New Folder

I'm well and truly done with who I was. I've been brain-dead for a week, coming off the installation, and when I awoke from the coma, I knew things were different. First off, no one looked the same, there were a lot of wavy lines, I questioned seeing as a sense. B came over for coffee mid-morning and we agreed to cook some pork rib-racks, later, for dinner. Leaves me time to split some white oak and clean-up, make the pate, three hours, however you divide time, to build the pate from nothing and clean the infernal mess. Everything cooked separately, chicken livers, chicken thighs, two kinds of mushrooms, stick and a half of butter, 2 bunches of scallions, some ginger root, garlic, half a bottle of Pinot Noir, hot sauce, herbs. Then everything mixed together and cooled, then food processed and packaged. Just finished cleaning up when B came over with the ribs, four pieces of three ribs, two lean center cuts and two fatty end cuts. Put a rack in a pan so they can drip, rub them with onion power, garlic salt, green chili powder, lots of fresh pepper, put the lean pieces on the bottom and the fat pieces on top, agree that I should attempt to stabilize the oven heat at 400 degrees. Burning modest sticks of dry wood, it is a pretty easy task, requiring some prudence with a smallish fire. B does most of the work, I sit at the island, start drinking, and take my job seriously. We sample the pate and it will be especially fine in a couple of days, if it survives a couple of days. It's such an outrageous treat, we both are fond of splitting a length of French bread and toasting it lightly, spreading a thick layer, and eating it as most people might eat peanut butter. Final tally was a little over five and a half pounds. I gave B two pounds, kept two pounds, and taking a pound and a half to the pub, where it should be good for a free lunch. B has not been much on the ridge and we had conversation and then the ribs were ready. I heated some sauce and served a bowl of the squash soup, we broke bread. The ribs were fantastic, farm raised pork, like similar chickens, carry more flavor. Of course chickens are nothing like pigs, but I mean raised in the open. Sunlight, running around, eating sundry greens and bugs, it makes a difference. These ribs were flavorful, the charred fat was great. We ate like cavemen raised in England. We had this roasted meat that required both hands and multiple napkins, and a bowl of this nice soup, that required consideration. A sort of conflicted meal, but wonderful. B and I enjoy the same sort of challenges, both adopted the same strategy: eat the meat with both hands and grunt your answers, then lean back in your chair with a bowl of soup in one hand and a soup-spoon in the other, cross your legs, and discuss modern fiction. I'd like to do a film, here I go, show me a wrack line; a slow film, about cooking and eating, like last night, the conversation was top-shelf. Get them used to the camera and turn it on. I noticed something different, this third visit of Glenn's, I'd ask him what he needed and he'd be vague but indicate direction, I no longer noticed the hardware. I'm good with particulars, they indicate exact things, that particular gummed down crest of a Pileated Woodpecker, that I would recognize, might or might not be at issue, it could be nothing, but it is duly noted. I keep an odd kind of record, a simple record of the dispossessed. I don't care about anything else. Now I don't even have to express my mantra, whatever it might have been. You can imagine. Something about you and God. His Thigh. You faded out, I hope it was good for you. I did my best. Yes: yes, yes, yes, yes, what I thought, what I thought I meant. All these prods are interesting. What you think you want to is up to you, why am I here? I don't know. You are the ultimate spring-board, my point of entry, a free-kick, what you represent to me, a tap-root.
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Nothing But

Another beautiful day, almost sorry my truck was up here and I didn't have to walk down. Stopped at the lake with a batch (36, 72 halves) of left-over rolls I brought home Wednesday but didn't see any ducks or geese then. This morning I was early and could see them on the other side of the lake. Went down to the near shore and started spreading half-rolls in a large arc. When they saw what I was doing, they all started that peculiar run/fly thing across the surface of the water, coming on strong. I finished spreading before they got across and retreated a few steps, and, as usual, a couple of the geese kept on coming, right toward me; a final retreat, to the cab of the truck, rather than kick one in the head. My Aunt Sadie, in Mississippi, raised a lot of birds, a dozen varieties, didn't kill them and eat them (she would let me take the occasional Guinea Fowl, my favorite eating bird, all dark meat) but when a cock of any species got too randy and starting really bothering the girls, Sadie, always calm, would quietly walk over and ring his neck. She was also a very good shot with a .22 rifle. She'd go stand in her back yard, trees on two sides, maybe 75 feet away, and wait until she'd seen two squirrels, then she'd shoot them both IN THE HEAD, field dress them, and make a squirrel and dumpling dish, almost a stew, that I've never been able to duplicate. I never watched her make it, it was always the reward for helping them do something, and never thought to ask. I'll ask Mom at xmas, maybe kill a couple squirrels (a brace) in their back yard with a sling-shot. I'm quite good with a sling-shot. I won "Rustic Sling-Shotting" at 25 and 50 feet all four years at Janitor College, other than Horse-Shoes it was my only sport. A rustic sling-shot, by rule, had to be a yoke of branch, with inner-tube bands, and a shoe-tongue pocket. I always preferred them to the bent steel, wrap around the wrist, surgical tubing, soft suede pocket things. I was going to say it's harder to be accurate with primitive equipment and I had to stop and think about that. Probably true. I have one of the bent steel guys now, and I'm awfully good with it, probably couldn't hit the side of a barn with an inner tube. Fully stocked, I'm looking forward to three days alone, back-up juice, back-up booze, back-up tobacco, 14 log-rounds to split, pate to make. Dainty fox prints around a puddle at the top of the driveway. I'm pretty sure my girl-friend is out and about again. In a sense, expectation is everything, when will I see her again? My plan is to take an early walk, while things are still frozen, I like the way color is held in ice, I can become a Romantic, and I track less mud in the house. Because of the holiday, spending it alone, I'm granted enormous latitude, room to think. Which I seem to require. Thinking about others, people I could be with, it's not a slight to my friends, that I'd rather be alone. I'm known to disappear, even someone who watched closely couldn't keep track. I've learned to turn sideways and walk in irregular steps, vanish in the trees. Doesn't attract many viable females but keeps me out of trouble. D has infected me with his inability to sleep, I used to sleep fine, now I get up at all hours of the morning, enact strange rituals, sacrifice mice, study spattered blood. That's a good triplet, I can explain. Even better, I don't have to, you know what I mean. Saves all that codifying. What was meant by whom. I need a new printer, I'm loosing track here, I haven't read myself for over a week, but I'm pretty sure I'm on track. This is usually where I find myself, above my waders in the Yellowstone.
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Grandiose Plans

