Research

More drawers, more letters, all day. Time flew by. Little pieces of the puzzle. One more day, for now, but I could spend a year, the amount of material is staggering. D went with me for a beer at the pub after work, and B came in, we gave him the stool between us, but he really just wanted to engage D about his thesis, and I mostly just listened. I think what they're talking about is that an audio or electronic piece of text is not the same as a physical book. Pretty sure I can tell an actual book from an imitation. B argues that the imitation was already codified as a book, the instant it appeared, because there was a history of book-ness, what might just be misleading facts are extraneous matter. It's difficult for me to think that many moves ahead. The Redbuds are incredible this year, B says the most he's ever seen, some back roads are lined with them, and now the Shad is blooming, the whitest of white. The ridge-tops are greening. Loveliness all around. Harvested five gallons of rain water, but it'll have to be strained though old clean tee-shirt before I can even use it for wash. So much shit in the air. The trees and bushes are all drinking now, so not much goes down the driveway; which was fine, for me to get out early and shave at the museum with hot running water. D arrived, we did the Saturday coffee and burrito run to Market Street. D is doing a great piece of programing that will dramatically improve the bookkeeping end of a large juried show, and the printing of labels. These have always been sore points. D and TR yelled back and forth all day yesterday. I retreated to my hermetic cell, read letters and looked at pictures. Sara called, while D was at the printers (making sure some letterhead was done correctly), and I shared my enthusiasm for doing this kind of research. The time signature is off here. I wrote twice, recently in one long night, the second posting, technically is dated the next morning, which is true, but it was within the same writing period as the post from the night before. Then I had just started a paragraph, last night, the first part of this, and B came over for a drink, and we ended up talking for a while. After he left I got another drink and rolled a smoke. Thought about mortality, dementia, and why we all end up dying. It wasn't particularly bleak. The physical self wears out. What's to be expected. I hope I'm making sense here. It makes at least a kind of sense to me. And that's enough, kind of, because there is no definitive answer, ever, to any question. The nature of inquiry. Hey, wow, that's cool, you nailed uncertainty, the way there isn't enough information, the way I want more information, not sure there's a solution. I'll have my people get in touch with your people. Read more...

Learning English

Pegi asked me to proof-read a grant proposal, I marked a couple of places where the grammar was incorrect and changed a word that was awkward. Later, I'd come out of Sara office, like a deer in the headlamps, needing to pee and get a cup of coffee, after several hours of looking at things Carter had collected. I was distracted, in a time warp, Pegi saw me sitting on a chair in the common room, rolling a smoke, on my way outside for a break, wishing Sara and D were there, so we all could go to the alley and share a laugh, and asked me about a word. There's a playful tone to this, she punches me on the arm, and asks me about a specific usage. This happens fairly often, because I'm a word guy, and English is a deep language, with an absurd number of irregularities. I'm pretty good with it, alone with my dictionaries, two-fingering sentences late at night. It's always slow going, trying to say what you actually mean, and I'm sympathetic, more than that, I'm empathetic with the attempt to be accurate. She pronounces a word, 'wonderous', meaning 'full of wonder', and I spell out d-r-o-u-s, and cite several definitions. Dog and pony show. Trish cackles from her office that she knew I'd know it, and I'm wondering about Carter and his nude models. Over to the pub, after work, a pint, with a splash of whiskey on the side, watching sport highlights, muted, barely registering what was going on around me. Drove home the long way around, so I could drive up the creek and look at the dogwoods and redbuds. It's beautiful out there, striking, how different the landscape is with the addition of color. There's a trillium, down at the new bridal trail on Route 52, that's as large as a head of cabbage, it's almost unseemly. I have to think about that word 'bridal' for a few minutes: traces, harness, and horses. Even a bridal train makes a kind of sense, as a mare's tail. Sense is a relative term. Such that, when I see a sign that says 'Bridal Trail', I immediately think about having to clean up after the last wedding reception. Which is why my wedding was five people in a driveway in West Tisbury. I like that sentence, it might not be quite accurate, but it has a certain drive. Consonantal Drift. It's always unexpected, when I en-jamb letters in a way that becomes obvious; not meaning, so much as a time signature. I'm not sure what's being said. The way the smallest parts of language collect into words, the way we derive meaning from that. I was sitting out on the back porch watching the sun set, the light was broken into shafts by the tree-trunks, and the pollen was heavy, so the air was thick with motes swirling in convection currents. It was wondrous, as long as you could sit very still and watch the universe operate, but the minute you had to do something, get up and fry an egg, the shafted light became a distraction, an acid flash-back, and those charming motes were just another slug of snot in a couple of tissues from the box you keep close this time of year. The compost pile was ripe, because I had cleaned out the fridge, and who should appear but the vixen of my dreams, herself, fox-like in every way. Wary, with the new year, but willing to risk her appearance, for a shot at the mashed potatoes and gravy. She waited for me to roll her an apple, but I didn't have any, she, actually, was not even on my mind. Elliptical, but the point is, always have an apple at hand. Don't go there, I'm not ready to talk about vowels yet. I went inside feeling slightly guilty, and wrote you, it's what I do. Read more...

Under Load

Spent the day in 1944, reading Mary's letters. The couple did go to Virginia, several letters mailed from there, but there's hardly any mention of what they did. I haven't found and snapshots yet, plenty more to go through. If he was true to form, Carter would have painted the watercolor "Lasalle Blades" first, we know it was composed from photographs, then later have done the much larger oil "Tidewater". Both are very good. The watercolor is spectacular, Sara is having it reframed at a shop she prefers in Hilton Head. Bev called me over to the balcony rail and there was an Art History class that needed docenting. Almost had to call this post "On Viewing Cleavage" because there was so much in attendance today, flaunted in that popular style where we see the top of a sexy bra. I managed to take them through the "Outsider" show without forgetting to breathe. Then back to Mary. She's a lousy stylist, and whines, and manipulates, but I get into it because it's all completely authentic. I don't like the overuse of that word, but it applies here. These are the actual letters, mostly Mary writing to her mother, but enough other stuff to keep things interesting. I started on the chest-of-drawers that came from C's studio, and it's a dense and arcane assemblage of things. Hundreds of photographs, clippings, tickets, labels, slides (that need to be digitized), ads for various things that I assume he designed, some of the drawers are divided into separate, labeled bins. In the one labeled 'nudes', which is a treasure trove, he must have paid models so he could photograph them, I found one that is in the exact same pose as an angel watercolor he did '44. Pretty cool. I mean, I found it. If it rains before I can get out in the morning I'll probably just take the day off. My reading matter is backed-up. I've got hundreds of pages of off-prints that I need to go through, see what I need to set aside to read later; but the problem is, when I attack that pile, I end up stopping and reading everything. Everything sent to me in good faith by very bright people, I probably do need to read whatever it is. And I can get through the pile in a day, I do read fast, because some things I wouldn't finish, I'd throw them against the wall. If it doesn't rain, I might stay in town for a Blues Night at the pub. Jim slipped in next to me, at the bar at lunch, a full professor and a great blues guitarist. Anything in the key of G. Lord god, Katy latch the hatches. However you'd say that. I don't care what happens, just watch, from a certain remove. Maybe I planted the idea that he and Patty be here Friday night. He silenced me with a hand. He'd played with these guys before. Read more...

