Restoration

Cold, with wind, 15 degrees when I leave the house, but I'm certainly not going to be late for the painting repair. The conservator arrives just as we open, Mike, with the tools of his trade. Starts by lighting and photographing the painting in situ, then we set him up in the Board Room. Tells us that this kind of almost puncture is common, removes the backing, dampens the back of the spot and puts it under weights. The canvas, he says, has memory, but can't be rushed. He looks at the Circus Show while waiting for the canvas to remember. For the last 20 years or so, everything a conservator does must be reversible, theory being that will be better ways of doing things a few years down the pike. He wears a magnifying head set that would be great for studying frogs. All the fibers are there, he says, no need for a patch on the back, turns the painting over, realigns the bent fibers. A coarse weave, he says, makes his job easier. Uses a few miniscule drops of water-soluble glue. We treat him to lunch at the pub, and he talks about the major restoration of a huge Thomas Hart Benton mural, 12 feet by 260 feet, from some Chicago World's Fair. We talk about similarities between Benton, Grant Wood, and Clarence Carter. After lunch, he pulls a stack of paper from one of his bags, and on them are several thousand dabs of color, with the mix noted in a personal shorthand; mixes watercolor paint, no water, until he gets what he wants, then with an incredibly small brush, fills in where the paint had chipped. Looking, constantly, at the surrounding brush strokes. It's magic, I swear. He works two hours before lunch, two hours after, and I can no longer see where the damage was. It's gone, invisible. He bills his time at between $100 and $150 bucks an hour. He's got all the work he can do. He did this job for $500, no travel time, we bought him lunch, because he knew, if he did a good job, we'd use him again, money in the bank. He starts another Benton mural on the fourth of January. Dealing with art is a life very much like doing theater, so vertically integrated. To get an MFA in Conservation, a three year course, then a year as apprentice, you must have undergraduate majors in Art History, Organic Chemistry, and something else. Three of them, I remember that, but he talked as he worked and I was watching so closely some of what he said slipped by. Four schools in North America offer this degree, one in Ontario, where he went, NYCU, Buffalo, Delaware. What an interesting life. I'm rarely envious of what anyone else does, content in my life and the labors, but I'm almost jealous. Cool tool kit. And you stay clean. What a job. And you get to restore Benton, with a magnifying glass, from six inches away, fuck me in the vestry on Sunday, what a great job. Maybe, if I had it to over again, I could have done that. Not disappointed in this, where I find myself. I can't be depressed if I try, all I have to do is open my eyes. I was looking today, at those hard blue berries the female green-briar sets: birds pluck them, then spit them out. Thus my species advances. Celebrating Darwin. I'm not sure why I said anything. Fucking crows, man. Read more...

Late, Cold

Something woke me, either the cold or a noise, it's early morning and I need to stoke the fire. Don't want to get up, but the consequences would be worse than the sequences so I finally drag my ass out of bed, don bathrobe and hat, address the dying fire. Coal black, under overcast, I need an armload of wood, and the back porch light is so bright it hurts my eyes. Inside, the house is not too bad, in the 50's probably, and I catch the last embers with kindling and starter stickers, build a good fire quickly because the firebox is still hot. Serendipitous timing. Might as well have a drink and a snack, a grilled cheese sandwich sounds good, a mug of chicken broth with a slug of whiskey. Turn the lamp down low. Living alone, my habits don't seem peculiar. Reading Derrida at 2:22 in the morning is a perfectly natural thing. I'll crash on the sofa for another couple of hours before I go to work. Life on the installment plan. Can't find Jesus, but he'll probably find me. Best thing is the quiet, kill the breaker for the fridge and all you hear is the snapping of twigs, as they crack in the cold. If you asked me in my sober moments, I probably wouldn't choose to be here, but here I am. Down pallet on the floor. A poor excuse. The way she called my name. Tom, she said, you need to experience this, you'll be better for it. I had nothing better to do. What the fuck. All text, all the graphic arts, everything, really, leads us toward finally dying. The holidays always kill me, because it becomes so obvious, you live and then you die. You can rail against it all you want. I have a fair amount of free time, so I've read extensively, to see what other people thought, we all arrive at the same place. A house and a job. Kids, if you're lucky, so someone will remember you. Salvation, for me, was just watching. I didn't need a doctor, all I needed was to look at what was right in front of me. Fucking lilies of the field. You're looking good, did I say? I love those boots. I don't need nobody to tell my troubles to. When my text talks back to me. Mountains fall back to plain. Shelter me Lord underneath your wing. I'm gone, I think, feeding ginger-bread houses to crows. I'm going back to Tennessee. Read more...

