Can't Abide

Some things in Marx are correct, I can't abide anyone making a class distinction about me. It rankles. I get along with most members of the board, I'm an easy going guy, really, my demands are slight, a tree-tip pit and a blanket, maybe a tarp, if I'm lucky. I can grill a roadkill behind the barn. You'll never know I'm there. Who am I to ask any questions? Merely the janitor and I need some sleep. High level shit is beyond me, mostly what I do is stock the bathrooms with toilet paper and towels, mop the floor in a pleasing pattern, nod, graciously, in the direction of whatever. A greater power. Talk with you later. I docented a couple of groups, high school art classes working in the residency. They enjoy my wit and my slightly trashy way of talking about low art. I know all the teachers, and they know I wouldn't go too far over the line with anything, but that I walk that edge, you have to, to talk about art. It runs the entire spectrum. So it's the next day. I'm confused because I'm writing at both places again, on different equipage. All I want to do is record a sequence of events. Watched Terra Nova on Hulu, and I don't know whether it might be a 'good' show or not. Failure to follow instructions could result in death. Written right on the side of the tank, right under the word, in large bold type, it said EXPLOSIBLE, and I wondered where this tank was made. I ask Tom The Boiler Guy if we were following instructions and he laughed. When Mad Tom gets out his miniature welding tanks, if I were you, I'd disappear. He knew he could blow us off the scale with enough reserve to cushion our landing. I'm petrified, I can't imagine heating the area, just outside where the nut anchors, in an room where natural gas flows, with a fucking torch; when where I want to be is in the vault, behind several feet of reinforced concrete. Not that I don't trust Tom. Trust is everything, a black snake, a narrow fellow, ultimately you're left with just yourself, reefing on a wrench against a previously completely locked nut. We popped it free, a cheer went up from the four people who were actually listening. The actual repair took a matter of minutes, figuring out what needed to be done took a matter of days. Anthony calls. Shit, now we have to deal with the real world. So, man, how do you feel about that? Read more...

Boiler Duty

Day two. Hoping the goddamned part will be in tomorrow. Annual full-dinner Board meeting, upstairs, in the gallery. Stayed late, because the outgoing president, the plumbing magnate, wanted to see the boilers, then helped me get the water drawn down. A beer and pretzel with TR afterward, then I went back to the museum to check things one last time. I think Chris wanted me to stay until the meeting was over, but I just couldn't do, worn out. Got home before dark, which was my plan, though the timing was a little off. A few minutes earlier and I wouldn't have witnessed a dog getting killed. On Rt.125, I was stopped completely because there was a border collie in the road. She was clearly confused, used to a simple backyard; and a good old boy coming the other way didn't even slow down, which, I think they say you're not supposed to do at highway speed, as veering causes even more accidents than actually hitting an animal. He was probably going highway speed, a Datsun pick-up beat to shit, clipped the collie with the left end of his bumper. He kept going, I pulled over, got out and dragged the poor damned dead thing off to the side of the road. I didn't want to look at the mess for a week, and even a dog deserves a little dignity. Soon as I got home I got a drink, it's, what, almost eight in the evening, dark is settling, when gray becomes black and everything disappears. Possible title for the Janitor book: "Basement Fears". There's something janitor-like about it. As a group we're not superstitious, or any thing like that, we clean toilets and run sump pumps, it's difficult to be speculative when something else is actually the issue. Read more...

Boiler Madness

I don't do boilers and large AC units. Never learned, a perfect void in my education. And when I got to work this morning, the steam pipes were shaking the building. I turned everything off, I can do that, and things quieted down, and there was a lot of water, condensed steam, and I pumped all that out; had Pegi call Chris Lute, the board chair, and find someone who could come and trouble-shoot. The older guy he sent over, I love these older guys, was the very guy who had installed these boilers 14 years ago. He looks at everything, all the gauges and dials, starts dumping water from the system, says there's a faulty float-valve in the intake line. He doesn't have a tool on him, we never once go back to the truck. He shuts some valves, dumps more water (hundreds of gallons), and then actually takes a penny out of his pocket, to reset a dial. Consummate boiler technology. I'm deeply impressed by shit like this. The guy listens to boilers, he's a boiler whisperer. I don't lean toward the mystic, but something is going on. He gives me some instructions, on what I need to do, to keep the system primed and ready for activation, though that won't happen until after we have the new float-valve, and I wonder why we're doing it at all, except, finally, I see: we're making life easier at the far end. Bastard is using me, but that's OK, if we advance the cause. I had a list of supplies I needed, juice, butter, a few things. I picked them up for cash, at a few different locations. Can't be too careful. I turned my Red Sox hat backward and dropped my jeans so they were hanging low on my ass. Who am I kidding, I don't have an ass, I'm shaped, more or less, like a pencil. I think I most resemble a crane. Not the bird, but a gantry, a simple system of steel trusses. I'm concerned that my ignorance could somehow cause damage. I don't even want to know how boilers operate, but I get a crash course, and then I'm the boiler guy. I'm not pleased with this. I'm not a technical person, in so far as. Wait. I actually do care that things work. A boiler plate example. Read more...

Indwelt Spaces

I was sitting alone at the bar, this was a couple of days ago, nursing a beer. I was watching the top ten plays of the day before on ESPN. A ritual almost. The young woman, Misty, had come in for a to-go lunch order. I put a hand out, to stop her, something I wanted to say, but I wanted to watch the top play, an amazing catch against the left field wall, and my hand came to rest on her left hip. She did nothing to dislodge it, watched the replay with me, asked if maybe we should get a drink after work. I was shocked, just wanted to tell her I liked the highlights in her hair. One of the new barmaids, Leslie, tall, long narrow feet, asked me where I'd perfected my technique. The UP, I told her, where you don't waste time in fear of freezing to death. You, me, under a pile of buffalo robes. Astra pours me another draft, and she is so beautiful it plucks my heart strings. The world is too much, I scamper back under the leaf where I habitate. I am curious about what Emily felt toward those various father-figures. Something beyond the driven snow. She was hot for Lord, gushed when Higginson came to visit. Context is everything, What I remember exactly. Fried bread, in various guises. The sculptor Callimachus, on viewing an acanthus plant, invented the Corinthian capital. Another rainy day. I read Walter Benjamin for eight hours. A very funny paragraph, he quotes J K Huysmans from Croquis (Paris, 1886) about a long row of female mannakin torsos (mannakin has three different spellings), he describes them as an ebb tide of bosoms, and goes on at very funny length. Page 694 in "The Arcades Project". This book is almost too heavy, physically, to read in any kind of comfortable manner, but it's beautifully made, Harvard University Press, and it will lay flat and stay open to any page. Can't say that about many books. I make a grazing station at the island: tuna salad, mixed with lots of sweet relish, two kinds of cheese, two kinds of crackers, two kinds of olives, pickled jalapeno slices. The book stays flat, I can sit on a stool, or stand. I have the computer in my writing program, so I can walk my desire paths from place to place. I get an early drink, maybe four in the afternoon, slip into a reflective mode. Sure, I've done some things wrong, such is life, you only learn from mistakes, be honest with yourself. At least once a week I go back over the really stupid things I did the previous week, so I might avoid those in the future. Everything's conditional. You don't want to get me started. Laughter is shattered articulation. Read more...