Stutter Step

Children of a lesser god. I exclude you from the list of people who need to die immediately. It's not a large list, but it's good to stay off it. Fucking whackers, out here in the country; they kill each other for the right to rip out plumbing fixtures. I'm using more semi-colons as the new decade advances. I don't think it means anything, just an area of interest in the distribution of things generally. I can stay remarkably removed from events by just nodding and turning away. I'm a master of saying something confusing, so that no one remembers what happened, a technique I learned in infancy, that stuck with me, all these years. I'm perhaps too familiar with the lowlifes of the world. Several of my friends are looking at the "three-strike rule" and being very careful about what they do. I only know one pedophile and his friends are conspiring to castrate him. They wanted me to actually perform the act, because I'd castrated so many animals in my long history of castration. Not something I'm proud of, just I did learn to use my teeth when castrating lambs alone. Sounds weird, but it isn't strange at all, when you're actually in the moment you just look at the possibilities. Look at the way plurals are formed. In English. What a mess. First thing I look for are some ground rules, even in a loony bin, where people are speaking in tongues. I always look for order, it's a habit. Despite the fact that I so rarely find it, order, in the sense that we usually define it. Lately, I have to say, I find almost every definition interesting. One thing as good as another. Lacuna. Why was that space there? What does it have to do with the moon? Sara called, we talked about the provenance of a particular painting, but I can't find a single mention of the stop, trip, lay-over, to/in Virginia. I do find several interesting things. Poses. The nudes, in the photographs, Carter was after certain lines, he asked the models for specific poses, one, I found today, is exactly reproduced in a watercolor he painted ten years later, where a leg is lifted just so. I suppose I am a critic, at this point, though I would never admit to the fact, I noticed a certain attention to detail, and it intrigued me. Why was that leg, lifted just so, important? And he was right, correct, it was. Read more...

Lost Pages

I lost a couple of pages (I almost said 'days', which, in a way they are) somewhere between writing and sending. In theory I know how to keep it from happening, but Glenn or TR or D would have to teach me a new system, because I don't technically understand anything involved. Can't even get the new printer working. Yesterday, re-hanging art work at the nursing home, was the first I'd been around dementia for an extended period of time. Ugly scene, D and I made a pack to just wander off into the mountains. Get eaten by something. It was depressing, I got a little drunk last night, thinking about it all. Justin wants to cook some more, but he's recording the big DEMO tape the next two Sundays; I might feed TR and Megan one time before then. I'm a little afraid of these Chinese frog-legs Kroger got in, but I can't not try them. They're large, radioactive large, like small fryer legs, and I bought just a single pair, to see if I got sick or anything. No reason to get caught with twelve packages of contaminated frog legs in your freezer. Saute some sliced morels in butter, lift them out with a slotted spoon (I always wanted to say that), add some garlic to the pan, cook the frog legs hot enough to kill anything obvious, then put the mushrooms on top, pour in a goodly dash of white wine, lid on the pot, let them steam for a couple more minutes; a very good, really caramelized onion, red pepper, roasted tomato, and several different chilies, reconstituted in an Irish Whiskey thing, that I served myself on a corn-meal mush, sliced and fried, was so good I nearly cried, I wonder why I do it, but dibs is its own reward. Just saying. Despite the fanfare, I usually don't think more than three moves ahead. I have friends that see the entire game before it's started. Truly, I'm blessed with friends. Read more...

Usual Patterns

Generally the end of the morel season coincides with the beginning of the snake season, but today I encountered a rattlesnake (that same yellow Timber Rattler, I'm convinced, that closed out last season) in a flush of mushrooms that I would not be denied. I went back to the house and got a couple of firecrackers. Snakes hate explosions. She went slithering away and I harvested morels for a couple of meals. A female rattlesnake, thicker and shorter than a male would be, but with a menacing look in her eye. If you've never looked a rattlesnake in the eye, you should, they're incredibly intense, or at least come across as being intense, unblinking and focused. Slant-eyed and dangerous. I love the way sumac breaks into leaf, always at the very top of last year's growth, buds up and down the stem, but the first leaves unfurl at the top, a kind of crown. A frost forecast for tonight, but I think the cold will tumble down into the bottoms. All of those houses on Mackletree will be impacted, but I doubt the temps will get below 40, up here, ensconced as I am, where the hickory and the black walnut have so far refused to bud. Not unlike Olinda, back in high school, who refused to french kiss until after the second date. Being invested takes on new meaning. I hadn't remembered I remembered her so completely. That swell of breast just below the armpits, high, firm, artificial breasts, that seem to indicate something. Not that her's were. I have to go. Read more...

Dead Printer

Linda is looking for the title of my autobiography. She thinks I'm starting to sound like Emily, which makes sense, since I've been reading Emily every day for the last year. All of the titles all cool, I especially like "Add A Colon" and "Delete A Word", both of which I can identify with. Identity would be the thing, right? for an autobiography. I think of it, when I think of it, as "Paragraphs From The Ridge" or as Glenn so succinctly labeled it, "Ridgeposts". Kind of says it all. My printer died last night and I couldn't make a copy of the post, but I could read it, on the screen, and I liked it. It took hours to write, all day, actually, and several meals. I fixed dinner, a nice cube steak with gravy on toast, but didn't eat it, because I got distracted by the word 'verge' then went for a walk in the dark with the headlamp Howard sent me. Several more morels. I already had enough for a breakfast omelet, so I broke out the dehydrator Michael (the music guy) had given me. His son swears that morels, reconstituted in cream, on pasta, is one of the great dishes, and I need to try that. Picture this homeless dude, in ballistic cloth climbing pants and a ratty tee-shirt (Stop Continental Drift) navigating the blackberry canes, moving in slow-motion. It's comical, but there are morels involved, and I'd rather look like a fool, and have them, than be all swank, starched white collar, never experience the death of a thousand cuts, and never eat one. Wild mushrooms can take you away. They do me. The only similar thing I know is wild asparagus in western Colorado. Wait. Certain forbs. Even Dandelions are better than nothing. Listen to yourself, you can hear the phrasing. Nothing if not wary. Just after the St. Paddy's Day celebration at the pub, I wasn't there, I don't do crowds, but I heard, after the fact, that I would have liked what I would have seen. Rather distant. Too conscionable, conditional, something. You and me, the sound of fifty pounds of dried corn being poured on a concrete stage, and her voice, in the background, calling me to guard. A harmonic, over the top, just the wind through the trees, but enough sound to make a difference. Not unlike color, this time of year. That soft green is not something you could fake. It either exists or it doesn't. A translucent thing, light shining through, maybe just a shadow, a hint of something. Or maybe more than that. I'm the last person to ask. Read more...

Just Saying

That whole act meant nothing. What was signified. Assume everything is pregnant with meaning. Pay attention to detail and quite quickly you're buried in a morass of data. I'd stopped at the bottom of the hill to sort mail, mostly junk, Direct TV flyers and a lovely card talking about death benefits, well designed, caught my eye. When I got up to pee, the middle of the night, overcast, not a single star, I wondered why I'm here, in this specific place, and I don't have an easy answer. Happenstance. You end up someplace. I was at the bottom of the driveway, reviewing my mail, not a care in the world. I was almost home, I had drinking water and supplies, I wasn't worried about anything, and I felt it necessary to scream. Where I live you can do that. So I yodeled at the top of my lungs and was immediately answered by a coyote just a couple of ridges over. I'm often sure I'm not making sense: just because you're facile doesn't mean you're making sense. Went back, deleted a word and added a colon, not bad for an old guy. The real world is always theater, you notice that? and some times you just have to scream. It doesn't necessarily mean something. You get the drift. Sticky spit. Simply rolling a smoke. Fuck a bunch of criticism. I took an advanced degree in Janitorial Studies because it put me in touch with the various weaknesses. You'll want to remember everything. But you can't. Not the way things are constellated. Mostly what I do is go back and take out words, maybe change a mark of punctuation. And occasionally scream. I reserve to right to scream. Too many fat people, and everybody uses too much water. You stack up words and there is apparent meaning. I get it. 'Not Nothing', for instance, might mean several different things. I can't collect rain water, this time of year, because of the sex-life of trees, stamens and pollen. That pale green almost yellow transparency of new leaves, and the drooping weight and measure of spring. I can still see the ground on the other side of the hollow, but the days are numbered. Almost April, still waiting for the hammer to fall, but the new growth is flexible, soft and pliable. Color is the name of the game, Redbud and Dogwood. the green on the margin, verging toward a rebirth of wonder; a grain of salt, in the great scheme of things, but not nothing. First morels, and I treat them as if they were solid gold, which they are, blot off any clinging leaf-matter, fry them in butter and have them on a piece of toast. You can't imagine how great this is. Having great sex and eating wild mushrooms are similar occasions. I know it's merely tannin that stains the concrete in the imprint of leaves, but it's so beautiful I'm left breathless. Maybe I have a heart condition, maybe nothing means anything, not unlike Beckett's last plays. The disembodied voice. I stop and stare, not unlike someone impaired. Green? Really? I'm not done with winter and it's already spring. I'm disappointed the slings and arrows didn't impact me more directly. I never once wore my crampons this winter. Does that mean anything? Less snow, fewer days that ice carpeted the driveway. Meaning is so nebulous. Not unlike what you thought last Thursday, when we were talking about cave art. How a reproduction could mean something. Anything, whatever. The tintinnabulation of the bells, or just a ringing in your ears. They're holding the Memory Championship as we speak, in NYC, where yesterday is the distant past, and I wonder what they'll remember: numbers in a row? given names? the order of peas in a pod? I can't keep track of the books I have opened to a specific page, much less remember, after a nap, whether it's night or day. I do know it's either Sunday or Monday and I can determine night from day by where the light comes from. Easy enough, after I drew large arrows on the floor, with key words underlined. The frogs are fucking again and I don't go out and watch, which I think is a notch on my belt, not watching being a key ingredient in my new 12 step program, the road to recovery being long and hard. Some people are just fat because they eat a lot and never use the stairs, other people develop a beer-belly, a pregnancy never realized, because they stop at the pub too often and down a few pints. I walk a middle course. I can't gain weight if I try, because there's always the driveway. Read more...

