tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29654031700219601162012-01-31T10:01:13.693-06:00This is an archive of daily observations written by my friend Tom Bridwell. I am not the author, merely a facilitator for Tom, who lives at the edge of the grid. He notices a lot of things and these are his posts, written from the vantage of a ridge top in the hills of Southern Ohio.Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.comBlogger11731100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-79628451576142490342012-01-31T01:54:00.000-06:002012-01-31T10:01:13.701-06:00

I thickened this pot of chili-like substance with mashed pork-and-beans. The sweetness works well with the green chili powder from New Mexico. God-damn it is hot. A heaping tablespoon was probably too much. I lean toward too much, a natural inclination, not enough never really appealed to me. The Doors Of Perception, been there, done that. I have to laugh, remembering Harvey, he could have been a

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-77123256589992781682012-01-29T16:43:00.000-06:002012-01-30T10:55:47.593-06:00

Nothing in mind, I just wanted to get to the bottom of the hill and let my reflexes take over. A modest pack, all the food groups covered, tobacco, whiskey, and the makings for a pot of chili. I leave work early, so I can get a fire started before the sun sets, and I'm walking up the hill in my usual manner, doddering, stopping often to see which way the leaves blow, what the tracks of small

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-50270987406937042172012-01-28T18:41:00.000-06:002012-01-30T10:54:45.774-06:00

Stayed in town because of projected snow (there was none) and today was on tap to be a big push, doubly important with D being on the half-time schedule. Unwrapped the folk art show. It's always interesting to unwrap a show. Surprisingly, of the seventy or eighty pieces, all but eleven are two-dimensional (or at least wall pieces, that hang) but it does look like we'll have to put up a few more

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-31174953639708920562012-01-27T19:38:00.000-06:002012-01-27T20:06:07.766-06:00

Wanted to get the walls in the main gallery painted before we unwrapped the folk art show, and today was the last shot at that, so I painted walls all day. Which isn't a bad job if you have everything prepped and exercise a modicum of carefulness. I figure we need ten pedestals, therefore eleven, and I want to get them up from the basement and into the center of the gallery, spaced so I can walk

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-48811335100559171082012-01-26T19:51:00.005-06:002012-01-26T21:49:16.839-06:00

Whatever I did yesterday, started hanging the photographs, some trouble-shooting, moved a few things around, there was a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, from listening to adults talk like children. I just wanted to get home. Checked the list, to make sure I didn't need anything critical, and I didn't, so a light pack walking in. I walked up the hill because of the mud at the top. Thinking in

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-13131937201176078842012-01-25T14:29:00.004-06:002012-01-26T21:54:30.729-06:00

Something was going on today, but I never did figure out exactly what. I think Trish and Pegi are pissed at me because I told them the scheduling of weddings and receptions when we're putting up or taking down a show had to stop. A bit of a rant, actually. The art shipper picked up the crate going back to Reno, Nevada, $1,600 for one crate, but it's traveling first class, temperature and humidity

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-29081961271825546402012-01-24T16:26:00.002-06:002012-01-24T23:02:25.810-06:00

A chore I've done for decades, but I never fail to delight in cleaving large splinters off a billet I'd put aside because its grain was perfectly straight. I use a hatchet and a 24 ounce framing hammer and work inside an old wheel-barrow tire, to keep things from flying off, kneeling on a foam pad. There's a zen aspect to it. I'm after pieces that are an eighth up to a quarter of an inch thick

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-71086901837344744482012-01-23T19:03:00.001-06:002012-01-23T19:08:13.867-06:00

Hard rain and thunder wakes me. Lightning and the stick trees of winter, like a dream, noir, everything is either black or white. I'm not afraid, exactly, because I can see this storm cell is tracking the river, several miles south of me, but I do sit up and take notice. I catch the cook stove perfectly, to rekindle a fire, and the oven is hot, so I make a pone of cornbread with some milk that

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-68116551351675162092012-01-21T19:41:00.002-06:002012-01-21T22:36:12.122-06:00

Painting a straight line on an uneven surface is a thankless chore. Cutting-in a different color on plaster walls, for instance, in a corner; you can't tape it, so it has to be done free-hand, and the closer you get, the worse it is. Mandelbrot edges. Like painting a shear line on a lap-strake skiff. Say that ten times quickly. I don't compose sentences specifically to be difficult to say, I'm

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-51065111455454451312012-01-19T19:29:00.003-06:002012-01-20T20:30:10.048-06:00

Mary says, in a letter to her mother, that she is ''too busy to swallow". Looking at the calendar (Diana sent a lovely Outhouse Calendar) and penciling in museum business, I sense enjambments in April, May, and June. A few extra days work, still, doable. One problem with getting good at something is that you usually get faster; D and I (and now TR) are incredibly efficient at installing and

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-29807656245377536672012-01-17T05:01:00.000-06:002012-01-17T10:35:45.414-06:00