Mimesis

The depiction of reality. Not unlike what we're faced with, what seems to be actually happening in documented footage right in front of our face, and the various asides attempting to place something in a historical perspective. Dudes at that Swiss accelerator claim they've found something, a neutrino, that travels faster than the speed of light. You realize what that says, the dilemma you might find yourself in, everything you've assumed since 1905 called into question. Bent light, Venus transiting the sun. Something I read recently, unrelated, about the way light refracts. There's that issue, too, about the way charge can change, across vast distances instantaneously. Let that go, I haven't read enough, I'm in the dark, when it comes to particle physics. Debrief me. I need to be doing yard-work and I find myself in a tangle of self-doubt. If nothing therefor something. A chess move, deep into endgame, where everything comes to bear. 42 bottles of beer on the wall, 42 bottles of beer. We're clear on this, right? the way meaning is created? Happenstance, and the fact that your nose re-curves or you walk a certain way. I'm not a judge, but I have opinions, a product of merely surviving. Just saying. The notion of being unique. A red herring. No way you could be. Just another cog in the great wheel as it grinds ever forward. It's late. Fucking bugs are driving me crazy. I'd accept anyone's description of reality. Mostly mine doesn't work. We made progress on the Emily Project, I think we see this in a similar way. Close enough, from my point of view. I must have gotten up in the night, but there's no record of it; usually I leave a note, to remind myself of a dream. Wait, there is something, an art book on the table, Matisse, opened to that first study for La Danse. A painting that was lost for sixty years. Matisse, among other things, was a master at blurring the line between finished and unfinished. Above all, he was a painter who understood the color blue. I remember something now, not so much a dream as a single parting image, a floating figure from a Rockwell Kent mural that had also remained hidden for many years. A fellow stagehand and I had disconnected the broken mechanism that had once opened and closed folding panels in front of a large movie screen. This was on Cape Cod, and an old lady, a patron of the theater where we worked, had said she remembered the mural that was painted on the folding panels as being very beautiful. We believed in beauty, then, and determined to open the damned thing. Kent is an interesting guy, a pacifist who sat out one of the wars in Greenland and understood blue almost as well as Matisse. After we had disabled the control mechanism, we pulled the panels open by hand, it wasn't even difficult, after we had greased the top and bottom tracks. It was and is a stunning piece of work, floating, hintingly sexual figures over a barren landscape. I see the thought-line now, what went on in my brain. We loaded the truck and D took the last show to Kent State, Kent lodged in my mind, and I remembered that mural and made a connection with the dancing figures that Matisse was using to depict what it was like to be alive. He was 62 when he painted that first study. It blows me away, takes me completely out of myself. It is finished, I would argue, because there is nothing more to be done. It was a commission, to fit a particular place in Philidelphia, and he worked on it for three years. There are three versions extant, but that first one, for me, is like the Cello Suites of painting. That's why the book was out, I remember now, and I left it out and open as a message to myself. Noted. I've taken to a life of solitude and quiet. It took a few years, but as B says, you're weaned to it. Everything else falls away. Not that I would deny --- a warm body under the light blanket of early fall, would be a comforting situation: but that I'm fine, alone. Thought I'd try a dash there, channeling Emily. It's becoming easier for me to understand the odd punctuation and capitalization as I read certain poems for yet another time. By my standards Emily is completely modern. My only desire, in that regard, is that we take care of the words. Not unlike something that was mentioned earlier, I forget what, something. I stick my head outside the door, it might be raining; it is, so I duck back to the sofa, reread some Benjamin. Life is such a joke. Being self-aware is a mixed blessing, what you think you remember. I know, of course there are arguments, what we perceive as real. Still, walking in that slipstream, I'm sure something is happening. Read more...

Threshold Day

Threshold is a good, old, solid word, and I mean it both as a sill, and as limen, the point at which a stimulus begins to cause an effect. The way things are going I'm going to have to get a bedside clock, because my sleeping habits are skewed which doesn't matter, normally, but does matter, the few times a year, that I actually have committed to being at a particular place at a particular time. I don't take any time off, actually accumulate hours like fleas. I can't believe I just went back and added a comma. Specifically to remind me to read it a certain way. When I'm writing, like at this moment, I say the words out loud and consider every pause. The length of which. I just took another comma out, because it was misleading. And the day had barely begun. In a way, I'm already tired. Get there early so we can load the truck to take the ODC show to Kent State, but D is tangled up getting the rental agreement, and before he gets there with the truck, Sharee, the coordinator, and April, the first of the county art teachers to arrive for a yearly thing they, not a workshop, exactly, but whatever it is they do. So we've got the art teachers in the basement. Then D arrives with the truck and we load an entire show, such that it can't be damaged in transit. in about a hour. Seen this way, we're facilitators, setting up for the noon lecture, the accession committee meeting happening upstairs. Busy. I don't aspire to be someone who could talk about books, but I do read a lot. We had to load the truck before it rained., everything is cardboard, and badly packed, D needs to get on the road. The Mark Twain impersonator arrives, I settle him to his venue, his noon-time talk is really just a lecture, a conversation about Twain to set up the evening performance. Keep everyone on their toes, so to speak. What was the next thing? Right, breaking down one show and setting up another. I don't remember lunch, I'm sure I ate something. Then we're right into the mid-afternoon turnaround. An odd place to find myself. I talked to Linda, setting up a call tomorrow on the company dime. Emily removed herself, those last however many years. Set up for the Twain evening performance. One beer with B, Drew and TR and home. Fell asleep writing. Suddenly morning and I'm on the sofa, fully clothed. Coffee and a shave and back to town. Want to hear about D's trip as neither of us has been to Kent State. He said the museum was like a teaching hospital for curators and preparators. Four years at Janitor College and a master's degree from Kent State, you could have my job. We talked about handling art, remembered some situations. Walked over to CVS to get some toothpaste, and found myself in the slipstream of a very loud floral, a bank person who really knew how to walk, but had made a serious mistake in perfume choice. I wanted to throw her in the shower, towel her off, and put just a dab of 'Dzing!' on her wrists. Talked about mimesis at some length, as it is germane to D's thesis. When I got home I spent a half-hour with that word, but that was later, if there was a chronology involved. Because Sara came in, to go over some stuff with D, was the next thing, and had to leave, before we had finished a cigaret on the loading dock. D and I stayed there, to finish smoking, and Tim popped out of the bar next door, 'Noggins', and said he'd just grilled some steaks (they now serve lunch and dinner) and did we want one. One of life's rules is you never turn down a free steak. It isn't done, bad form. We follow him into their kitchen, and it's cool, must have cost a fortune. I could lose a great deal of someone's money if I had a kitchen like that, opened a restaurant, had a staff and a bookkeeper. We took the steaks back to the museum, because we were on duty, whatever, eating them with our hands. I ate the fat and everything, because, you know, winter is coming, and I need some reserves, D was more restrained. This whole alley thing could be good in terms of free food, I hadn't thought of that. I'm rolling a cigaret, sitting on a stool in the kitchen, with the door closed. because even the extraneous sound bothers me. What is authentic? Nothing I've uncovered so far. This whole construct is a guess. I think I can see certain things. Often I'm wrong. One thing I'll always do, is admit to failure maybe you see some way out of this. A cheap shot. But there's always an exit, the back door, you just move a few cases around. Read more...

Still Sore

I don't know what I did. A knot on the trapezius behind my left shoulder. Afraid I'll need to self-medicate again. I might have lifted something at full extension that was a little too heavy. The piece of railway track we use to hold open the theater door. Bastard must weight thirty pounds. The damned thing must have a history, it's at a museum, after all. I just don't know what it is. Maybe I'll just invent a history for it, point it out on my tours, and talk about it like an old friend. Docenting the rail. There's a large green grasshopper in the house and it's driving me crazy. The bat net I keep at the museum would be the perfect extraction device. It only cost a dollar, if I can only find another one; like a miniature butterfly net, with a three foot bamboo handle. I massaged the knot with the Arnica cream Linda had sent when I broke my toe, and it feels better, and I feel better on my second splash of sour mash. I do love drinking alone, talking to myself, trying to figure out, any given day, what, exactly, is going on. Too many commas, I know, but I got a lovely email from a brilliant friend today, and she thought my commas were just fine. She might quibble about one here or there, but she understands the oral tradition and that I punctuate to indicate to myself how I would read that line. Spent several hours with TR today, talking about the Emily Project. I don't even want to talk about it until after Linda, TR and I can brainstorm. It occurs to me that Glenn will probably film the process. Listened to some great stuff today, musical settings for the poems, but TR and I agree we want more than. There would be a desk on stage, so we can get into the letters, there'd be a oven, so she could bake, and there'd be a door she could speak from behind. Ending at the desk, writing that last note "Called Back". Any couple of hours you could spend talking about Emily Dickinson is time well spent. I have unusual friends. I probably do it more than most. Mid-afternoon I'm listening to art songs, Copeland, John Adams, really, I just want to hear the words clearly. If I can't understand it anyway, I'd rather it be in Italian. Or Greek, or something. But Emily is uniquely American, she's not the Bronte girls, she's an act unto herself. If you don't get that, you miss the whole point. She's proto everything. What we call pre-modernism, because we need something to call it. Read more...

