make sense. I do, I have to know what that thing, in that photograph, is, and what it does. Interpret this cleanly, and you add a level, vertical integration is always good, it's the most difficult thing to teach, because it runs contrary to that whole notion of learning to do something and then drifting up the food chain. The American Zen, that hippy embracement, when the moment was all. I don't believe that either. Still, I must mean something. It might just be an intervention, but I noticed people were looking at me strangely, I always go into an interior mode, when that happens, and consider what I was doing. Your peanut-butter and crackers couldn't be that much better than mine. I'm just saying, we're pretty much in the same boat. Read more...

Don't Know

I may have lost a page or I might have sent one twice. Something happened, a paper jamb, I think, and my computer locked up. I had to shut everything down, reload AOL, reload the printer with paper; then it (sic) printed 12 copies of a page I may or may not have sent. Confused, I retyped the page, which I hate doing, being an extremely slow typist, and sent it again. Which involves a different kind of thinking, and I changed a few things, matching tenses, adding and deleting a few commas. I say different, though it may not be, or seem to be, but I perceive a difference between composition and editing; further blurred by the fact that I edit, quite heavily, when I'm actually writing. Hours spent thinking about what I'm trying to say, how accurate it might be, how accurate I want it to be. A brief, but interesting conversation with Sara the other day, about the nature of reality. One of my favorite subjects. What one sees. Endless speculation. Then writing about what one perceives, which, by the next day, is several steps removed. Later, everything is fiction, something you hear Roy Blount, Jr. saying about something his grandfather told his father. Even a video of a particular incident, depending on the number of frames-per-second it was shooting, might misrepresent what actually happened. Real time is always a slanted perspective. Authentic is a myth. What news do you believe? So many points of view. You watch the river, you see the changes. It's remarkable, really, how quickly things happen. Falling in love is like that. I was thinking about love, recently, I don't remember the circumstances exactly. A banjo ignites solidarity. Or could be the end of one. Bela will be the death of me. Bury your waste in the dunes, all I've ever done is merely assume I might be. To assume, my Latin fails me. Arrogo? One of the stokers might take care of the chickens, keeping a rooster, so that the eggs would be fertile. Of course meant a pre-dawn crowing. In for a nickel, really, it's a cheap alarm clock, fucking bird outside the Texas. Grits and eggs, before you clear the sleep from your eyes. A cup of coffee from the last pot whoever was on duty made. A little sharp, maybe, but coffee nonetheless. It kills me, sometimes, the associations one might make. You hit a snag, you run the boat into the shore, everyone gets off OK, you catch a ride back to Cincy, they raise the hull, rebuild the superstructure and rename her the Mary Ann, go about their business. It's all about hauling freight: coal, steel, or cotton, x number of pounds or cubic feet, however you figure. Bottom line is how much you can carry, not to draw too fine a point, up a steep hill, late at night, in the dark. Before steam engines, there were horses, walking around a capstan, or mules or oxen, whatever the drive, chip monks, squirrels in a cage. Something driving something. Last call. Read more...

Tree Falling

Sometimes they just give up the ghost and fall over. A dead tree, time passes, it falls over. Usually, no one is around and it's kind of a non-event. But, as it happened, I was awake, considering river traffic. The power had been out, woke me, when it came back on, and I'd gotten up to send last night's posting, hoping I'd saved it, which I had, and did. Then got a shot of Irish and rolled a smoke, because I was still alive, after all, and opened "Way's Packet Directory" to read a few more entries. Minding my own business. I try to not be a burden on anyone, read and write as quietly as possible, mumble to myself; curse, occasionally, if I stub a toe or finger. Three in the morning, I'm sitting, quietly, reading. It's dead calm, not a bug or bird sounding off, and suddenly there's a swishing noise, followed by a loud thump that actually shakes the house. I look up, you know, expecting the end of the world, and need to collect my thoughts. After a few seconds of confusion, I realize a tree has fallen over. I even know which tree, that dead chestnut oak NW of the house. It's been teetering on the brink for months. Firewood and a tree-tip pit, a gift-horse in hand. After the concussive shock, without ever going outside to verify what I assumed had happened, I go back to reading. It's either what I think it is, or something equally innocuous, because I'm still alive. It could have been an earthquake at New Madrid, or California falling into the sea, but I still have electricity, and I think it's just a tree. A particular tree that I knew was on the brink of failure. Assumptions we make in the dark. Pick up your book, go back to your reading. Sometimes things are exactly what they seem. A tree falling over is just a tree falling over, not the end of the world. Mid-morning I lose power, again, and it was already hot, so I headed to town, to read in the AC at the museum, and watch a little Hulu out of the corner of my eye. I finish going through the Packet Directory, right at 6,000 entries, and I count 28 packets and three ferries built at Portsmouth. More than I thought. Several others had hulls built elsewhere and the superstructure finished here. Most of these were smaller boats, for use up the tributaries, what were called 'low-water boats', drafting between 18 inches and two feet. These smaller boats also went up the Missouri as far as Fort Benton, Montana, and even on the Yellowstone. The last couple of days, I keep running into some of the same characters. The favored pilot on the Ohio, for decades, was Captain Pink Varble. There were boats built at Piketon, on the canal, at Maysville, at Manchester, at Ironton and Higginsport. Most of the low-water boats were 'bat-wings', side-wheelers with the wheels uncovered, to reduce weight. Telegraphing the stacks was the phrase used for hinging the smokestacks down, to get under bridges. Sparring was a very common method of setting rigged poles ahead of a boat, to drag it off the shifting sand bars. The famed Howard Shipyard, in Jeffersonville, Indiana, built over 500 packets between 1850 and 1910. I'm crazy with information right now. When the Sultana blew up and burned, just north of Memphis, taking Union soldiers home, just at the end of that war, there were 2,400 people aboard, 1,547 died, our worst nautical disaster, she was rated to carry 376 people, including crew. Silver Wave, stern-wheeler, packet, wooden-hulled, 1888, 115 feet by 21,6 feet by 4.7 feet, burned at Portsmouth, July 21, 1897, reborn as the Wm. Duffy. The Richmond was a monster boat, 340 feet by 50, drafting nine feet of water, 1867, built in Madison Indiana, costing $240,000. At times if the Mississippi was rising very fast, it would back-flow the Ohio, literally, and boats would be going the wrong way, downstream instead of upstream. Just put your life in the pilot's hands. The wheel, for one of these boats, was 10 or 12 feet, and half of it was below decks, you stood at one side, depending on your handedness, and steered from there. An odd contraption, the 'nighthawk', a globe mounted on the jackstaff (?), that, at night allowed view of a horizon line. Everything has a name. Every single thing on a boat, that is touched, or used for any purpose, has a name, and that name is not necessarily based on function. The parlance, the patois of the river. There was always an axe in the pilot house, to clear away debris, from whatever disaster, to get to the wheel, or to chop the tentacles from whatever Kraken has grabbed you from below. They ate well, on the steamboats, green and local; oysters in New Orleans, ham in Kentucky, and whatever vegetables were in season. There was usually a chicken coop, aft of the pilot house, to provide eggs and white meat. Consider the logistics of feeding 1,00 people three meals a day, for four days New Orleans to Cincy. Fucking nightmare is what it was. By my calculation, the last night, you'd be eating grits and beans. Your boots, sir, seem to be lodged in the mud, and the river is rising. Read more...

