Making Progress

Felt it necessary to work on a day off, TR came in too, so we could get a bit of a jump on what looks like a very tight schedule. Logistics. I thought about the next two weeks for a couple of hours last night, while the power was out. First thing today we bring all the various crates and boxes for the doll show up from the basement, because they were in the pedestal storage room and soon we'll need every inch of that space. Juggle a few things, talk strategy, then start crating the doll show. Breaking in the new guy, always an interesting time. Last week it was introducing him to the numbers, this week it's handling art, packing it safely. We work well together, it's going to be fine, but the process (this particular repetition of a cyclical process) does give me pause. You only learn by doing. We want to see some of the paintings for the "Wet Paint" show, but usually we never bring any of the next stuff out until we've put the last stuff away. Sara said something about my apparent transparency. I didn't know what to say. I do try to be transparent. At the end of a night what I really wish for the most, is one of what's his name's, that glass houses guy, Philip. Not Glass. I pray you, despite anything I recently said, that you wouldn't take me too seriously. Prime numbers are always odd, otherwise being divisible by two. So we clear a couple of wall sections and lay down some blankets, so we can unwrap some paintings on the floor. TR is psyched, he's never done this before, and the paintings are wonderful. Wet takes on a whole new meaning. Good god-damn paintings too, and we pulled up a bench, looking closely, and TR allowed that he had never expected this to happen, that he would run into a person like me, in a place like this. What can you do? Pretend ignorance. Well, gosh, it happens. I still dream about flying. Read more...

Fun Day

When just Sara, D and I are alone at the museum we have way too much fun. Actually, whenever we're all are working together. We spent several hours outlining the coming events, the logistics, I spent some time in the basement, figuring what goes where, the order in which things need to come out. Odd situation right now, because we're going from two shows that required every pedestal we own, to none. Which means they all need to be stored. Fortunately, we had seen this coming and had created new pedestal storage space, so we're good, as long as we get all of the 'Doll' crates out before we start off-loading peds. I get out one of the large rolls of bubble wrap (five feet high, 36 inches in diameter) because we'll be needing lots of that, make a note to myself to go spend a fortune on tape, because I'm just about out of several different varieties. I use a lot of tape. Ordered two new tires (I've decided to keep the old truck, spend a thousand bucks on it and drive it for another year) for the truck (which requires an odd size): aside: sentences can get strange. I've been reading Emily and the way her language explodes is affecting my thought processes. Convention is a good thing, everyone stopping at stop signs, and all of that, the world you live in, how you handle that. But occasionally you get a real wacko that pushes the wall further out, and they're usually a bit strange. Benjamin talks about this, in his great study of Baudelaire. The 'Bird' show is complete. Sara and D did the lighting today and there's the usual magic. End of the day, one of the 'Doll' artist, Scott, with his wife and girl child, came in to pick up his work, they're staying overnight, out at the lodge, in the State Forest, so their daughter can ride a horse tomorrow. They're very cool people, we spend an hour at the pub, and I really won't just drink with anyone. I'd rather drink alone. Which allows me this space in which there is no compromise. The heart of it. Damn, that I was ancient by the time I finally learned, and by then, cared nothing about the way it played out. I sometimes place a period (provisionally) in brackets, in draft, that will probably become a comma. My proclivity for the longer sentence. Essentially a musical notation. What were we talking about? Read more...

Leaf Fall

Lovely on the way into work. A good night's sleep, and I had been tired for several days, up early enough to start a fire and heat water to wash my hair and shave. Then down the driveway, which I normally do out of gear, with my foot tapping the brake; but today, as the wet leaves are so thick, I do in 4-wheel drive, with my foot tapping the brake. Half way down there are a couple of young poplars, right together, with leaves such a bright yellow that I stop and get a couple, as exemplars for how yellow a leaf can be. Even doddering, I'm first at the museum, then D arrives, we have a smoke, and I drive him over to get the rental van, so he can go get the last of the paintings for "Wet Paint", then back for the punch list, and my attempt to stay a day ahead as the big fundraiser always demands time and there is still the big show to install. Tomorrow we start breaking down the doll show, packing it up for shipment home. I had forgotten that I had agreed to docent a group through the whole museum, and right then, wet and shivering from the rain and cold, D arrived with the last paintings. I ask D to docent them through the doll show, it's his show after all, while I put the paintings away; then I take them through the Bird Show, the Carters, and the Native American artifacts. The whirlwind tour, and I tell them to come back, look at these things more closely, ask for me, I'm usually available, I do individual docenting on request. I think I am longer no longer merely the janitor, when I go back to the office space and there's a high-level discussion going on about the provenance of a Miro. This is a great lithograph, and we've been given permission to auction it off. Number six, of the ten signed in colored pencil by the artist, the other 185 were signed in the plate, and I know it's real because I've looked at the signature quite closely. Miro actually signed this, that's why it's worth $15,000. If a print could actually be worth $15,000. I guess, sure, if someone would pay that. I'm wearing Linda's knitted hat and a bathrobe over a full set of clothes, seriously considering the sound an acorn might make hitting the roof of a woodshed. Occupied. This is it, pretty baby. TR asked me to walk him through closing down the museum. It's actually fairly complex, making the next step. Not difficult, but sequential. I've got him through eight steps of the twelve step program when we stumble on Meagan, facing the setting sun, dressed as a peasant, with a snake on her arm. Not a dance, exactly, so much as a single frame from a movie about Adam and Eve. I tend to ignore the obvious and focus on locking the door, other people see the snake first. I consider myself a liberal, I don't care if you only fuck mules, at some point you probably get a coffee to go, retreat to a place that's comfortable for you. I understand that, I go there almost every night, looking for peace. If it's not there, I put it off, looking toward tomorrow. .I couldn't say that better myself. I have books propped open everywhere. It's interesting, nothing means anything, or nothing, depending on your point of view. Read more...

This That

This has nothing to do with that. They're usually separated by a distance. Sara 'sets' the fabric show, quilts and framed embroidery all around on the floor, on packing blankets, in front of where they'll hang. This is modern stuff, not like your grandmother's work, and I like it. There are three chickens (chickens always sell), one of them a full length portrait with red cowboy boots. There's a great crow, a head and shoulders shot of a Dodo. 22 pieces in all, and it's a perfect show for the upstairs gallery. I have to repaint one wall, where the adhesive for the signage is still bleeding through. While I'm doing that Meagan (I think is the spelling) comes in and asks what I'm doing. Her pet snake is in the classroom, it's in the show the Cirque is doing, and she'd come in to feed it a mouse. She's extremely attractive and bright, and I enjoy flirting with her, but today she was flirting with me, dressed in patterned black tights, boots, and a knit LBD. After lunch, after repainting that wall where the ghosting of signage past had bled through, I started hanging the show. Fabric work is difficult because it's never straight. I get nine pieces hung, re-hanging three of those, because the pieces are crooked. Sara said my whole life had prepared me to work in a museum, and she's correct, it had. A particular tool-kit and mind-set. Glenn would get this, other things beside. This surely becomes whatever. Electricity was out last night, and now the phone is out. I had a piece of writing at work, but I deleted that, as it seemed out of date. Now at least I can write at home but I can't send. I can print this, I suppose, then retype it at the museum. Today I finished installing, labels and all, and I feel just a step or two ahead. Most of the work for "Wet Paint" arrived yesterday, by bonded art shippers, always a treat because the work is handled so carefully. D picks up the last of that show tomorrow in Canvas, WV; and there are two more performances of the Cirque Halloween show Friday and Saturday. Saturday we start breaking down the creepy doll show, and I'll be hanging "Wet Paint" by the middle of next week. It's a big show, 50 paintings, most of them large. I need to check the hanging hardware, I'm sure we'll need more of the large hangers. Linda's flying in, to work on the Emily Project, a week from Saturday, mid-afternoon; D and I will be hanging paintings, but then, that Sunday and Monday she and I can work with TR and see what the three of us are thinking. I'm a little more confident, now, on my footing for this, a false security, I'm sure, and I don't want to intrude myself because the words and the music need to speak for themselves. A little staging, a few props, nothing more. It would be nice if there was the smell of baking bread. Emily did all the baking, smell is an uncontrolled sense, what it reminds you of, thrown into the turmoil of what's going on. I don't so much disobey what I discover, as merely move on to the next thing. Shit conspires. One of the great lessons of life, next thing you know you're in a tree-tip pit pulling a tarp over your head. Keep the rain off and wait for things to dry out: actually, things are fairly square, I choose a book, on the history of dust.