Cheese Grits

These are the best cheese grits I've ever made. Maybe it's the four different cheeses and sprinkling some slivers of parmesan at the end. These grits are so good it's criminal, I feel guilty, even mentioning them. I have some with a big pat of butter, a liberal sprinkling of fresh black pepper and a grating of cheese. It's one of the best things I've ever eaten. I immediately go back for a second helping. I think I like them best with just a pat of butter and several good squeezes of black pepper, the corn seems so fresh. Slow grinding with granite wheels is best, so as not to heat the product. Grinding, of necessity, releases heat, energy has to go somewhere, the grindstones absorb that, as a matter of course. I can speculate, on what motivates me, but it's a small and restricted demographic. Me as me. Facilities Manager kind of day, elevator inspector, then the plumber, Phil,shows up and we talk about the back-flow preventer. Then talk with Pegi about a grant proposal. Just a bowl of tomato bisque (very good) at the pub. Still stuffed with grits. Caught up on the trash. Talked with Sara about the museum's future. Scurried home to beat the rain. Forgot cream, dammit, but I did remember orange juice. Picked up a footer, on the way home, for dinner. Sara had one for lunch and It looked so good. I've got a pain in my neck from sleeping wrong, which leads to self-medication, which leads to a pretty good buzz for a week-night. I do subscribe to the rules of decorum, for the most part; I don't fart and belch in public if I can help it, I try and not use the 'f' word more than once or twice a day, I stay reasonably clean for someone without running water. But I suspect I'll be slightly hung-over tomorrow. As a defense of that I'd say that nobody ever knew anyway, whether I was or not. No, really. Is my personality that flat? That you wouldn't know if I was drunk or not? Astra closes the bar, several nights a week, and she remembers the one night I stayed until closing, how funny I was, how I had everyone else in the bar, and the members of the band, collected down at the stage end, and I was doing a routine. Fact becomes fiction, as quick as nothing. Mull that. At two in the morning you don't have to be that amusing, god I love a good line. Have to meet the plumber early. Not having a bedside clock can drive you crazy with false starts, but I enjoy the confusion. Light is usually the determining factor, sometimes sound. At this time of year, when the days are getting shorter, it's overcast, and I've been medicating for a pain in the neck, I do occasionally get turned around, wonder whether it's night or day. Seldom gets in the way of doing my job, which is nebulous anyway, the description of which reads like a literal translation of the label on a Chinese rip-off of an American action figure. Speaking of dolls. I should go. I do have things I need to accomplish, but I'm struck with the fact that we have this tenuous thread of communication and I'm hesitant to give it up. Turn the radio on. Delta blues, slack guitar, everything makes sense, if you open it out. Isn't that what Olson said? Something like that. I'm funny and smart, which should be enough, but I'm not attractive, and that works against you, in the real world, what you're perceived to be. It's almost light, a purple gathering in the east, I should go shave, another day, go figure. Read more...

Recommended Dosage

Hard rock, late at night, has me grinding my teeth, Tom Petty, The Dead, I finally turn off the radio before I go on a rampage and kill a bunch of Supreme Court justices that have their heads so far up their asses they'll never see the light of day. Clarence Thomas is an idiot, seriously; no sane person could possibly believe his line. He's only theoretically black, a locker room ass-grabber with the vision of a three-toed sloth. Don't get me started. I should sit on the court, fucking janitor would be better than the assholes currently residing. Pretty sure I understand the second amendment. Gives me the right to carry a Glock and eliminate the dross. On a roll, I don't like much of anything, it all sucks. I make a crock-pot of grits, but there is no way to assuage my anger, even a perfect meal is suspect. What you thought I meant. I'm way to the left of anything you could imagine: in my world electricity is generated by solar panels and no one answers to anyone else. I can't wait, 4:30 in the morning I have a large helping of cheese grits with a fried egg and a piece of toast slathered with peanut butter and hot pepper jam. Almost calms me down, digging grits out of my teeth with my tongue. Don't know why I'm so mad, must be something I ate. Something I should have smoked or otherwise ingested. Sometimes the world is just too much, you want to go screaming into another dimension. Today, for instance, I started drinking early, because pre-historic art was making way too much sense. I was looking at a drawing of a bison, overdrawn, scratched into the rock, and it was like a video, the way it unfurled. Three-space. I forgot to breathe. Had to hit myself in the chest, to get things started. I've almost weaned myself from time; there's the one digital clock, but after the power goes out, I always set it at 4:20, no matter what time it actually is, how would I know? what is time anyway? and it works OK. I get to work. A given day, I might read for eight hours and write for four, a good day; I deal with other people's shit, but it's not a big deal, there's an argument that dealing with actual shit makes you a better person. I won't weigh in on that, water over the dam, napp over the spillway. There was a perfect sheet flowing yesterday, beautiful, crystal in the light. Allemande, the first cello suite, that opening passage. You know, really, if that doesn't catch your attention, I'm not sure I could spend any time with you. Rimbaud, Rilke. Wait, stay with me here. Benjamin was walking a narrow ledge, better than anyone ever has. If all we had was what he wrote about Baudelaire it would be enough. Rimbaud ended his days as an arms trader in East Africa. Wealthy, by local standards. Consider that. Modernism. Light rain all day. Two more bowls of cheese grits with a fried egg on top during the course of the day, food enough for a couch potato. Read all day. Two books B brought over, Denis Johnson's "Train Dreams" which actually reminds me of B's prose, and G. Cabrera Infante's "Three Trapped Tigers" which is maybe a meta-text and is certainly brilliant writing. I go back and forth between them, drinking coffee and staring off into the middle distance listening to the rain on the roof. Restful. Read a profile of Clarence Thomas that Sara passed along to me. Truly frightening. Beware the bright idiots that actually make the laws. Mid-afternoon, I turned off the computer and killed the breaker for the fridge. I read Emily out loud, to the sound of rain, in a very slow cadence, and it sounded good to me. A poem is a thread (read Stephen Ellis in this regard) and needs to be read as slowly as possible while still maintaining a running sense. I think about that for a while. How meaning is constructed. Not unlike a railroad trestle over a canyon. My back hurts, I've been supine; listen to the blues, do a few stretches. I'm still alive. Drag my sorry ass over to the keyboard. Read more...