Attitude Problem

Maybe it's just me, but more and more I notice that everyone's pissed off about something most of the time. I try to keep an even keel, remind myself, constantly, that most things are ephemeral, what seems most important is usually a matter of the moment, and not a life threatening issue. We play things too close to our chest, and when events get too personal we get defensive. Probably normal, circling the wagons on high ground. Experience teaches us that usually everyone else is wrong. I don't so much have an opinion as I just want a place to plant my feet. Over the years I've discovered traction is an important aspect of reality. I don't want to fall over and look like the village idiot, so I look for a place I can plant my feet. Iron clad. At the waterline, the "Constitution" was 22 inches thick, three-inch thick Live Oak planking, inside and out, over ribs barely six inches apart. The strongest wooden boat ever. Held the high ground for a long time, until steel came into play, and your cast iron shot was ineffective. Now you blow up spent uranium, but the principle is the same, kill the defenders and take the high ground. I have a problem with bullshit, it's mostly specious. I need to get my hair cut, and bathe, for god's sake, become acceptable, but in truth, that world is not one I care about. After the monster breakfast burrito I read Mary's letters until noon, trying to find some answers for some questions Sara had asked. Being the resident reference librarian requires voluminous dull reading. Town is dead on Saturday, I don't know where all the college students go; the pub is deserted at lunch and we chat with the owner and the staff. The new hires are leery of us, because we talk and joke so easily with the owners. One of them has been calling me Sir until I stopped her today, and told her if she didn't start calling me Tom, like everybody else, that I was going to throttle her. A very good cream of broccoli soup for lunch and when we got back to the museum TR, receptionist for the afternoon, had already put away the tables and chairs from last night. We talked for awhile then re-focused some lights that had jumped. The suspended tracks vibrate a bit, with big trucks (furniture store) and the normal shakings of life. The earth does move. So the lights occasionally, if they're not tightened down quite enough, tend to jump back to either a pre-set or some previous position. Two had, and we broke out the ladder, which is a pain in the ass, and fixed those. Went next door and asked that they save us three mattress boxes, we can modify them, to ship the three large paintings in the show. Such a perfect solution, and it actually only happened because we were talking about the problem, went out back to have a smoke, and the guys next door were getting a high-end mattress out of a great box. We both, I swear, stopped and pointed. So that problem is taken care of, and it was actually right at the top of my list of problems, so I'm crisis free, at the moment, if there's something you wanted to talk about. I listen pretty well, and I cook, I have an open hour at five on Fridays, we could go out for drinks after. Like that. I don't know what anything signifies, even all these acronyms are a total mystery. I'm wondering about a phrase, planting corn, and I'm confused. Should I not sign the invoice and just be completely accurate, or should I fudge for my partner. I don't know, I'm just asking. Read more...

Forbs

You don't run across that word very often, but the public notice came out today about some controlled burns in the State Forest, and forbs were mentioned. A generic name for anything not grass that grows close to the ground; broad-leaf things, various wildflowers, especially this time of year. I support limited controlled burning, it gets rid of fuel, for a major conflagration, and the soil needs nutriment. I kill myself, sometimes, when I dance around a subject. Took off this morning to do my laundry. You and your's, you probably have running water, other things, cell phones and television. Sorry to report. I'm just known for those degrees in which I'm lacking. I do cook good ribs. But it's stupid to keep dirty laundry in your truck for a week. All of my clothes are clean but the inside of my truck smells like dirty sneakers. Big Lots, while they were in the washer, to pick up some new underwear, the elastic is wore out is several pair of mine and they bunch down, panties in a wad. I can usually find my size there, because I'm so damn skinny. Back at the laundromat, I held a baby so a young woman could fold clothes. The mom was cute and depressed, the father had run off, she was on welfare, ate on food stamps, and lived in subsidized housing. Not pleased with her life, but not seeing anyway out. Power was out at the house last night, so I read by oil lamp for a few hours and went to bed. Overcast this morning and I thought about staying home, but I wanted to be at the museum in case there needed to be an intermediary. Rain coming, so I just grabbed my shaving kit and headed out the door at first light. Layers of gray, and that tubular fog along the river, but there is green in the bottoms, and at the river's edge everything is in bloom and the grass has turned lush. D and I spend some time talking logistics, things we'll be needing for the next turnaround; study the calendar, to understand the sequence in which things need to happen. What is signified, in this pre-construction, is a desired order, the way events can be contained. Events will break down order, but as long as there's a framework, we'll muddle through. In the afternoon we set up for a concert in the main gallery, and, as D was coming back, I stayed in town. A decent crowd, the music was spirited and quite good. The wind at the leading edge of a squall line blew most of the petals off the Bradford Pear trees in town, and the streets are awash in them. Whenever a car goes by, it's followed by a rooster tail. I need to get home, before another round of rain. Read more...

Training Run

The city fire department, doing rescue training, ran lines between two bank roofs today, over the esplanade, and commenced ferrying other firemen across. Quite the lunchtime audience. It was cool. TR started preparing the physical Condition Book for the folk show, we'll start doing the actual reports tomorrow. The Art Guy came to the furniture store next door, drives a van loaded with cheap paintings and prints, must drive a fairly large circuit of furniture stores because I only see him once every few months. Tom Covert (Covert's Furniture) buys a few pieces, he knows it's crap, but it's crap he can sell at a 100% markup. Selling bad art to the aesthetically impaired. TR's mom works at our accounting firm, the other side of Covert's, and I'd seen her at lunch. I hadn't been able to get a copy of the State Guidelines for figuring my taxes. They must have a high-speed printer over there, because she went online and printed me a copy and had it to me before I could remember I'd asked her. I'll have to stay late at work one evening, and file from there. Sultry out, 90 degrees today, high humidity, a sun shower on the way home, and a great rainbow leading, roughly, to my house. Mackletree was lovely, the verges greening, the honeysuckle; the popcorn buds of sassafras starting to open, the red maple, the poplars in the bottoms. The Iris, in town, are budding. I actually have an Iris map, coded to date and color, they're so beautiful. I love the dark purple ones. Examine one closely, with a magnifying glass, and you'll be amazed. I took a group of Todd Reynolds'  painting students through the two main shows, and had fun with them, because I could, and because Todd introduced them to me as if I was a person who knew something. Which I do, I make it a point to know something about everything, or at least the things we actually install at the museum. One thing leads to another. Side-bars that only exist because I was curious. The way things are constellated: you know which direction you'll probably go, but that doesn't mean you aren't curious about what's behind those other doors. I know what it's like to be human. My older daughter reminded me last night. Maybe the night before, I lose track of time. I may well have been in a tree-tip pit, toasting the turn into spring. All we have is a blurry photograph, I wouldn't make too much of it, but he does look like me.  Read more...