It's the dishes that did me in. Clear by mid-afternoon that I'd not get everything done, so I didn't finish the pate. Saturday for sure as the chicken thighs are cooked. Besides, I forgot to get nuts, a fairly recent addition to the recipe that Gampp suggested, and not yet in my mental list of necessary ingredients, wasn't on the list, is now, since I forgot them. Pistachios add a wonderful bite. Baked the pie first, as the oven was heating up, and I could easily hold it at 350 degrees. Then outside into a beautiful, sunny, 50 degree day; split kindling, cut starter sticks, cut the 12 doubles into rounds, split six of them into 48 pieces. Inside, heated water, washed the first round of dishes, cleaned up myself and shaved, started heating more water, and started making the soup, let it cool then blenderized and added cream, back on to heat, baked the thighs in enchilada sauce. Cleaned up the kitchen again, and started drinking Wild Turkey. Productivity fell off. I took a walk out to my graveyard, a deer had been bedding in one of the kid's graves, a Blevins, marked with just a couple of field-stones, crude inscription on a flat face. Life was scrabble here then, 1880's, half the graveyard is infants and kids, then older people, everyone between left, manifest hoopla, life beyond the 100th meridian, where it was still a struggle, and then the whole thing went up in a cloud of dust. The soup is really good, a medium butternut squash peeled and cubed, cooked in two cans of chicken broth, with salt, pepper, garlic, allspice, then cooled and blenderized, then reheated with a half cup half-and-half and more freshly ground black pepper and about a dozen dashes of a good hot sauce. I have seconds, which is rare. I'd gotten thighs that were bone-in with skin, and fried the skins as a special treat, the thighs take the sauce better without skin; I slit the thighs on the bottom, where the bone is closest to the surface, cook them that side down, lifting them occasionally, so the sauce can penetrate. These are excellent, I have four left for the pate, I only ate two, with a caramelized onion, red pepper, asparagus thrown in at the last minute thing, a piece of bread to clean up, on my way to pie. In an amazing display of restraint I only eat one piece, but will definitely have a double slice for breakfast tomorrow. I love pie for breakfast. A thick crusted fruit pie with warm cream, Key Lime with whipped cream, even a piece of cheesecake. I say save breakfast for dinner except on weekends when it should be brunch. I'm pissed, late, that anyone would claim the Wrack Show, anyone could curate or produce, but the show is mine, that seems clear, this is just one reason I hate working with other people, their egos are so delicate. I probably should retire but they need me for another year or two. Poking sore spots. What they think they are saying.
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Harrison

I have all of Jim Harrison's books on a separate shelf so I don't lose them. I could level complaints but I keep coming back, reading an essay or a poem, and being blown away. This is what words can do. I'd been busy, stacking wrack, wasn't expecting this book, "The English Major" but there it is, and it's a wonderful thing. Listen to the voice. The natural voice, which is where he has been leading us, always more natural. Attention to detail, listen, sometimes Barry Lopez comes close, or Terry Tempest, but Harrison nails things, like Hemingway should have done. It's true of all writer's, isn't it, you're just trying to be clear. What I think you mean. What I thought I meant. He cuts though the fabric, though I sense he is exhausted. Like Proust in that cork-lined room. Now what? This is a mature piece of writing. The voice is everything. At my age, doing a book review, fuck me, I liked it. I love his poetry too, and his non-fiction, especially when he talks about food, which he does often. Quiet day at the museum, just the Deputy, D and I there. Both of them in their offices all day, I cleaned corners, went to the grocery store early, to miss the holiday crowds, but they were already there and it was a zoo. Liquor store for a bottle of Wild Turkey. Got everything to make pate. Tomorrow I figure to cut wood early then cook the rest of the day. I'll be dining on Wild Turkey, cream of squash soup, chicken thighs simmered in enchilada sauce, maybe asparagus, maybe a sweet potato. Probably get tanked making the pate, three hours from the start to cleaning all the pans in the kitchen. I make several different pates, spreads, force-meats, this one, my favorite, everything is cooked separately then mixed together, cooled, processed, and packed into used plastic containers. Fucking mess but excellent product. Looks like I'll be making nearly six pounds of the stuff. Need some egg yolks for the Key Lime pie, so probably start the day with a three-whites-one-yolk omelet, brie and jalapeno, do my chainsaw stuff, split a few rounds, then clean up, shave, and though I don't wear an apron, I do stick a dish-towel in my back pocket, start cooking. Need to do the pie first, hold the heat of the oven fairly low (350) and that's the only thing I need to do in the oven, everything else is stove-top and this is where the cookstove excels, times tomorrow I'll have five cast-iron skillets on it at the same time, all of them at different temps, a kind of infinitely variable thing. Almost nine years I've been cooking on the Stanley Waterford, and I recommend it as a tool, best damned stove I've ever owned. Handsome, too, centering the opposite end of the downstairs from where I write, the house is 36 feet wide, 30 feet away, I can tell from the sounds it makes, from how cold my legs are, when I need to stoke wood. Wintertime, I'm a slave to this, if I don't stoke the fire, I die. But not really, because the Richard's clan would rescue me. I know they would, maybe that's why I settled here. It's like having a family without paying the dues. They know they can't depend on me, but they like me anyway. It's curious, then I realize what's happened, that B was the brightest among them, they all knew, but he was an odd duck, and then this ringer comes in, from western Colorado, and his line of talk, his attitude, is, more or less, the same. Meant B was right all along. I see myself as a shadow character. I love the periods ability to stop things. I'm less secure with commas. I'm not sure why the mag article had to sound so much like it was D's piece, I don't deal well with egos. Why I hate the combinded arts, where more than one of us has to say something. I know what I thought I meant. Those are my words. You can't use them. I'm being picky here, but you at least have to credit me. This is my show, I assembled the talent, I held it in my diminished brain, I worked over-time, this wrack installation is me, I'm on display here, not you. And that's the point, me, not you. What I thought I saw.
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Lose Them