Nothing Ventured

Risky business, riverboats. Your average packet burned 40 cords a day, which is a lot of wood, and any given day, there would be a few hundred, plying their trade, between Portsmouth and Cincy. A hundred river miles, more than a boat per mile, crowded (really) and in 1922 there was a fire that jumped from one boat to another, at the landing in Cincy, that lit up the sky. Five or six fortunes were lost. All day today with "Way's Packet Directory" and got about half-way through. So far 12 packets built in Portsmouth, and two ferries. Several of the packets were fairly large, the Fannie Dugan was 165 feet. The river was the highway, because a highway was a daunting task, on either shore of the river: every tributary would have to bridged, so the river towns were isolated from each other, and from the interior by the ridge-lines. Everything arrived by boat. You flagged down a packet by standing at the simple, crude, landing, and waving a hanky. Boats were built for very specific purposes, for use on very specific rivers. Showboats, which were simply barges with seating and a stage, weren't even self-powered, but required a full time tug to shove them around. There are still a few around, permanently moored. You can't sell over-night berths in a boat with a wooden super-structure anymore, but a few still offer excursions and dinner cruises. The Army Corp of Engineers has a great many 'snag boats' 'snaggers' that cruise the Mississippi and Ohio, doing nothing but pulling trees out of the river. An appalling number of boats were sunk when their hulls were pierced by entire trees floating just below the surface. Early on, boilers blew up fairly often. State rooms were state rooms because they were named for states, not numbered, and "the Texas" was the top deck, usually given over to officer cabins, the pilot house was on top of that. The pilot house, in a great many boat sinkings, drifted away, ended up as a playhouse or gazebo downstream. Hulls were salvaged, new superstructures built on top of them, renamed, and sent back into the fray. A modest packet, 150 feet long, 40 feet wide, drafting three-and-a-half feet, could pay for itself (1860, maybe $40,000) in just a couple of round-trips. From Memphis, hauling cotton down to New Orleans and sugar back up, was a lucrative trade; and on the Ohio, the run from Pittsburgh to Cincy was all about iron, steel, and coal. The infrastructure, for this whole commerce, was entrusted to the Army Corp; the Army Corp was invented to maintain the infrastructure for trade and commerce on the river systems. I once had to get a permit from the Army Corp, to build an eight foot bridge, across a creek, high in the Rockies. It was weird. The creek I was bridging was seldom deeper than six inches, and they acted like they might need to get an air-craft carrier up there, at some future date. Up the Scioto, which was part of the canal system, at Chillicothe, they built canal boats; boats to fit specific places, Lock 42, or whatever was the smallest one. I refuse to read about the canal system. I'm already overloaded. But I am interested. Maybe I'll catch a late night show on the History Channel, some night I'm stranded at the museum, and everything will be brought into perspective. I really don't think so. What happens, the gritty, is always off-camera. What you don't want to see about who you are. Hits me like a ton of bricks that I only want the nice things, the things that make me look nice. But, of course, that's not who I am, I'm the dude that actually read every one of those descriptions, of every one of those boats, over 3,000, I think there are just over 6,000 in all, I may be the expert here. On who was where when. I have the advantage of more time at the helm. But it could be just arrogance; some hours spent reading. Read more...

Framing

The entire day, standing at a work table, framing photographs. We got all 25 framed. 18 in standard frames and the rest with glass, foam board backing, and corner clips. The clips require a mind numbing tangle of string. D did those and I did the conventional frames, we finished about the same time, after four, feeling numb. We didn't even talk much, to each other, but we were both steady talking to ourselves. Framing requires talking to yourself, often with fits of cursing. Several of the photos I worked on, the paper wasn't square, and the actual image tapered. Whoever ordered these frames, years ago, should be shot. Three different sizes. Close to the same size, but not exactly. Each frame requires: a mat, the photograph, and four sheets of archival foam board. Three different sizes, come on. You take one apart, they have eight little hold-downs and hanging wire attached on the back with incredibly small screws, pull out the sheets of foam, pry-out is a more operative term, I use my knife, clean the inside of the glass, then press the photograph into place with a piece of backing, then twist the thing so you can see it; reposition as necessary, then secure, with rice tape and archival spit. Sneak that in there, an aside. If you had listened to what D and I were saying. today, it might have sounded like a conversation, but it wasn't. That was just the sound of two minds babbling. I called a couple of smoke breaks, went down and got Sara, and we sat on the loading dock, smoked and traded stories. I suspect everything is lies, but we seem to agree. Isn't that correct? What looms in front of us? 40 foot sinkholes and really large roaches. Frankly, I'm afraid. And the only people I trust are crazier than me. Read more...