Tom

It's the next morning, today, and I have both electricity and a phone. Send now. Read more...

Habit

I get a note from Aralee. a writer of distinction, Ms. Strange, and she says she has 1,733 pages of my writing, but that this recent post, "Too Many Lines", is very good. I don't have a copy of that post, my filing system is inept, I just pile things up. So I go online, to read the posting. I don't even have a copy, but it's posted online. One thing you can be sure of, if you're writing at three or four in the morning, is that no one will interrupt that particular session. Of course, even an undisturbed body of water shakes, as the plates shift. A ripple. But for the most part, nothing, as usual. I needed a small fire, to chase away the chill, so I burned junk mail and a pallet. Kim is correct, I could heat my house burning pallets. Big three-week push coming up, 2 exhibits, the huge fund-raiser, so I spend the day reading about the OED. Mesmerizing story. Took 51 years and Murray didn't live to see the end of it. What an eccentric and weird group of mostly guys (at the beginning), polymaths. A lot of these guys could speak 15 or 20 languages, one James Platt, said that the first dozen tongues were difficult, but the next hundred were easy. He learned Russian in 18 days. J. R. R. Tolkien worked there, in 1919, on the letter W; his work on the word walrus is legendary in dictionary circles. Funny that he had just come up in another context. He taught Anglo-Saxon at the University of Kentucky, where Guy Davenport had him as a professor, and explained to Davenport that most of the names for characters in "Lord Of The Rings" came from Kentucky hollows. I use the OED just once or twice a week, consulting, usually, an unabridged American dictionary for my particular needs; and besides, when I dip into the OED I'm completely gone. It's the consummate dictionary. The format, the text, the quotations, it sets the bar. 'Set' is the longest single entry. It's endless, pages and pages, a year of combined effort. I keep removing myself from any kind of combined art, then find myself back in the middle again. A silence descends, palpable. B comes over for a drink. We square up the book situation, no small feat with the two of us, then talk about recent fiction. Ten books came in this weekend, and I've foolishly started a pile on the dining room table; I didn't have time to sort, then B comes in with the ten most recent issues of the London Review of Books. Printed matter, I'm sinking here. It's not a bad feeling, I love the way paper smells, but lord god, the piles are over my head. Don't panic is the mantra. Read your way out of this situation. Which I can do, give me a couple of days, my undivided attention. I'm good at hollowing a burrow, those that know me know. I lived for several months under a dead truck in Utah, don't talk to me about what could have been. Pretty sure that's pluperfect. Past Pluperfect, but none the less. I parse myself as if it might be important. It's not, of course, just a bunch of keystrokes, as if anything meant something. Read more...

Breaking News

I wanted to go bed early, I'm tired, for god's sake, but there's a pack of wild dogs chasing a coon on the ridge, and they would wake the dead. Real coon hounds, Blue-Ticks or Red-Bones bay, it's a musical experience, but a pack of wild dogs just yell. It's not pretty, and certainly not what I wanted to hear. Bear, what are we talking about? There's a final tear in a pair of Levi's and I finally throw them away. I've worn these jeans for ten years. I feel a little nostalgic. Cut me some slack. I turn the radio on, because I want to hear something other than my internal monologue, but it's a bad idea. Everything clashes, more than just noise, it's like an evil creature, rising from the void; I get to the radio, turn it off, and the silence is such a crashing nothingness that it leaves me stripped completely bare. I'm reading Basho closely. Emily. Maybe it's a stretch, but I hear a tone poem here. Something harmonic. What if you just repeated a musical phrase over and over, while words were being spoken, maybe the violin could become the dash. I spend hours thinking about that. I'm easily amused. A cheap date. Whatever. They think that dark matter is almost everything, considering the mass of the universe, and I don't doubt that, there really is a lot of space that needs to be filled. Icons, whatever, things you need to see. A splendid day reading, the history of glass, by William Ellis, then onto "The Meaning Of Everything" by Simon Winchester. I'd previously read Winchester's biography of James Murray, the father of the OED, but this book is more a history of the project. Interesting to me on several fronts, not the least of which was William Caxton's codifying of the English language. When Shakespeare was writing, when Caxton started printing, there really wasn't an English dictionary; grammar and syntax were all over the place and spelling was a nightmare. The first dictionaries were mostly simple lists of 'difficult' words, borrowed and altered from Latin or other languages. As happens, a group of philologically interested guys got together for drinks and a meal once in a while and they eventually appointed an "Unregistered Words Committee" and they birthed the OED. It's a great story, and I love dictionaries. Remarkable, when you think about it, that on this ridgetop, in Appalachian extreme rural Ohio, between B and me, we probably own a hundred dictionaries, maybe two hundred. I've built and installed stands and ensconced unabridged dictionaries in more places than I can remember. A hardware store in Duck Hill, Mississippi; a book store in Winchester, Virginia; a barn in western Colorado. I need to find a place at the pub for one. Electronically, of course, you can correct yourself instantly; but the thing about looking up a word is that you stumble across all these others words. The cascade effect. Venn projections. It's interesting, the way things interact. I once had a chunk of obsidian that was almost a cubic foot, I left it in Utah because it was too heavy to move around. I wonder why I remembered that? Oh, right, I was thinking about flaking tools, how I might take that up, as a hobby, and obsidian flashed in my mind; reading about glass today, too, and remembering a place on the outer shore of Cape Cod where a lightning bolt had turned seaweed and sand into glass. Probably apocryphal, like that story about how the French turned several square miles of the Sahara into a sheet of glass when testing their nuclear arm. Read more...