I'm actually plus three-and-a-half days at work, have used no vacation or sick days, then discover it's use them or lose them. If snow accumulates tonight maybe I'll take tomorrow off. Should have picked up a Cornish Game hen today, my usual Turkey Day meal, but I've got various things in the freezer that need to be eaten. Dated nailed down for the Florida trip, meet the girls, see my folks, do all the cooking (Mom told me, she's making a list), zip over to Tallahassee and visit Kim. Remind D to take pictures and print out, so he can see the finished installation. Go below the floodwall and get a set of pavers for Kurt, he coveted Kim's, and trade him for a cubic foot of Live Oak, actually get him to rough out a piece 13 inches by 13 inches by 13 inches, to allow for drying/shrinkage, take it down to finish size later. I want to start a collection of cubic foot samples of all available woods. Live Oak is especially interesting, specific gravity of .95, 59 lbs.per cubic foot. Barely floats. Ebony is just a fraction denser, .96, 60 lbs. but I'll never see a cubic foot of that. A cubic foot of cast iron, 7.21, 450 lbs. seems out of the question. Might be able to get a cubic foot of coal, certainly sandstone and limestone. This could be an interesting installation. Doesn't matter, really, because I want them for myself. Be nice to soak the wood in anti-freeze so it wouldn't check. The river pedestals in the wrack show are checking major league, opening huge heart-checks, but it is in the nature of heart-checks to only go half-way through, radiating out from the heart in irregular patterns, so the stumps won't blow apart. A cautionary lesson, don't do an expensive wood show in winter, when we struggle so to keep the humidity barely high enough. The expansion of all the sticks, as they check, has served to tighten the lashings: we'll have to take this show apart with a hatchet. If I go to town tomorrow I think I'll get everything to make a batch of pate, chicken livers, chicken thighs, several different mushrooms, those three equal by weight, butter, wine, basil, nutmeg, scallions, garlic, lots of fresh ground pepper. A rustic country pate. Should make about four pounds and I want to take Jim, at the Pub, a pound, he's been good to us, a pound for me and a pound for B, a pound for Hound Dog and Cindy. Probably only cost about $12, but will take most of a day, all of my pans, five gallons of water and several hours to clean up after. The only reason to do it is that the product is so fine, completely unavailable, and if I don't make it I'll never get any. 2 or 3 times a year I'm motivated and trash the kitchen. Geese going over, a huge skein, they're loud, bragging of southern climes, where they'll be tomorrow when I'm freezing my sorry ass on a ridge top in Ohio. But, you know, the cookstove is clicking, as the metal heats, and I only control my life alone, on this ridge, everything else is compromise. Living in the world can be quite different things, the lines we walk, to whom we are answerable, what we observe. Full circle. We must lose attachment, emotional baggage, stand clear in the moment. Walk up was lovely this afternoon, left early to start a fire against expected snow, and the banded clouds were lovely against the banded orange, the wind and slanted light, dead leaves blowing everywhere, like a movie without a plot; I watched it for a long time, before I got cold and remembered I needed to build a fire. I like letting events distract me, watching how I respond. I hadn't meant to cook but I think I will make a creamy butternut squash soup and the pate and roast a Cornish Game hen, maybe with some stuffing on the side, a wild boar, cornbread, spinach thing, with drippings. I am not going to make a key-lime pie, no way I could eat a whole pie, I only want a couple of pieces, one late at night and the other for breakfast, but I could probably give the rest away, the local food bank or maybe B and Sarah, maybe I'll make a pie. Don't want to rule anything out. Which this life allows, not ruling, too busy surviving, a straight line from A to B, when even a straight line is a curve, considering direction and speed. The faster route is often a curve, considering the vagaries. I know what they mean, but I can't do the math, I hate taking anyone's word, yet, they are convincing. Something Mac said, Aristotle is useful but after that criticism is a dry dung heap, words to that effect. Wow, I thought so too. Like minds. Leave well-enough alone.

Tom

Three crows congregate,
they seem to communicate,
fly in three different directions.
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Heteroclite Structure

Cold rain, last leaves falling, snow forecast. Local radio station says more than 50 fender-benders in town, black ice, one accident involves 8 vehicles. Decide to not go to town, mix some frozen juice (the winter stash) as that was all I needed. Wash out some socks and undies in the sink, need the moisture of drying clothes, catch some rainwater for a bath, crank the cookstove. Finish reading the criticism I started yesterday. Maybe not that I disagree totally, just that the writing is so over-blown it's difficult to prize out what's meant. Two books (a couple of you asked) "Dissident Postmodernists: Barthelme, Coover, Pynchon" Paul Maltly, and "Middle Grounds, Studies in Contemporary American Fiction) Alan Wilde. Actually some of the ideas are good, maybe even correct, once you figure out what's being said. Must get the leaves out of the catchments before the culverts plug, should have done it yesterday but wasn't thinking, having too much fun splitting wood. Driveway is paved with sodden leaves. Pileated Woodpecker back yesterday, working the same trees as before, hopping up and down hickory bark, cocking his head from side to side, listening for critters. A walk during a lull in rain, part-way down the driveway, moving rocks out of the grader ditch, enabling the ritual of drainage. Hours later, cleaned up a bit and sipping half-shots of single malts Glenn left, considering the next thing. Need to do the back porch roof, clear brush, work on firewood. Late Fall Blues. Break out the little can, 130 grams, of Foie Gras de Canard (Glenn and Linda brought me from France), wonderful stuff, full-flavored and rich, I elect to only eat half, finish killing myself tomorrow. Then a couple of small open-face sandwiches, toasted brie with jalapeno peppers, and some olives. Early dinner. Conditions are right for an icy event, depending on how the temperature falls. I need to write and send early, bound to lose either the phone or the electricity. Life at the end of the line. Better to be off the grid than at the very edge of the grid. Need to look into a battery powered laptop, write by candle-light, print the missives very small and send them by pigeon. We could all have cotes and an alternative mail service, exchanging information under the radar. This rain is so directional only one side of the trees is wet. Failing light: black and gray, there is no color. Theory, and even meaning, fade to a point and disappear: if you fall now, you die, carry a walking stick and don't trust your balance. Seasons still surprise me, the way they change the order, first one thing then another, my reading shifts, one day I'm reading desert essays and the next I'm reading polar explorers. Clipped a nice path into where the next tree falls. Then the monster, the winter's wood, a huge oak that might be second growth, a cord of wood in the branches, all dead, stripped of bark, pure solid heart. The tree of your dreams and only fifty more feet of trail. I feel fine about this winter. If I don't make it I shouldn't have, always look to the gene-pool, what Darwin taught us. However flawed in the particular, works out in the long run, who survives. That's only a complete sentence if you say it a certain way, otherwise it means nothing, it's you and me and language, and these bird guys, chirping in, I don't know what to make of them. Went out to pee, the rain is turning to ice, I'd better go. Remember these things, remind me. Whatever I was talking about.