More Weather

It's snowing like a bastard. I was talking to my girls, and I noticed the sound was muffled, flipped on the porch light, and sure enough, it's snowing to beat the band. I'm short of water, so I start melting snow, a mindless task, ten to one ratio. Taj recommends we turn our lamps down low. It's hard to trust someone who lives in Hawaii. Slack guitar or not. Lost a page to an unexpected power outage. Had to get to D's yesterday, to built that table for the carving residency, finally left the house about 10 o'clock and crept the length of Mackletree, which was a sheet of black ice, with easier going after that. Easy table, massive, 2 inch framing stock, mostly assembled before we broke for lunch, Carma had made meatloaf and mashed potatoes, with fried apple slices, excellent lunch, with a beer. Finished the table, spitting snow, head home with four mini-meatloaves Carma had made for my freezer. Blowing snow on top of the black ice on Mackletree. Bad conditions, but I move along in 4-wheel drive at between 5 and 10 MPH, coming to a complete stop when I pass 2 trucks coming the other way. If I have a wreck, on this stretch of road, it is not going to be my fault, except for the possible sin of merely being there. It happens, some times, that I arrive at the bottom, back in, pull into my winter ruts in my off-driveway parking spot, put on my crampons, shoulder my pack, grab my walking stick, which is, for the second year, an aluminum mop handle. Lock up the truck, and look around, ridges on both sides of the road, going up steeply, and this is the gap, the Low Gap. It's a nice spot, Upper Twin Creek starting right there, you can point it out with your walking stick. Everything is very clear. The drainage and the atmosphere. And there's no wind, because it's so protected. The driveway, at the top, looks right into the normal weather direction, as soon as I crested, my eyes were streaming tears, fucking gale, blowing across the ridge tops. I don't know why I didn't hear it, I usually do, I must have been watching something, or thinking intently, because I would have usually taken my glasses off and put them in a pocket, but now, they are frozen to my face. Stop at the stoop on the front of the print-shop, to straighten things out. The glasses are actually frozen to my hat, Linda's hat, and I veto field-surgery, since I'm only 400 feet from home, take the tangle to the house, let it melt on the warming shelf above the stove. Nothing prepares you for Spike Jones. Whatever I thought I meant. Read more...

Polenta

This batch, made with one-third acorn meal, are the hardiest damned things I've ever eaten, surely one of the attractions of Balanoculture. Worked right through lunch. I tend to eat when I'm hungry, I haven't gotten there yet and it's after 3. First rain drops, so I'm glad I worked the woodpile all day. Split everything I had cut, and moved a large quantity under the shed. No bad, for a gimp. The kneeling method of splitting is working well for me now, all I have to do is hold the hatchet handle with my left hand, no strain, and, as this method puts my eyes closer (by far) to whatever round I'm addressing, I can start the hatchet/wedge right in a heart-check. Found a maul-head by the side of the road, and it makes an excellent wedge for getting the hatchet unstuck, which really doesn't happen all that often. All in all, a superior technique for the aging and infirm. Rain supposed to change over to snow later, glad I got my walks in when I did, and collected a scant batch of acorns. Pretty well supplied, except I need eggs, for cornbread, and because I'll put a fried egg on just about anything, as egg yolk is one of my favorite substances. I was concerned about this weekend, because I needed to work on firewood, and I was uncertain about my arm. As it turns out, after two days of working, carefully, but steadily, I'm better, the arm is, especially after cleaning up and shaving, which always makes me feel better. Three crab cakes, fried in butter, with a bland white sauce (it's so easy to lose the crab) and an avocado on the side, halved, the pit dip filled with lime juice. I put the Dahlberg away, he is so fucking relentless, and read some Derrida essays, which I don't understand. Calm before the storm, the sky has become leaden and the wind has died to a whisper. " If the beautiful excludes the ugly, beauty is no measure of aesthetic merit; but if the beautiful may be ugly, then 'beauty' becomes only an alternative and misleading word for aesthetic merit." Nelson Goodman. I wrote this on a card and read it several times during the course of the day. I agree, I think, beauty is a difficult concept, a mind-field. It's hard to even agree on terms, definitions, punctuation. I'm not as cynical as Dahlberg, but I am cynical. Deep-river blues. I was in a road-house in Sidon once, deep in the delta, and time stopped, repression became tangible; because the lights were very low, skin color was not an issue. Like what Bela does on the banjo, criminal, but there it is.You can't listen to Son House in a room 20'x40' and not be affected. Infected. Whatever can go wrong certainly will. There was a guy, at Janitor College, Latvian, a depressive personality, because he'd never had enough to eat and was beaten as a child, who was emotionally labile, and made the rest of us cry too. Crying is contagious. Lamenting where you find yourself. Oh Sara Jane. These new writing gloves are perfect, a shade of gray. Everything is gray now. Nothing is black or white. I take a couple of aspirin, just because I'm happy doesn't mean things are ok. Read more...