Too Many Lines

Two Miro lithographs, and a Matta, a Chilean revolutionary, came in today, as tax write-offs, and I liked them. One of them, in particular, a Miro, I found to be conspicuously vibrant. Then a note tonight, in response about color, that mentioned the sheen, when light bounces off a raven. A whirlpool of darkness that runs the spectrum. In town you catch this, late at night, a glimpse, when a streetlight or headlamps glance off the rain or a puddle, there's usually oil involved, and in the refraction there's a mind-numbing blast of purity. Straight stuff, no mediation. Color as the gods intended. Always comes from left field, unexpected, shocking even. Miro gets this, Klee does too. Much later, after the kids are asleep, thumbing through some reproductions, I'm struck with how color strikes chords of remembrance. The color of someone's eyes makes you forget everything you've ever known. Not that I'm a hopeless romantic, but you know what I mean. Tangled up in words. If all else fails, listen to Bob Dylan, change ringing, some sacred harp, then bring it back through Bach. A partita, danced trippingly on the tongue. What expresses it best. Note to self, it's never easy to get back to sleep, especially if you go outside to pee in your underwear and it's cold, come back in, get another drink and roll a cigaret, then start another paragraph. Side-tracked, going into town, as I had a huge quantity of stale crackers and the geese were on my side of the lake. Geese are not nice, every year we have a run-in, but I wanted to recycle the crackers, and I've learned how to feed them. You dump the food on the ground, fifty feet away, and sprint for the truck. Kate Gorman, who we know and love, brought her fabric art, featuring birds, in yesterday and Renee's work arrived today, so we have the upstairs show; and the first paintings arrived for the "Wet Paint" show downstairs. Both to be installed before the 11/11/11 fund-raiser, which shouldn't be a problem, except that D is out-of-pocket, pursuing his MFA. Pegi will probably let me use TR, but he's never hung a show, so I'd have to instruct him, introduce him to the D and Tom system, which involves doing Monty Python skits and shouting numbers. We're not as amusing as we imagine ourselves, but we're damned good at what we do. Breaking in a new person is a complex and lengthy negotiation. Hanging large paintings (these water paintings are amazing) requires two people, and these first four are not backed, so the canvas is extremely vulnerable. They should have some kind of archival backing, because when you actually hang a painting you have your hand on the backside, to establish attachment. Sounds like Harvey's metaphor for something hot and steamy. I just meant, never mind. I had another thought, too many lines and the result is gibberish. Too many times, man, I can't tell you. Read more...

Home Again

What's that color called, a green brown, like a cat's eye. Palomino is a breed decided solely on the basis of color. Not olive. A nut, oh, right, hazel nuts, what's the common name, filberts, I forgot how much I liked them. Like brown rice, they taste of earth. Actually green isn't in the definition, but most people think it is. Stuck in town due to heavy rain and I must have left a paragraph hanging on my computer there. Electricity had been out at my house, there was some music at the pub that I wanted to hear, and the layers of leaves on the driveway, saturated from days of rain, were slick as goose-shit. A metaphor based in fact. The winter I house-sat at Lucy's Crotch, on Cape Cod, geese over-wintered in the yard and and on the dock, I had to go the Goodwill store and buy a pair of cheap golf shoes so I could walk down to the water. Art work coming in today, from several directions, and Pegi's Cirque Halloween programs start tonight, as I write, and I needed to do some things for that. Another chaotic day, with people on the road, no receptionist, we had to eat lunch in shifts. Many times this week I've not only the only staff person at the museum, but also the receptionist; I don't mind, if I'm at the desk I read something from the library. Carma was at a library book sale the other day and picked up some nice hardbound books for me. The history of glass, the history of dust, the history of sunflowers, a book about Johnson's dictionary, and a book about the OED. I put them on the new pile, which is on top of the defunct aquarium where Samara raised her poisonous frogs. The Winter's Reading, the label would read, if there was a label. Mostly, the pile is composed of books sent to me by other people, things they think I would like and often they're correct in their judgment. I order remaindered books on any subject that is germane at the time, I never really give up a subject or an author that takes my interest, and I read fast enough that I often reread a book that I had borrowed from the library, then found at a book sale for 50 cents, and bought, so I'd have a copy. At the Reception Desk today I was reading the intro to a selection of Basho's poems, I know these poems like Linda knows Emily. I have his complete works, prose and poems; I love about him most that quality, "sabi" in Japanese, which implies contented solitariness. I'm not sure we have a word for that in English. Because we don't do that whole monk-like retreat thing anymore, almost the exact opposite; now, the deal is you become a reality TV person, game show host. Read more...

Long Day

Started raining around midnight last night and never stopped. I had no electricity when I got home, built a small fire and ate left-over chinese food. Filling, but nothing more: too sweet, over-cooked. Read a John Sandford novel and never got around to writing. In truth, I don't remember what I did yesterday. Gave Trish a tutorial on wrapping paintings. Got home, read by oil lamp and candles, went to bed early. I knew the driveway would be terrible this morning, and it was. A dozen layers of wet leaves is as slick as Mississippi gumbo. I came down in 4-wheel low, second gear, and it was one of the three or four times every year that I descend barely under control. Brought a change of clothes and my shaving kit, because if it rains all day, as predicted, I'll never get back up the hill. It does rain all day, not hard, but enough that I run the sump pump. I'm supposed to docent three art history classes through the Carter's today and I want to check some facts, so I'm at work early, reading, and I'm the only one there. Trish and her husband are off to DC, for a day of sight-seeing in the rented van, before picking up the paintings, D's at school, Pegi's at the Circus, TR is not in yet, and there is no receptionist, Marge (our Tuesday morning person) had a heart attack on Monday. Kelly calls, and she can't work the desk in the afternoons, while Bev is on vacation. Interesting, how badly things can work out. So I'm the receptionist, reading about Carter, when the deaf students arrive for their tour. Pegi comes in at the last second, takes them through The Dolls, and then TR takes them through the rest of the museum. These kids are great, except they want to touch everything, BUT they are great, their enthusiasm is contagious, Pegi and TR are both lit up. At noon, I start taking the college classes through the permanent collection. I don't use any notes because I know way too much about this particular collection and the people involved. Sara knows more than me, about this particular thing, but I really must present it well, because they gave me a card and a gift certificate at Wal-Mart. Nobody had ever done that before, what 'm used to is a pat on the back and a cup of coffee. The third tour was Margaret's best class, walking two blocks in the rain, and another class tagged along, Riders Of The Storm, so I almost had to docent in batches. But it turned it out they were actually listening, hard to believe, and I never had to repeat myself. They liked me, and maybe that's reason enough. Actually, I think I'm a pain in the ass. If anyone listened. Read more...