Bilateral Symmetry

Everywhere in nature and in the hand of man. Symmetry, Herbert used to say, was the last refuge of the simple minded. I spent some time today folding leaves in half, gathered some acorns, fed an old pizza to some ducks. Checked in with D at the museum and ran some errands, lunch with D at the pub, I had a beer, since I wasn't working, and joked with the staff. Replace some light bulbs, several of any given type, and we use a great many types, tend to blow out around the same time. They really do, often, last for 3,000 hours. They must figure the filament size very closely. I watched over D's shoulder as he finished designing the six cards and envelope for the fund-raiser mailing. Looks cool, a little shocking, I think it's perfect. Sara came in, and when they started on the final set of changes, I left. Early enough to stop at the library, liquor store and Kroger. Not much more you need. I went below the floodwall, to hunker down and watch the flow of current. It's one of those things I can watch for a long time. Relaxing. Various pieces of shit floating by. The back-flow, in small sample, viewed up close, I never looked this close to shore, is amazing. I don't understand the physics of it, don't even know what questions to ask. But it's cool, like the northern lights, something you might see. Angels lay him away, six feet under the clay. Stagger Lee. That old story. Went to the devil. Delia, done and gone. All I've got and gone. Six white horses, two by two. Some bright morning. The sun will shine on my back door some day. The blues come and get me. My back door some day. A midnight rider. Crash pad on their bay, burn your candle down. A pick-up on the dark side of town. More than this, tell me one thing. Wayfaring stranger. Where do you want to be? Just asking. Fine with me, early morning hours, maybe because I took a lot of acid in the sixties and seventies, I actually enjoy the confusion. I sleep different places around the house, so that when I awaken I'm not exactly sure where I am. As Harvey said, trust in doubt. Consider it a training regimen for dealing with things as they are. Awoke in what I think of as the girl's bedroom, my daughters, when they were here for the summer. Their things are still scattered about, I seldom even go into that room, I can vaguely smell them when I do, or smell something that is not me. A sharp pang of remembrance. I breakfast on refried cheese grits with two fried eggs and toast. Don't try this at home unless you truly understand cast iron skillets. I have a dozen or more, one of them I only use to fry eggs, another, that I use for polenta-like substances, is so well seasoned (forty years) that I could fry pine sap in it and it wouldn't stick. I was going to put another comma in there, but I knew Sara would say something. What I mean, or meant, was that refrying cheese grits is tricky. They don't want to consolidate. I make a kind of patty and roll it in corn meal. The eggs on top, the yolks a sauce to die for. I'm still recovering from breakfast when there's a knock on the door, B with books he thought I'd enjoy, and he's never been wrong in the past, we're deep into a conversation about writing, and there's another knock at the door. Andrew out hiking with his son Henry. A symposium. We talk about the history of Scioto county while Henry plays a Smurf game on his father's phone. I can't keep up, I try, but I'm ancient history. B leaves and Drew goes outside to pee and I ask Henry what else is on his phone. There's something called "The Oregon Trail" and I ask him to call that up, fingers tapping at a screen. A version of history. Everything is a version, when you think about what you think. We codify the past in a mold and consider it to be the real deal. In short, it ain't. What happens is a far cry from what you think happened. But we believe whatever we believe. I don't have a problem with rolling in the aisles, but I wonder what it means. Could I be identified by my use of the pluperfect? Have we gone that far? No projections, asshole, move along. Like that, curt, and to the point. Read more...

Running Around

Still no phone. Bastards. They're screwing with my system. Started the day docenting the 'bad' kids (court assigned to a half-way house) and they had an attention span of about three seconds. Tough. They were better, at the end, when we got to the Native American artifacts. Weapons. Dealt with the trash, a record amount due the residency and various other events. Then worked on a grant proposal for the Emily Project. There still is, oddly, performing arts money available for bringing culture to Appalachia. Arts money is usually the first to go. Read poems online for an hour. Watched D and Sara designing the big fundraiser mailing, which, this time, is going to be six cards and a return envelope. They going Pop Art. The show hanging then will be "Wet Paint" and the theme is SPLASH. The two of them were laughing a lot. Pop Art will do that to you, but it always seemed to me it lacked any substance. Good graphic design tool though, and D is running with it. After work I met Andrew and B for a draft at the pub, we ended up having two and sampling the new bar food, a giant hot soft pretzel with a hot cheese dip, a meal for a buck-and-a-half. Who could pass that up? Lively conversation with two of the brightest guys I know. I feel like Mister Social, two nights in one week. Both Drew and B miss having a woman in their life, and I think about that, on the way home. Driving with the window down, waving my hand in the slipstream. I miss the company, the conversation, the smell of being with a woman, no doubt; but I can't compromise my time, what it comes down to. Relationships require a huge investment of time. I've lived alone for ten years, and though I'd rather more often spoon into a warm body late at night, I'm satisfied more often than not. Standing outside the various Venn overlaps what I see is a confused jumble. In some ways I no longer understand the world, it moves too fast. A fat opossum was moving across the driveway when I was coming home, a female, maybe a second litter, I understand they occasionally do that, maybe she heard the stock market would crash and she wanted a lot of kids to support her in her dotage. Whatever. I stopped, to allow her passage (I know she is female, because their body shapes are completely different) though it was at a steep grade and I had to shift into four-wheel low to get started again. Either just a fat possum or a pregnant one. Who's keeping track? I can smoke the back-up cigaret, the one I roll at the beginning of any night, to smoke if someone calls, because my phone is dead. In a certain sense, you don't exist, just trying to be clear here. What I thought I might have been saying. If my connection to you is lost, maybe I don't exist anymore, why I'm so pissed. Read more...

Not Nothing

It's maddening, that I can write but not send. Still no phone. It could be out for weeks. On my way in I see where a giant poplar has crashed down and shredded the line to a tangle of colored filaments, a maze of dead connections. A perfect example of lost communication. Out here, at the end of the line, we're used to silence, expect nothing and you're seldom disappointed. Sitting at the bar, talking with the owner, I'm struck with how strange it is, to be grounded thus. Not that it's strange, to be talking to a particular person, but that I find myself here. Dolls. What's that about? Wake up on my pallet in the office at the museum, first light, go downstairs and shave, wash off with actual hot running water, which is a treat for me; microwave some of yesterday's coffee (I'm not picky about coffee), when Pegi arrives, early, she has a another treat for me, a pumpkin donut, so I don't have to go out for a scone. The residency person was also early, the brother this time, the industrial designer. He's cool, we chat, I open up his spaces for him, turn on lights, get him a projector; let the new group of kids inside and goof with their teacher, a person I know and ask after her mother, who is another person I know, and the kids find it interesting that someone can banter with their teacher. I'm an asset as a janitor, there's no question about it. After lunch Sara and I decide (mostly Sara) which three of the Carter's to take in for framing. We're going to frame them all, uniformly, so we can do an exhibit. I salivate at this. This could be a great show, I start thinking about other Carter nudes, that I know about, and I don't know that many, but this engages my attention. We're having six things framed, three for the fund-raiser auction and three for the potential show. "Thirteen Nudes and A Catfish", which I think is a great title, for the first small Carter show of drawings, but I see a big show here, that could be done. Next thing you know Glenn will be requesting that I don't use the word 'that' so often. He's a stern teacher, I lost 'really' recently and now I have to give up 'that', when I know the transmission is secured. This writing into the void is a piece of shit. I love being home, there is no doubt. I operate well from 'that' position. I have to stop and wonder what I was about to say. A thing for me, heaven forbid. Maybe someone could prepare a better London Broil, but I doubt it. It's my signature meal. We don't have to talk about how difficult it is for me to talk about you. I got a wake up call, sometime early this morning. Someone was concerned. I don't even remember where I was, we were talking about authentic fleece, and what the hell it meant, what the hell is authentic anyway? Music might carry you along, certain lines of text, but we were talking about fabric, a simple weave, and I misunderstood, as I usually do, and the question missed me completely. What were we talking about? I forget. The high point of the day was taking some things to the framing shop with Sara. First time I'd done this with her. We know the people there very well and can poke around behind the counter, make small talk and jokes about ice-cream cones with our framer's parents, who own the business and the building, Front Street, just behind the flood wall, a historic (minor, regional) place actually, Julia Marlowe's house, and Daddy, also Tom, is adding a residence for he and his wife. We get the grand tour. It's so cool. We get the special tour. I'm so engaged by the whole docenting thing, showing someone around, that I practically swoon. Tom has grafted on the space he needs, for modern convenience, to these old brick buildings, and made it seem original. Germane, considering the word 'authentic'. I'm just along because I carry white gloves and I'm the one that handles the nude drawings. A default position, but there you are. We find ourselves, at some point, examining window casings, and they are beautiful, a twelve step method of creating the perfect frame for what you see. I'm blown away. Beauty is where you find it. Not unlike that moment in the bar last night, when Megan glanced over, saw me and smiled. We all have moments like that, when everything pales, and we stumble or trip on a curb, maybe we catch our self or maybe we fall. It is fall now, and I'm already worried about winter. The first cold front of the season, and when I get home, I'll have to get back to the framing, because it is a central issue, I have no electricity AND no phone. Fucking end of the line is driving me crazy, Stand at the island, in the glomming, and roll a smoke. I consider just going back to town, getting a drink at the pub, and crashing at the museum. But I want to sleep in my own bed, toke and talk to myself, internal dialog, and decide I'll wait an estimated hour (I don't have a timepiece) because my experience (is that authentic?) is that if they don't restore power within a hour something is seriously wrong. I get a drink, what the hell, roll another smoke. breaking dawn here. A strange back light that casts everything into question. Read more...