Nothing Everywhere

I don't not care, but holidays are such bullshit. Janus holds the door open and on a particular day you eat turkey or ham and exchange gifts, or kiss under the mistletoe. I don't have a problem with tradition, but I don't pay it any mind. It doesn't really matter. Pro Forma. Patti Page singing in the background. A few drowned rats in the foreground. Boats leak, in the hold, there will always be drowned rats. Raining on parades is a speciality of mine, I started when I was too young to matter, as I grew older I was increasingly pessimistic. Now, I don't believe anything. I'm comfortable in that. Not believing is a lot like believing, a kind of faith. A Newcastle Brown Ale on draft will do that for you, or cheese grits, or merely surviving. At three in the morning the wind changed direction, I felt the change, got up, stoked the fire. Sneezed a couple of times, something in my nose, wood ash probably. The wind comes. The house shakes, I get up and stoke the fire. Sleet then hail, I can't go back to sleep so I read some light fiction, Sanford's latest Virgil Flowers, "Rough Country", a decent read as the night turns into day. Serious reading, again, for this holiday, will be Edward Dahlberg; first, I think, probably "The Sorrows Of Priapus" then "Can These Bones Live", I cook a pot of grits. I make enough that I have a huge quantity at breakfast, and enough leftover for several meals. Pack it in used tins and the slices, fried in the oil of your choice, last for a week, at least, I always use them before that. These refried rounds are good with anything: salsa, any sauce, reconstituted morels and the butter they were cooked in, and that all time favorite, mixed berries heated with whatever jam. Rapturous. Half an acorn squash, spilling with hot berry juice, is an actual event. D says I make everything up, but I'm not quite fiction. Meatwad sings "Santa Left a Bugger In My Stocking" and I'm glad I left the radio on. I took a nap, then went for a walk. Nora Jones is singing when I get back. I cut a few sticks and decide to rest my arm for another day. Robert Earl gets us through the first Noel. I make a pitcher of Bloody Marys, resist calling anyone, because everyone is doing family stuff. Steely Dan, oh Jesus. You know I'm not to blame. Turn the light on, keep your shirt on. Otis Reading. Love will make you do wrong. A fire burning in your soul. Doctor John. I used to love you, but it's all over now. Nothing sounds right. Tracy Chapman. That vibrato. A single note that reverberates, the wind pushed me this way. Read more...