Occasionally it's necessary for me to read all day. I did a year of Mary's letters (1931) and spent all the rest of my time reading in a giant compilation D is using as a primary source for his thesis. A monster volume "Vertigo, A Century of Multimedia art" edited by Celant and Maraniello. It's captivating, draws a good timeline, and all those Dadaists, and Post-Dadaist, and Neo-Dadaists are very

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-18866252988485279742012-01-15T18:50:00.000-06:002012-01-17T10:34:44.458-06:00

Reading Mary's letters, how revealed she is in how she manipulates, especially her mother. It's like a game of chess. She should have married either the lawyer or the doctor, Jim or Bob, but instead chose Cartie (as she referred to Clarence) because he was touched with something different. And it is something different, that slight psychosis that drives you to express yourself with paint on

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-45354434589813659182012-01-14T21:05:00.000-06:002012-01-17T10:33:42.586-06:00

"The world is full, saturated with images..." Alberto Boatto, Making Good Use of the Banal. Thinking about Pop-Art. Plenty of time to think because I cleaned and sorted the top tray of the job-box. The entire box is two feet by four feet, and on it's dolly, is a good working height (about 38 inches); the top tray is 24x42 and only three-and-a-half inches deep. We can lift it out to access storage

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-23470807649815980452012-01-13T21:11:00.005-06:002012-01-14T15:15:27.894-06:00

Last night: falling temps, rain turning to snow that's supposed to accumulate, much colder, I ran home and picked up some clothes, I figure everyone will be late and someone needs to be there to answer the phone. I enlist myself as receptionist. The pub, after work, is a zoo, they've lost five or six employees, and John, the manager, is interviewing new hires. A scant beer later, the blowing snow

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-71375414801022523742012-01-11T21:41:00.001-06:002012-01-12T10:07:48.990-06:00

It's a large room, this past show was maybe 45 paintings, which meant 80 or so holes in the wall. So here's the sequence. You go once around with a hammer, pulling all the hangers that are nailed, you put those in a bin for sorting later; then you go around with a cordless drill, backing pan-head screws out of plastic anchors about half-way, then you go around with a hammer again, pulling the

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-20883878565769899722012-01-10T22:42:00.001-06:002012-01-11T10:50:13.798-06:00

So much on my plate, supposed to rain after midnight, straight through, turning to snow by Thursday, figured I'd stay in town. Dealt with trash and the bathrooms this morning, then pulled hardware, patched and repaired the two upstairs galleries. I'll do the main gallery tomorrow, then paint the rest of the week. I need a bunch of roller covers and trays. After work TR goes over for a beer with

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-284210298494556282012-01-10T02:47:00.003-06:002012-01-10T08:15:50.264-06:00

January 10, 2012 2:47:18 AM CSTSome kind of commotion. Rabid coons playing king of the compost pile, or something. Enough to get me up and throw some rocks. When your adrenaline stirs at three in the morning, the night is lost. I resurrect a fire from a hand-full of coals, hang around the stove, reading an essay about Picasso and Braque. Cubism was all about the space between things. For a long

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-21586342419040977602012-01-09T18:37:00.000-06:002012-01-10T10:47:34.501-06:00

The most important thing is to stay focused. Relative safety, and all that. I forget the number of art works I've shipped, it's a large number, probably in the hundreds, no wonder I can't keep track, who's counting anyway. After a while you're jaded and a painting by Bellows or Whistler is just another object worth a lot of money, to someone, somewhere. The world on a string, sitting on a rainbow

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-20355404244053400452012-01-08T18:19:00.002-06:002012-01-09T15:27:39.645-06:00

A garble of crow sounds from beyond the outhouse draws me into the woods. You can't get lost around here, but you can misplace yourself. Read Charles Frazier's new book "Nightwoods" today, and it was a treat; then the mid-afternoon walk, to clear the cobwebs. Early dinner of an steamed artichoke and a large hunk of good bread, both dipped in olive oil. Walked over to the graveyard, then over to

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-70463836824502787072012-01-08T01:20:00.001-06:002012-01-09T15:26:12.042-06:00

Never much for tea leaves, but I can tell from the leaf-drifts which way the wind is blowing. Whenever I gut anything I always look closely at the liver, I'm not sure if that counts, since I'm mostly thinking about pate at that point. I ran out of horseradish jam and they actually had some roots at the store, so I bought one, some apple juice and some pectin. This day and age, of course, what

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-85210023444475618172012-01-07T23:52:00.001-06:002012-01-09T15:24:03.177-06:00

The walk in is all uphill. I have my place to park, at the bottom, and I usually climb over the gear-shift and out the passenger-side because of the blackberry canes. There's usually a session of readjusting my clothing and repacking my pack before I attempt the last three hundred vertical feet. It's not a technical climb, more a slog, for the first half I mostly just watch where my feet fall.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-33741742238117187472012-01-06T18:21:00.001-06:002012-01-06T21:13:29.209-06:00