No Phone

This is getting old. I spend two or three hours writing a paragraph and then I can't send it. Interrupts the process. I've worked for years this way, now, and I am a creature of habit when it comes to writing. Meetings most of the day at the museum, I miss all of them. Tinkered with small pulleys. Got out chairs for the residency students. They had to pick one piece in the main gallery and write a paragraph about it. I approved. This three week residency is a brother sister team; he's an industrial designer, she's an artist person. They're both good. I went around with Janet today and measured dolls, she's having the kids do scale models. Also a good idea. I say kids, they're not really. 28 of them, the best of the art and honors students. A group that size, that mix, there's always a senior girl, 17 or 18, that looks 27 and clearly knows her way around the block. In this group it's Amanda, who flirts shamelessly with me. I go to the basement. Everyone foists off food on me, they don't think I eat enough, so I get left-over lunches from the residency and left-over goodies from the planning committee (yearly big fund-raiser) meeting. I'll have to stop and feed the geese, I already had a pizza from yesterday. First fall of leaves and a bit of color on the ridges. The hollows are still verdant tangles, but on the ridge tops, I can begin to see the ground. Three crows dancing at the spillway, eating the remains of a fisherman's snack. One of them will almost take a cracker from my hand. Way too trusting, though I wouldn't mind knowing a crow. I just do peripheral work, what's available out there. I might have mentioned your name, I'm sure it was coded in such a way that mo one would ever understand it. I do this for a living. Words wear out, I cant use 'gay' anymore or 'faggot", which used to be just a billet I fed to the stove. I can't imagine being censored. Naive, what? Still, I can't imagine. Read more...

Completely Hidden

Miles Davis, "Bitches Brew", on the radio at three AM, puts a decided kink in the day. I get back to sleep, but weird dreams pace the rest of the night. Library doesn't open until 10, so I heat water and take a sponge-bath, shave, read for a while, Xenophon's "Anabasis". Fix a hearty breakfast, grits, eggs, toast and a sliced tomato. Need to do laundry, a residency starting at the museum and I'd like to check in there, and I wanted to talk with Pegi, to make sure we're on the same page. Linda had some concerns about the Emily Project, and I agree with them; if we were to do something, the main problem is slowing down the words. Miles gives me an idea. Words, not sung, but spoken, with music. I wish I was a playwright, but I'm a simple janitor. Makes life difficult. Nothing could ever be 'completely' hidden, another myth you have to smash through. Not unlike those pumpkins, what you thought you meant. I prefer to stand in the shadow, never really knowing. A pulley on one of the puppet dolls is snagged. Too much space between the actual sheave and the housing, and the cable keeps jumping out of the groove. I see what needs to be done, but I can't figure out exactly how to do it. That's not quite right. The problem is clearly that the pulley is affixed at too much of an angle, the attachment slightly incorrect. The museum is closed and I elect to ignore the issue until tomorrow, which gives me a chance to think about three or four solutions and decide among them. A mental diversion, visualizing the mechanics, the stress that comes to bear at a specific place. I'm very good at this, well trained; failure analysis is mostly a matter of visualization. After some thought, I decide to alter the angle by twisting the attachment and holding it in place with a piece of baling wire, which I should be able to torque into position with a pair of pliers. Not a lot of weight involved here. Next problem. To our credit, D's young son wails on the down-haul, puts his whole body into it, and everything works fine; the ultimate test of a system is a young person throwing their entire body weight against a particular attachment. I'm not superstitious, but you'd be a fool to ignore the way certain things feather. Reality pales. My phone's out, those dead trees on Mackletree, this could go on for years, so many trees poised to fall, I need a better connection, but what I have is a tenuous contact with someone I don't know. Reconcile that. I write, you read, it's not brain surgery, but there is always that element of surprise. Jesus, it's tomorrow already. Like that. Blind-sided. It's already tomorrow morning and I wasn't done with last night. I have this monolog that plays in my head, it seems to be real time, in so far as, but in point of fact, the time line is altered by the very remembering. Always one step behind. Especially out here, where the flat opens out to the flat. I'm trapped here, from where I can't send. Go figure. Read more...

Strange Day

First order of business was to docent a group of students through the dolls, then a break (make coffee, get the mail, have a smoke with Sara) then docent the same group through the rest of the museum. I was in pretty good form. After lunch I needed to make out loan forms for a law firm borrowing some paintings, then get together a tool kit, truck the paintings over, and hang them. One of the associates is a board member and their offices did need some art work. Day was almost over, too late to start a project, so TR and I talked about music for the Emily Project. After work we met Clay and Asa for a couple of beers. They all left, I went outside for a smoke then back inside to listen to Jack Vetter and friends make music. The owners were sitting at the far end of the bar, so I sat with them, friendly chat, they bought me an Irish whiskey and shared their dinner. The music was great. Some blues, some jazzy instrumental stuff, a very good cover of Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door". The rare night out for me and I enjoyed myself. It started raining, so I went back to the museum, to get my pack, and called home; a busy signal, which means my phone is still down. I blow off going home at all, probably couldn't get up the driveway, and no phone so I couldn't send. Watch an episode of "The Glades" on Hulu while I dig out a metal splinter (goddamn cable and pulleys) from the web between thumb and first finger on my left hand. Been bothering me for days. The kids liked me today. They do little evaluations of their museum experience, and I was mentioned quite favorably in most of them. I love docenting, each time is a little piece of performance art. I treat the kids just like I treat adults, don't talk down to them, use a few mild terms, point out that some of the dolls are anatomically correct. I know the work, I make it a point to know the work, and the kids can see that my interest is genuine. They think I'm cool, which I probably am, beyond their wildest dreams, and the fact that they think that, coupled with the fact that I work in an art museum seems to engage their interest. One of the young girls, Pegi said, these kids were 16 and 17, had a 'thing' for me, which I translate as her having a problem with her dad. That I care about art makes an impression, that it might possibly matter. Gets me through the day. Read more...

Landline

From the museum. Phone line is down at home, and I'm backed up, waiting to send. No telling how long it'll take them to clear the lines on Mackletree. Big winds with the remnants of Lee. Dead trees falling like matchsticks. Read more...