Gaining Light

The increments are small, but at least we've stopped losing light. Even though the winter sun is weak, the additional daylight is important, gives me time for a chore or two after I get home. My holiday plans are simple, finish the chili and cornbread probably tomorrow, then do two halves of acorn squash, one stuffed with chorizo and one stuffed with a raspberry and red-currant jam mixture, with these hoe-cake things I'm working on, refried cheese grits with acorn meal. Cheese grits, I had forgotten how good they could be, bought small wedges of several different hard cheeses and grated them into the grits when they were almost done. I can't really afford English double cheddars, but goddamn, they do perk up a pot of grits. I'm writing in my new bathrobe which seems European, slightly decadent, and almost gay; but it's incredibly comfortable and warm. Who's going to see me? First copies of the sound re-mastered movie from Glenn today, and we're going to watch, or at least I am, everyone else seems to be wrapping xmas presents. I send folks things during the course of the year, when a specific thing is highly appropriate and I find it in a dumpster, certainly don't have the money to buy the things for certain friends, that I'd like to. Fantasy. The real world is a gimp arm and dealing with the cold. Ripping out your under-carriage in a descent you never imagined. Losing control, is that possible? And you have to buy a new truck. I mean, wow. That's in your face. My arm, for instance, I've lost something, but can I live with that? It's my left arm and it doesn't do much anyway, in fact, yes, I can do with 25% reduction in that particular body part. They're down-sizing everywhere. Phone line out last night, so I couldn't SEND. Museum open half-a-day today. The Conserver called, he's coming here, next Wednesday, to repair the damaged painting, we get to watch. He figures less than a day, over and back to Cincy, $500 plus mileage. This doesn't seem like enough money. He must figure it a couple of hour job. I can't wait, to watch the repair happen. I thought it would cost thousands and take days, which it would, if it were a complete restoration, stripping the surface, re-varnishing, re-stretching. We'll probably just cut him a check and not make any insurance claim. My great fear, in all this, was that our insurance rates would go even higher. I think we carry a two million dollar policy on the museum. Did I say there were no decorations? I meant other than the Grateful Dead xmas ornament that hangs year-round, over one of the beams. I think it quite festive. The only music I want is the ticking of the stove. After work, D and I lunched at the pub, had a pint of Newcastle and he out-lined their itinerary for the holiday. I couldn't do it, I never did it, it makes me uncomfortable to even think about it. I'd rather shoot myself in the foot than stand around and make small-talk. I do over-tip when Lindsay doesn't charge us for the pint, John poured the beers and he didn't tell her. Maybe it was an xmas present, maybe it was an oversight. It was maybe the best draft beer I'd ever consumed, almost as good as the best beer I'd ever made. Read more...

Some Damage

Another thing I've added to the list of things that I'll never do again is move a piano. I had forgotten, but D remembered that we were supposed to move a piano this morning, 10 AM, a donation to the museum for the next auction. Fine. Four of us get there, we've rented a full-bed pick-up, it's an upright piano. We have to carry it out of the house and across the yard. New truck, high bed, no choice but to lift one end in, then all lift the other end, bed is so high, I'm at the back, that when D and James lift the front, John and I have to raise the back; because the angle is so steep, the back wheels (useless little fuckers) are off the ground. Predictably it slides backwards just a little and I catch the weight in the crook of my left arm. At first I thought I had broken the damned thing, but it seems to be a muscle or tendon injury. Pegi, who deals with damaged Cirque performers all the time, goes over it carefully, not a break she says, but a muscle. No strength at all in the arm, I can't lift anything, and it hurts. I take some aspirin, and pretty much can't do anything all day, better by the afternoon, but it's going to be sore tomorrow. Pianos are heavy. I had to catch it or I would have been squashed. I don't want to be in that position again. I have to rearrange my desk so I can drink with my right hand, the advantage of being an ambidextrous drinker. The rest of the day is a wash, and I don't stay for the after hours staff dinner and party, though I wanted to, because Pegi's husband, Steve, was cooking and he's a good cook; but the driveway is still snow-packed and I didn't want to walk up, after dark, with crampons and staff, dangling a gimp arm. I need to get back to the house, self-medicate, start a fire. And there's that odd chili, and cornbread, at home. A bunch of crackers, from the weekend function at the museum, with which I stop and feed the ducks. I'm not really a 'feed the ducks' kind of guy, but I hate waste. I use too many commas, I think. I was reading myself recently, which I don't do that often (I just left out a comma); when I have a printer that's working, I often read last night's work, to see where I was going, if I was going anywhere. This is a fairly serious injury for me to have, like the muse slapping you with a 2x4. I'd just been talking about my hands, and my teacher indicates the connectedness. Sure, I see it now, the hand bone connected to the arm bone. I can achieve an almost zen state, if I'm not doing anything. Usually I'm doing something though, so we buy in, talking apples and oranges here. I have intell that indicates there was a conspiracy. I don't buy into Christmas either, I have a black raven I bring out, and add-fix to something, my reading lamp, an off corner of the stove, so there is minimal decoration. Decoration is always merely decoration. Read more...