Object Lesson

Deep into stern-wheelers and side-wheelers, it doesn't matter what you study, everything is really the same. Consider bridge failures, boats that burned to the waterline. How much can you compress into a sentence? A weekend of research coming up. I'm imagining a stream of factoids for the liner notes. We matched up photos with frames and mats today, didn't have to cut a single one, which gives you an idea of how many mats D has cut over the years. There are hundreds of them; and we use standard frames, in several different sizes, so all the backing material is cut to size. A cake walk, really, and I expect to frame all 20 or so tomorrow, cleaning the glass takes longer than framing the print. I get to use the 'archival spit' line, because I'll be hinging photos in, with moisture activated rice tape. It's rampant in the framing community, we all just lick it. It's that human touch, and the easiest way to do something that requires three hands. If you're one of those people that live alone or like to work by yourself, and there's no one else within earshot, and you have to make do. Not unlike castrating baby lambs by yourself; moving an entire print shop, fully equipped, a mile down the road; or cutting a huge red oak tree, that produced three saw-logs, that provided the three 6x12's I needed, and over a thousand more board feet of lumber. I work well with certain others, but there's a vetting process that I'm not sure I understand, but I won't work with just anyone. I just can't do it. If you haven't read "Moby Dick", and all of Proust, I'm not sure what we could talk about. A question for tomorrow, is how many times I'll be pulled off the framing. I don't care, I've got this show in my sights. A week ago, I was concerned, I knew there was a show, but it hadn't been advertised, and I was still unsure what the hell the show was, now I see it; we tweak it, matching photos to mats, charting a timeline. I should have gotten into this earlier. Fabricating reality, it's not difficult, I know a few people in the business, make a few calls. We actually just talk about sweet-corn. But it creates a calming effect, oil on water, whatever. You know what I'm talking about, the way your mind is set at ease. So hot today, that it was hard to breathe. After work I stood D to a draft at the pub, Lindsey was still there, from the day shift, counting out the till, and the new person, a strikingly handsome woman, Leslie. The owner sat with us, Barb, and we talked labor relations and D goaded the barkeep. An interesting relationship we strike, the staff at the museum, and the staff at the pub; a work in constant progress. I know my house is going to be hot, so I avoid it as long as possible, go the long way around, stop at Dave's to talk about my truck, wend my way, slowly, up the creek. It's 92 degrees inside my house, when I get home. Flip on the AC and strip, pour a gallon of tepid water over my head. Life, as I know it. It seems a tad strange, but nothing I can't deal with. Was that a double negative? We went to the pub for lunch, and demanded that they switch the TV to ESPN so we could get the Top Plays of the day, it's the only sports we get, and we depend on it, in the interest of staying current. Hope Solo is really hot when she lays out, horizontal, to block a shot. Just saying. The best catch of the day is always a treat, an impossible meeting of glove and ball that can't be predicted. I admire a great many things outside my canvas. There isn't room to talk about them all. Steam engines. God damn. Who would have imagined boiling water could lead to such excess. Maybe that's the nature of things, success leads to excess, bling; a light comes on, one of those low-watt (James Watt, 1/746 of a horsepower, one volt times one amp) bulbs and everything becomes clear. It's magic. Read more...

Against the Current

It was moving upstream was the issue here. You'd always been able to float downstream, a log and a paddle. Whatever proto-rudder you could arrange. Marie indicates the sixth suite shoud be played on five strings. That can't be a mistake. James McMurtry, "Can't Keep My Hands Off You" out of the blue, late night radio. I love the way random comes into play. A river boat that could go downstream at 8 knots, might come upstream at 4. I often gauge the strength of the Ohio at 4 knots. Sometimes I throw in ping-pong balls and do some calculations. Another storm. Two two-and-a-half hours to get the house cool enough to turn on my computer, and now there's a storm. Save. Power goes out, the AC unit had gotten the house (that part of it where I write) cool enough that by nine, as thunder shuck the house, I might be able to write. An amazing shot of lightning across the bow, sounded like a howitzer, scalded my retinas. Then rain, as if the lightening had ripped open a seam. But it passes through quickly, on its way to Huntington. Packets, isn't a particular class of boats, size or anything else. My gleaning, for the most part, is that it was a boat that delivered mail, and they were radically different in conformation, for where they had to go, what they were doing; otherwise, because carrying mail didn't pay the rent.They had to earn a living. I forget devising. When D thinks I'm wasting time, I'm actually looking into the inner workings of early steam engines, long ago on whatever body of water. Heat lightning. The weather is unrelenting. Emily and Thoreau are correct, it is the natural world that frames our conduct. It all comes down to a dragonfly, hovering, or an embedded tick. How well prepared you are, to deal with the world. I stake no claims, I can't even climb a ladder anymore, I could only pilot a riverboat by dead reckoning. Where I thought that bar to be. It's difficult to project. I think I could have been. The past, pluperfect. An imagined past, probably, but something, nonetheless. Other than nothing. What we keep butting our head up against. Read more...