Chess Moves

I had an opening gambit, but I lost it, taking a nap on the sofa. When I woke I didn't know if I was poling a flat-bottomed skiff or leading a parade. That fragmented reality that emerges from a fog. Not unlike that vague state of consciousness that always hovers at the edge of something. I blow it off and make a cup of coffee. Illiterate assholes don't interest me, following Dante's lead, I'd just give them a circle of hell. Still no morels. 80 degrees, March 19, doesn't seem right. I didn't have a fire all weekend, today I turned on a ceiling fan. A very good conversation with Samara last night, guess I'll try and get out to see them. Be nice to drive across the plains in May. Western Iowa would be lovely, then following the South Platte. Some of my favorite driving. On the other hand, I need to take a trip to Florida. Whatever, I have to be here in June, to work through the scheduling fuckups; Florida would be better in May and I could do Denver in July. Which means I have 6-8 weeks to address this vehicle issue. I don't want to address it because I don't want to go into debt, but my cash flow is pretty good right now, so I should probably go for it. I'll spend $800 this year alone, on rentals, otherwise. My truck might be worth $1000, and I've got another $1000, buried in a mason jar, and TR assures me I can borrow $6000 at a very good rate for 2 years. So I can go $8000, or maybe a little more, for a vehicle I can take on the road. It has to be 4WD and get 25 miles to the gallon. Be nice if it had a sun-roof, a CD player that worked, an emergency brake, but I don't care, really, I've done without everything and none of it has left a scar. What you perceived as ligature marks might be something else. Foreplay, or something, tangled up in blue. Read more...

Scuttle Butt

You hear things around the break room. Today it was a kind of heavy-footed silence, where Pegi and Trish wouldn't say a word around D. Which was good, I think, because I was expecting at least a low-level explosion of some kind, and bad, because there's a whole back-wash of resentment and the parties involved won't bring it out into plain sight. Maybe this is normal, maybe my experience, that's it's possible to work things out, is a false reading. The tension is palpable. I'm careful not to precipitate anything. Mediation is the golden mean. (An impossible sentence if someone didn't understand the circumstance.) As the official fly on the wall, I have to say, D and I were having a smoke, out back, and Trish came crashing through the door and didn't offer a word, went to her car, and drove off. It was fine, because there was nothing she could say. But rude, nonetheless. Peter and I fished all night for cod, that was the drill, occasionally one of us would say something about what we saw in front of us. I first made codfish cakes in his kitchen. He was the first person I ever met who owned Thoreau's Journals. We talked about the natural world. All day today I thought about Cape Cod, the people and the things that happened there. 1969-1979, the Cape was a great place to be, bright people, a stunning lack of law enforcement, and artists falling out of the woodwork. Certainly made me who I am. Long experimental conversations with Peter were an important building block; stretching then to his friends, an interesting lot, and the zany adventures. The central core of people I still know date from that time. A watershed of creativity. You had to actually watch where you stepped. The Wittgenstein Plumber was there, the best carpentry crew I've ever known 'Local Talent', Ralph, Les, and Juan of the two beauties, most of the important people in my life. Interesting, how a particular place at a particular time can become so important. I suspect, if you interviewed those still alive, they'd say that something was going on there/then. I let bygones be, but I still remember. Fritz with a pipe smoldering in his pocket, Ted shooting a picture of barnacles, Hypo Clearing Agent sweeping in late at night, typing in the dark. I'm oddly completely loose right now, I could morph myself into anything. I'm completely invisible at work, which is almost perfect. Watching the sunset, the wasps had died down and I pulled a chair out on the deck. The way the colors change. Make a note. Read more...

Friends Passing

Another good day at the museum, D and I tied up some loose ends and discussed the unease between certain parties, the I was the receptionist all afternoon, filling in for TR, off to be best man at an alcohol-free wedding. What fun. I on the other hand, had started celebrating St. Paddy's Day last night, so of course I misspelled Modigliani, and you can't imagine how dumb that really is without knowing that's there's a small print of favorite Reclining Nude push-pinned to the wall about 20 inches to my right. It's in my personal hand full of top paintings ever, I look at it all the time, sometimes with a magnifying glass; I've read extensively about him, AND I know how to spell his name. Trying to think ahead, probably, and accessed the wrong synapses. An interesting couple came into the museum this afternoon, they had previously owned a lot of the pieces in the Folk Art show, the Vogels, and the wife, Barbara, was a photographer, and she had photographed a lot of the artists, knew several of them for many years. She had stories and I had questions; I'm now, hands down, the docent for this show. Way too much information, which is the way I like it, if I have too much information I can be an interesting presenter; otherwise I'm kind of tight, working on the form of the presentation, when, in truth, a gush of verbiage, with mistakes in grammar and syntax, is more attractive to the bored college student. A person I knew well for a few years has died. I wrote about some incidents from that time in "Notes From The Cistern", he was important, in the ways he showed me how to investigate things that interested me. He taught Biology at the high school in Orleans, Cape Cod, Mass., and he was a hell of a teacher. A mutual friend called him early one morning and said that there was a Black Fish, which is a small whale, dead and beached outside Rock Harbor; and of course Peter wanted it: it was a mammal, they could dissect it in the parking lot. Which ended up involving the whole school for an entire day. We gigged eels together, night-fished for cod off the beach at night.and took some drugs that weren't illegal at the time. He built a house, just up from where I was house-sitting a house his father had built for "House And Gardens", one of those, that needed to be heated in the winter. I just had to pay the heating bill and it wasn't that much, so it was a great place to stay, and I mostly wrote and chased wild geese off the dock. I met a harbor seal that seemed to like frozen eels. At least found them interesting. A maritime popsicle that he couldn't address directly. We got to the point where he'd allow me to hold the thawing eel until he could snatch it away. After that the tape the tape goes blank. I swear I never had congress with a seal. Read more...

Animadversion

The pot calling the kettle black. Not unlike the last time someone tested my resolve. March 15 and I'm in a tee-shirt with the windows open. I started a small fire so I could fry an egg, which I had with beans on toast. I'd rescued a couple of containers of red raspberries from the trash, unopened half-pint packages, from Mexico, as it happens, and they were so good, with cream, that I swoon and remember a high-school sweetheart. Two o'clock in the morning and I have to tell you about a container of berries that I got out of the trash and ate with cream that reminded me of a girl I knew in high school. Something about that ripe raspberry smell. Some synapse that locks on a similarity. When it comes to base (bass) functions, we have very little control. Review the literature. Mongolian's  last nudes, I mean come on. He captures something there that's rarely caught, a sense of urgency and a sense of the perfect form. I look at this "Reclining Nude" from 1917, at the Met, and I'm completely blown away. It all comes together, that elongated torso, the perfect breasts tucked up under her armpits, that right thigh in our face, the split of ass. And look at her face, she knows we're looking at her, she enjoys this cat-like stretching. The middle of March and I'm waiting for the other foot to fall, six inches of wet snow, or an ice-storm, certainly flooding, probably ducks frozen in flash ice on the lake. Thunder, but it seems far away, just a reverberation I feel mostly in my feet, I can't really concern myself with everything. First off, it's too much to bear, and secondly, I don't have the time. Living is more than enough.  Imagine a meeting between Kant and Wittgenstein. What they might talk about. The nature of reality, what we might have seen, that peculiar slide into fantasy. Myself, I don't slide that often, occasionally wishing I had more wood under cover. What we might call a 'practical realist' though monikers hardly apply. What I am is simply left to the imagination. Opened early for the county high school art teachers, took then through the folk art show, then they were in the classroom all day, downstairs. TR came in for a couple of hours and we set up for lunch and music in the main galley, then he left, then Trisha left, then Peg left, and I was the only one there. I didn't feel like moving tables and chairs by myself, so I spent some time reading about Outsider Art, trying to figure out how it was different than Folk Art. One of the art teachers are also a morel enthusiast, and we compared notes on when the season would begin. We both have 'early' places and 'late' places where we find them, and he wanted to know how to dry them and reconstitute them. We compared recipes, food gatherers of any sort share manners of cooking, and the usual snake stories. Springtime in the woods around here, and you're going to have some snake stories. We should get some flooding, in the next couple of days, being a confluence and draining a large area; but flooding is not a big deal around here, because people have learned, and mostly what's flooded is bottoms, where no one would live, and you plant corn, both fertile and toxic. The road beds are boosted, though they, too, close off in a calculated sequence that drives you miles out of you way. Ride the ridge-tops and get your ass home. It not as easy as that, maybe it would be if I could let go of things, maybe you could, but I can't, this current squabble has me completely in the dark. If there is a problem and you solve the problem within five minutes, what's the problem? Control is always the issue. I can't be in a relationship right now, because I'm not willing to concede a single point. A fool, in the shadows, holding five balls aloft. I've seen all of this before, when I cleaned up after every performance, there were extra balls lying, laying everywhere, and I just brushed them into a pile, as though I would just sweep them into a pile, not anything scientific, just sweeping the corners. Read more...