Pretty sure I'd get a rise from Sara about that. I was talking with someone yesterday about what constitutes art, whether or not the word itself carried any weight. I don't pretend to know. The wind is tearing some new ground right now, I have to kill the breaker for the fridge. It's new-age Bach, a touch of Cage: a prepared organ, and a raving maniac. Fortunately it's not very cold, and I can

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-18818312577433781692012-01-05T18:47:00.001-06:002012-01-06T09:46:16.973-06:00

Pegi asked me to define Folk Art. I said it was art that showed no learning curve. Except for quilting, which does, and is far and away my favorite folk art. Waked in again, got a fire started before sunset, which is critical. Taking a week of my vacation time by leaving work an hour early. The walk down this morning was stunning, still a coating of snow and I'm amazed every year at how that

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-10439766314126262592012-01-05T02:24:00.000-06:002012-01-05T11:06:33.819-06:00

The last step in suiting up for an evening around the house, I check the mouse traps. I feed the dead mice to the crows that frequent the dead poplar NW of the outhouse. It's an arrangement. Mice. If they were neat, like pigs, they'd shit in the same place, and I wouldn't have to kill them, we could come up with a compromise. But they're simple, not to say stupid, and they shit all the time, on

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-34222174584973462322012-01-04T18:40:00.000-06:002012-01-05T11:05:43.668-06:00

Good day at work, TR and I almost finished taking down all three shows, just a couple of things left to do with D on Friday. Town was dry, sunny after a brief flurry, so I left my usual (winter) hour early and headed home. The lake was frozen, pockets of snow on the north side of hollows, and as I gained the last few hundred feet of elevation I knew the driveway would be impassable. Managed to

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-13460081981405497722012-01-04T16:30:00.001-06:002012-01-05T11:04:52.540-06:00

Finished ahead of the cold front. The last area, under the various drains and service entrances involved a lot of cutting and fitting, so I took my time, longer than I expected, but the results are gratifying. I'm peeling off layers of clothes, as the house warms. Before I get too comfortable I put three gallons of water on the cookstove to heat, put on an outer layer and take a walk down the

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-71636341588500906422012-01-04T16:30:00.000-06:002012-01-05T11:03:58.526-06:00

Amazing, how different things can look, depending on the angle. It's supposed to snow, so I may go into town tomorrow, three shows to take down and a litany of things to do. D will be back at school, TR and I have to pack and send things all over, not a problem, because we've been over this, what gets shipped where and how. But I don't exactly remember how those small painting were packed. I'll

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-52154164025548008202012-01-03T22:23:00.000-06:002012-01-04T10:51:19.007-06:00

When the temperature is 18 degrees and it's blowing a full gale, light snow skittering, it's hard to get comfortable. I google the weather and see that Mac is probably getting hammered with Lake Effect Snow. We live where we do for one reason or another. I'd rather be someplace warmer, but here I am. Walking in a winter wonder land. It's not easy, but I'm not dead, and it's beautiful, the way

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-8530395788006961542012-01-02T16:15:00.005-06:002012-01-02T21:43:14.811-06:00

Came back to town because of forecast snow and I must be here Tuesday, to start un-installing three shows. D's back at school. Me and TR. No phone at my house, so I have a couple of posts backed up there that will be out of order, they were the 31st and early morning of the 1st. Huge winds. Got the insulation done, ate well. Wanted to stay home, but the rule is that, in winter, if I absolutely

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-67099599465127487232011-12-31T04:54:00.002-06:002011-12-31T12:46:43.556-06:00

A sign of the times. More people bumming cigarets and asking for spare change. I'm always so surprised by that use of 'spare' that I just look stupid and shake my head. There are now three or four people that regularly raid our "Butt Bin" outside the back door. Something woke me, a sound in the night, and I ended up back at my writing station with a short whiskey, rolling a smoke and musing.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-24638753812601855732011-12-30T19:20:00.001-06:002011-12-31T12:44:55.489-06:00

A chicken pot pie. Anything with a crust. Apple crisp. I'll do some cooking this weekend. One more hour under the house tomorrow, thank the gods for a nice day (I got lucky) because a very cold front moves in Sunday night. Whatever it takes to get battened up. No rain today, just some spits, and I was able to get up the hill and bring in a few things. I've been carrying two five-gallon buckets of

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-41314558009101341832011-12-29T21:01:00.001-06:002011-12-29T21:04:57.055-06:00

First thing was to paint a stain blocker on some mold under where a potted plant had been. Actually. first was hearing that we've aquired yet another Carter. A watercolor that was painted as a final study for an oil painting. He often did this. The painting is called "Tidewater". It's being over-nighted from California. The stain blocker needs to dry for an hour. I had to go the hardware store