Tom

It's a love-hate thing, living on the edge, what we think we mean.
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Sore Particulars

I use an 8 lb. maul with a fiberglass handle. Don't really like fiberglass handles but I've not broken the damn thing in eight years and that's a personal best. Heating with wood for 40 years, 2, 3, 4 cords a year, plus the cords I've sold (sold cords for $100 on Martha's Vineyard in 1980) so maybe 150 cords of wood so far. Was going to say I've never had a furnace but that's not quite true. First apartment, apartment when I taught at FSU, first 3 years living on Cape Cod, then the house on the herring run. Nothing since but wood. A Who's Who of stoves, some beauties, some real clunkers. A goodly pile of wood today and still have the dozen doubles from the newest drop. I calculate, sometimes, when I'm splitting, usually my mind is wrapped in the moment, where the maul is going to strike, where the heart checks have started and the wood wants to split, but splitting straight grain red and white oak you don't need to think very much, mostly what you do is swing the maul, John Henry. So I calculated that there might be 144 pieces of stove wood in the new pile. And this tree is so straight grained that the pieces blow apart. It's what we call splitting with a vengeance, a great way to take out aggressions. It's therapy for me. An interesting thing about splitting wood, maul-work, one of, is that you must always take a full swing, there are no half-hearted efforts, you don't take a full swing and the damned thing might bounce back and that can be dangerous. I've killed pigs with the butt of a splitting maul, when someone requested the brains on a hog they'd bought and I couldn't shoot it. I preferred shooting, a 410 shotgun slug, at the crossing of imaginary lines drawn diagonally down from the ears, shattering the brain. You see my point. I don't want to die at the woodshed, the victim of a bad bounce. It'd be days before anyone thought to look, and I'd look stupid, dead, in my motor-pool army drab-green jumpsuit with velcro attachments at wrist and ankle. I'd rather expire in someone's arms or under a comforter, but will probably take what I get. Writer Dies While Feeding Ducks, or, An Eccentric Dies An Eccentric Death. Listen, if I were you, and I were to die suddenly, I'd look into it. I think I'm targeted for all the wrong reasons. Someone thinks I'm a danger, fuck them if they can't take a joke. I merely mention some things and you draw conclusions. It's hardly subversive. My shoulders are sore, I was mauling, I mentioned that, the calculating, check, but I hadn't mentioned what I was reading on the breaks, a grace note, I just remembered, this bizarre book, literary criticism, that got everything wrong. I only read it because I disagreed so strongly, I'd come in, make a cup of espresso, swing my arms, read a chapter, and rant. Fit to be tied. Motherfuckers couldn't find their shoe-strings with both hands. Nor their ass.
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Pattern Recognition

I've installed a lot of ink cartridges, I print quite a bit. My computer is telling me that my printer is telling me that there is tape on the unit. There isn't. Must get D to print the last three days, need to read myself, to see what I said. The room of my text. Had that thought standing in the installation, explaining to a group of 7th graders what it was. The Room Of My Text; I went and sat in the chair, while I was talking. They thought I was cool, I told them I was, and to build tree-houses. Also the thought, I may have mentioned, about locus, how we are curving around an imagined center point. More about that when I figure out what I mean. A conflicted day at the museum, and here's an odd thing, I smelled it on everyone. No one smelled correct, even me, I smelled like dirty socks, Lily smelled like a smart kid taking an important test, D smelled like a swamp (not a bad smell, but distinct), and Sara smelled worried. I won't go into the "notes", but I could. I think we are resolved, everyone will smell better tomorrow. I'll have to powder-up, because I can't take a bath until Saturday. I have rules and I don't have the time for that whole heating water, sheep-watering trough thing right now, I need to assume the role of Hypo Clearing Agent and mediate a mess. Finally got all of the garbage from the fund-raiser out of the kitchen. I love Thursdays, when I can just get rid of shit. It's hard to deal with too much emotion, it clouds, as they say, and takes over local control. Had to clean the largest trash cans, they smelled like beer and vomit (I don't mind this job, it's rather straight-forward) and one thing I've noticed is that if you're cleaning a toilet or a trash can, no one bothers you. A tombstone might read "He Sought Solace In Dumpsters" or even "Diving For Bricks". Touched base with Barnhart at the college, listened to the composition he'd recorded, a lovely thing. Like Stravinsky in that little piece "Sphrinx for Flute Solo", which I whistle badly but know quite well. You don't want to know. It involved a dancer from Merce Cunningham's company, some very fine pot and a dance on the beach. Memory is a mine/mind-field. I try and focus on the present, I weary myself laboring. But what is is elusive, what we see. Listen, did you smell that? What you thought you heard. It seems to me a rather calm run of water, no real rapids, an easy trip, less than you expected, what you thought. I'm suspect, what you thought you meant. I'd never watched Rugby before, how violent it was. They hit. I just run some numbers. Whatever. We're cool on this, you and me, right? as it scrolls before us, say what you will, we're linked in a mysterious way, I'd rather disavow anything, than deny the link to you, what we share. What we are.