Epic Day

Soon as I got in, a few minutes late, Pegi met me at the back door in panic mode. The first of five art history classes were going to be there any minute and they'd asked for me as a docent. I'm the most qualified and the college students like me. Polishing up my routine with the folk art show. It was fun, but it went on until 1:30, when I finally escaped for lunch. I wanted a beer but resisted because of museum policy, the staff applauded my efforts and told me to come back at Happy Hour. Which I did. First though, a couple of fires to put out, Pegi was upset because D had taken the projector home and we needed it the next two days in two different places, D hadn't told anyone he was taking it, and he hadn't looked at the calendar to see if we needed it. His bad, no question, but it's not a problem, D and I know Pete, the tech guy at the college,and he has about thirty of the damned things, D calls Pete, I go get one, no problem. Pete is also one of the funniest people I've ever known, which is saying a lot, and I love going over and borrowing something from him. No big deal, is what I'm saying. But Pegi rants on about needing a policy and it starts sounding like there might a dress code in the future. I don't understand the friction between Pegi and D, I understand parts of it, but the level of it has surprised me on occasion. TR and I had a punch list to do in the afternoon, for events tomorrow and Saturday and I got the list this afternoon, after I had docented five classes and had walked ten miles. I felt a little put-upon. Actually what I felt was stronger than that, but I can't possibly mediate unless I'm calm, so I take a few deep breaths, send Pegi off to her Cirque, lock up, and go over to the pub. Two or three people I know, at the bar, watching March Madness, and one of them is a, I don't know what, a construction engineer, and we got to talking about elevators; he thought the bids we'd gotten were too high, on our proposed renovation, and made a few phone calls, got a price that was 22K below our lowest of three bids. Not a bad day. Read more...

Ways and Means

It feels great to have a solidly good day. D was in, trading Wednesday for Friday, when he needs to be in Athens, and he also needed to introduce Marcella because it's his show, curatorially speaking. We set up the lunch and talk, and then she was there, so we chatted. A very good interactive talk, then questions and answers. D asked some leading questions, and another excellent photographer was there, Ali, from the college, with her students. I pointed out that in some ways the two worked a similar vein, with implied narrative. We talked about that; then the three of us had a late lunch together and talked some more. These conversations are cool, because the artist is always jazzed by talking about their own work, especially when the talk takes place in a gallery displaying their work that has been expertly handled. After she left I had to sit down for a few minutes, my feet hurt and I hadn't eaten enough, so I made a sandwich of lunch left-overs and checked the news on AOL. Then gathered D so that we might somehow wrap a $10,000 painting being shipped off to Hilton Head. We'd both thought about it and agreed in broad outline. Actually doing it is the trenches. D has some good ideas, I wanted some protection for the sides of the painting (it's not framed) and we cut out some sides, from a double strength mattress box, and he hinged them in place as if they were a book. I actually had a strategy, that might have been simpler, but it was nowhere near as elegant. Binding a painting like it was a book. I mean really, who would think of that? Not a single noun, a few verbs, we're still sorting, a fair number of adjectives but not a single adverb. I'm not sure if that means anything. Sometimes I feel like I'm creating a narrative by what I leave out. Anyone knows more than me. I thought, foolishly, it was full accounting., of course you have video, I wouldn't expect less of you. I can explain everything. A few things any way. What I might have meant. Read more...

Household Chores

I have to go do the laundry tomorrow, my house and my office both smell like dirty socks; it's good for cutting down on mundane chat, but enough is enough. I took a bath, five gallons of water in the sheep watering trough, but had the thought it was time to rent a motel room, take a long soaking bath, and watch a movie on cable. I should do this every few months, whether I need it or not. A significant component of dust is pulverized dry bug parts. And you shed, sloughing off dry skin and hair. I cleaned a few corners today, they were nasty. A closed environment, heating and cooking with wood, by the time spring rolls around, it's a mess. The wind is up and there's a waning moon. Before dark I was looking out across the hollow, that blush of maples, but there was also a hint of green, the briars and honeysuckle, and on certain slopes, where the under-story was clear, wild rhododendron. A mild winter makes it seem easy. The physical aspects of it. Mentally you have to do that whole death and rebirth thing: I was frozen, but now I'm thawed. Come out of hibernation. We shut down, when it's very cold; then, March and April, we get feeling back in our fingers and toes. Overlapping waves of wind dry the driveway. I don't know enough about wind. Where does it come from? Does it mean something? About a thousand ways to say that. Of course it means something, anything that happens does. A west wind or a north wind, air, falling into a pattern; there's an algorithm, the roaring forties, wind like a matron, sweeping through the hollows. A little late getting to work, because I don't have the light figured out yet. The kitchen was well and truly trashed. TR had a school group, but when he was done we tackled the trash. It was funny to hear him rant about the state of the garbage, a rant I've been on many times myself. People use no sense, after an event like this. One 55 gallon liner, leaking, with over 150 pounds of bottles and broken glass, the two big trash cans, that take the 55 gallon liners, were too heavy to lift. Two truck loads to the dumpster, trailing garbage juice everywhere. A very unpleasant task. TR was appalled. We didn't get any on us. Afterward I mopped and bleached, and except for the fact that all the decorations from the party are stowed in the kitchen, things are back up and running. Not acceptable for all that stuff to still be in the kitchen. There's a noon Smart Talk tomorrow, the woman photographer upstairs, and I'm interested in pursuing the idea that photographs can carry narrative. They usually serve a simple lunch with these things, but even a simple lunch requires some prep space. Shit-out-of-luck, is what I'd call it, every flat surface is covered with the remains of a party. In one regard, it wasn't so bad, I ate a lot of jelly beans and Skittles; in another I'm pissed that things have gone so wrong. What I want to do is sweep the remains of the party into a dumpster. Be done with it. Lots of beer, lots of cake and candy; from the signage, I'd say twin sisters turned thirty. Fuck the need for parties. I don't even believe in parties, I almost always celebrate alone. Read more...