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-36240359599311227492011-12-28T18:25:00.001-06:002011-12-29T10:25:25.565-06:00

The bank on Sixth Street either changed hands or they just decided to change all the signs, because the sign guys were working in the parking lot all day with a small crane and a bucket truck. A good crew, the crane operator was very good. No smashed cars. We didn't have a morning receptionist, so D and I split the time there; down side is that when we don't have a morning receptionist and three

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-53404214320721271562011-12-27T19:36:00.004-06:002011-12-28T10:22:53.642-06:00

The domestication of impressionism. Bringing it inside. What Vuillard and Bonnard did. The intimate development of realism had its origin in the Nabis group, late nineteenth-century. Influenced by Gauguin's use of flat colors. Read another book about them last night. I really like some of the work. I now keep a dictionary of art terms on my desk at the museum; on a coffee break, I'll read a

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-43093435852038538422011-12-27T11:34:00.001-06:002011-12-27T11:34:32.446-06:00

Exhausted, and now the wind is howling. A low drone with branches scraping. The house shudders. This would have been the night I could have used a motel room. I'm dirty, and hacking up insulation, so I pack a kit and head into town; I need to shave and wash my hair, clean my ears and wash my neck. Luther's Moving is picking up the baby grand piano early and I need to be at the museum. But then I

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-65213805803780640892011-12-25T16:21:00.002-06:002011-12-27T11:33:55.192-06:00

Maybe I misconstrued, I thought we were meeting for drinks after. Completely my fault. Realized I was supposed to write you, tell you whatever. It's a memory project, not unlike something you might have done before. Get comfortable and discuss your feelings. Over the years you probably realized I have a problem with holidays. As if they were things snatched away from me. Which might be true. At

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-46193566053867432602011-12-24T17:56:00.000-06:002011-12-27T11:32:51.950-06:00

Stories. A rich history of fiction. I could regale you, but you'd never believe anything I had to say. It's all fiction, even the absolute real, which is just a surveillance video from a bad angle. No wind, and it's so quiet you'd think something was about to happen, but nothing does, just an ongoing "Waiting For Godot" state of tension. Tension may be the wrong word, because it implies anxiety,

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-47165321986941388352011-12-24T12:41:00.000-06:002011-12-27T11:31:47.652-06:00

For that moment to arrive. I hate to quote Paul, but he's lived a long time, not to mention Mr. Simon, who has certain skills, especially where the bass line comes in. I'm sorry, were we talking about something? Judas, at the end of the bar, mentioned selling out. I wondered where he was coming from. Seems to me there's a scale, and you weight the gold against whatever hardball you have to play.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-74485229787959502432011-12-24T04:30:00.000-06:002011-12-27T11:30:37.729-06:00

D was there to work. Had that look about him, and wearing old clothes. We assembled the flute boxes, with their dividers, re-boxed all of them. 144, eight extras we stashed in one of the cupboards. Re-organized the top glass storage shelf in the back room of the kitchen. Re-stacked everything. Went down to the basement and consolidated things, threw some stuff away. Pegi had said to store some of

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-72938419140026060932011-12-22T21:43:00.003-06:002011-12-23T09:49:50.539-06:00

Starting falling late afternoon and my windshield wipers aren't working. TR's car wouldn't start. We retired to the pub. Sorted hardware, actually an interesting chore because we have some interesting hardware. Things that don't get used fairly often are stored in small bins on shelfs in the vault in the basement, which is our tool room. It's a mess right now, but there's no reason to clean and

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-61120159986609883192011-12-22T04:55:00.002-06:002011-12-22T08:16:15.734-06:00

For the sake of argument let's say I agree with you. That's how I usually avoid upset. Not making a point. A by-product of not giving a shit what anyone else thinks. A main consideration in living the life I do, is that I don't have to compromise very much of my time. Four o'clock in the morning and I'm reading David Bainbridge on balanoculture (acorn eaters) among coastal California native

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-10809923046484920512011-12-21T16:40:00.007-06:002011-12-21T16:44:22.842-06:00

A howling in the trees, snapping branches sound like gunshots; the house, in winds like these, creaks and sways just a bit. Three crows acting like drunken pilots. Pegi starts vacation tomorrow, so we might get started on some repair and painting in her office, and, sensing a rather busy schedule for the next few weeks, I left early. Stopped at Ohio Builders Surplus and exchanged the staples.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-12024340753401337522011-12-20T19:23:00.002-06:002011-12-21T09:41:06.853-06:00

Not as bad as it could be, in that I can still move, and the house is more comfortable. An even trade. Creature comforts win every time. Still, I had to go to town, I'd had dirty laundry in the truck for three days and it was starting to smell like sneakers. And I needed food and booze. I have all these fresh eggs, and I want to use them. Linda had brought me a tin of very good pate from France