Phone out, so I couldn't send last night. Still can't get the damned printer working, slipping further toward chaos. Stack of paper was growing at an unseemly rate anyway. Cold on this side of the house. Teens last night and never above freezing on the ridge today, skiff of snow lingering, but only on the ridgetop, maybe 36 degrees in town, teens again tonight. Be writing in long underwear soon. Cleaned the fridge out at the museum, whatever left-over food the staff didn't eat, then carted the bags over to the Pub's dumpster, which is dumped daily, as opposed to our weekly pick-up, scored a dozen rolls for the ducks. Left work an hour early, stopped at the lake, fed the ducks, parked at the bottom of the hill and walked up, good fire by dark. Small tuna steak and 10 minute potatoes gratin, done in the microwave, browned with the propane torch. Start reading a lousy fiction and finally tossed it against the wall, another doofer. Why is so much bad fiction published? My demands are only moderately high for recreational reading. I'm recreating, for god's sake. Bunch of kids in the museum yesterday and today. One group of them went downstairs to the classroom and worked on a stick project, D and I had gone below the floodwall and picked up a couple of boxes of little sticks for them to work with, authentic sticks, to inspire them to do something, whatever, the Show made them think about. That's a fucked sentence, but I drifted off, thinking about the older couple in yesterday, when we were changing the signage to include B, a sin of omission for which we all bowed to the east, and they were really into the Show, owned some riverfront property, collected wrack there, had constructed a bench and table from river sticks. A sub-culture I hadn't expected. We talked wrack for a while, they asked if they could call me, if they found something interesting, mentioned a duck-blind that had beached itself recently, that they moored, until finally someone took it; I said certainly, call me any hour of the day or night, if something interesting washes ashore. This could be the beginning of the River Spotters, a dedicated group of volunteers who watch closely for particularly strange objects that might be drifting or already abeach. Sara mentioned another show today and I'd already been thinking I'd like to do a larger wrack show, something that would require buying a four-wheel drive Wrecker, so we could move large things. There are any number of things we passed up because they were simply too heavy, water-logged and awkward. I need a tow-truck. "On The Banks Of The Ohio." We could travel this show, because, really, I could install anything anywhere; I don't mean that in any arrogant sense, it just happens that I know someone who can lash, I know someone to call. What I meant, back at the beginning, a fixer. The kids were really loud. Puts me off my feed. Like I was being distracted or something. I don't envy your position, under the gun, what you would say.
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Day Two

Got the kitchen squared away. You know those warmer pans that use Sterno for heat. Nice units, but they have a lot of curled edges. Baked-on barbeque sauce is a tough one. Some of the crevices, I think, had never been properly cleaned, so I spent a lot of time on them. Relatively difficult, like stripping paint. Bathrooms tomorrow, and empty the kitchen of trash, cases of empties, we'll be ship-shape. Always the goal. Speaking of which, we saw a great soccer goal, D and I, eating lunch at the bar in the pub. They were tuned to European Sports, the top soccer league; the Celtics clearly the better team, but Hamilton had a strong defense close to the net; Celtics controlling the ball 75% of the time, and still tied 1-1 in the 85th minute. Exciting stuff, these guys were good. One of the Celtics breaks toward the goal, passes off to a following player, keeps driving, gets the ball back and fires between two defenders who are blocking the goalie's view. We cheered, though the Celtics uniform color-choices were bloody awful. Must be state colors, yellow and green, no matter, these dudes could run and pass. There was a grace to the score, hard to describe, these guys running flat-out come up with a plan, thinking on their feet, so elegant you want to cry or sigh or punch a buddy. After lunch I dealt with glass platters. I do this carefully, it takes a while: nothing broken. Triplets plague me. "Seven tigers / nothing unusual / never mind." Harvey killed himself too soon, we hadn't gotten to the good part, where you no longer gave a shit, and did whatever you wanted. On the Show Front, people wandered in, looked around, said things. I was busy cleaning up, after the party, didn't have time for post-partum blues. Three clauses, a pattern, we don't need to talk about that, you know? What is, is. Spots on glass are hard to chase away, what you meant might not be important, where are you going with that thought? It's easy to stack words, but what does it mean?If I have a post-partum it certainly concerns meaning. I don't think I do, but if I did, I'd probably tie things together, you know, lash. For the third night in a row I make chili, for the Deputy, to freeze against the winter. $6.57 cents, what I spend on a vat of this, given that the two pounds of pulled pork is a given, a cheap stew, whatever it is, a chili-like substance, enough calories to get you through the day. I take buttered bread and crackers on the side, I've been known to storm into the kitchen, threaten someone with their life, if they couldn't figure out what I meant. Hey, I thought I was being clear. I hadn't realized. You know, the confusion. What you thought I meant.
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Cleanup

Gads. Good skiff of snow, cold. Glad I left the truck at the bottom of the hill, the walk down so pleasant, the snow again revealing contour. Still on the ground when I get home and I can see across the hollow. Winterlude. Cleaning up at the museum will take a couple of days, the kitchen tomorrow, floors today. A dark porter spilled behind the sampling table and the grout joints were awful. Used a tooth-brush and the peroxide (foaming) cleaner to lift dried beer so I could mop it away. Put away tables and chairs, went through all the garbage to recycle cans and put the ton of bottles back in empty cases lest the bags burst, picked out a goodly container of goose food. On my way home stopped at the lake and the geese were all taking shelter in the shelter, I spread out an array of pretzels and brownies and they waddled over for a look. Much food left-over, including a huge pile of pulled-pork barbeque. I offered to make a pot of chili for staff. Two straight days of making chili. This one will be odd because of the sweetish sauce. I'll add a little balsamic to cut the sweetness. Might be edible. Dance of the Docents this morning, where they get their briefing on what a show is or does. Fresh from filming with Glenn, I can do a pretty good walk-through with them. They love the installation, LOVE IT, ask good questions, admire some things. Sense is conveyed, maybe not a fixed result, maybe more about process, interest, engagement, attachment; maybe no meaning, but a simple archaic existence. You've got your village green, you've got your houses, you've got your shrine, you've got your shaman's corner (Lane), you've got a perfectly adequate chair, the bed's a bit rough (as it needed to be, to mirror the stick construction) but if you put enough elk-hides on it you'd probably be ok, you and the missus under 40 lbs. of pelts. Hard not to crow, the show is so good. Both whimsical and mysterious. Talking to myself, today, I questioned my intent. When I first started this project I was reading a lot about String Theory, and I didn't get it at all, the String Theory part, but I found this show, and it became a kind of String Theory for me. I often misconstrue. Streaming stratified bands of orange broken by narrow bands of dark clouds, what a sunset. Us tree-huggers live for this shit. Nothing better than the natural world. Maybe it's said best in those caves in France and Spain. Maybe it doesn't get any better than that. The leap here was not mine or D's or B's, but Sara's. She trusted us with that space. This chili I'm making for the staff is pretty good, it's hard to eat because the pulled pork threads are so long, they drape over the spoon, you end up slurping them, like noodles, but it's meat. Like I say, I love the museum, it provides me a place to play. Your normal crazy person doesn't have a place to play, you give them that, and life is easier, it's a no-brainer. Glenn and I talked about doing a play, my posts might be half a dialog and we'd have to imagine the rest, imagine it. So my intent is to use you, that voice on the other end of the phone, as a character I'm responding to, on the phone or whatever. My people should talk to your people. Break it down, meaning is explicit. Consider Praxitelies and B, me and Sappho, read closely, you see what I mean.