Stark

Need to rest my arm, but really must work on firewood, so I chainsaw most of what's in the woodshed to length. Tomorrow I'll split, taking it as easy as possible. Lovely blue day, cool, slanted light through stick trees. Perfect day for a walk in the woods, but first I put a pot of beans on to cook, Black Crowders, technically a pea, a legume I favor for its deeply colored and delicious broth. Take a light pack, head out. It's so bright I have to go back home for sunglasses. The wind has died and I'm the only noise in this section until I stop, sit on a stump and listen intensely. The woods are alive, the sounds are subtle. I get disoriented and end up at a road several miles from the house. So it goes. I turn down a couple of rides, because I actually like walking, but I hate walking on a road. All the molecules in our body were forged billions of years ago. It's all about entropy. And text. And the way we construe. Hermeneutical epistemology. Everything makes sense, sooner or later. This pot of Black Crowders is fantastic. Nothing special, an onion, a yellow sweet pepper, chicken stock, a couple of chunks of smoked jowl. A pan of cornbread with chilies. The wind picks up, bound to lose power, SAVE, and get out the oil lamps. Three in the morning and the fridge surges back to life, wakes me from a disturbing dream. Get up to stoke the fire. Don't know when I went to bed. I read Dahlberg for a few hours, ate peas and cornbread a couple of times, wanted to talk with my girls but the phone was out too. Soon as it's light I'll work on firewood, splitting billets, cutting starter sticks; Monday D and I need to build a sturdy table for the wood-carving residency. The next exhibit in the main gallery is a folk art show, Lavon Williams, carved, painted, and highly finished wood. He'll be working with a small group of hand-picked students before we install his show, and their work will be displayed upstairs. This is good planning, a little vertical integration, and the table is fairly simple but with specific requirements, 3 feet by 8 feet with the apron set back so clamps can be used all around the edge, massive legs, plenty of bracing. We get the picture, and know exactly what to build, but something in the directions tells me Lavon has had trouble getting what he needs in the past. No problem here, but we'll build it a little less than 3 feet wide, so we can get it through a door. Found a beautiful place yesterday, where two little creeks came together and the water was so clear and cold it gave me a headache. I was almost napping, sitting on my foam pad, facing south, leaning against a moss-bank, when a beaver waddled into the picture. Beavers are cartoon characters, low-slung, that tail, those teeth, and this one was huge, 25, 30 pounds, he doesn't see me and I refrain from laughing. He drops a young poplar and wedges it crossways in the stream, the beginning of a dam. I wish I wasn't there, because at some point I have to leave and I hate to disturb someone at work, but he goes upstream for whatever stick he's decided he needs next and I manage to disappear without disturbing his progress. Almost lost, I hear a train in Kentucky and alter my path. I'm pretty sure I live over there, a couple of ridge lines to the north and east. Follow a solitary crow for a while, how astray can it lead me? And that's how I found the road. Once I hit the road I knew where I was. The sub-text here, is that 'lost' is relative. It's below freezing and I'm wandering in the woods, not sure, exactly, where I am. I could survive, start a fire, hunker down in a tree tip pit, cover myself with a space blanket, and hike out in the morning, but I know there's a pot of beans at home, and I want to get there. I have several paces, but when I want to get somewhere, I walk 4 miles an hour. It's not a record pace, but I can do it forever. Yeah, you and me and the horse we rode in. Read more...

All In

Consider the earthworm. Various alga. Krill. So tired and sore my brain is misfiring. On the other hand, everything on the list is done. Another 5 hours working on firewood. All stations full. The new technique of splitting problem pieces allowed me to heat the house all day with what should have been waste wood. Skipped the Portuguese dish and went right to the odd chili, cubed two pounds of pork loin, cooked in chicken stock with onions and peppers, lots of salt and black pepper, and cooked a pound of Pinto beans while I was working outside. Came inside after 3 o'clock and put water on to heat (melted snow) and read for an hour. At 4 o'clock the house was warmer than it would be for the rest of the week, so I stripped, took a sponge bath, shaved, washed my hair. So I'm clean, I have a great pot of odd chili, and all the firewood stations are full, but the absolute highlight of the day was the appearance of the fox. Everything I did today was by hand, so I wasn't making a lot of noise, she was coming up the old logging road, I stopped what I was doing, splitting kindling right then, and waited to see if we would interact or not, it's always her choice. She seemed frisky, I stood and tossed her a piece of jerky I had in my pocket. She pounced on it, chewed it just a few times and swallowed. Then she dipped her head into the snow, shook her head, then bounced up and down a couple of times, all four feet off the ground, rolled in the snow, shook-off like a wet dog, then walked right by me, ten feet away, clearly flirting, and trotted off down the graveyard path. Made my day, made up for a lot of sore. My hands are beat up, they're at the forefront of my interface with the world, and suffer because of it. Lots of nicks and small burns. I was especially careful today, coming in and out, because the back porch is a sheet of ice. It's not really dangerous, because there are so many tread marks from my work-boots and new snow actually adds traction. When it gets really cold, I can just break this ice with a hammer, but right now, before it contracts, the ice is frozen into the fibers of the wood, and any attempt at removal would do more damage than good. Walk carefully, which is never bad advice, watch where your foot falls. I made some cornbread sticks with the Georgia cornmeal. They are so good they beg the question, which I forget, what was that, again? Why do these old cast iron pans make seven sticks? It's the old up, down, up, down, up, down, up: issue, where you end up with your foot in the same place. Like with joists and rafters it's always plus one, so it's usually an odd.number. Numbers don't mean anything, but we watch them recur, sometimes there seems to be a pattern. I have to go read for a couple of hours, I'm so clean, I squeak against the sheets.. Read more...