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-69317327162790415882011-12-19T06:01:00.001-06:002011-12-19T20:12:53.258-06:00

Cicero's mistake gives me pause, because I really like the word 'syllabus' and because I imagine he'd been drinking whatever that diluted wine beverage the Romans were fond of. Probably translating something from Greek, has that feel to it. I make mistakes all the time, a dozen a day, most of them are learning experiences, like where not to put your foot. I hate those Salvation Army bells, at the

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-22375432939192876592011-12-18T15:00:00.001-06:002011-12-19T20:12:15.515-06:00

Fleeting pain. Sure, I hurt; anyone that crawls around under a house is going to be sore. I need to get a tetanus shot sometime soon, for now I just flush minor wounds with kerosene and scrub out the dirt with a finger-nail brush. Damaged goods. Nothing special. But it felt good, tending my needs, and on my breaks I was reading an extended essay about Braque and Picasso, 1910, cubism, how the

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-72173540694343313512011-12-17T18:25:00.001-06:002011-12-19T20:11:33.756-06:00

A fist to the face. Just saying. Slapped with your own inadequacies. A steady state, for me. I think through what I'm going to be doing tomorrow, an imperfect tense, future pluperfect. My Whacker Tacker is a Bostitch H-30 and it takes an odd crowned staple, the only stapler of it's type not to take a T-50 which is the nine millimeter round of the construction trade. When I was building I bought

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-76798113991711248702011-12-17T18:24:00.001-06:002011-12-19T20:10:35.266-06:00

I don't think of myself as a rake, or as a pervert either. I will admit to that thing about ankles, though it seems to me more like a birder's life-list. I don't have a social agenda, or even what most people would call 'a life', I just bumble along, letting most things slide. Today, though, I put my shoulder against that great wall of inertia I've cemented into place. I work at the museum, I

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-80920676069046692292011-12-16T04:48:00.001-06:002011-12-16T08:07:47.878-06:00

Perfectly natural perception. This is how it happens. Rehearsal is still going on and I'm upstairs, writing, in my office, and I want a cigaret. Roll one and go downstairs, through the crowd of kids and parents, out the back door, to the place where I've smoked a thousand cigarets. There are two young girls outside, I don't know them, even Pegi doesn't know all these kids, the ones that are in

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-33698937871836451412011-12-15T18:48:00.001-06:002011-12-16T08:06:25.313-06:00

Can't live this life without 4-wheel drive. Have to wait one more day to get home, Went out, but the driveway was undoable. Backed down, and redrove into town. Pegi's having a rehearsal for the last two performances of the Xmas show that will be at the museum. Zoo time, 100 small kids and their parents; fortunately the building is sound-proof. I'm reading more of Mary's letters. There's a

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-28193453527067625712011-12-14T21:40:00.003-06:002011-12-15T08:54:51.121-06:00

There was a problem, and it had seriously backed things up throughout the kitchen. The upper cupboards were pulling apart, amazing they hadn't already failed under a load of nice but quite heavy dinner wear. Serving for fifty. Had to unload the cupboards completely, and part of the larger problem was that there were a whole lot more dishes and mugs, clean and ready to be put away. All the flat

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-75246177014169965862011-12-13T19:50:00.003-06:002011-12-14T08:07:52.155-06:00

I lose track of where I am. Reading about some dead painter, a flight of fancy, a conceit, almost, where a particular play of light trips my memory to a particular fall afternoon on Cape Cod. I only vaguely remember, she was backlit, a halo shimmered, a double rainbow; I remember thinking at the time that nothing should be that beautiful, the way specific aspects feathered into my consciousness.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-66552210025444682082011-12-11T19:03:00.001-06:002011-12-12T12:53:14.596-06:00

Noticed a plant, off the verge, in the bottom-land near the river. Shouldn't be flooded this time of year, but it was, and the edges were beautifully encased in ice. Plant stalks held rigidly isolate. I found a place to pull over and walked back; I know the plant but can't remember the name. The dried seed-pod was formerly used to card wool, still can be, for that matter. Oh, right, Teasel, thus

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-3712649254805793652011-12-10T18:39:00.000-06:002011-12-10T18:50:38.131-06:00

Woke up a little late, no time to start a fire, much less get the house warm, so I just throw on a coat over my writing/sleeping clothes, make a cup of coffee, and hit the road. Pegi and Trish were across the street, breaking down the wine-tasting. 200 wine glasses, serving trays and utensils, table-cloths, empty bottles; D and I sort things out in the kitchen, start the dishwasher, and haul

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-1593921625173610322011-12-08T22:16:00.001-06:002011-12-10T18:49:26.598-06:00

I'm staff again on Saturday, no one else available to work, so Pegi and D send me home early. We got everything over to Terry's for the big wine event tonight. $250 a head, 25 people, great menu, expensive wines (though not a single one to my taste) and mostly donated, so the museum should make over five grand. I pick up a pot-pie on the way home, and drive slowly, looking at the changes in