Late

Perplexed by a noise in the night, I get up and flip on the porch light. It's leaf-rain on the metal roof. I make a cup of coffee, sit in the dark, and enjoy the oddness of the sound. A slight scratchiness. With dawn comes the realization that I can glimpse the other side of the hollow for the first time in many months. Sunlight is actually penetrating to the forest floor. The leaf-fall has become almost constant. No birds, no squirrels, too much wind. The leaves of the Royal Pawlonia are so large they become kites. The blackberry canes, stripped leafless, look like lethal weapons. Reading Benjamin, "In the fields with which we are concerned, knowledge comes only in lightning flashes. The text is the long roll of thunder that follows." The Arcades Project is such an immense system of interconnecting caves and tunnels I don't think it can ever be fully explored. It leads you OUT, as Olson said, into all this other stuff. A synergistic thinker who could juggle twelve balls at once. Where I write, I have a window in front of me, with flanking windows on each side, a sudden and powerful gust of wind hits, flexes the house, and within the field of my vision, hundreds of leaves swirl about, all at once; the airspace is thick with them, maybe thousands, and their flat light nature has them floating for several seconds. I can juggle one ball; on a good day, two; and by the standards of my generation I'm considered a synergistic person, however self-taught and misguided. I can't read ancient Greek, for god's sake, don't speak any other language, and my math skills, on a simple level, are impressive, but when it comes to unknowns, I'm lost in the dark. I'd better save you, the wind is blowing really hard. I do hate loosing paragraphs. It goes against my essential nature. Right, you were disconnected, right then, so you couldn't hear. Listen, I've heard all these arguments before, I would choose my tree-tip pit over any habitation, I don't want to bear any responsibility for something someone does. That the dog ate your homework doesn't carry water, maybe, if you spilled bacon grease on a piece of vellum; Shackleton's men ate less, and all survived. Lost phone. Read, finally sleep to the whistling wind. Phone back, but I'll just keep writing on yesterday, it seems to want continued. Beautiful day, I take my coffee out back, sit on the porch. Benjamin again. "Method of this project: literary montage. I needn't say anything. Merely show. I shall appropriate no ingenious formulation, purloin no valuables. But the rags, the refuse --- these I will not describe but put on display." A Strasbourg piano manufacturer, Schmidt, made the first guillotine. Like that. Germane on several fronts, not the guillotine, but the quote. D and his thesis work, hovering around the question of what is a book. Reading Benjamin, The Archades Project, then the hundreds of pages of drafts and first sketches at the back, you realize this never was a book, but rather something that was put into book form years after the fact. A great job too, in my opinion. Also, that the idea of montage works for me on the Emily Project. Fortunately I had the day free, to think about those things. I do have a 3:00 call (!) to set up my medicare. Other than that, and the fact that I crave an open-face roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes on the side, I didn't have much planned. The call went well. I start receiving checks (electronically) in February, but I'm covered by Medicare as of the first of the year in Plan B. Curtis recommended that I look into coverage for the last 20%, through AARP. I just have hunker down and live a few months. I can do this, I can hunker down in a tree-root pit. I'm flexible that way. You could argue some specious bullshit, but what I notice are things that are actually happening, a certain creep of shadow, the way a highlight appears and disappears in a second. Read more...

The Wind

He dated her roommate's sister, something like that. I don't remember exactly. Relationships suck, because you eventually learn all of someone else's bad habits. Not like you don't have enough of your own. First thing you know, you're mired in a morass and there's no apparent way clear. If you live alone, the opposite is true, you have only your own sorry ass to consider. A lose, lose situation. Judging by where I find myself, pulled off the side of the road, laughing at swirling leaves, I'd guess I choose to be alone. I couldn't possibly explain my behavior otherwise. High winds all day. Take the extra trip to town, to do laundry, stop at the museum and eat half the monster burrito with D. No one at the laundromat but one large, old and ugly lady with the most beautiful head of silver/gray hair that I've ever seen. I do one double-load of laundry every two weeks, two dryers, comes to $4.50, $117 dollars a year. Mid winter, I wash socks and underwear by hand, hang them around, I need the moisture. I like going to the laundromat, it's a different slice of America, those of us too poor to own the equipage, or without running water, or, sometimes just the homeless, looking for a place to nap. Return to the museum, to harass D and see what he's doing, design wise, for the wine-tasting mailing. I need to go to my bank, hit the ATM for cash to buy liquor and food, give the high sign to D that we should go outside and have a smoke, because my bank is out the back door and across the street, and I see something, it looks like a flattened dollar bill, out in the road. Walk over and pick it up, it's a banded $100 batch of five dollar bills. I don't have to go to the bank after all. Finding a hundred dollars in the middle of the road is a time-saving device. We actually found a couple of more fives, plastered to the asphalt further down, lunch money. I had a beer at lunch, because I was not working, and if I understand the letter of the law, it's OK for me to drink a beer, one fucking beer, if I'm not working. What you don't know. I labor over this, what happens, what she said he said what happened, cut to the camera, and it's already too late. You can't catch up with reality. Read more...

Leaf Fall

Started raining on the drive home yesterday. Not much to speak of, but enough to trigger the release of millions of leaves. I understand the mechanism, I've looked at it closely, the way the nodule, where the leaf stem emerges, scabs over and the leaf itself, no longer contributing anything positive, is left hanging by a thread. Usually blown off by a high wind, but the weight of water will do the trick. I get to Mackletree, stop at the lake, it's mine again. no one around, park in the empty lot. I like to sit on one of the tables, the SE one, and put my feet on the bench, roll a smoke, and watch the patter of the rain on the water. It's neither hot nor cold, I'm wearing a long sleeved shirt, with the cuffs rolled up to my elbows. These Park Service shelters are just roofs, flown over masonry corners, handsome things, slightly oriental. Sitting under my preferred shelter, at my preferred table, smoking, the world seems aligned, I'm not getting wet and I can watch the water. I spend a fair amount of time just watching things. It's amazing what you learn if you just look at things closely. I was thinking about displacement, watching the drops of rain crater the water's surface, how quickly, we're dealing with liquids here, everything wants to flow back to the same level. Maxwell's secret hammer. Then you have to drive through the forest, and the leaves, you can't imagine, they dance around you like a sixties musical, there are times I have to stop the truck, there are so many leaves. Off the record, this is a record, the most leaves ever in a single day. Enough to drive you crazy. On Mackletree, that last leg in, the pools of leaves were killing me. I had to stop and laugh. Maybe you have to live in the middle of a state forest to get the joke: the leaves, like snow, completely obscure the road. I try to calculate their number, the number of leaves per square foot and the number of square feet. Lost in calculation. Couldn't stay awake last night, so I'll continue. D was at the museum, took a break from graphic design and we roughed out a calendar for the next four weeks. A lot going on. Some sort of friction I'm trying to iron out. D and I have always picked up and delivered the art, unless it was being done by professional shippers, and suddenly Pegi and Trish are making arrangements. Not a good thing, because Trish and her husband Doug don't know how to wrap and handle art, I don't trust them with it. First day of big fall winds, so many leaves, even in town, great leaf-devils swirling in the streets. The flag, atop the Masonic Building, was flapping off rounds all day. Sounded like a young war, as my Aunt Sadie used to say. We get the models crated, from the steamboat show, I haul garbage, gather the stuff that can be recycled. Looking forward to the drive home. What the State Forest will look like. It changes every day now, with a suddenness that is striking. One day you know where you are, the next, the path is completely obscured. And the driveway, lord have mercy, is only identified as a logging road by the nature of the undergrowth. Everything is covered in multiple layers of leaves. Traction isn't great on wet leaves; a lot like goose shit, about which I have some experience. Talk about slippery. I never fell on my ass so many times, house sitting, at Lucy's Crotch, an odd bend of bay into a brackish lake; I enjoyed my winter there, for the first time experiencing long periods of solitude. The outer beach, at Wellfleet, midwinter, you could damn well be alone. The whole point, at the time (always, maybe) was to be with other people, specifically to not be alone. To my credit, I saw this early on, I enjoyed being left alone. I could try and process the information. But I needed large chucks of time, a block, at least, per paragraph. There's a formula for that, an algorithm. Like there is probably for the chances of any given pile of books falling over. Late at night, one too many, you might nudge a pile, it happens. I usually just go to bed, resolve to clean things in the morning, but sometimes I turn on the radio, crash out on the sofa, and just listen. It ain't me but it comes from a similar place, another space. Wait, are we saying something here? My Emily, and your Emily are not exactly the same. No one's anyone is. Exactly. Read more...