Elusive Memories

A particular night, maybe ten years ago, Steven Ellis, Brian, Ken Warren, and me were sitting around a table at Joe Naproa's house. This was a lot of fire-power and the conversation fairly sparkled. A barrel of monkeys. There was something going on in the other room, family stuff, maybe someone had died. I can count, probably on both hands (I'm lucky that way, the fact that there are so many), specific times when the conversation itself became a character. Joe was standing in the doorway, mediating between worlds. We had levitated the table, at that point, and were deconstructing string theory. You had to have been there. Another time, in Colorado, I remember with frightening detail. Point is the way memory screws around. I'm pretty sure what happened today got me much further away and it's all fiction. Next thing you know you're deep into the syllabus of a course you never intended to teach. I was there, at Janitor College, when avoirdupois meant something. Wait. I'm confused. Avocado? What were we talking about? I have trouble, keeping track. Early onset of something. I'll fly away. Those basement blues again. A bit of summer funk, hot and sweaty in the heat and humidity. I go back to town, where I can read in the AC and stream updates of the soccer finals. Tough loss. Reading "Way's Packet Directory, 1848-1994" an excellent record of all the boats on the Ohio, a bit dry, because it's just codified information about the physical boat. Still, interesting. I know them much better now. The information about each boat is quite complete, from when she went on the ways until she burned to the waterline. Many hulls were used multiple times. I found the perfect book for throwing at blue-tailed skinks. A library sale hard bound, encased in library plastic so it's easy to clean, far too technical and totally uninteresting. It's a small book, 5x8 and maybe three-quarters of an inch thick. I keep a rubber band wrapped around it, so it doesn't flutter. The bane of book-tossing is flutter. If you're mad, and trying to make a point, flutter looks silly. I took a box of books to The Goodwill, books that ended up here that I don't want found with my body. Missed the fucker. Boat building was big business, and there were big yards in Cincy and Pittsburg, but anyone could build one anywhere, as long as there was high water once a year, so you could get the damned thing afloat. Then you just built a house on top of it, lots of bedrooms. I could build one of these, it's not rocket science, all I need is a half-model of the hull. I am not now, and have never been a naval architect, too much math involved. I have an idea about what floats, sticks and paper boats. Any sawmill, on a creek, could build a boat, and there were designers, who traveled around. The Captains, more than fifty% of them, owned their own boats, had them built at Portsmouth or Maysville, and plied a certain trade. Forging plows, something concrete. God, I hard-stop myself. I'm way too involved, clearly, I should recuse me from whatever hearings. Read more...

Tenderizing

Further experiments with papaya nectar. A piece of top sirloin, half-way between a roast and a steak, was in the discount pile, $3.16, I couldn't pass it up. Almost two pounds, no waste, four meals for me, with mashed potatoes and whatever vegetable Ronnie has at the farmer's market. He's good to me because I amuse him; usually, whatever I get from him, he says "That'll be a buck". Mixed some Tonic Water with the nectar, added some green chili powder and a squeeze of anchovy paste, fresh black pepper, a dash of balsamic. Today, I took it out of the marinade, patted it dry and rubbed it with an unholy mixture of pepper powders that sundry 'friends' had sent me. You can go way overboard in this case, because you want to slice it very thin, at least a 45 degree angle, so you get very little of the crust with any given bite. Over a hot hickory fire I grill it for eight minutes a side, let it rest. While it's resting I boil the marinade with the sauce, mash some new potatoes. The meal is so good I have to reconsider my place in the universe; like something you'd eat in your next life, or something you ate in an alternative reality. Into the nether regions of what good is. I can't help but treat myself this way. It's a matter of course. I'm not a river-boat pilot, I'm not even a good carpenter. I just string words together, as if I were being paid by the inch. Read more...

Tequila Sunrise

Just realized I'm probably staff at the museum Saturday. Which will mean I've worked 30 of the fifty two Saturdays in the last year, not a complaint, just a statement of fact. I hate hearing people bitch about having to work, so I always volunteer to work that half-day; besides, it allows me access to a climate controlled space where I can read for a few hours, hardly a blip on my radar, the time I spend reading. Lovely sunrise, tendrils of mist rising from the lake. Early, so I stop and roll a smoke, remembering the goose attack last year, I get back in the truck before tossing left-over museum bread to the geese. Errands and small chores in the morning, more glasses. After lunch we worked in the alley, waterproofing and repairing divots with Asphalt Repair, which is a nasty product. Needs to be tamped solid. Then the board president and a couple of members showed up with a real, old-time plumber, who had actually worked on the museum when it was still a bank. He has a plan to put a back-flow preventor in the main sewage line where it leaves the building. Need to move some things tomorrow, so he can get to where we hope it is. Progress. Cool old guy. We traded plumbing stories. I told him about the Wittgenstein Plumber and the Quantum Mechanic. A story I made up on the spot. The board president is a wholesale/retail plumbing magnate in three states. If you've ever installed a toilet, you know there is a company that makes a gasket, a wonderful piece of work, a wax and plastic thing that seats the toilet very well indeed. I've used dozens of these, and I can't believe I don't have one of the boxes push-pinned on the wall someplace. Black ink on white box, sans-serif, it's called KANT LEAK, which I can't help thinking means a philosophical drain. There's talk about taking out some old toilets and I mention we'd have to break the Kant Leaks, and make a couple of puns, everyone looked at me as if I'd been drinking, or worse. After work I stood D to a draft at the pub, where Astra was pissy, and John, the manager, was goading her. Between us, we got her to smile, and I drove home with a grin on my face. I don't want to convince anyone of anything, don't want to enter any fray, have no desire to fluff a single feather, all I want is to be left alone. The last cry of an aging hippy. Annie Dillard can do this, I should be able to. There probably needs to be more dialog. I've certainly thought about things I might say.

Tom

Who could that other be? Everything points inward. Otto Rank.
Read more...