Post Partum

Life returns in increments. First you get some sleep, then you eat, drink some fruit juice, only walk the pathways of desire, several espressos, eventually you can function. Putting books away, for me, is problematic, I always pull out another book and the end result is that my desk is covered with open books. I can't even see the keyboard, might even subscribe, if I could, but I can't find my reading glasses. Nine ways from Sunday. The devil, in fact, the long arm of the law. Not that anything means something, we're clear on that, the uncertainty, right? Another rendition. Songs sung from the back seat, on long trips. Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall. The number of telephone poles between Jacksonville, Florida, and Jacksonville, North Carolina. Hole in the roof, rain falling on my head. The answer is blowing in the wind. Life is just a joke. You just stood there, grinning. Buffalo soldier. Who was that? The Persuasions. That bass singer on "The River Jordan", Jimmy Hayes, could do a vocal version of the Cello Suites. Everyone knew her as Nancy. Rocky's revival. Gideon's bible. May he rest in peace. U2, I still have a vow. What I'm looking for. The wind is blowing, the brittle leaves are rattling. Gypsy woman. Waiting for the rising sun. She was a gypsy woman, looking for a chorus. People are curious and times are strange. Things have changed. I used to care. Now I just listen, FM radio, late at might, they can either help or they can go to hell. That sparkle in her eyes looks like champagne. What I remember may not have happened. I was sick of the word 'closure' before today, but after listening to the radio for a bit I'm absolutely rabid. As McCord said somewhere, get some duct tape. Look at Braque's "Violin with Pitcher", what the hell is that damned nail doing at the top? I'm in love with Paula Poundstone, there, I've said it. Her comic sense and her timing roll me on the floor. I always catch her at ten or eleven of a weekend morning, on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" (however they punctuate that) and I'm usually eating a brunch that involves either corn meal or grits, and I could well die, choking on some off-beat comment she made. I don't consider myself a critic, having opinions, all that, but I've handled a lot of stuff, in however many years I've been here, and one, you know, develops certain tastes. Directions. Maybe it can't be helped. Maybe it's a mistake to reveal too much of yourself. Might create problems down the road. In passport photos, you should appear as generic as possible. Figure it out yourself. Read more...

Mare Est

I don't like things up around my neck. I don't like crosses or anything with a collar. It chokes me. I wear chinos around the house, and whatever top seems appropriate, a fashion plate. As footgear I usually wear a pair of heavy socks, interim slippers that I use and throw away, I cut away the top elastic. I live in a hovel, not making sense to myself. I need to take a bath, but it's only Thursday. The sea is just a small part of my problem, Latin teacher excused. I harbor some deep resentments, shit, we all do, whoever we like least. That part of ourselves. A demon, but something we can deal with. I only ever met one alien, and I have to say, I held my ground. I'm sure we could just stop everything, go get a drink, roll a smoke. Sometimes I think I'm not the right person for the job, then I usually realize I'm exactly the right person. Ten minutes to spare, we got the show open, before the talk at noon. Technically we had until the preview / opening at 5:30. Opening night. A little party, finger food, free wine and beer. I had a bottle of whiskey upstairs and had a couple of drinks, several good conversations. The doll puppet lady, Pam, was there, and I told her about repairing the leg, D and I with our heads up her skirt, and I thought she was going to choke. She loved the museum, loved the show, felt good about herself for being included. Nice. Juliellen we've known for years, did the talk, and we had been goofing around all day, she's a hoot, fun to be around. Social animal. The finger food was good, I grazed all evening. Julie lives far enough outside Columbus that she can raise chickens, and several of us talked about chickens on and off with her, and with the older lady she brought down with her, who also raises chickens, and TR's family raises chickens on a larger scale. A surprising amount of chicken knowledge in a small space. Julie eats their eggs, but doesn't kill them for meat, lets them die of old age, what she called the Club Med for chickens. What we grow to expect, I file that thought away. We might could use it later. Future pluperfect, though I rarely think that far ahead. Even Julie, who is shown internationally, is proud to be in this show. I haven't even changed the calendar, I'm so far behind. What month is this? I'm exhausted, have to go to bed, finish this tomorrow. Slept well, woke up to pee, went back to bed. Later, in the haze slow waking on a day off, during the first cup of coffee, I put away a few books. There's a slot for Ehrlich's "The Solace Of Open Spaces" but it's next to James Clerk Maxwell's "Matter And Motion" and I pull it out, net gain: zero. Reading at breakfast (sliced tomato, fried eggs, toast) I stumble on a fact that will please my friend Kim, his favorite number is 42, that the heat required to raise one gram of water from 3 degrees C to 4 degrees C, is 42,000,000 ergs. Also: Energy is the capacity of doing work. Mine was severely depleted by the end of this week. Mute is different than off, I think, as I mute the radio; if I turn it off, it'll have to warm up again (it's an old radio), and I'd have to listen, again, to the static becoming actual words. Later, I make a pouch of Baby Reds instant mashed potatoes, sit at the island, eating them with a spoon, while I read yet another essay about Braque and Picasso. "Les Demoiselles d' Avignon" is one of the greatest paintings ever, it's in my top ten, right near the top, Picasso almost called it "The Avignon Brothel" and it wouldn't have made any difference what it was called. It's so dynamic, five maenads with piercing stares, the Cubism, for me, just makes it more real. What we actually see. I would sell my soul to have been with the two of them when they visited the caves at Altamira. Date Modernism from right there. Odd that it took a look at the extremely old to advance the future. I don't know enough about Braque. Read more...

Home Again

Had just mentioned to Sara that we hadn't seen the sun in a week, then, on the way home, a few shafts, before the gray settled in again. Another and final exhausting day for this turnaround. Done, except for a couple of little things that need doing before the talk tomorrow. I touched-up the pedestal tops just before closing today, but the paint has to be good and dry before the bonnet goes on or you'll rock the boat and break something getting the damned thing off. One of Juliellen's dolls D had left for me to hang on the entry wall, but the size of the hole and the shape of the back and the thickness of the clay all conspired to defy any of the usual ten of twelve pieces of hardware we might normally use. Finally, end of the day, bent an "L" hook into a configuration that will work, take me five minutes tomorrow. We had cantilevered two puppet dolls off the front wall, using some heavy duty plywood so that we could get solid attachment and the edges needed painting. Tricky, now that dolls were under them. I couldn't get a sheet over them, as a drop cloth, because of all the cables, so I finally draped them in paper towel. It's an imperfect world. The plywood needed to have been pre-painted, but we were hanging, right then, and couldn't wait for something to dry. Leo helped with some things today, setting a few bonnets. He's a good helper, strong and silent. Now I need to know, I was thinking today, how smart he is, to see how far I can trust him. Installing shows is tricky. I have to read back over the post I wrote about repairing the doll. Linda thought it was a comedy routine. I'm flattered, but I don't actually remember what I wrote. I get rusty, when I miss a night writing, lose facility. When I was writing the cistern book, 120 nights, I didn't miss a session, if I had I would have lost my place. The windows are open, I have to wear a sweatshirt for the first time this season; though only the most threadbare, stretched horribly out of shape sweatshirt I own. I have three, I think; next time I get a drink, I'll go look. People give me clothes and I give clothes away, things don't fit, babies grow up fast, Goodwill, all that; but I keep a finite wardrobe, five feet of hanger, and two shelves. A simple system. Too simple, in point of fact, because I'm willing to bare, bear, oops, not sure which. OK. It's good to be home. I love the confusion. My hands don't shake when they pour a drink when I'm by myself. Question. If you don't need some sign of affection, some exterior sign of modality, this would all be easier, but where do we find ourselves? The sassafras is already turning color, yellow and copper, the driveway is a gauntlet of color right now, and overhung with rain sodden canes. Who'd bother to make this up? Talking with Linda always makes me think in terms of how we might work together. When she called tonight, and we talked about the possible Emily show. We also talked about glazing a pork roast in chutney juice. We see eye to eye. In so far as, whatever. Talk about music, and I suddenly start thinking about TR composing some minimalist music that might feather. Something to keep in mind, how overlaid the video stuff could happen. Emily channeled through the janitor is a thought. Or the last time you completely stopped and listened. Doesn't matter where you are, what you say you are. Read more...