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-40059899764729778422011-12-08T08:31:00.001-06:002011-12-08T14:40:04.089-06:00

Too much rain and too cold. A small steak, a fried egg, a piece of toast, no expectations, just sustenance. I listen to three of the Cello Suites, Edgar Meyer, and they are so lush, they sweep me off my feet. Annie Dillard says that most living writers live in the middle. I'm rarely in the middle of anything, usually at one extreme or the other. The rain stops, there's still the intermittent drip

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-52746420272188425532011-12-05T12:43:00.001-06:002011-12-06T09:52:29.382-06:00

I sat reading most of the day, in my rather uncomfortable writing chair, and ended up with a pain in my neck; a police procedural that was pretty good. I needed fiction, wanted to get away. R. J. Ellory "A Simple Act Of Violence" complex story and interesting characters, a fine read for a day off. I never get out of my bathrobe. I can take off days like this because I live alone, no one is

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-91861569441303016502011-12-04T02:25:00.001-06:002011-12-05T09:35:52.565-06:00

Went in early to shave and wash my hair, went to the library, went to Kroger (where I can now buy food, booze, and underwear), then the pub for lunch. TR arrived to be receptionist, I stayed upstairs, reading Sir Tom, he is a great stylist. You can see him in Melville, especially. That tone. It's rich. Tending toward the over-arching, Rococo. I was going to reread "Moby Dick" this winter anyway,

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-64876085086141994322011-12-03T04:03:00.001-06:002011-12-03T21:05:08.652-06:00

The sky last night hurt. I was thinking about something. Escapes me now, what I'd been thinking about, but the blue was so intense, I nearly drove off the road. A perfect night on the ridge, I wrote well, made some notes, slept well. Knew today was going to be awful, the aftermath of an opening AND one of the largest parties of the year. Truly a mess. Thrown away food is always the first issue,

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-91138984778403563702011-12-01T18:39:00.001-06:002011-12-01T20:33:47.148-06:00

Reduce the infinite to finite bites. 128 steps, whatever; divide that by the time needed for each individual step. You get a number. Half a drink and one more cigaret, you get an answer, should have gone to bed earlier, when I could have slept. I'm only partially responsible for the things I seem to have caused. Finally did sleep, and almost late, don't have time to warm the house, don't shave,

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-21049789800542021252011-11-30T17:58:00.002-06:002011-12-01T09:57:18.512-06:00

Cleaned out the fridge, odd bits of this and that, and there's a feeding frenzy at the compost pile, red eyes glowing in the beam of my flashlight. A opossum family and a very large coon. You'd think they'd never had shrimp fried rice. I'd cleaned out the cookstove completely (a twice a year chore, cleaning the chase around the oven) and there was a thick layer of ash on top of the pile, with the

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-75144280898036259392011-11-29T20:05:00.001-06:002011-11-30T08:25:38.923-06:00

A peruke is a periwig. Looking at pictures of Johnson, and others of the period, I had wondered what they called it. But I wasn't looking looking for the name. I had actually gone to the dictionary to try and figure out the difference between perspicacity and perspicuity and I wasn't making much headway so I was readings some other entries. A dictionary isn't a terrible book, but the chapters are

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-47202135190641937982011-11-29T10:26:00.000-06:002011-11-30T08:24:35.597-06:00

English is scarce homegrown, a scant 5,000 Saxon words remain. Everything else is either borrowed or stolen. The poetry of John Gower, Johnson informs us, is the first that can bde said to have been written in English. A Vaticide is a murderer of poets. You should read Sir Thomas Browne, a nut case, Johnson quotes him over 2,000 times, mostly from an extremely confusing book "Pseudodexia

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-90755928125826790182011-11-27T21:33:00.001-06:002011-11-27T21:42:56.760-06:00

Going home, I could see the phone was out, a giant dead poplar had parted the line on Mackletree, and then, when I got home, the power was out. Came to the museum early, to enjoy some creature comforts, read, watch some TV on Hulu. My taste for discomfort has dwindled. Spent most of the day reading "Defining The World" by Henry Hitchings, a decent book about Samuel Johnson and his dictionary.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-56432939922151157132011-11-25T18:50:00.000-06:002011-11-25T20:53:39.042-06:00

I don't so much feed the homeless as counsel the unrepresented. A fine line. When you're hungry, you steal food, it's a matter of genetics, nothing to do with what's legal. A loaf of bread, if we follow Marx at all, is just a loaf of bread. If I ever watched anything closely, it was the way the jug wine played out. Maybe not something to be proud of, but an image nonetheless. More a shadow than

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-65311801685305794522011-11-24T16:14:00.002-06:002011-11-25T14:32:13.560-06:00