Night Soungs

Could have been coyotes or just a pack of feral canids, but they were hard on the trail of something; then a train across the river. There's a limestone escarpment and several million years of scree that forms a floodplain south of me, in Kentucky, maybe four miles as the crow flies. There's a grassy verge, coming off the slope, then the river-road, then the railroad tracks, built on a sturdy dike, then a strip of land that varies in width from almost nothing to a quarter-mile or more of river silt; farmland and foolish towns that demand protection against flooding from the Army Corp of Engineers. When the leaves are off the trees, the whole huge space becomes a sounding board, and if it's still, I can hear the trains quite clearly. Mostly coal, going to the power plants that dot the river. On the Vineyard, though we were several miles from the harbor, wintertime, we could hear foghorns and the late ferry. The occasion of sound when it had been previously quiet. An intrusion, of sorts. Something that wakes me, or stirs me from a reverie. I go ahead and get up, make a double espresso, change from sweats to Carhartt bibs, I need to see where the sun is, after this change in time. My clock is where the sun strikes the wall across from my bed. It's a crude system, but I like it's inaccuracies, the nuance of light. From old habit I'm usually early anyway. And always carry a book. It's hard to be bored with Derrida in your pocket, mulling over a particular sentence, wondering what the translator meant by a specific comma. I read back over myself, looking for the thread. It's usually fairly obvious, what concerned me at the moment. I strive for transparency. I have a note to that effect, posted on the wall in front of me. Strive for transparency. A mantra that no longer makes any sense. Sense is such a relative thing. Sleep again, then waking up without a clue what time, or even what day it is; another big breakfast, eggs on toast with green chili salsa, then outside to split some wood. Another nap, another meal, and I managed to confuse myself into another time zone. Besides, Daylight Savings Time means I can have a beer at the pub and still get home before dark. And it's warmer, too warm, actually, and I don't have a fire all day. I have to remember to go to the basement of the library to get tax forms and booklets. A few hundred bucks there, and D agreed to go over to the retirement home with me on Friday and hang their six pieces for $175, which we will split down the middle. Should take us an hour. I sense a really good zinfandel in my future. Pegi asked me to make a pate, for the "Cream Of The Crop" opening in June, and I'm hesitant, because of the timing, it's a big show to sort and install, but a pate would be better if I made it a week ahead, so I agree. More than happy to use someone else's money to fix something I like. I started thinking about a very good pate and what I'd need. Some of that 'bitter pepper' from Turkey, or some turmeric as an anti-oxidant. Believe me when I say I have friends in strange places. I could probably call you on your private line, the number wasn't that hard to find, we're so vain.   Read more...

Later

I remember, like it was yesterday, an afternoon in Colorado. Just another severe clear day, but suddenly there was a rumbling, then a gush of dirty water over the canyon wall. Walking that country, you could clearly see where water would drain, if there was any, the mini-drainages of a mesa top. Everything sculpted in sandstone. An isolated thunderstorm, miles away, had produced a river that lasted maybe 15 minutes. A personal waterfall with no time to share. I hadn't studied this particular watershed, and thought it was a million years old, and it suddenly became active. Pull up a chair and roll a smoke. As a matter of course, you never build in an out-wash channel. The water flowed long enough to become clear, a prismatic event. And then it was gone, like it never was. The next day I walked the entire affected area, the bunch grass was all laid flat, in the direction of flow, everything was visible. I shot some elevations, with a transit, made some notes, at one point, the napp, coming off the canyon wall, was 16 inches deep and 5 feet wide. There was an actual spout, where it fed into the creek. It's so cool I almost cry. I haven't cried since my cat died in 1978, so that's a big deal, emotion, or the lack of. Pick the areas where you might want to fight, choose the high ground and entrench, attack when it's least expected, I've read "The Art Of War", and several other books as well, and what I learned is that the best offense is a good defense, trap anyone whenever you can. Later, when they demand your identity, you can disavow any knowledge. Read more...

Another Reception

I hadn't realized a note penciled in on the calendar was such a big deal, but there's a group in most of the day, decorating and setting up for a party of some kind. Another fancy beer and candy party. You see all kinds, so this one doesn't surprise me, but the combination of light beer and jelly beans, funny hats and kazoos set just so at every place there was a chair, actually turns my stomach. What people do for entertainment. Because I have a vivid imagination, it's not impossible for me to imagine myself wearing a cone-shaped foil hat, blowing a kazoo, but it does stretch the limits. I don't dance, but I lived with dancers for years, and in my experience, they were odd about their bodies and always counted time. I'm odd about enough things that I can identify with that. What might be important. The moon is far away, therefor smaller, but I have this bag of Brussels Sprouts that Janis's husband brought by. They'd gotten so expensive, recently, that I hadn't bought any, but suddenly I had a large bag of them. Two dishes I had in mind right away, I don't remember where they came from: hearts cut in half, braised in butter; and an odd dish I do where you break the hearts apart, and serve the baby cabbage leaves on pasta. Tuscany. White beans and kale. I have to go. Remember whatever it was. Got back to sleep, then up early enough to get to the museum in time to wash my hair and shave. D arrives, and after the monster breakfast burrito, he starts eliminating Girl Scout stuff and we install a scaled back version that actually looks pretty good. I'm able to run some errands and still leave at four. The new Jim Harrison at the library, which means tomorrow will be a sofa day. Supposed to be warm tomorrow, so maybe I can get enough wood split for next weekend as I ask TR and Megan (I don't know she spells it) out for an early dinner. An excuse to cook. A nice large sirloin steak remaindered at Kroger that I'm marinating overnight and will grill tomorrow for two days of meat and potatoes (and Brussels Sprouts) meals. Back on the ridge well before dark and the red maples are budding out in full force. The other side of the hollow is crimson in the late afternoon sun. The poplar buds are ready to explode. The chestnut oaks have a complete set of back-up buds, which is a great survival characteristic, and why the oaks have been around so long. For a couple of glaciations, they've retreated south, then swept back north. I had to go back outside and run off a couple of crows that were driving me crazy. Sometimes I love their raucous squawk but other times it gets to me. Mad Tom's Castle, I can run off the goddamn birds if I want to. I'm roasting a batch of the sprouts right now, halved, rolled gently in olive oil that I'd infused with onion and garlic. It smells good, if you like that slightly sulfurous smell of the cabbage family. We ate a lot of cabbage and potatoes when I was a kid, and after just a decade of denial, I went right back to them; the decade of denial was spent eating scavenged shellfish with watercress salads and wild asparagus. I still like all of those things, and the list grows into a life-style. First thing you know, you're dressing the twins in matching outfits. Swamp Camo. I'm not sure what I meant by that, I was thinking about several things at the same time: the orientation of my house, what I needed to add to the sauce, whether or not I'd see the Northern Lights, and exactly how deep into this Girl Scout shit have we waded? They put out all of the candy downstairs and I find I like the Skittles so I invent reasons to walk by the bowl. At one point I have to apologize to TR and D, because I'm spitting Skittle fragments in some tirade about how value is attached to art. Read more...

Girl Scouts

All the memorabilia is spread out, the pedestals and tables in place. D and I should be able to easily finish installing tomorrow. Discussion last night at the pub with TR about what constituted an essay. Then read some reviews of a new book that wonders how far you can stretch the literal truth in creative non-fiction. I need to learn to discuss this as I'm going to be the Creative Non-Fiction writer in residence at Chautauqua. When people ask me what I write, my usual answer is 'paragraphs', meaning the line wraps, I sometimes add that there are no breaks or indentations. I think of them as blocks of text. Brought in a few things to the ridge, tomorrow I'll need to drive in with a fairly serious quantity of supplies. All the liquids, including drinking water, some as yet undefined piece of meat, the few things I use from cans (chicken stock, certain beans, fire-roasted tomatoes, chopped green chilies) and a couple of frozen things that I like to keep around. The early spring re-stock. Windy couple of days have taken the frost out of the driveway and it'll be nice to drive up the hill. I'm at my peak of winter conditioning, able to walk up without stopping, though I almost always do stop, for reasons other than conditioning. And the walk itself is a mediation between the outside and inside worlds, which I've mentioned before, but I can't stress enough what an actual physical blow it is, every time. Staying in town and being on the ridge are completely different things. Habitation. It's too much to think about. I have too much information, and I require long periods of apparent stupidity. Not exactly relationship material. First moth in the house this year, make a note. Signifies time-frame, season into season, the way things tend to slide. I was thinking about Walker Percy and essays, but was stopped dead by the sunset out every window in the house. I could see Northern Lights tonight, that recent solar flare, and maybe that's what the sunset is telling me. Make a note to stay awake. Entertain myself with my internal monolog. Hey, I have standards, I at least have to have an interesting conversation, where some information is exchanged, otherwise I get up and leave, often not fully dressed. Make my way home, as best I can. Could. Would. Home is simply that place where you break the ice seal at the edges of the door, and start a fire. Read more...