Good Planning

That deep muffled sound, and I'm up before dawn to have a look, flip on the porch light and am blinded, four inches and snowing hard. Crawl back under the covers. Get up for good an hour later, build a fire, make a double espresso. I need to dump my ash bucket, which I prefer to do on top of snow. Otherwise I bury them in the damp compost pile, being very careful about fires. Two more inches of snow but the temps look to go above freezing, heavy stuff now, and I'm sure to lose power, which I do, but only for a couple of hours. Spend a couple of hours outside, cutting starter sticks, splitting a few knots to burn during the day. There's a two or three inch stack of snow on every branch, the driveway is drooped shut, you can't see fifty feet into the woods, then it all starts falling, and as the branches release their load and snap back, they knock the load off other branches. It's comic and a bit noisy for a day that had been very quiet, so that when the power came on, I let the fridge cycle through one time and killed the breaker. When you have a chance for silence, it's usually best to go for it. Silence, of course, is relative. There is a sound, even, to snowfall, and the stove is ticking, as the fire changes, and then, too, there is the noise I make, stirring around, the occasional turning of a page, the pouring of a drink: sometimes I say things out loud. But alone on the ridge, I usually operate in the low single digits of dbs. I avoid noise like the plague, that's not quite true, I love natural sound, but I hate loud noise for no reason. Usually. Michael could make me believe anything, music sub-circuits normal thought. Music can sub-circuit because it cuts to the heart, when I listen to the blues, I get sentimental. Not like I have any control. This sounds like what I feel. Power out again, but I was in a saving mode, expecting the failure. Still out this morning, so I start a fire, suit up, head out to the woodshed. Leaden sky, light flurries. Several of the large rounds of Oak and Red Maple are maddeningly of twisted grain and I can't bust them with the maul, even the wedge tapers to quickly to get a purchase. I go inside to think about it, and the power is back on, so I make a double espresso and roll a smoke. I have an old Estwing hatchet that's sharp and fairly thin, I take it outside, with a short-handled 2 pound maul and a foam pad to kneel on, works great, I can follow the tiny heart checks. Not nearly as exhausting as full-swinging an 8 pound maul, I work at it most of the day, almost giddy with accomplishment. I stop mid-afternoon, because I need to shave and clean up a bit, even though I intend to do the same thing tomorrow, and get just as dirty all over again. I need to get another batch of billets under the shed, do a week's worth of kindling and starter sticks, then cook for the short week ahead. Thinking about that, while splitting, decided to do a variation on a Portuguese dish I remember from Cape Cod, 'Porko Um Pa' (something like that), cubed and marinated pork cubed (I had a third of a loin in the freezer I needed to rotate out), with chickpeas, onions and garlic, stewed in chicken broth. I have no idea what the actual recipe for this is, and no intention of looking it up. What fun's that? If it fails, I'll turn it into an odd chili. A pair of Pileated Woodpeckers today and I remember the scene from all the winters here. Snow in the trees, the trunks are black ice, and suddenly a flash of red, in this case 2 flashes, and you stop whatever you're doing and watch. The nearest is pecking through the ice on his favorite hickory, I actually recognize this particular bird, his tail is a little weird, and his knocking is enough to dislodge a rain of snow from above. He's hit with a goodly amount, an inch on his head, and he's absolutely still for a scant moment, then violently shakes, and goes about his business. "To live close with the realities of life and death demands a perspective that relegates human irritabilities to their proper place." Billy Wright. An atavistic day, I wish I could have eaten marrow bones for dinner, but I quite enjoyed another breakfast. I'd cut one small steak off the loin already. I'd weighted this down, with a rock, in a bowl of salted water, in the fridge, overnight, patted it dry, fried in bacon fat on medium heat, I don't want to sear it quickly, because it toughens; pushed the steak aside and browned some flour in the drippings, added a pat of butter and a splash of balsamic vinegar, several grinds of pepper, needed more liquid, so, the remains of the last bottle of wine, pushed the meat back to the middle, spooned over the gravy, pulled the pan over to a cooler part of the stove, put on a lid. Toasted a large slice from the middle of a sour-dough loaf that had never seen a pan, another prolate spheroid, a football-shaped loaf, and this was the middle slice. I'm a sucker for trenchers, they absorb everything, and I feel that I'm gaining knowledge when I taste what dripped. I fry a jumbo egg in butter. Now you assemble the dinner, you put the trencher on a plate, because you have to clean up afterward, plates are good, put on the steak, spoon over gravy, drape over the egg, then another layer of gravy, if there's any left. You clean all of this up with the trencher. It's just a cultural thing, think, the way we feel guilt.