Two shed roofs face away from each other. The upper one, above the clerestory, breaks back, to form a bit of shelter for the second story windows. Most of us, in the building profession, call this an eyebrow, for obvious reasons. It provides a drip edge that falls on the lower roof. I sleep upstairs, usually, and what wakes me is the patter of condensate. It's not really rain, just saturated air

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-23373743869285981542011-11-23T17:20:00.001-06:002011-11-25T14:55:16.748-06:00

Who could sleep with the house shaking and the whistling sound wind makes in stick trees? A winter concert, woodwinds, and the occasional snap when a branch lets loose. The ridge seems desolate: stick trees, gray sky, rain for days. Then this morning, after the fog dissipated, the clouds blew away, and blue sky rim to rim. I docent a few people, show the vault again, run some errands (get a

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-21795915726182643202011-11-23T11:53:00.001-06:002011-11-23T12:15:20.647-06:00

For not the first time, I docent the vault door. TR has two groups of kids to deal with, in his capacity as educational person, and they're dying to see the vault, and especially the door, which is a massive thing of beauty. Sara and Clay left for Hilton Head mid-afternoon, she came in for a couple of hours, late morning; I enjoy her company so much, I'll miss our cigaret breaks together, one of

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-12920421054485413222011-11-21T19:15:00.001-06:002011-11-22T09:58:02.990-06:00

Started raining last night and supposed to continue for several days, during a lull, in the afternoon, I beat it back to the museum. I have to be there tomorrow morning, to deal with the painters; then Sara and I rearrange the Carter's. Rains hard in the late afternoon and I would have been trapped on the ridge, which I don't mind, usually, call in and take a couple of days off, lord knows I have

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-36688618118418688872011-11-19T18:10:00.000-06:002011-11-21T09:48:08.345-06:00

Something woke me. A pair of coons, fighting over pork-chop bones. I run them off with a couple of rocks from the pile I keep inside the back door. I don't mind them turning my compost, but when they fight, they hiss and squeal like tomcats on the prowl. "Like a girl through a topaz town." Coming home, I was struck with that slanted fall light, the patterns of highlight and shadow; blinding,

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-74432210042596032352011-11-18T18:59:00.000-06:002011-11-18T20:57:57.828-06:00

Writing in a vacuum. Linda sent a quote, Emily in a letter " Amherst has gone to Eden, and the moon rides like a girl through a topaz town." Now I ask you, what, exactly, was she saying? We can parse meaning. Tonight, for instance, the moon is lovely, but so bright, above stick trees, that I miss most of the show. Passing through the tail of a comet there should be fireworks, "like a girl through

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-42699953740734500492011-11-17T18:07:00.000-06:002011-11-18T20:56:56.401-06:00

Which, of course, means reading all day. Read a novel by Alex Kava this morning, an ok diversion, which I needed after 14 straight days at the museum. Awoke disoriented about what day it was and what I was supposed to be doing. Mom called and it was easier to ask her what day it was, than to try and figure it out. They're hanging on, barely, unhappy at my sister's house, though they have every

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-52162091600350135342011-11-17T18:06:00.001-06:002011-11-18T20:55:50.038-06:00

Stayed in town for a couple of days. The phone was dead because a very large oak had taken out the line. Frontier said they'd have service restored today, and, sure enough, on my way home, one of their trucks was on Mackletree. I stopped and chatted with the guy, he was just fitting the waterproof cover over the repair and said I was good to go. Some function at the museum tonight, so I got out

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-50468146800871460372011-11-16T23:04:00.000-06:002011-11-17T10:47:39.014-06:00

Looking at those nudes, The paintings done between 1917 and 1919. He knew he was dying, that he had successfully killed himself. Look at the sketches, that precede the paintings. The delicacy of line, replaced, in the paintings, by blocks of color; we lose the intimnacy of detail but we gain intensity. My favorite is "Tall Nude, Lying" at MOMA, that torso so elongated. And the way his nudes open

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-36117209820037291972011-11-15T19:58:00.001-06:002011-11-15T20:49:41.175-06:00

Extra trip to town for the usual personal chores. Thought I could do my laundry on Saturday, forgetting I needed to cover for D. Left it in the truck yesterday so, of course, the truck smelled like dirty socks. Big winds have stripped the trees, and the drifts of leaves, before they get flattened by rain and composted, are, in places, several feet thick. The Green Briar is hanging on, still green

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-37781929921436540972011-11-13T00:08:00.000-06:002011-11-14T09:58:47.170-06:00

Fundraiser over and the clean-up almost over. Fun event and the auction went well, we may have hit our target. I was too busy pouring wine to mingle, but several patrons stopped by to chat. The finger food was quite good, but when you serve finger food and wine at an event, there is going to be a mess the next morning. Comes with the package. I got fairly drunk, having to sample all six wines so

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-16131876729017680492011-11-10T18:12:00.002-06:002011-11-10T19:26:26.345-06:00