Everything Fades

Over time even stone heads become amorphous lumps. Things weather. Cute creases become permanent indicators that you're not quite so young anymore. Almost a smile on your lips, but not quite. Maybe a certain bitterness. You didn't win a Noble Prize, or even a grant, to see you through. Explosive denial. We've seen this before. What was that class? "Stress Failure Analysis", certain bridges. Specific failures. I can't even go there, anymore, I can't even use a ladder, my fear of heights. But stress is the issue, right? I conducted a survey, off the books, a private project, concerning fear of certain things, anxiety; and found that all of us are anxious, all of the time. What does that say? I need some time to think. Slept late, still made it to work on time, but couldn't dawdle, as is my want. Slow day, like wading through molasses, read introductions to various editions of Emily. Thicker vinyl from the new signage guy, and the adhesive has to be sanded off the wall, one coat of paint won't cover it; but it is thicker, so the vinyl itself comes off more easily. TR, like Bev, can get the letters off with his fingernails, I have to use a knife, to get them started, because my nails are so fucked up from the alopecia. It's a secondary effect that renders the nails almost useless as tools, although I could probably kill someone with my thumbnails. The good news is I've had this condition for 30 years, and it doesn't affect your health. Purely cosmetic. Be torture for some people, but doesn't bother me. Wanted to stay for a beer and pretzel, but I could see rain, off to the west, my windshield wipers don't always work, and I wanted to get home to an open face roast beef sandwich with gravy, mashed potatoes on the side. Seriously, instant mashed potatoes have changed my life. I fully intend to gain some weight this winter, I don't have any body fat, no reserves, and I think I need to gain maybe 15 pounds. I'm too skinny, but I get tired of chewing, and skip meals if I'm reading a book that captures my imagination. Reading is my vice, I'll read for eight or ten hours at a time, short breaks for pissing and eating, but completely focused on what was the issue, the various fictional devices all in play. What you thought you might have imagined. Too bad only Glenn gets that. A monkey comes into a bar. Read more...

White Noise

It's the rain, of course, hammering the metal roof. Been going on for hours. Staccato beat like a Jamaican band beating out odd times on steel drums, really odd, 22/24, like that. Something Irish about it. Long phrases and the occasional off-beat splat that makes a point. I can ignore almost anything, given my lair, a soft bed of dust bunnies, but something takes my attention. That beat reminds me of something. Not related. Apparently unrelated, but obviously connected if one thing connects me with another. It's an old Skip James blues number, something about his guitar playing, and a piece of Barnhart's percussion music. The steamboat show is down, the gallery patched, repaired and painted. I love the casualness with which TR and I took the Carter painting off the wall and put it in the vault. An iconic Carter, probably worth $100,000 or more. I was the docent of choice for several art history classes today, and three more next Wednesday, with a focus on the Carters. Might interfere with installing "Birds Of A Feather" but if it's a problem I can always work that Monday to make up for missing a day to docenting, and I do want to do that. Other than Sara, I've become the Carter go-to person. Maybe this winter I'll read Mary's letters, she pretty much ran the Carter operation, and we have thousands of the letters. I like virginizing a gallery, then there's the next show. The space is ready, on close inspection, not really virgin. Virgin-like. Galleries take some hard love, sometimes installing a show is brutal, hammer drills on ladders, lead anchors, lag bolts; but if you have to install a 500 pound butterfly, built from junk (my kind of gal) you have to trust the hanging system a bit more than you might for a painting that weighs five pounds. Five hundred pound gorilla in your driveway. Come on, I can't believe you didn't at least didn't flinch. Read more...

Distracted

Coming back home, up the creek, the light is amazing; you can't see anything, really, stuck with a bunch of haloes and auroras. The period of these events is quite short. I stopped at the first ford to roll a cigaret, I couldn't see to drive, and scant minutes later, the road was clear. This time of year, the angle and direction of the driveway, the time of day, everything needs be considered. I constantly adjust my visor, still, what I mostly see is just the light, not the thing that is being lit. Yesterday, driving in, I was completely blinded by the afternoon sun, I had to drive by feel. Yes, my tires are in the ruts, yes I feel safe enough, god forbid a pedestrian. What I mean. I have to drive up the driveway looking down, out the window, to see that my tires are in the ruts. I want to ask some simple questions, but I can't, I'm focused so tightly there isn't room for anything else. I know we agreed to some ground-rules, I don't remember what they were. Something that had to do with whatever I was thinking about. Then today, it's the leaves, falling in patterns around isolated trees. Out here in the forest it's a staggering accumulation of organic matter, inches deep in the ruts of the driveway. On the county roads the black walnuts are a nuisance and damn messy. They oxidize rapidly, the husk does, into a black slimy mess that stains badly. Many dead squirrels in walnut heaven. One fat one (I stop and throw them off the road) was just a head-shot and he was still warm, so I took him home. Skinned and gutted the carcass, cut it into 6 pieces, soaked it in beer, dredged the pieces in a hotly seasoned flour/cornmeal mix and browned them, then into a pan with enough chicken stock to cover. Made simple flour and water dumplings, with some of the same rub, rolled the dough out and cut them quite small. I like small dumplings, I don't like to wrestle with them. I think I first had this meal in Water Valley, Missip, in the late 50's. I tinker with it, but squirrel (a young squirrel) and dumplings, with mashed potatoes, is a great meal. It's hard to mess up, the dredging becomes the thickening agent and dumplings are always a treat. You have to eat the squirrel with your fingers because you're not used to the bone configuration. Maybe you don't but I do. I imagine there are French or Italian country folk that could debone a squirrel in just a couple of minutes, leave you with just a pile of meat, and a thickened gravy, rife with dumplings, mashed potatoes to soak up the overflow. God spare me, that I should be locked into this ring of hell. I like bull-shitting, I'm good at it. There are times my closest friend might blanche. Hey, what are you saying? Look back over the data, it's all there. I have to go to bed, you figure it out. Read more...

Emily Project

I don't know how real directors do this, but I mostly walk around, trying to pick up her voice. Then, mid-afternoon Linda calls and we talk logistics for getting her here, so she can talk with TR, she agrees to send some recordings; maybe can get down and over for a meeting in November, fly in, fly out, a day the museum is closed, so we can wheel the baby grand into the main gallery and plink a bit. I've thought a lot about music as punctuation, don't get me started. A sequence of preludes that hover around the same note, that we might hear while Emily is baking bread. I want an oven that works, I want the smell of baking bread, make it as real as possible. Tangible Emily, something I could actually sense. Then Samara called. Good conversation. Grazed at dinner, olives and cheese and roast beef roll-ups, drifted off into speculation, never could get back into what I was writing. Rare, but hearing from most of the people I love within a few hours sidetracked me. Memories rise to the surface and I cherish them. Not a word I ever use. Do, in fact, hold to my heart. It's beautiful outside, the color is intense, the sassafras especially, a kind of electric iodine thing going on. Acorns falling on the wood-shed are like gunshots. I needed to go to town, for liquor and drinking water, so I stopped at the museum and washed my hair. Hot running water is a great concept. Ran my errands, came back to the museum, to pick up my stuff, and watched an episode of "The Glades" on Hulu. TV is an interesting medium, how it attempts to stand in for the natural world. I like this show, because I'm familiar with the habitat and they capture it rather well, but most of the stuff is crap. Almost everything is crap. Breaking celebrity news. I have a network of informants, who turn me on to a book I need to read, they send me postcards; I usually order the book under a fictitious name, a bibliophile that I think I created with no other interest involved, other than imaging. I liked what I imagined he could do, is that conditional, or no anything, he might have been holding something, it happened so fast. Read more...