Later

It's not as if something completely new is happening, sea-level is a variable. Imagine living on a coral reef, you might have to a abandon your house, for whatever reason, global warming, rising tides. Read more...

Burning Pallets

I have no idea what comes on them, boilers, or big AC units, but I got permission to haul pallets away from the major plumbing supply house. Most of them are the usual, half-inch slats, over three two-by-four rails, all hardwood, usually oak, but I have a couple that are cherry, and one that's a mystery wood, probably rock maple. Then there are the big guys, three feet by eight, four-by-four rails and three-quarters of an inch slats. One of these is firewood for a very cold day, over-fills the box, so in milder weather might last a week. I cut them up with an electric chainsaw, a tool with which I'm comfortable. I stand on the pallet, and cut with the line of the saw outside the plane my body, so that if there is kick-back it misses me. Exceptionally careful about this, because I'm all alone and mistakes are not allowed. B came over for a drink and chat. We talked about Emily, how she might use a lap-desk and stay in bed a lot. Idle speculation. When he left, across the slush and ice covered porch, we agreed we were more careful now, knowing exactly where the foot falls. Increasingly careful. I think I'll take a day off from work, they'd hardly miss me; take a bath and shave, apply some unguents, clip nails, drink several cups of tea, read something, make a few signs in the air. I got up to pee, maybe four in the morning, the almost full moon was spectacular. It's cold in the house, the fire is long gone and I'm not ready to start another day, I just want to crawl back into my down bag. Instead, I start a fire and get the fleece bathrobe. I have leftover roasted potatoes which I intend to feature at a breakfast later. Come as you are. An invitation to be as strange as possible. I'll warn you though, I know some strange people. I have five gallons of melted snow. I feel pretty good about myself right now. Prideful even. Weird, how we're empowered. Huge breakfast, potatoes, omelet (onions and mushrooms), toast, grapefruit juice, coffee. Then propped on the sofa, alternating essays by William Gass and Hugh Kenner. Listened to NPR until it bored me, Republicans are boring, then a walk outside, checking the early morel spots. Nothing yet. I do see a Spring Azure, the earliest I've ever seen that butterfly. Two I want to see, both Polygonia, are the Question Mark, and the Eastern Comma. I spent an hour looking at a butterfly book. When I talked to Pegi this morning, to tell her I was taking the day off, all she said was thank god. Next year, if I take all my paid vacation, I can leave an hour early for 30 days, take a four-day week-end once a month, and take a nine day break to zip out to Denver and see the girls. Best behavior, all that, meet the friends, tell a few yarns, watch a play, visit a few galleries. And bookstores, Denver's good on bookstores. I'd have a car, I could bring a box back. Talk about coals to Newcastle. I'd have to start a new pile, "Books Bought Recently In Colorado", which would get read, and then other books, not from that trip to Colorado, would start getting stacked there, because it would a new place to stack books. I like a piece B brought over the other night which perfectly describes an empty waiting room. I'd en-jamb it, but he opens it out and it works, because the language is so clear. I think about DeFoe and Orwell, a kind of plain-speak. What Gass was talking about when he talks about the particular voice one assumes; around that same time, '84 or '85, writing itself was changing. I could edit, and not have to retype the whole damned thing. It took me years to get to something approaching my natural voice. I imagine just talking to a good friend, Linda, or Kristi, or Glenn; someone I know well enough to just start right in, without any preamble. The next thing I would say would probably be lost in static. Then, maybe, a beginning. Read more...

Recently

I leave out almost everything in my study of what's necessary. I split some wood because I love the way Osage Orange burns, no ash, complete combustion, and I had a good fire going, I could burn rocks, if I needed to. Coal is almost a rock, but dirty, I can't imagine burning peat. A fucking mess. Everybody lives in the kitchen and you sweep the hard-packed dirt floor often. I went out today, to get an armload of frozen wood, and left a trail a leaf parts. A desire path, that leads from the back door to the wood box, little cleats of mud, from the driveway, that dry, and shatter into dust. I'm reading a book about dust right now, it's amazing what happens to even very hard rock in just a few million years. Sandstone is ephemeral, newsprint, practically; 'Popeye' Reed, one of the artists in the show, a hundred years in the elements, becomes just another rock. Maybe durability becomes a criteria. Maybe not. Maybe ephemeral is part of the criteria. I write so much that nothing I say requires criticism, or even a passing comment. I could get away with murder and it would probably get excused under some grandfather clause. In Texas you can buy a gun at a drive-through. In Louisiana you can carry a martini while driving. In Montana you can drive as fast as you want to. In the mid-west there's a Lutheran backlash, where things are regulated, sort of. Not a pope, exactly. but someone in charge. It's all about mediation between you and god. As an outsider I can say with some authority that's it you and an inner voice battling over turf. Nothing real involved, even those rows of corn could be an illusion, simply lines converging on (to) a vanishing point. Look beneath the pattern. There's a message in the dust, a direction, someplace you could look for answers. Just kidding, there is no such place, what you have is a room spayed with vomit, I looked for a better way to say that, but what it comes down to is actually what happens. A lovely day, a couple of inches of snow. I could be trapped on the ridge for a day or two. Split a little wood and read a history of glass. After I got a fire going I melted snow for wash water and roasted a batch of baby red potatoes. Excellent snack, with a little bowl of garlicky mayonnaise to dip them in. We used to take a container of fried potatoes when we went fishing, a loaf of white bread, and a jar of mayo in the cooler with the beer, and make fold-over sandwiches that were incredibly good, but then almost anything is good, in an open boat, trailing a line. Mid-afternoon I slice a few of the potatoes in half and make a fold-over sandwich, with a thick slice of sweet onion. It's very good. Enough of a breeze stirs up to strip the branches of snow. Many of the poplars are breaking bud, the frog eggs are swollen to the size of small marbles, and it's supposed to be in the teens tonight. Then warm up to fifty tomorrow. Roller coaster ride. Since Linda informed me about kale chips I've been making them once a week. It's a thankless job, because you eat them as fast as they cool, but I've moved on to other leaf crops, mustard greens are particularly good, and beet greens. Picked up several cans of spray olive oil at Big Lots, and it's certainly made the prep work faster, I work on waxed paper and rub the new pieces in the over-spray. I never imagined that baked green leaves could taste so good. Thank god I live alone, I didn't have to kill someone over the last chip. I've had a few leftover, not many, but when I do I fry an egg to put on top of them, a match made in heaven. I want to do an eggplant marinara with Justin next time we cook. For when you have vegetarians over for dinner. Cover all the bases. Read more...