Tom

More like it's an unending chain. Something we couldn't deny. Yes, I have a piece of The Cross, I keep it wrapped in a piece of the Shroud, we should stamp it on tortillos. Let the world know. But we're holding out for a better contract, you and me, babe. Listen, someone asked me today, did I really imagine that, or did I put it together later, after I had heard some ideas bandied about, and it's always going to come down to that down to that. What you thought you meant.
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Space, Time

Licking my wrack injuries, but it is done, and beautifully. Glenn filming right through to the opening party, a day of rest, and he was off this morning, so early I didn't see him, just heard the door closing. Quick trip to town to lay in supplies against coming snow and cold, then firewood. Hot fire all day, so mid-afternoon I start a pot of Colorado Chili, which is meat cooked with chilies in enchilada sauce, everything else on the side, and think about the last couple of weeks. The show is spectacular, much as I had imagined in outline, but with a great many extras. The Wall Of Things that Kim assembled in the interest of The Illusion Of Opacity is a dance of forms; breaking the ceiling plane was a master stroke; the pergola is a shrine; the sculptural pieces are brilliant and oddly realistic, D's furniture is perfect. There is the suggestion of habitation. Looking across the main gallery (vaulted ceiling) from the other end gallery, the Wertz, which houses 10,000 Native American artifacts is a very strange experience, like looking into an archaic village. I had said many times, when we were installing the Wertz Collection, that all we had were the hard things, rocks and pots, that we were missing the whole organic spectrum from what was essentially an organic culture, sticks and lashings indeed. Suddenly, there it is. Didn't keep track, but probably between 500 and 750 feet of lashing, hundreds of sticks, 50 balls, seven log pedestals, root balls large and small, a beautiful IBM Selectric (horribly rusted, missing keys, bent out of shape, electronics hanging) and hundreds of interesting views. Almost hard to see the show for the trees. Glenn found it hard to shoot, there is so much to see, one thing leads to another. Once you see the Goat Head, and it is perfectly plain to see, you start thinking about what other things might look like, and then we've got you. Watching people at the opening was interesting, they get sucked along, through doorways, peering through windows. The concept works: interesting sticks and objects, arranged in an interesting way, are interesting. What an exhausting trip. I finally lost it on Saturday, when the electric band did a five hour reunion rehearsal down in the main gallery and Glenn was trying to shoot some final shots of the installation, after clean-up. Fucking nightmare. Bunch of doctors, arrogant talent, doing bad covers of songs 30 years old. Left the party early. I imagine the mess the janitor will confront on the morrow. Imagine it got a bit rowdy toward the end. Wonder if the installation stands. Hope so, because I'm not done looking at it. At the end of almost every workday I rolled in a chair and just looked, a technique that works for me, void the mind and simply stare; sometimes I would change something, or make a note to look at something later, but generally I was just tired and needed to stare into the middle distance, regroup my forces and find my way home. I drank more than usual, but always after I got back to the ridge, slept on the sofa a few times. Skipped meals, which is really unusual for me, especially with guests, but I'd get home and my brain was empty and I couldn't cook. Doing an installation is like a divorce, you have a vested interest and it drains you, even if you know the outcome and what is required. However you prepare yourself, you will be tired. Thinking hard is tiring. I know wherefrom I speak, I abuse my body, I know physical pain, but thinking hard is even harder, drains deep into reserves. Writing you is more difficult than splitting wood. It's harder to think clearly than it is to accomplish a mundane task. Hercules in the stables. Listening to people talk about the show, I introduced myself to someone who seemed to be interested, he knew who I was and read me every day. I was shocked. I forget I'm read, that that's the point. He liked the show. Saw the Goat Head right away. Perfect. We talked. Seems life is the same everywhere, what we take home. I make a note, lose it. It's my way. Mostly I lose things.
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Almost Installed

Listen, nothing that as said meant anything. Where you told me to stick that. What I thought I heard. Read more...

Later

Long after dark, I'm wondering what is concealed. You reveal that much, what is not revealed? Listen, I have to go. There's a clock ticking somewhere. Nothing is what it seems. You might say what you thought you meant. I've thought about this, what I thought I meant. I know that "I" and "You" are constructs. Positively ebullient about the show, especially as The Gamppster was in today, with a load of wrack. Excellent stuff, an industrial muffin tin, sorely rusted, several nice bottles (we had no glass) and the chandelier for over the bed, a lovely thing with a duck decoy on the top. Objects take on meaning from their context. D's head buried in the phone book and he called me over, in the yellow pages there was a heading, DEAD, and at the bottom of the page, last place, was printed "Dead Animal Removal Service" and a note, "see fertilizers", but on the fertilizer page there was nothing about dead animals. Are there dead animals in fertilizer? Is this a problem for vegetarians? Do they have to tell you on the bag? Maybe I'm just easily confused. The Show looks great, after a couple of days off (which we didn't expect to have). I polyurethaned the abstract stump then cleaned and thaned (it was either thaned or polyied) the strange little bird/fish. It's lovely, reminds me of the Calder piece, the flow. It needs a special pedestal, I have the idea that it could be on a fairly small diameter log that could be lashed into a corner. Already missing the Tallahassee Lasher, or Lead Lash, as he liked to be called, there are still things to tie, and he set the rod quite high; D and I tended more toward a -fuck the Boy Scouts- kind of upbringing, and never learned proper lashing. Seriously, some of Kim's lashes are things of beauty, at the end, he was going around, tucking the ends, cleaning up the lashings. I mean really. A sure sign of winter is tannic leaf-prints on concrete. The finish on the abstract stump is amazing, strange. I sandblasted it, then sprayed on some poly, then wire brushed it and oiled it, then today put on a coat of semi-gloss poly today. All of these things are not necessarily mutually compatible therefore not predictable. It has sparkly edges, where, I guess, the final coat of poly built up. It'll look lovely in the light, I just don't know where it goes. B was over for a drink and chat, he thought we should just give Gampp the other house, the southeast triangle. This whole thing interests me, the presentation, is actually what I currently do, install shows. And though I seem to be the boss I don't really know what's going on. It's a collective, but I am the thread. I've written this into existence. Usually I go the other way around. Like I could hide anything from you, if you read me closely, I think I am transparent, maybe just slightly opaque, nearly normal. You think you know what I mean. You think I know what I mean. I warn you straight out that I will cheat, in so far as I understand anything, in so far as I can see might be necessary. I tend to qualify things. Note to self. Reread. Glenn is coming again, to film, the next few days should be full to over-flowing. Thinking tonight about what a leap this show is, in the way that I constellate my thinking, what becomes real and what doesn't. Almost anyone could imagine this show, if they only had the idea.
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Home Work