Beautiful Days

Perfectly blue sky, temps running 78 - 48, lovely color. The slant light, coming through the yellows and oranges and reds is blinding. I need sunglasses. For forty years I wore photo-sensitive prescription glasses but I don't wear them anymore. The sun was so bright today though, and so slanted, that I had to stop several times because I couldn't see the road. Ran some errands, bought some things, underwear and groceries, then lunch with D, then hung around the museum. Listened to part of a long change-ringing piece. Change-ringing is a peculiarly British method of ringing nine bells, a full set (all tuned differently), in strict mathematical progressions. I like it, it's Bach-like. Found a sample of Double-Round-Bobs online, a piece featured famously in Dorothy Sayers great "The Nine Tailors". Realize I have a box of books from my stay in Winchester, Virginia, that I hadn't opened since then, and several missing books might well be in that box. I'll dig it out tomorrow, I know right where it is. Change-ringing would be a great setting for Emily, but I have to allow TR to discover that. The combined arts are a bitch in that regard, the interpersonal stuff; when I write, the only mediation is self-imposed. It's hard working with other people, they all have opinions. Like slogging through clay. I have to ask TR, if the hyphens can be just violin notes. I wish I knew more about music. B was over and we talked about books; we talked about Emily and music. When all is said and done, he and I think a similar language. He brings another book, a Saramago, "Cain", that I haven't read; passing books back and forth, is another language we understand, maybe half of it is sub-text, how we understand what is being said. After he leaves, the last thing we talked about, the way the natural world, if allowed, would completely consume your consciousness. Today, for example, I had no intention to walk on the bank of the Ohio, but I found myself there. Reflective, right? both the light off the water, and me, finding myself there. Not uncommon. Where I find myself is a loose assortment of various parts: at the scrap-metal yard, bickering for a piece of steel that I really don't need; poking through a pile of beached detritus, the river level is falling, can't help but notice; or making a perfect piece of toast, with butter, and peanut butter, and the last of the jalapeno jam. God Damn, it is a good piece of toast. Talk about muddle. I can't even make a list. The effect of fall, the affect, is such, with the slanting light, that I can't think straight.

Tom

Maybe it's just the added pollen. This time of year, everyone is clogged.
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Truck Talk

D knows a lot more than me about vehicles, so we talk, over morning coffee, pros and cons, this and that. He thinks I should buy a 2011 new, under full warranty, now that the 2012 trucks are already appearing. Probably over my head, more likely something a few years old with not too many miles on it and an extended warranty. Join AAA, and buy a pre-paid cell phone for trips. Get comprehensive auto insurance. Leo is on, for the brush-work and heavy lifting. I'll be able to pay off my credit card within A YEAR and have absolutely no debt; figure after that, I could live on the SS and probably save a few bucks toward a pine box. Maybe go ahead and build that, I've never built a coffin, and I could go ahead and have Booby dig the hole. You don't have to be embalmed, so the only expense would be for the medical examiner to come out and agree that I was dead. You put be in the box, lower me into the hole, and shovel on dirt. Realistically, this can be done for $250. There's no reason to pay hard earned money for frills. On a much lighter note, I realized I'd made it through this whole morass, 15 years, more broke than a church mouse, and suddenly I'm looking at new trucks. Goes to show that if you live long enough there's a chance that the great circle will roll, again, in your favor. maybe, this next time. I set subtle traps, to see if anyone knows what they're saying. Seldom any hits. But the ones that are, grant me some slack, I can see the attraction, but I can't see the advantage. One toke over the line. You can bluster all you want, but the bottom line is a simple black dress, no frills, heels you can manage. I can deal with this. it's just another installation. I have to go sleep. Fuck me nine ways from Sunday. I'm leaving something up,in the air. But I can't think of what it is. I'm tired. Nothing is too much. Fuck a bunch of small change. I have to go to bed.

Tom

Everything is relative. Hold that thought.
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Gearing Up

Steamboat show closes Saturday, the doll show comes down the end of the month. New show upstairs is "Birds Of A Feather", bird as motif, fabric art; downstairs is "Wet Paint", a painting show I've been looking forward to. Museum floor will be trashed tomorrow, as the opening of the little high school show is tonight and it's a cupcake, cookie and punch event. I managed to miss it, TR agreed to work. Not much going on for the next few days, so I got back to work on the record book for the permanent collection. The floor in the board room is done. Leo, who is sort of turning into my assistant, did a fine job. He's a fast study and bright, has a kind of hip-hop mopping style. It's not bad, for a kid with no formal training. He's strong and that gives my aging body a break. I might ask him to work for me, clearing brush a day a week for a few weeks; he needs the money, and in my new found (soon to be) cash flow, there's some slop for paying someone else to do something for me. I've rarely asked/paid anyone to do something for me. I've always done it all myself. If you don't know how to do it, you go to the library and get a book. Now you just Google, and there is the information, stacked neatly in your printer; I love it, I use it, it's amazing to me. I can ask the most esoteric questions and I get answers right away. So fucking fast it takes my breathe away. And then you do whatever it is, lay bricks, cater for 500, dig a really long trench. Three things, remember, constitute a list. Two things could be miss-taken. Consider before you commit. You might imagine I'm something I'm not, believe me, I have no control over that. I have only a little contact, but it allows me to examine my interface with the world, where I find myself. Yo, Tom, you awake? Read more...