Open Book

I don't need to know what goes on beyond closed doors; actually, usually, it's pretty obvious. The gamut of friends I know: the beautiful all the way to the ugly. Surface beauty I never considered a bench-mark. If I let my nails grow out a little more, and paint them, no one would recognize me. I've stockpiled a lot of food and water, just covering my ass; but despite several changes in identity I'm recognized crossing over into Canada. Fairly obvious how Tom became Thom. And all the rest of it, the sex change operation, holding on to what you thought was your essential self. I have to go sleep, but I was on to something. Few things bring me greater joy than knowing I'm correct about a very specific thing. The way a certain metal reacts under heat, how tadpoles mature, the number of steps you're willing to climb. That's a list, right? Three things. What you thought you were saying, what was perceived, what was actually said. Listen, I find myself in this position fairly often, you just have to suck it up and get on with the show. I can accomplish anything, not because I'm a genius, but I do know who to call. I have a short list of people that do particular things very well. Some of them owe me favors. I know where the bodies are buried. What it comes down to, I'm a good listener, but I couldn't listen, again, to the wedding reception song list, so I had a beer at lunch, avoided the festivities, kissed Sara on the cheek, and beat a path for home. Orchestrated fantasizes are not my cup of tea, but I seem to live in one. Not that my character had been revealed, a bit part in a movie, but that I was, somehow, exposed . Too many commas: Diana and I have talked about commas, the spoken voice. I'd argue that the spoken voice is guilty most of the time. What it seems to say. I hate to leave this hanging, but I have to go sleep. Maybe it isn't so much that I want to explain myself as it is that I want to be perfectly honest. It's late. I have a egg on toast. If you sleep in a down bag you can let the house get very cold. Awakened by the sound of a mousetrap. The ritual of starting a fire, pulling up my Selma rocker. A long essay about Giacometti, I love his work, the way it thins to nothingness. Knew a student of his and spent some time in his studio, mostly talking to his wife, because he didn't speak much. She wrote lovely sonnets and I published a cycle of them in a handsome letterpress edition. It's snowing harder and beginning to stick. Sticking to a theme I have a piece of toast with a pile of pulled pork barbeque, leftover from the reception, with an egg on top. If it continues snowing I could be trapped as I'm parked up top. I had to bring in liquids and I didn't feel like walking with a heavy pack. Now the sun is out and it's still snowing, beautiful prismatic things happening. Not snow, but that glimmery stuff, the name of which I've forgotten. It's short lived and very like a dream. There's no wind for the first time in days and I get the house warm enough that I can get by with just a threadbare sweatshirt that I found in the parking lot for the bank across the street from the museum. I find a surprising percentage of my clothes in parking lots. I wash them, of course, and keep some of them in 'sets' that I think of as disposable, for when I have to do a truly awful chore. Which said seems to fall to me, more often than it does to other people. I find myself standing in shit up to my thighs, for example, or crawling through a culvert looking for someone's watch. Or helping pull a body from the river, don't forget that one. For many years I thought I was being groomed to be the CEO of one of those companies that cleans up crime scenes, then I realized it was just that I didn't mind doing things other people paid other people to do. It was easier to do it myself than to find somebody else. Several times a year I get so dirty that it's better to throw the clothes away, and I feel good about myself if they're recycled, though all of my clothes reach that end, eventually. Back to a gentle snowfall, uniformly gray, I can't see the other side of the hollow, then another break in the clouds and a double rainbow. Luminous. Read more...

Reading

I get on a jag, a new book by any one of a dozen authors, you might as well write me off. So, Thursday, I stayed up most of the night reading the new Lee Child, which left me tired for the opening last night. Still, we got it done. The show must look great because everyone said so, and there were six curators plus the head of the Ohio Arts Council in attendance. Very good conversations, excellent panel discussion, free beer and wine. The finger food was ok, but if we had a stove at the museum, D and I could do much better. Halfway through the reception a huge storm cell moved through, sheets of rain, thunder, lightning, tornados to the north and south of us. Staying for the reception meant staying in town, but the socializing, in this case, was well worth not writing for a night. I drank a fair amount and wasn't going to drive under any circumstances, or write. Intelligent conversation is a great thing. I told a couple of stories and got called upon to tell retell a couple more. Talked with three of the artists in the show. Always interesting to talk with artists and craftsmen about the motivation that spurs them to do anything. It's easy enough to do nothing, the modern world is designed for it. To be alone and fabricate something is becoming less common. Even things that were once considered to be merely necessary crafts are now considered high art. Who does needle-point anymore, or makes spoons, or hooks a rug from scraps so that there's a less cold place to put your feet when you get out of bed in the morning? I want to curate a show of Kim's spoons, which are, actually, amazing. The Richards Galley, upstairs, I could probably arrange x number of spoons (there are hundreds) on x number of pedestals in a way that would be interesting and pleasing to the eye. I think of spoons as being in the middle, between the knife and fork. At a very early point you needed to get broth to your mouth. I might write a book called "The Necessity Of Spoons" or some other Romance Novel. Spooning is number 2 on the list, right after conversation. I make lists even when I'm not making lists. If you had to prioritize your life, what would be the ranking where? A serious question. How do you actually live your life within those boundaries. We all do it. We all compromise. In every single issue, there is compromise; the base line is a false positive, I quote myself quoting Beckett, A misquote at best, but a line about nothing being better than something. I could argue that a pulled-pork barbeque on a piece of toast, with the sauce, might be better than anything you've ever eaten. I leave that up to you, I was just eating dinner. Read more...

Last Minute

Trying to remember what I did all day, what I didn't do is sit down. Took the recycling away. As that dumpster is behind the library, returned books, got the new Lee Child; went to the hardware store and bought a piece of lath to use as a batten to hang a quilt. Two loads of garbage, including the dead micro-wave from the common room, which was incredibly heavy, and a pile of food (weeks old) from the big fridge, cleaning the kitchen out for our opening and the wedding reception the next day. Zoo-like. Sara and Pegi both go to Columbus for a screening of Liza's movie and panel discussion. TR and I hang the quilt. As mentioned, an imperfect science, but it's a beautiful quilt and looks lovely. Impossible to light, which is good, in a way, because old fabric wants low light. We take a chest of drawers (a perfect descriptive name, isn't it?) down to the basement, and a handsome drop-leaf table. TR covets the chest, it's a nice piece and he needs one, but it could bring a good price at our next auction. He leaves, to meet with Sharee about art projects, Trish leaves, for whatever reason, it's 4:30 and I'm bushed. I'd picked up a couple of things at Kroger, earlier, pack my bags; close it up and head home. I'll have a few hours tomorrow, to clean up. We have to set the bonnets and we need to do the signage, that's it, as far as I see. Some stuff I didn't get done, no one but Sara will notice, she flagged places that needed touching-up but the flags all fell off, and I have no idea, from a pile of post-its, what the hell I'm supposed to do. I don't have the time anyway, it's already tomorrow. Or will be, by the time I wake up. I par-boiled some baby red potatoes, then cut them in quarters and browned them in walnut oil in the toaster-oven. First day of March and I didn't need a fire in the cookstove. These were the best ever baked fries. Lightly salted, several twists of pepper, dipped in a garlic mayonnaise, I have friends that would kill for these. Lined the pan with foil, and the clean-up was nothing, wrap up a hand-full of crap in an easily disposable wad, I figure this shit out. There are times things actually make sense. Far and few removed, but times, nonetheless. Rarely, by my standards, but it happens: anything I can do, you can probably do better, still, I would present these baked potatoes as a simple offering. Read more...

Wind

The ridge is perfectly exposed. A winter storm, but no winter in it, it's 46 degrees and the blackberry canes are breaking bud. The bullfrogs are hedging their bet, a few of them breed every day it's above 50 degrees. I haven't gone out to watch them, which I think shows enormous restraint on my part, but I see and hear them on my way in and out. B took 25 gallons of maple sap down to the maple shack, brother Ronnie and Bear have tapped the trees down at the mouth of the hollow. Maple syrup is a forty-to-one equation. Sycamore is even worse, but I made enough Sycamore syrup to coat the outside of a small lamb roast (maybe a tablespoon), then rubbed it with chilies and rosemary. Thank god more people don't like Brussels Sprouts, because they get remaindered fairly often. I just peel off the bad leaves, and break them up, with a stick of butter and lots of black pepper. Roasted another round of root vegetables, mostly little purple potatoes, to which I seem to be addicted right now. I sat at the island, balancing a book in my left hand, conducting, with a fork, in my right. There's a dipping dish, with a highly spiced olive oil. I eat potatoes and listen to the Cello Suites. Sublime. Eventually the wind dies down and you wonder how many trees you might to clamber over on the way down to the truck tomorrow. In just a few hours, actually, because I got up to pee and started writing again. It's not different, I had argued with B that it was, but it's not. When I got up to pee, four in the morning, and started writing, I was just picking up the thread. Read more...