Talk about having let things slide. Spend some time cleaning, spend some time on firewood, hope to spend a full day tomorrow working firewood, fill all the stations of the cross. First real cold snap and the leaves falling in sheets, very beautiful, if somewhat austere, the remaining color. The vistas open, I can see across the hollow for the first time in months. One Pileated Woodpecker, then two, then three crows squawking in a snag out beyond the outhouse. Thinking about the porch roof and the weight of snow that slides off the back of the house, and even though I'll be using metal roofing, I think it needs to be plywood instead of purlins, which is probably a good thing because I could put a layer of half-inch foam on top of the sheathing to dampen the sound. Uninsulated metal roofs are very loud and I'm easily distracted. Finalized plans to meet the girls in Jacksonville over xmas, their last chance to see my parents, but I'll be away for two weeks. I've had a one week limit on being away, because I can't stand being off the ridge, I lose my center. My brother has a lap-top for his FEMA gig, maybe I'll be able to write down there, last time I was there, I remember, I had a fair amount of extra time (free time? not really, but there were times everyone else was doing something) and I'd interested in trying some field posts. First all-day fire. Reject wrack burns very well. I bow-saw enough to burn until tomorrow, didn't want the noise of a chainsaw. Tomorrow, though, will be a noisy day. B stopped by, he and Sarah had spent the night on the ridge, cleaning the cabin, said that Bucky was selling dry saw-mill slabs of oak for $30 a pick-up load. I want a load. A great stash, to have, against the common cold and the various strains of flu. I love burning slabs because they're so easy. Slabs are generally the outside cut off a saw-log, the natural edge, and they vary greatly in size. If it's the butt-log they have to cut off the bottom flare, if there's a burl, they have to cut it off, they're looking to get down to a flat surface, they're not interested in form. No, wait, they are interested in form but have a very flat view. There was an interesting conversation, I don't remember when, we were talking about people who bothered us; we were spread out in the gallery, attending chores, talking loudly, so we could hear each other (Darren's outside voice carries like a honker) and I think it was Kim who said he didn't like people who wake babies. Common ground. I hate anyone who interrupts, check back over the text, I don't like anyone who pre-supposes anything, whatever they meant. I thought I was clear, this meant that . Where we thought we stood. Glenn is coming Wednesday. I'm pretty sure I'm correct. It's a show. Couldn't make a connection, to Send, last night. Another day of Home Work, one I really needed, colder weather and rain turning to snow maybe within the week. Up early and start a fire, heat water, do the dishes and shave, suit up, out-side by 8 o'clock. Warm-up exercise is splitting kindling. Currently I'm using slats from wooden pallets, cut to about 8 inches; I kneel on a piece of three inch Etha-Foam and split on a small stump using a dull hatchet (not too dull, but not sharp, avoiding cuts) and aim to get them three-eights of an inch wide, filling a 6 gallon trash can (rectangular) to the top. Kindling for weeks. Next I split out select straight grain very dry oak into pieces the full depth of the cookstove, 15 inches, in various sizes from three-quarters of an inch up to maybe an inch and a half. Starter sticks. The wood-shed was a mess, got the electric chainsaw and cut all the reject wrack to length, moved things around, split some oak rounds and made a couple of ricks. Some of the wrack I couldn't identify, maybe Slippery Elm, set a piece out for B to sniff. Whatever it is it burns well, holding the oven (the thermometer in the door is fairly accurate and provides information about what's burning) right at 450 degrees, burning just small chunks. When I'm home all day I mostly burn odd chunks, off-cuts, knots. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, comfort food. I want to walk, so instead of using the truck to transport, I carry 12 double saw-logs back to the shed, from the head of the driveway, 175 paces each way, 10-12 inch logs, specific gravity .71, weight per cubic foot 44 pounds. Take a break for afternoon coffee, rereading sections of Procopius before I put it away, funny stuff, vitriolic. After the break I suit up in the velcro-sealed army motor-pool jumpsuit, take the staple gun and go under the house to repair insulation. More than half done on the Permanent Fix, which is 6 inches of fiberglass held in place with two inches of dense foam wedged and toe-nailed. A great solution if you're on a ridge-top and experience high winds. I might seal it with slightly expanding foam, sealing the edges might give me an edge. Everything is really speculation. By then I was seriously dirty, but I didn't want to bathe (insulation) and elected to shower on the deck, in hind-sight a sponge-bath would have been fine. But no, I have to take a shower on the deck and it's 42 degrees. Requires planning. Flush off with cold water, the pores shrink, the fiberglass washes off, immediately flood your body with warm water and soap-up, then quickly rinse with another pail of warm and get your ass inside. But I am clean, and that means something, to get there, after a day like today. I hadn't made plans for dinner, looked in the cupboard, and there was a can of premium crab meat, I keep cans of boiled potatoes around, seems stupid, but I live alone, a few potatoes go a long way, canned boiled potatoes are just potatoes, cheap, and I often need a binder. Mashed potatoes are the perfect binder, I always have cream and butter around. I make three killer crab cakes that are nothing but crab and potato, fry them in butter: before I can even think about a topping I've eaten them all. What might have been. Jesus, to be honest, I'm sore in every particular, a physical push. I needed this. I like being sore, I know you needs to suffer, thinking about this, what you wants to be, thinking how sore I am. I defer to your greater knowledge.You didn't have to do this, I did.
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Installation