Late Night

Late night white noise is a blessing. Crickets at a distance, that dull thud of a comet crashing into a planet where sound doesn't carry. It's good to get out of a paragraph, they can kill you, I've known writers who've suffered massive internal injuries from a paragraph that went on too long. Seriously, make it a video game, line up the people you know who have died, and check their record. It doesn't have anything to do with you, why they offed themselves, more like a particular strata, where they found themselves. Now we're getting to something. Do a great many of your friends commit suicide? I'm just trying to establish a base line here. Could be barking up the wrong tree. Listen closely. Everything is connected, doesn't take much sense to realize that. Nothing, but the whole wild world. You have to keep at least one foot on the ground. Most of the time, I don't actually think. Hammer dulcimer, the rhythm seems correct, something about the river flowing down. Time is just a certain amount of water. Wait. It doesn't matter how much I understand, there's always a great field that I don't understand. An Irish dance. The great unknown. A restrained elegance. Finally back to sleep, then back up and off to work. Load the dishwasher, start another batch of glasses through the cycle. Will end up being at least eight batches. Good staff meeting in which we go over the next month. Unload the dishwasher, pack away the glasses, load it again, go to lunch. After lunch meet with Kenny, who's putting together a sternwheeler photography show from the Ackerman collection. Very extensive collection and Portsmouth is the river town where the canal ended, also shoe capital of the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Important port. In my new capacity as reference librarian I was assigned certain reading material, which will make me a docent for that show. Soon I'll know way too much about riverboats and steam engines. Unload the dishwasher, and so on. Watched the first half of the of the women's World Cup quarter-finals, US / France, then D streamed it on his lap-top, so we could stay tuned. A stunning victory, as France was playing very well. Sara thought it odd that we were watching, or even just paying attention to a sporting event, but I explained that I was in love with our goalie. Hope Solo. Pistons, driven by coal fired boilers, in stern-wheelers and side-wheelers, were huge. Twenty-four inches in diameter with a stroke of over five feet. They blew up a lot. Powerful explosions, body parts a quarter-mile away. Maybe 8,000 dead on the lower Ohio between 1850 and 1900. Not that many by modern standards, but at the time, a significant number. I've tried leaving out some commas, since the whole comma discussion thing, but I find I add them back, when I'm rereading (to find the thread), because they're necessary, for understanding. At least for the way that I'd read any particular sentence. I really do try to be perfectly clear. When the US scored their first goal, early in the game, on a great play, one of the cameras cuts back to Hope, pumping her fists at the opposite end, and there were nipples apparent, poking through a sports bar and her purple jersey. She was excited, and I found it really erotic. That lady lawyer walked through the alley today, I forget her name, but Sara knows her, wearing mostly black, as she usually does, but this time a purple jacket on top, and she has lovely ankles. World class. Being a student of ankles, I speak with some authority. One of the only physical fights I was ever in, involved someone's ankles. Go figure. I'm a peaceful guy, I almost never make waves, my job is putting out small fires, hanging shows, wearing white cotton gloves and lifting a Thomas Hart Benton from its crate, but I'm also completely human. Hope looks really hot to me. I could meet her, probably, I still have contacts, but then what would I say? "Oh, I have an idea, you should live without running water, in a far corner of Southern Ohio, with a recluse who can't climb a ladder." Great idea. I might lure you with a menu. I've used this ploy before. Everyone wants to eat. But putting on crampons and slogging up the hill is another whole issue. Something you really don't want to do. Still trying to put a handle on you, because I'm fairly comfortable in the tree-tip pit I find myself. Read more...

Vicious Storm

I spent most of the day at the museum, because it was cool there and it was bloody hot outside, approaching 100 degrees. I didn't need to be there, but I didn't need to be anyplace else either. Lunch and a beer at the pub, John, the owner, sat with me and we watched highlights of the USA women beating Brazil in the World Cup. A great soccer match. The USA goalkeeper is hot. We talked about the curling team we were assembling for next winter; how we'd flood the alleys in town and slide concrete geese along a trail we'd clear with swifters. This was very funny conversation, and we had attracted an audience. Lost both power and the phone, which come in from different directions; a serious squall line. Green leaves fall in fear. I wanted to write. I make some notes, in longhand, but they don't make much sense, to the way I compose now, on a screen. I see what I write, and one thing follows another, checks on the list. I'm pretty simple, really. What you see. I have to go, this is a serious storm. Power and phone both out all night. The power came on after six this morning, and the phone shortly after. I clean up and go on in to work, because the house is stuffy, windows closed against the storm and no AC, and I know the museum is cool. Still a wreck there, but Pegi gets one of her strong young bucks to come in, and he's very good at lifting and carrying. The wedding party comes in for a final load of decorations. There are maybe 600 wine glasses and champagne flutes that need to be run through the dishwasher. There's still garbage to collect and haul away. By the end of the day, working steady, we have things under control; more than half the glasses done, all the tables and chairs put away, and the basement mostly dry, from where more water had seeped through the walls. D investigates various cement plasters we might use to waterproof walls. Sara asked me about a moment of anger in my writing, sometime the last few days. I had been writing and there was a power failure, I lost a few sentences, when the power came back on I couldn'r remember them, because I was dealing with issues having to do with power failure: find the nearest flashlight (I keep several, stashed around) light some candles, get out one of the oil lamps, and set up a reading and writing post at the kitchen island. This is the way I handle power outages. I've lived without power, it's not a problem, you just have to know what to do. You don't want to burn the house down just because the power failed. I have very safe candle holders, virtual cups underneath, and a handle, with which even a drunk could light his way up the street, or through the woods, wherever he might be headed. I chuckle to myself, sometimes, going in and out of fits. My 'anger' was merely irritation at how stupid people could be. You can't put three hundred pounds of food waste in a single trash can, it's not done. Does anyone use their fucking head. This bothers me, how stupid people are. Right there, that last sentence. I was looking for a fish in the shallows, something I could easily spear. Not even a sentence, lord knows I'd like to command a single coherent sentence; it's my dream, that cruise to the end of the world; but even just a clause would be OK.

Tom

Be careful. Just saying. What happened. July 13, 2011. I have both power and a land line, I'd better send this, start over. Read more...