Isolated Madness

Not so much that craziness, an act of, is separate from the great ebb and flow. Everything is pretty nuts. It's gotten to where you can't trust what you see. I don't have a TV and I don't have a cell phone, fuck, I don't have running water, so I claim a certain disposition. The Idiot Clause. Which I learned from recent presidents. You just disavow that you knew anything. Once you catch on to being stupid, it gets easier, eventually you can be as dumb as anyone else. Clearly I'm disturbed by something, I couldn't say what it was, directly, I don't even know. I only know that I'm pissed and that it bleeds into my operating systems, corrupts files, makes false claims. Very nice visit at the Social Security Administration, only had to wait for one person and then the guy there was nice, helpful, and amazed to meet someone who loved their job. Seems I can start drawing checks after the first of the year with no penalty against what I earn at the museum. Good news, as I means I can afford to get a truck that'll get me to Florida, and upgrade this old Dell which is certainly on its last legs. Nearly half of my gross income for 13 years in child support payments, and I've been broke that entire time; now I can finally get some new underwear and socks. Exciting prospects. Treat myself to a day a month at a motel, so I could shower and watch a movie on TV, sleep between clean sheets. For reasons unknown, I usually sleep on top of the bedclothes, which include a quilt and a down comforter (harkens back to the feather-bed) with just an old army blanket. In winter I wear more clothes to bed. Sometimes it's pretty funny, the outfits I come up with. You live by yourself, and it doesn't matter so much, what you look like around the house. Sometimes even when you go out in public; last week, when I was doing the laundry, I was wearing a paint-spattered pair of Dockers, with an actual frayed piece of rope as a belt. I wear jeans most of the time, and I have a wide leather belt I wear with them; it doesn't fit Dockers; and I used to have a narrow belt, I used in these situations, but it died, somehow, and I didn't have a way to hold my pants up, found a piece of rope and tied a perfect square knot: a handsome solution. I thought I looked good, you know? It was somewhere in Utah, I can tell from the light, late afternoon, mid-summer, an old photograph of me scrambling on some scree. Hey. Pot calling the kettle black. It seems pretty obscure, I know, but if I ever admitted anything, I'd invite a flow. Just as happy things present themselves. Babies and such. Old photographs. Life, such as it is, not as it was imagined. I don't mean that in a negative way. When I look around, the tottering piles of books, an accumulation of trilobites, dust bunnies, it feels alright. What single thing could have been otherwise? How would that have changed anything? You can play that game forever. After work I go for a draft and one of those hot pretzels at the pub with TR. We talk about phrase and measure. To be very precise with Emily, musically, what you'd want to do is establish the dash, something with the violin, a note that might be drawn out. Mac, of course, would be a great voice-over. I like her, fiddling with papers, then a minute of pure music, then her responding to that. Just imagining. There is no truth to the rumor that I was a cheerleader in 1964; I could have been, but I got cold feet. Would it look OK on my resume? Fuck a bunch of small town crap, I don't have time for it. I was thinking about something, what was it? I can't remember. Read more...

Steamboat Pictures

Nothing I'd enjoy more, someone was saying, about plying the Ohio in a sternwheeler. Right, sure, I replied, quoting the statistics for deaths per hundred thousand. A dream in which I'm riding a unicycle from Portsmouth, Ohio, to Seattle. Something wakes me, a noise. I have to pee, my mouth is dry, I must have been snoring. I drink some orange/pineapple juice and it fairly explodes. Simple pleasures. A break, sometime this past week, getting off my feet, thumbing through a book on Caravaggio. Michelangelo Caravaggio. So many of his paintings exist only as copies that you wonder if there might not be a conspiracy. The Emily Project, listen, I swear, I've heard Skip Fox read, and Stephen Ellis, I know the power of the spoken word. All the accumulated strength comes to bear. There's a coon on the compost pile, nothing unusual, never mind. Channeling Harvey. The noise that broke me from the loop was just a racoon, cleaning bones. As is so often, nothing makes any sense. Hooters is suing Twin Peaks for copyright violation. I don't have to make this up, Clay thinks we should stay abreast of the situation. I'm often happy if I can just roll a cigaret, the various complexities. If I stay drunk I won't have a hangover. Grinding my teeth, something must be bothering me, but I can't think what it is. The last hour, on Friday, the boiler guy came by, and we talked about routine procedure, then the plumber came by, to check the sump pump, and, finally, Sharee and April arrived with the art work for the student installation. Trying to wrap my head around everything, I was standing in the common room staring at the calendar, wondering when what needed to be done, and I realized there were several days when I was the only staff person that was going to be at the museum. Anthony had mentioned an installation we had talked about, I don't remember the conversation, really, something about foam blocks and spray glue, and Bev calls from the reception desk, some wine had arrived, Fed-Ex, for the big fund-raiser next month. I go down and get it, to store in the vault, which is a perfect wine-cellar, and I always open the case, to see what Dr. White has deemed a good wine at a decent price, and this time I agree, a Shiraz from Australia with a deep enough color that the light barely shines through. My kind of girl, I'm humming, because I'll probably be pouring glasses of this at the event, and I slip into the future pluperfect, imagining what I'll be wearing, new black jeans and a sports coat over my best denim shirt, swirling a sample of the wine, examining the legs. Talking wine-speak. I can do this because I'm a bull-shit artist and I've been around the block. It doesn't take a genius to speak the speech. I was giving D a hard time about his 'terminal' degree, because he had been giving Justin a hard time about his hair. I enjoy irony as much as the next guy. Justin is a hair guy, a mop of sandy blond that cascades off his head. I like it, becomes him, but D is a graphic designer and wants to order things. There's a subtext. I'm officially not working, therefore I can have a beer at lunch, and I think D is jealous. When I grunt approval of the new Octoberfest on draft, he rolls his eyes. Short sentences have their place, you notice that? Justin is an innocent, not in most senses, but in the sense I mean, that he has yet to have experienced that larger world out there. He's cool, a good guitar player, and he has a great voice. D is a little hard on him, but D comes from a hard place, I tend to soften the blows. Barb, the owner, is laughing so hard she has to lean on a table. It's funny, isn't it? the way humor is extracted. Sometimes, in the throes of trying to roll a cigaret, I wonder what you expect of me. Something came up today, yesterday, whenever; and I was right back on that same piece of track. What does any of it mean? That I can drink a beer. Read more...

Confused

Sent a posting out of order, from Friday or Saturday I think. Consider it a flashback. Good hung up, somehow, in the Send mode. Finished installing the high school show. Struck again with how difficult it is to hang pieces that are exactly the same size. One of the measurements comes from the floor, and floors are always uneven. I just get the centering correct and adjust the height by eye. My tolerance level is under a quarter of an inch for high school art, an eight of an inch anything more serious. I use broken off wooden matches in the nail holes to make very fine adjustments. At a certain level, you shoot for perfection, knowing it is impossible. TR said today, and I knew it was coming, I thought about it this past weekend, that he needs to hear Linda reciting some of Emily's poems, to find the key and the cadence. So I'll call her tomorrow, on the museum's dime, request some recitation. I don't know how to handle the letters yet, I've been thinking about it. In two or three cases, I'm thinking a voice-over, while Emily is shuffling papers or something. Or maybe it could a guy, not unlike the janitor, walking down the aisle, passing out free beers, and reciting Higginson's letter to his wife after his first visit with Emily. A great letter, it could provide a spring- board into the second half of the program. TR needs to shift into a looser mode. I see this as a jazz riff, not a classical composition. Notes struck where the hyphens appear. I could do this, if I knew a goddamn thing about music, with two tin cans and a stick. Emily goes African, or Emily goes Asian, or she sticks close to home, and reports the world according to Calvin. That fucking door is so peppered with holes it's like an entry into another dimension. Doing a double back-spring off the three meter board, I can dive with the best of them. I could, I'm very good at this. But is it even relevant? If my ex-wife fucked everyone she could, it's still a finite number. What I'm looking for, is an algorithm, something that would allow some insight, Everything is suspect. What I tend to believe. Read more...