This is way cool, installing the show, I try and stay in the background, whatever my place here. What I try and do is remain calm. I knew we had a show. Attachment was not the problem I painted it to be. Kim arrived last Sunday, I had finished unloading wrack, home for dinner and catch-up conversation, then into work on Monday at the closed museum. Excellent start, the pieces fall together, and Kim, as it turns out, remembers lashing from Boy Scouts. Three of us working, then after lunch B over from the college and we fairly fly. Most of the posts were precut at the shed and the rails I had counted and grouped by length. Things fit together in unexpected and elegant ways, wrapping around each other. Tuesday, we were working so fast, had to send D back to the ridge for that final load of wrack. We made trips below the floodwall, for specific pieces, B and D cut two more pedestals, brought all the sculptural pieces in. Wanted the illusion of opacity on one wall, so you wouldn't see inside the house too soon, Kim solved the problem with two rows of small hanging pieces, monofilament suspension, looks like rows of implements on a barn wall but you can't identify any of the tools. Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday is set dressing, Thursday I mated sculptural pieces to pedestals, Friday, a cursory cleaning and site the peds. The show is essentially done, in a week. A lovely thing. Still much work to be done, installing Lane's pieces, Nick's stuff, the furniture. I think I can safely say it's over the top. At some point we extended some sticks upward off the top rails of the main wall (the outside wall of the inside space) as a form of temporary bracing and they quickly became a roof-line, which we extended, added purlins, and had suddenly broken the plane. Magic. The pergola is a thing of complex beauty, and will feature B's Greek Torso on a special 36 inch high, massive, walnut stump. The balls found two homes and seem comfortable, though I am certainly going to move the bowling ball to a more prominent place. The total effect is rather stunning, a bit monochromatic (but in a nice way, we all like the color) as everything has a washed out look. The woven fire-hose as roof for the porch, is an amazing touch. After we finished that filthy chore, Kim said he felt like he had just fought an Anaconda. The banter was good. Didn't need to work today, walked Kim and his bags down the driveway, walked back up, sauntering, fixed a nice breakfast, split a little wood. Kim's spoons were a big hit, sold a few, gave us 6 for the fund-raiser opening, next Saturday. I'm conflicted (a word much used this past week) when it comes to Opening Events. I like celebrating, I enjoy the disjointed conversation, the smell of perfume, the bumping, the flirting, but I don't drink and drive and really will want to drink and celebrate in my own way, which usually means going home, so I can drink and not drive. The Stage Manager is, at best, invisible, not unlike the janitor, there was a class at Janitor College: "Procedural Steps Toward Invisibility", taught by that ass-hole Tibetan guy. I've forgotten his name. Fuck me nine ways from Sunday. I wish I could be more specific but I evidently can't. Three crows go into a bar.
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Cookstove

I thought I saw a solution but I hadn't addressed the problem. B came over, to examine the playing field, discovered the problem within minutes, that the air-flow was the problem, mechanical, in the stove. And he stuck his hand in and discovered the problem, ten years of built-up creosote in the throat where one of the dampers operates. I'm experimenting with leaving out commas. Putting more of the burden on you. Less key-strokes for me. You can see why I was attracted. It's easier to leave out commas than to include them. I'm a comma kind of guy, I love the way they make things more discreet, that pile of stuff you were looking at becomes objects. I have to think about that. Nothing if not everything, Sara asked did I enjoy the edge, and I said evidently but not really. Power out last night, Able to start a fire this morning and cook a monster breakfast, then loaded sticks for the show and headed off to town. We got the entire Turning Show packed and crated yesterday, put all the plexiglas away, got the vinyl signage off the wall; today we shuffled all the pedestals to the basement, make room for them. Unloaded the sticks. A little patching and sanding to do, touch-up paint. On the way home I stopped in the State Forest and looked closely at some young beech trees. It would be a Beech Climax forest, but never allowed to get that far after the first time, but there are places where there are a few. They hold their dead leaves all winter. I stopped to pluck a few. Well attached. They seem of only get shed when the new buds break in spring. The leaf stalk tapers down then flares at the very bottom, quite a strong joint and I think it protects the bud in winter, or where the bud will be, the bud spot. The season (the only season) for large fat house flies that fly very slowly, I catch them easily with both hands, an ambidextrous fly-catcher, and smash their little brains out on a board I keep on the back porch. It's an interesting piece, the board, I might let it dry and epoxy it. "420 Flies", or "Small Death", and want to try and recreate the piece I was working on when I was living in the trailer, building this place: a book of photographs, dead mice, specifically, where the trap bar had struck, the indentations, very close up, looking like channelized rivers in fields of wheat with the occasional patch of red. That B discovered the problem with the stove so quickly. I felt like an idiot, then realized I'm living in the other side of my brain, right now, on cruise control, everything is texture and form, I can't give a coherent answer to a simple question. Talk about cheating, I have, for instance, a bronze fire-hose nozzle that is a thing of beauty, exactly sized to the fire-hose we found, which will probably be woven as the roof on the porch, and it would be nice to hang the nozzle near by. It's almost a joke but told as a story, why I ended up with this nozzle, and how we happened to find this particular hose. I don't draw, there aren't any conclusions to be drawn, but you might think about connections. When in doubt, look to the specific. What was I thinking about? something germane. Oh. We brought the job-box up from the cellar, our Attachment Center, we could install a show anywhere from this box, this is a good test, everything is so irregular. The natural forms are so attractive, John Fowles, "The Tree", "We shall never fully understand nature (or ourselves), and certainly never respect it, until we dissociate the wild from the notion of usability." I applaud that notion. I could never have said it that well, and I've actually tried. Mostly what this show presents is a natural edge, crude, dirty. That edge we were talking about, when I mentioned I didn't really like edges, someplace in there, where you really didn't like to be discovered. I have private places, I'm on this like a Blue-Tick hound, there are things I don't want you to know, I protect myself through a series of filters. Protecting myself I seem to add a layer of interference, can't be helped, I have to cover my ass, various prison jokes. I love that the Deputy has gone to Oriental Whorehouse, that musky floral is overpowering, I forget what I was thinking about whenever I go in her office. Take a load of sticks in tomorrow, meet Kim, come back home and cook for a couple of nights. The writing will be scant. No apologizes, I just do what I have to. Now this.
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