Slightly Confused

That I should feel privileged or lucky or somehow special doesn't occur to me. Just a normal Joe, going about his business. Nothing means anything more than anything it appears to be. Garbage, for instance, is merely crap you have to deal with. Rake leaves into a pile and burn them, it's not really brain surgery. I'm almost a simple guy, you see where I'm going here. Almost. Life throws this shit back in your face. Confronted thus. I'd like to say I responded reasonably, but maybe throwing your sorry ass through a plate-glass window wasn't politically correct. I'd have to check the guide book here. Your name was, excuse me, what? Read more...

Wedding Rehearsal

Power back on, it went off this morning, about 6:30, when a tremendous storm blew through. An inch and a half of rain in twenty minutes, thunder, lightning. I rolled over and went back to sleep, no getting down the driveway for a few hours. Finally got out after ten, had to stop several times and clear debris off the road, stopped at the spillway for a few minutes because the napp over the top was a cascade of enormous proportion. The museum basement was flooded, D had been running the sump pump all morning and there is still a mess to clean up, because several board members wanted to see what had happened. In consult with them and several city engineers and sewage guys for hours. Wrapping up the wedding prep today, and I had to solve various riddles for them, then stay late so they could rehearse the actual wedding, then later still, so they could discuss the food logistics which had not been organized, as far as I could tell, at all. Working tomorrow, as they need to get in early and I'll need to open. But I need to be in town anyway, to renew my license and tags at the DMV, and I'll need another library book and more whiskey for the delayed birthday non-celebration. Sushi from Kroger, my usual self-medication, and a good book. Have to meet the chairman of the board and a serious quantum mechanic, a Theoretical Sewage and Drainage expert, at the museum on Monday, because the chairman is flying out (his own plane) on Tuesday, to check on his fleet of plumbing supply stores. I have to haul trash, again, because the wedding prep and extra lunches for all the help has filled the trash cans, which need to be empty for the clean-up after the wedding and reception. Mom calls, I guess this is because of my birthday, but it's never mentioned. We talk about end of life issues. They're giving up the house and most of the contents, cutting my brother loose; there are still options, as they are both lucid. Dad broke my heart tonight, when he got on the line; he's legally blind, can no longer read, and I mentioned he should get recorded books, and he said, no, he was comfortable holding hands with Mom, sitting on the sofa, watching shows he couldn't see. His hearing is fine and he constructs a reality. Mom always taught me never to judge the way another person constructed their life. Even my father. That's an Annie Dillard line. What a great writer she is, not what so much was, as the way it presented itself, her language. The way oblique things come to bear. I spread my keep exactly as far as necessary. Now I need just this. A certain precision of dying. It doesn't matter how well versed you are, another wedding, all souls: eventually you come up against a brick wall. In the mean time, my dance card is full, and I'm comfortable with that, doing what needs to be done, digging stumps or mounting a show. As someone said, it's all the same.

Tom

Probably Beckett.

Couldn't send this because the phone was out.



Wedding And Reception

Had to get to town early, to go to the BMV, get a new license and sticker. First one in the door and I was paranoid about the vision test because I know my short-field vision is getting worse, but they actually test for distance perception, and despite the fact that I took several different pair of glasses, I passed without any. Various wedding people arriving at different times. The testing of the sound system, all recorded music for the wedding of a lead singer in a band, was painful until they got the gains correct. Then I worried about the doll heads shattering, went down and told Bo to hold it at 100 decibels. That's about one chainsaw. Great misspelled sidewalk verbage next door at the bar. Tony Is Perty. Even if it was a joke it would be Purty, so it's not a joke, just illiteracy. Put out small fires for the wedding party, round up extension cords and separate out demand on different circuits, lest we blow a breaker during the gala. I'm in good form, calm and amusing amidst the increasing anxiety. The Wedding Party are all supposed to be there an hour-and-a-half early, the guys are in the board room, at the front of the museum, the bride and her maids are in the staff common room, second floor, rear. My office opens right into that space, so I'm privy to intimate bridesmaid conversation right at the brink of a wedding. It's pretty raunchy. I enjoyed it so much I stopped reading the book on my lap and tried to not laugh out loud. Read a plethora of essays on Emily, and read several dozen poems during the actual service and reception, pilfered food from the kitchen. I offered the bridesmaids the left-over wine from the birthday party, it was going to waste, and they jumped right in. I never could get their names straight, they were all dressed the same. At funerals most people wear black, but at what other event do people wear the same thing? Does it mean something? did it used too? I don't have a clue. I wear a threadbare Grateful Dead tee-shirt over my faded black jeans; I don't mean anything, what you see, you know? She went on to be successful, a wizard in her field, I was never anything other than peripheral. Read more...

Awakened

Something beating against one of the French Doors downstairs. Odd sound, I can't find it in my memory banks. I need to pee anyway, and I had something more to say. I'd left the light on, over the sink. It's a compact, politically correct bulb, which allows me to get downstairs without busting my ass. A nightlight, you could call it. I flip on my writing light and turn on my computer, go pee, get a shot of whiskey. Then the noise is right outside the mostly glass door just by my left hand. Fucking Luna Moth, I haven't seen one in years, so beautiful. I get a plastic container and go catch her right away. Her because Luna ends in 'A' and that's almost always feminine. Diana came in on the punctuation issue, strongly on my side, actually used the word 'elegant', which made me sigh, and get another drink. To calm a Luna Moth, you give it a stick and put it close to a light. You don't want to stroke her back, because there's this powder you're afraid to disturb, it may have functions you can't imagine. Looking at it closely, with my OED magnifying glass, it looks important. Such a soft green. What a lovely thing this moth is. If I hold her on my finger, just under the light, she sways like a dancer I knew in Utah. Wow. I need to send her on her way, but she's so beautiful, I can't let go. I don't want to handle her too much, but I can't not touch what is right in front of me. I make a big deal of taking her outside and blowing her into the wind. It's a gesture, really, nothing more. Maybe you should just call the movie "Really" then embed whatever you wanted to say. Power outage. I was going to write an interesting paragraph about attachment, but I was suddenly cut off. Being at the end of the line sucks. Read more...