Rainy Day

Turned the driveway to a mushy mess. I couldn't get to work. Supposed to rain all week, when I get to town I may have to stay there, to get the show done. Damned awkward. Cross that bridge tomorrow. Read James Sallis, "What You Have Left", The Turner Trilogy, yesterday and today. Excellent, extremely good language. I couldn't put it down. The rain has killed that susurrus of life in the woods. Just the rain on the roof, the dripping off the eaves, water drops hitting leaves that are no longer soft and supple. I did need a couple of days off, before the big push; last two days, I probably read for 16 hours. Essays on Tiepolo and Piazzetta, there's a painting by P, "The Supper at Emmaus" that is beautiful, there's a plate of asparagus that is brilliant, but what I saw in the figures and in the lighting was Caravaggio. I see these connections now, is the point, and I didn't before, I hadn't read enough in that area, and hadn't looked at enough pictures, now I look at them every day and I see these obvious connections, like Dorn and Creeley with Olson. I imagine there's web-site now that tracks new ideas. Real-time responses, yeah or nay. You can find out if you're full of shit or not. It's a free service. I still have tomatoes, so I toast a trencher of Cincy bread, this stuff is incredible, the best bread I've ever eaten, sour dough, flip a perfect egg over easy on the toast, slice the tomato with a garnish of cheese shavings, a little balsamic, some kosher salt. I recommend this meal, for anyone who lives alone, and everyone else, also. Summers are framed by morel dishes in the spring, and tomato dishes in the fall, the nature of things. I'm having a good year, paying off my VISA and learning to walk with a broken toe. Ronnie gives me more tomatoes than I could possibly eat. I don't want to comment on Bear's older daughter flirting with me, she's young, the filters haven't kicked in yet, but Jesus, when did kids start maturing so early? Read more...

Phoneless

Remnants of Tropical Storm Lee flooding the hollows. I've been coming off the ridge in first gear, four-wheel drive low, but it's still a bit scary. My phone has been out for nearly three days and I couldn't send anything, so there must be a piece backed up on the computer at home. John, the barkeep at the pub said at lunch that I should come by this evening and check out the new help, so I did, came back to the museum to write. All day yesterday cleaning up the main gallery, hauling stuff to the basement, then today, tricked out the articulation for the puppet dolls, moved a few things around, tweaked the lighting. I've a punch list to finish tomorrow, D will be in school, then Friday, before the talk at noon, we'll set the bonnets and the show will be done. Opening Friday evening. You can see some images at SOMACC. Com. Next show in the main gallery is Sara's and opens early November, "Wet Paint", which is artists' depiction of water. I've been looking at some of the images and they're quite striking. Opening a show is hard work, unlike most things you're ever asked to do, more than than once or twice in your life. I'm only good at it because I had good teachers, and always asked, when I don't understand something. Read more...

Simply Stupid

Joking with Sharee about articulation. I know I'll be up later, thinking about things. Promised rain doesn't fall, all the more reason. Then it does rain, and the sound is a kind of joy on the metal roof. There wasn't enough time scheduled for this turn around, and I hadn't really studied the calendar: shit, the one I keep at home is always a month out of date. Raining, the AC on, I slip into the middle distance. There's a grass-hopper in the house, and I can't find it. Crickets are easier, because they lay down a drone, with grass-hoppers it's just the occasional shriek, and they move like bats, startling me. I keep a tennis racket close at hand. A double bladed sword, for the most part, as I've killed my writing lamp twice in just the last few days. It must be said that I'm a idiot, when I'm alone, getting along with my life; I'm talking out loud and walking into things. I love gerunds, don't think ill of me, nouns becoming verbs seem oddly exciting. I remember an incident, during a summer break, we were either in northern Mississippi or southern Tennessee, I don't remember where exactly. Some cousins and I were on an excursion to the neighborhood store, a mile walk, maybe, through bean fields and along dirt roads. We pestered anything we could, poking at snakes with sticks, always with a slingshot in our back pocket, ready to bring down dinner. We might have had a nickel each, enough for five rum balls, and it would take us all day to get to the store and back, wading through cotton fields and grader ditches. Why did I think of that? Oh, right, the multi-car collision I avoided when I pulled off the road watching a flock of turkeys working through a harvested corn field. It makes a certain kind of sense. Turkeys, right, a corn field. Memory aids. A bi-plane spraying insecticides. The Witness Protection Program. These dolls, I think, are wanted elsewhere. Too many heads and not enough bodies. The congeries. Style is an artist's rational. A syntax. The rain dries off to a few drops, isolated spatters, and then it's gone, like a dream you'd rather forget. Nothing if not fruitful, what you remember. Five, six, seven, eight, then a down beat, a clash of cymbals, a jagged chord hung out to dry. It doesn't mean anything, but it sounds impressive, glass packs on a vintage Mustang. I hate parades, and public displays of affection, they always remind me of my failures. I prefer Bach to Mozart. That tinny sound leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Read more...

Pro Forma

Another breakfast, the same as the last, this batch of Ronnie's tomatoes are perfect. An egg on toast and a sliced tomato, with a squirt of white balsamic and a dash of hot sauce. A tinge of yellowing. Summer winding down. I wrote in two sessions yesterday, the last quite late. A knocking at the door and B is over for a visit, wondering if we might meet for a beer and conversation, neutral turf, maybe the bar at the pub, maybe Friday afternoons. I readily agree, missing the literary talk. Funny scene, yesterday, the gallery was a wreck, from packing up the last show, and we were unpacking some ceramic dolls shipped in from overseas, packing peanuts everywhere, balls of tape, wads of newspaper, egg cartons, boxes within boxes. All this between hanging dolls. When the one lost her leg, I carried her down, and placed her in a board room chair. The museum was deserted, as the parade was going on, and Pegi was at the desk. We'd examined the wound and assembled a tool kit. I braced a box against the back of the chair, so it wouldn't roll, then lifted the skirt and petti-coats so D could attempt reattachment. This was a moment that should have been photographed, the two of us with our heads buried in a doll's crotch. What we do for art. I only consider, as close friends, those with whom I might undertake battlefield surgery. A pretty good list, actually, at this point. I know a surprising number of people who could reattach a larger than life-sized, badly engineered, doll's leg. In a way, I think that makes me special, not in a special way, but that I'm lucky to know such interesting people. Glenn should have been there, filming, or Liza. It was so interesting, and so revealing, at the same time. We'd trick out the hanging hardware and I'd hold the doll up, taking the weight off so D could make the attachment (that word again); often with my hands up the doll's skirt, so I could grip the actual skeleton. Docent Cops Feel, the headline could read, if the video were made public. And I tend toward making everything public. "Bridwell responded to criticism, that he had misused his position as janitor, preparator, whatever, to fondle objects of art, saying only that someone had to take the weight off." His words exactly, because I remember saying them, feeling an ass that was merely wood and foam. You find yourself in interesting situations, might as well get a drink and roll a smoke. Let the 'real' world unfold. Wait, what's real? I actually hung the dolls, that's true, with D, curator of this show, but you only have my word for it. Looks like a lynching, all those dolls held off the ground, a suicide, or worse, a spectacle based on an execution. Don't go there, don't dream, don't imagine you're somehow exempt from the ravages of time. It's already September. Into the fall. Don't say anything, none of this ever happened. What you think. Read more...

Doll Puppets

Nine at night and I can finally turn on the computer, with AC on and a bowl of ice next to the tower. D was carless, so after work I ran him up to the river house, from which they're still moving stuff. We sat for half-an-hour, sweating, in the shade, hottest day of the year, drinking a beer. Agreeing that we had to work Monday, to pull this off. Did I mention that eight foot doll puppets were a pain in the ass? The leg fell off one today, and we had to effect a repair. It had broken there previously, we could see that and fixed it better than it had been before. She articulates the joints in stupid ways, designed for failure, because she doesn't understand attachment nor the materials at hand. That's cool, an artist doesn't have to have a degree in engineering, they know what they want to happen. She uses muffler clamps as axles and dowel rod as base for the limbs, which is fine, but when you drill a quarter-inch hole close to the end of a dowel, it's going to split out. 100% of the time. Some places she uses aircraft cable and crimped connectors, much better, because the hole is smaller. I slept late this morning, skipped the sponge bath, just going to be working with D and he always has that fashionable haven't shaved for a couple of days look, so I can certainly skip something. Working another Saturday, for god's sake, and agreeing to work Monday, a holiday, so we can get this done. And it all depended on today, what we could do, given that we were going to work Monday also. Hang five dolls: doesn't sound that difficult, but sounds a little strange, when you mention it to strangers. And we did it, of course, finished hanging them, though the articulation remains a subject of discussion, at 3:30. I felt good about this, the ladies were all in the air. I can do the rest of it. Physically not that challenging, you split some wood, you have to do something, contribute to the entropic kingdom. An odd process, hard to describe; first I get a couple of chairs from the board room, so we can wheel around and look at specific situations; then we go to the basement, where there is thirty years of accumulated hardware, and bring up anything that might be remotely useful. We hang one doll, but it's the wrong doll in the wrong place, the hardware is correct, however, so we re-hang that doll in another place, a completely different system, and hang another doll on the hardware we'd installed for the first. Fits and starts. There's not really much luck involved in this, we have to handle the pieces, see what's required. How much do they weigh? What anchor do we use, and what attachment? Selflessness is key. We don't keep track of what is who's idea, we just hang dolls. D's solution for a doll in the entry way is brilliant, I can safely say a doll has never been hung that way. Point is, we get it done. This is the crux, right? getting it done. It's all theater. How best to present yourself. We don't go to hardware store until after lunch, and then they don't have what we need. Why don't they have any double pulleys? A fucking conspiracy is what it is. You and your's. A normal marine hardware store, they'd have what I needed. A decent anchor. Read more...