American English is no more fixed than English. You can only nail down a language when it's dead. I was looking something up, where did it start? I was looking up exacerbate, a word I love and use too often in mixed company. I had stripped off the prefix 'from' and was working on the 'acerbate' part of things, several dictionaries deep. My nights pass like this: reading glasses, bathrobe, roll a

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-65221944327942565772011-11-08T18:43:00.000-06:002011-11-08T20:42:39.283-06:00

Back on the museum show. Actually Linda was around until eleven and I spent time with her. After she left I spent four-and-a-half hours doing labels: spray-gluing them to matt board, running them through the vacuum machine, cutting them, then mounting them to the walls. Mounting them required more than a hundred little roll-ups of blue painter's tape, which I roll around the end of my left

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-78014213842347944982011-11-07T20:34:00.000-06:002011-11-08T07:29:21.340-06:00

Cold morning, so I go to work early where I can clean up and wash my hair with hot running water. A treat. When D gets there we go to Market Street for free coffee and our monster breakfast burrito. D wraps the last of the dolls. We store the work of four of those artists in the board room. Three or four elevator loads of stuff to the basement: bubble wrap, the packing for the "Wet Paint" show,

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-81997532443122870562011-11-04T23:41:00.000-05:002011-11-07T10:26:58.112-06:00

A heavy fog, where drops of water condense from a super-charged atmosphere. Not unlike living in an aquarium, or some closed system in which nothing is lost. Well, something is, always, entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Maxwell's secret hammer, or just bad weather; relative humidity, whatever, an actual number, that could be graphed. I'm OK I think, can get to work tomorrow, though the

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-32327470715942452012011-11-03T18:41:00.002-05:002011-11-04T14:50:12.897-05:00

My reputation precedes me. I actually stay sober most of the time, despite the urban tales. I'm a half-cured drunk and a hell of a sailor, when all is said and done: I can navigate low water with the best of them. It's a gift, I don't think about it, an inherent ability, like the way you understand what I'm saying. Meaning morphs. I watch what I say change like light through fall trees. It all

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-64832759844500191422011-11-02T20:03:00.001-05:002011-11-03T10:11:28.267-05:00

Moved paintings around all day and can start hanging tomorrow. Need to move some things out of the gallery, so I may go in early tomorrow to get started on that, and the last two painting should arrive, they were trapped in that east coast snow storm. An enormous amount of wasted packing material, as so many individuals and a few museums use tape that isn't compatible with either the plastic or

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-79895181140716293132011-11-02T02:37:00.001-05:002011-11-02T08:51:31.699-05:00

The last of. You get a wind, this time of year, and the leaves can sound like hail. Sara came in, yesterday afternoon, I was pretty sure she would. She knew I wanted to see the paintings, and knew that I knew she wanted to see them. It's already tomorrow. I think I sent a small paragraph, but I'm not sure, and I don't feel like checking. It's 3:10 in the morning and something woke me. Outside, to

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-6250823978245440882011-10-31T18:17:00.001-05:002011-11-01T08:30:43.419-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-84817384292784516322011-10-29T20:00:00.000-05:002011-11-01T08:29:33.163-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-51216929883896144402011-10-29T01:42:00.000-05:002011-11-01T08:28:28.547-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-68149306031220142812011-10-28T06:53:00.001-05:002011-10-28T09:03:02.187-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-10376459231999032712011-10-25T02:42:00.000-05:002011-10-25T08:39:06.713-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-72601525991567941962011-10-23T19:47:00.001-05:002011-10-24T09:04:08.284-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-51811004460255961532011-10-22T18:24:00.001-05:002011-10-24T09:03:07.605-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-29051301428297197802011-10-21T18:37:00.001-05:002011-10-24T09:01:53.556-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-16690059465072995832011-10-19T18:44:00.001-05:002011-10-20T11:18:41.336-05:00

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,

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-90884667022362019482011-10-17T15:10:00.000-05:002011-10-17T15:11:59.279-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-68131407659052682952011-10-15T18:34:00.000-05:002011-10-15T22:58:48.283-05:00

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.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-87945122467896604412011-10-14T23:11:00.000-05:002011-10-15T14:05:49.016-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-43931996001030380642011-10-13T18:39:00.000-05:002011-10-13T20:49:57.632-05:00

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.

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-46721849011817150652011-10-13T00:42:00.000-05:002011-10-13T07:18:17.925-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-57339868147833722142011-10-11T23:02:00.000-05:002011-10-13T07:16:50.923-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-58449815570229264492011-10-10T18:41:00.000-05:002011-10-11T09:56:29.834-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-58952104995911329002011-10-09T04:58:00.000-05:002011-10-11T09:55:19.690-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2965403170021960116.post-10686349536444846052011-10-08T01:15:00.000-05:002011-10-08T12:53:42.874-05:00

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

Grimnirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306227656290581922noreply@blogger.com0