Conditional Tense

Flat out circus mode. I got to the museum an hour early, so I could survey what needed to be done, and at 8:30 Trish arrived with a load of tables, borrowed from the hospital, at nine the decorating committee arrived, including two board members. Now, really. We were to open this show three days early, but now, it seems, we were supposed to have it ready this morning, at nine. The three of us involved with installing the show had not an inkling of this. Make the best of a bad situation. They can't set anything up until after we've lit the show, because we have to drag a ladder around through all the space. D starts lighting, I start hauling stuff to the basement. Have to stop and get out the grand piano, because Jerry is coming to tune it, and already the tables are in our way; the Stanley Steamer guys arrive, to clean the carpeted stairways. Jerry arrives. All morning his one-note plinking is the sound track. It's a zoo. After a pitched lunch, D finally gets the missing labels, and we mount those, and while he's trimming them, I do something else, I forget what, the next thing on the list. Two sidebars. One is that Sara understood I liked my job, and two, is that Kim said he thought I punctuated beautifully. High praise on both counts. I do love my job, and the punctuation is mostly a reminder, of how I would speak that line, if I was asked to speak it. Language is complex, we need markers. For me it mostly denotes phrase breaks, and they're important, the slight moves aside. It might be said I'm more careful with a comma than any man alive. It might not be true. But it sounds good. Make a note that you can do more with less. Consider the graphic design. You and your's might argue something different. I don't care about you, that particular you. I'd rather die in the swamp, Read more...

Somewhat Later

I do go on. Hadn't read back over anything in a while, and I was struck with several things. First, primary, is that this person, who seems to be me, enjoys his job. Isolate that and consider the ramifications. Second, that there is an honest attempt to explain whatever it is. Third, whatever shortcomings are laid bare. The language is a bit awkward, because I'm (he is) trying to say something. Syntax is a bitch. Punctuation will be the death of me. Grammar is the train. Listening to Robert Johnson, late, wrapped in the blues, everything is feeling. There is no denying where you're coming from. Oh Jaunita. I'm a simple southern boy, with no aspirations. Really, all I want is some conversation. Are you there? I thought there had been some connection but then the line went blank. Not even white noise, just a hole, a void. I need a clue. It may seem I know where I'm going, but that's not the case. No one ever knows. A mystery wrapped in a paper towel. I marinated the London Broil in papaya nectar (added the nectar to the sauce, and boiled it) blotted it dry, then rubbed a pepper--rosemary--chili rub, left it out, to come to room temp, while I started a fire. Hickory and mesquite charcoal. This one was a little over an inch thick, two pounds. Hot gray fire, I cooked eight minutes thew first side, then seven on the other, tented it on the counter for fifteen minutes, sauce, mashed potatoes, asparagus stir-fry (I really like this dish, caramelized onions and red pepper, garlic, asparagus cut into one inch pieces, the tips thrown in when you pull it off the heat). I just use instant mashed potatoes anymore, they've gotten so damned good. Home Style Reds. The sauce is going through a hot fruity period, fantastically deep in flavor. The soaking in papaya was a great idea. This is the most tender one of those I've done in years. An enzyme in papaya is a natural tenderizer. This marinade (I added fresh ground pepper, hot sauce, some lemon juice, and a dash of balsamic to the nectar) would make a great mother for a sauce. Add a dark beer, some red wine, some tamarind paste, some black-strap molasses, more hot sauce, lots of pepper; boil for a while, to thicken, store in jars in the fridge, either float olive oil on top, or do what I do, add whatever meat drippings, let them rise to the top and seal the jar, break it up and throw that away, before you use the sauce again, the fat gasket. I always serve this on the side, in a gravy boat (in my case, a coffee mug) with a ladle. I no longer sauce any meat while it's cooking. Even a piece of dead cow should have a certain amount of dignity. A great meal, I'm a little sheepish to admit, because I was alone, as usual, but I would have enjoyed sharing this with someone. Conditional, longing, whatever. But Jesus, this was very good, and it's nice to get a compliment once in a while. Read more...

Various Lunatics

Reading Kit Smart. For whatever reason. Talking about his cat:

For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

I love this guy, though he is clearly over the edge, because it opens a discussion about where the edge is, exactly, and what that means. Puts loving a fox in a certain perspective, a president. Adumbration. You were always there. A country western song. My ex-wife and a dead horse, a late train, and a whistle blowing. Nothing really makes any sense, and reading Beckett doesn't help. Absence everywhere, a strained voice from the compost pile. Not unlike reading Sidney Lanier. For what it's worth. Read more...