Ground Rules

Not so much the rain, as the wind on the water. Pegi hired TR in the paid intern position that K had held, but made it clear that he was her hire, and therefor not just another stubborn male asshole. I can't begin to sort things out, but evidently if I need him to help with something, he has to ask Pegi first. Office politics. I read in this that I'm an important member of the team, but otherwise a pain in the ass. If I ask TR to do something, he has to ask Pegi first. I'm cool with that, chain of command. He has to take a drug test, which is ironic, as both he and D are so drug-free, so far to the right in that regard, that their urine is probably drinkable. I, on the other hand, still carry alkaloids from the sixties. They're just mushrooms, I could argue, I found them growing in my yard; when I eat them, though, I become a criminal. Go figure. I do my job, and I'm good at it, I don't need anyone prying into my private time. If they did they'd find an ugly mess, shit strewn everywhere. Doesn't mean I'm a bad person, just that if you call me after a certain time, I will probably be drinking and fail whatever test. I should be fired, really, if you take this shit as actually important. I'm always high, it's my nature, I'll eat anything and drink as a matter of course. I resent the fact that anyone would question my motive. High horse, excuse me, the nature of the beast. It's either late or early, depending on how you factor time. I make a piece of toast, no political motive, butter and jam, it's not a statement, just a snack. I'd love to quibble, but I'm busy right now. Fitful sleep, then propped, reading in bed for a while. I need coffee and booze, and that means an extra trip to town, but the museum is warm and the house is cold, it seems a fair trade. I read about Caravaggio for a couple of hours, dude lived a life, then drive slowly home, the back way, watching fall change the valley up the creek. I take the first ford, stutter back and forth, cleaning the undercarriage, stop to throw seven dead squirrels off the road. They are stupid, and frantic with the harvest. Picked up a pork tenderloin, in the remaindered meat section, for four bucks. When I get it home I cut into one inch pieces and pound them flat, marinate in a mixture of blackberry juice and balsamic vinegar. I've one serving of grits left, looking a lot like polenta. The medallions cook in probably a minute (I blotted them dry and lightly rubbed them with a dry pepper mixture), served on nuked grits with an avocado on the side. A good meal. Oh, I cooked them in butter and poured the precious pan drippings over the top. Old grits are a great medium, their ability to absorb what's going on around them. I have to finish the high school show tomorrow, check to make sure everything is running smoothly, call Ronnie to meet for a beer on Wednesday so he can meet John Hogan and set a date to play the pub, pick up a book they're holding for me at the library, and mop the floor in the kitchen, because it's really sticky. Somebody spilled something. I get most of that done and I'm good. I built a day of slop, into the schedule, because I thought I might need it. I don't, as it happens, this time, but I will continue to factor it in. Read more...

Next

I imagined a play-station where you could simply be yourself; you, on the other hand, the reader, demand a certain sense. I might mention Gertrude Stein, in passing. A cigaret in the dark, no foul. Assuming we have video cameras, who is going to watch them. Should I? Who else, than the janitor, I was afraid of this, when I first saw my name listed as 'facilities' manager. I'm no kind of manager of any sort, I merely observe things. My job is just to notice what's going on. Otherwise I'm useless. Who, other than a friend of mine, would lay a brick floor, pavers, in a woodshed? Tell all the truth, but tell it slant. The way fall light cuts through at an angle. Lighting is everything, illumination, otherwise you can't see. If you look closely, I always carry a flashlight and a magnifying glass, force of habit, you'll see what I mean. The support network required. I hate being the logistic person, because I'm so bad at it. Working alone is what I do best, working with others always involves compromise. The thing about living alone is that you don't have to compromise. No one to defer to. Any mistake is your own. I like that place, it's comfortable for me, a place I can get off my feet. I'm not as mobile now as I once was. I'd rather talk with you than anything. I didn't even shave before I went to work today, technically I really wasn't even at work, I just stopped by to help D install a show. The fact that I hadn't shaved bothered me, but it didn't bother anyone else, we're bombarded with images of guys that haven't shaved.. It's the look, get used to it. Read more...

Installation

Installing a small, mostly 3 D show in the little gallery upstairs. A challenge, because there is either too much work or the pieces are too large. We manage to cram 12 pedestals in such a manner that they don't look bad. Tuesday I need to do labels, touch-up the pedestals, and hang seven pieces on the walls. High school show, the kids that worked in the residency (all the high schools had one day with Patrick and Janet), the 'core' group, that worked an hour a day for three weeks. The project was to create a dwelling place for one of the dolls downstairs. A good project, I think, because it involves visualization, which is actually something you can learn to do, if anyone ever steers you along that particular path. Patrick is stunned when he realized I'd built this house without ever drawing a plan. I explained the lost manuscript that detailed my writing, the night before every work day, what I needed to do next. I wrote the house into existence, rather than drawing up blueprints. I don't like to draw, never bothered to learn, but I have a very good ability to visualize. We knew yesterday, when the work came in, that we could 'set' the show in half a day, and as it's an extra work day for me, I finally went and did my laundry. It had been in my truck for a week, and the cab smelled like dirty socks. The laundromat is busy, but I get the last two washers (and then the last two dryers, on a roll), find an empty seat and read this month's electrical cooperative magazine, local shit, interesting enough. Usually I run an errand while my clothes are either washing or drying, but I just sat there, watching people and reading my magazine. Invisible, almost. Not to be politically incorrect, but I did observe that 50% of the people at the laundromat were fat. The normal weight people, and the skinny ones, all come in, did their business and either talk on their cell phones or step outside for a cigaret; the fat people ALL do there business, then go next door to the Quick-Stop and get a snack. I like to have all of my socks be the same, so the pairs are easy to match up. Simplify. D and I were over at the pub for lunch, just soup because we'd eaten an enormous breakfast burrito for breakfast, I swear the ladies at Market Street are trying to kill us: this has become, over the last couple of years, the greatest breakfast burrito ever. And it's unique, they only prepare it for us, and it's cheap, they only charge us four bucks for the whole thing, a meal for two. I'm a cheap date, what can I say? There's a new Da Vinci, you read about that? A sketch on vellum. Because we have other portraits, we know the sitter is Bianca Sforza, Ludovico's daughter, the vellum dates correctly. It might be the real thing But it also might be a forgery. I follow this story closely. Matching up tense is a pain in the ass, maybe that's why there are so many commas. Or maybe, the truth is, the nature of reality is strange. One thing doesn't necessarily spawn another. I'm fine with that. Grits, with a yolky egg on top. Read more...

Another Thing

Rain, again. Staccato hammering on the roof. It could well drive you crazy. The last hour of work yesterday, a boiler plate week. I haven't shaved for days, which is odd for me, and I'm curious, if it means anything, that I sacrifice personal appearance for the greater good. Marx, or Freud, or Calvin, coming to bear; any drug I could use to assuage the darkness. I'm poised on the edge of telling, I've walked this scree slope so many times, I know the way rocks turn under my feet. I'm used to losing ground. No pretense, just a rhythm, piano as percussion in the lower registers. The violin mimics a human voice. I'm off to the side, watching the cheerleaders, I love their outfits, that bend of bay, but I'm not foolish enough to believe. Christ, that would require another level, and I'm already confused. Nine ways from Sunday. Whatever that means. I have an outfit prepared, in the wings, someone I could become, and it's not even a false identity, merely an aspect of yourself you hadn't seen before, like turning On The Road into a movie. It could be done, I suppose, but I wonder how accurate it might be. Translation is an issue. Look to the sub-text, see what's trying to be said. It's easy for me, an outsider, to say a comma might be placed there; it's more difficult, for you, as a reader. I pretend nothing but a certain slant of light. It's fall, come on, dance the leaves and swirl the light. Read more...