Night Moves

A couple of degrees, one way or the other. might make a difference, it's surprising, what we notice. I wake, in a sweat, and it's 80 degrees, not bad, really, but I close the windows and turn on the AC. I'm not, and I want to be, more comfortable, 78 would be good, 76 better, tossing and turning. Maybe it's not the temperature, per say, but a state of mind: I sweat, therefore I'm alive. A philosophical point. I don't pretend anything, I merely am. Blackbirds singing in the dead of night. My lighter gives out and I resort to kitchen matches that flare and burn my nose. Finally do get back to sleep for a couple of hours. D is out of pocket again, the last pick-up of dolls, in Athens. I finish the patch and repair, then touch-up paint the entire gallery. Another very hot day, 98 degrees, and there's the yearly street fair called River Days, and the yearly Rotary Club fish sandwich feed at the end or our street. Hundreds of people out in the hot sun. I lunch at the pub with the owners and John says he has a couple of sample bottles of a new Guinness product, a black lager, and asks me to join him after work. It's a good beer, but not as good as I'd expected, it being a Guinness and all. Friendly conversation down at the servers end of the bar, nice group of people. Hate to leave, but I need to get and cool the place enough to be able to write. Turning on to Mackletree, at least the wind is no longer hot. When I get to the State Forest, I slow to a crawl, looking at things. Where the hiking trail (40 miles, Mackletree is about mile 5) crosses the road there are two guys with big packs plopped on the verge. They look badly used. Wave me down. Long story short, they were going to do the whole trail, four days. They made it to Mackletree and no further. It's a tough trail and it was over 100 degrees in the sun. They were suffering heat prostration; nauseous, head-aches. I drove them back to their car. Gabriel and John. When we got to their Subaru we all rolled a smoke and talked. They asked me what I did and I told them that tomorrow I was going to be installing fully articulated eight foot tall dolls in the museum where I worked.That got their attention, but I really needed to get home, and I left it at that. What I do. It's after 9 before I get the house cool enough to turn on the computer, by then I've forgotten most of what I remembered. I start remembering on the drive home, usually; I don't see, or talk to anyone. I get to the house, I eat something, I read until I can fire up my black Dell, then I write until I go to sleep. Sometimes I listen to a Cello Suite, sometimes just a part of one, tonight it was the Allemande from Suite 5, I couldn't make sense of it, Casal's version was tentative, and clearly something was missing. I love Yo Yo Ma, but his recordings of the Suites don't excite the way others do, over all, but in this passage he's sublime. Makes sense. It's all about making sense, ultimately. Read more...

Lost Track

Right at the edge, I can't remember, something. But I needed to pee, so I got up and went out to the end of the deck and pissed into space. A remarkable sense of release. It's overcast, but a few stars poke through. Incredibly ordinary. I stop to consider, right then, who and where I am, an essential existential question. I don't want probe too deeply, at three in the morning, or even consider my grammar. I'd rather just go back to sleep. But things are conditional. I know any sleep I get would be fitfull, and I avoid that, whenever possible, because it leaves me anxious. Something to think about. TR said today, how I engaged the reader, that he was aware of that. Right, I intend interaction, but there was an implication we were communicating a level above that. I don't know. At 3:57 almost anything seems possible. I think I'll get a short drink and roll one more smoke. A curious evening. Some times it strikes me, I'm strange, even by my own standards. Which opens an avenue, my own, a private path; and yet, I find, we agree on certain particulars. Blows me away, actually (really) that we can agree on anything. Considering the divergent paths and all that. The very idea that there could be something we could possibly agree on. Begs the question. What was the question? Finally go to work to get on with the repacking. D made the long slog to Cleveland today, so I was by myself. I enjoy working with D, and I enjoyed working with TR yesterday, but I also enjoy working by myself. Handling art. Someone came in this morning, a lawyer I recognized. I was moving something over to the table, to wrap and put away, talking casually with him. He gasped when I picked up the piece, caught himself and said that of course I handled the art, someone had to. Worked steady through the day and got almost all of it done. An hour's work for D and I tomorrow. Then the dolls come out. We figure to work all day Saturday, gotta get a jump on the rigging questions. Repair on one of the dolls, labels, bonnets, and of course it all has to be done a day early because one of the artists is giving a talk the day before opening. How these things get scheduled is a mystery to me. It's going to be a real push, I just have too much to do. Pegi will hire one of her Cirque kids to come over and mop (I like Leo's style, he has a nice over-swing), she and Trish will somehow sort out the kitchen. When K was here all this logistical crap was a thing of the pass, and D was confrontational about the way he felt she had been treated, for that matter everyone concerned knows how I felt. Office politics, I just can't be bothered, what I want to do is install this doll show, it's looking pretty cool. Even my jaded eye. Stopped at the pub for a pint, on the way home, and the waitresses I know are mostly leaving, so John, the head bar-keep, is vetting potential replacements. I wouldn't miss this for the world, and I move down to that end of the bar, so I can monitor the bullshit level. Who he's willing to bump-ass with, passing in those narrow kitchens, and behind the bar, a very real concern, and maybe, something. Phone went out and I couldn't send last night. Very tired. The degree of attention you exercise, handling art, is extreme, so it's exhausting. Slept late but still made it to town on time. Sara's new laptop arrived and D had to lock and load that, so I finished packing the show by myself. Then a quick lunch, D and I talked about installing the doll show and I have an idea about rigging the puppet-dolls. He agrees it would probably be the easiest way to do it. Solved the problem, as I often do, by sitting in a chair and staring into the middle distance. At those moments, and I've had a great many of them, I don't doodle or make sketches, I can't draw worth a damn, but I can visualize in intricate detail, and I imagine a way we can articulate these monster dolls with the least number of pulleys. We're not trying to hoist a mainsail here, just move a leg. No reason to be complex. We have two of the creepy dolls out, that D got yesterday, and they were not wrapped when he picked them up, so he just stood them up on one the pedestals from the ODC show. My companions this day, while I strip hardware, do the patch and repair, are a couple of creepy dolls. I love this job. I go over often, and touch them, I'm allowed to do this, it's my responsibility. I need to know what we're dealing with, more or less, I need to understand. Pegi understands the attraction I have for one of her girls, nothing I would act on, and she keeps throwing it in my face. She did it today, we were getting a cup of coffee, and she asked me if I was familiar with falconry, the way you kept a bird on leather thongs, perched on your leather glove; and I said that yes I was, I'd actually done that, I've lived a long life and almost everything was possible. She thought Megan should be tethered to me by a leather strap for a bird show later this year. She was joking, I think, and I told her it was a bad idea, because everyone would misconstrue everything. Especially me. I get things wrong most of the time, it's my bent.
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