Proust

The laws of memory are subject to the more general laws of habit. Life is mostly habit. The characters become victims of time. The relationship with Albertine is volcanic: "One only loves that which is not possessed, one only loves that in which pursues the inaccessible." The token of a monopoly. "My imagination provided equations for the unknown in this algebra of desire." What emerges (read Otto Rank, "The Double") is a double slavery that prevents any possible happiness. Stepping outside, to clear my head, the fox is at the compost heap, rooting through the gleanings from my fridge. She looks at me, over her shoulder, like a lover might (a trick of imagination) or one of Pegi's students perfecting a pose. She finds something she likes, turns and walks away, limping slightly, down the driveway; then veers off, on the path to the graveyard, where I know she dens. She carries part of my last failure, a piece of badly cured pork tenderloin. I usually cure whole loins, the tenderloin is so small as to not seem worth the effort, but I think a cured tenderloin might make an excellent breakfast meat, and I've started another one. Brined, then dried, and rubbed with a new mixture of brown sugar, a little salt (the last one was way to salty) and various dried peppers; in the fridge now, on a rack, in a pan to catch the liquid. I'm going to smoke this one, maybe 10 hours at 120 degrees, so it'll be fully cooked. The last one spoiled. The fox doesn't care about that, she and her kits have a different set of enzymes. Hot, bright, and still, outside; back inside, I start the window unit, make myself some eggs, scrambled with left-over stir-fry. In this new Barnes book of short stories, there's a number set of stories, spread among the others "At Phil and Joanna's" in which the 'story' is advanced completely in dialog. Good stuff. The reader is forced to develop a context from the text. George V. Higgins. The greatest writer of dialog ever. Can tell you an entire elaborate story embedded in the conversation of two low-level criminals, talking at a bar. The faculty of suffering. Brando playing the drums. Just saying. Watch where you put your bongo. Even after Albertine dies, the attachment is so strong the narrator swoons. A common enough situation, maybe universal, what makes Proust real for me. And I like his use of the comma. Life, like in Faulkner, is a run-on sentence. The cruelty of memory. He draws this in successive stages, like stations of the cross. Flaubert might have started this, where you focused on the real. I'm not a critic, I just read a lot. I have opinions. But isn't that a lot like what Joyce did later? What is a narrative anyway? Look at Emily, look at Virginia Wolfe, look at John Barth. As readers, we just pull together clues, try and make sense. Any omission is as important as anything included. Which leaves us with nothing but an opinion. Shifting sands. Not a decent foundation. Drawn into the swirl of the eddy, you either grab a floating something or you drown. Currents will take you down, or a knock on the head, a tow-boat pushing barges of coal upstream. Listen, I understand sense, what's made and what isn't. I knock up against it every day. I don't buy it, but I don't play by their rules. Both a conflict and a compromise. If I take their money I'd need to do what they think I'd do. It's confusing, really, what's expected. Thank God I have another day, before I have to face the world, I'd be embarrassed otherwise. Kate, and that whole confused history of Canada. I need a funny hat. Read more...

What Happened

The small volume by Beckett, "Proust" arrived today. Think of it as concise meets prolix. I'd gone to town, done my laundry, shopped (London Broil was on Manager's Special) then worked at the museum for a few hours. More painting, then affixing everything I could with Museum Wax. The label list, on the disc that accompanies the show, is screwed up, so I went through all 96 entries and marked them good, bad, and missing. Left early, around 3, went to the library and got Julian Barnes' new book of short stories. Drove home the long way around, all the way up the creek, enjoying the greenery, and washing my wheel wells by driving back and forth through the two fords. I stopped in the middle of the first ford, as I always do, and rolled a cigaret, opened the door, took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my jeans; learned out the truck door and put my feet in the water, sat still, smoking, watching the flow. The creek is beautiful right there, sandstone and slate bed, a little waterfall just downstream, maybe 25 feet wide and 6 inches deep, and the banks, other than the road cut, are a jungle. The Beckett was first published in 1931, and I'll bet a first edition would be pricey, but I got a fifth, paper, for just ten bucks. I'd read it before, decades ago, a copy I'd picked up in a used book store in Boston, but it had disappeared, somewhere along the line, so that was my treat for this year. A used fifth edition of a slender eclectic book. Who could ask for anything more? I made a rub for the London Broil that is probably too hot, but I reason there will be very little crust on any given slice. I used some chili powders that came with instructions to use rubber gloves when handling. One of the professors at Janitor College, a Mr. Smith, who we all assumed was in the witness protection program, taught Water. The history of running water, water use, water management. He was like the water guru. But there was a back story. He had been married, and she had died, choked to death on a piece of blackened lamb-chop he had prepared. When he finally committed suicide, by snorting hot pepper powder, no one was surprised. Read more...

Actually

It was Heidegger I was thinking about, not Hegel; just one reason I have friends that can correct me. I've said all along, I'm a terrible editor, anyone would be better, a monkey with a keyboard. Just giving myself a place to start tomorrow. The time frame is jumpy, because I'm back home now, after finishing the installation, and starting the list for all of the other things that need to be done, listed by priority. I saw this problem weeks ago, the enjambment, and I'd been trying to grease the rails. I'm going to work part of the day tomorrow, see where that leaves us, Pegi's coming in, and Sara. Have to do lights and labels on Tuesday. I could go back in on Monday, if I need to, it's just the fourth of July for God's sake. I really don't have anything better to do, I mean, I'd just eating, drinking, and reading. Sara and D both think I use too many commas, making fun of me today; they were going over a press release, reading copy, Sara looked at D and said that they should ask the Punctuation Guy, being me, about a mark. D, ever the smart ass, waves me away, saying in a dismissive way, that I often used commas, in front of conjunctions for instance, that he had been taught were not necessary. I had forgotten how much fun we have together. A devil's mix. We enjoy working together so much. It's almost embarassing, at times, to enjoy your job. Sometimes, even the rest of the staff don't think we should enjoy working so much. Throttle back on the laughs. Let's talk about lives of quiet desperation, or whatever is the alternative, being obese, eating pop-corn, watching a movie. I'd rather be involved. An interesting docent film would be winter: winter with the usual pitfalls, and installing a show. That's what I mean, by the way, about a comma. The phrase is not connected, therefore there needs to be separation. I intuit punctuation in a completely musical way. Make a note to ask Mike about this, commas are usually just brushes on the drums. A devise. Keeping time. What if our docent had been asked to take a particular group through the various galleries; of course a strange group. I had to laugh. All groups are strange. Traceless love. Why we do what we do. End of the day, I'm just installing a show, no lives at stake, I could be replaced, probably by a robot with a mop. Fair-thee-well, my honey, listen to the river rock my soul. Sing a lullaby by the water. Read more...