I DIDN' T THINK., I was merely cleaning up. Read more...

Crazy Loon

I'm thinking it might be a bear, after the spoiled meat in B's freezer, which stinks to high heaven. I guess because it's downwind of him he feels he doesn't need to deal with it. He's wrong, but no one could ever tell him that; it's not a bear, though it might have been, it's a family of coons, rooting through the compost. It's hard to believe, but it's all good. At 2:40 in the morning John Lee Hooker sounds really fantastic, the way he pulls at your gut. Then there's John Prine. I get a good fire going, I just want to go back to bed, but sleep and music and words become a tangle that I want to think about. So I get a drink and roll a smoke. 3 o'clock in the morning, and I'm whistling along with Clapton and that long lovely interlude in "Layla"; this is not an affected position. I speak with some authority. I went to a shrink once. I had a crazy friend who'd been in therapy forever and insisted I go with him one time. The wind whispers Mary, I know it's just the leaves rustling, but I'm beginning to hear words. This could be the winter of my content. Really, I feel strong in all the ways I need to be. There are a few bricks yet to set but I'm confident in my ability. I view winter as a good time to read. You know, when you have a woodshed and all, I think I'll tackle Proust again. The various gods. I think of myself as transparent. Go figure. A book is merely a book, the world is unabashed. You know what I mean? The crows, for instance, seem to be saying something. This west African music makes sense to me right now, I can't say why. Sense is a slippery subject. D says I make everything up, but every time he checks, I'm on the money. At Janitor College, there was a required course, where you collected your shit, and did something with it. Finally did get back to sleep then overslept because of the overcast. Thank god we're coming up on shortest day. Some organization sponsored a ginger-bread house competition and it was judged at the museum, the winner didn't want to take their "National Lampoon Christmas Vacation" house back and there's an event at the museum, several, actually over the weekend. It had to go, so I took it. We're talking quite large here, two story house, with yard and decorated trees. I thought the birds at the lake would like it. Left work early, my overtime exceeds two work weeks at this point, and I haven't started on my vacation time, there's supposed to be snow for the foreseeable future and I wanted to get more wood in the woodshed. So I stop at the lake, and put the house on a table at the shelter (roof only, open sides) and retreat to the truck to watch for a while. First are the crows and they seem to be partial to the gum drops, one of them gets his entire head covered with the powered sugar / coconut snow. One of the duck families, alerted by the raucous crows, come speeding over from the spillway. Then four geese waddle over from under the pine trees. This should have been filmed, it was just too funny. One of the geese, standing on a bench, started hammering at the roof of the house, and the chips were flying. I'm laughing so hard I choke and a Park Ranger pulls in next to me; I explain that giving a ginger-bread house to the birds is more akin to feeding them than it is to littering (a $500 fine at the lake) and he agrees, bums a cigaret, and we watch together, as birds destroy a house. Excellent diversion. I need to get home, as the first flakes fall, tell the Ranger I'll clean up the mess tomorrow or the next day, and he says not to bother, they've got a county work crew, prisoners, coming on Monday, thanks me for the entertainment. He knows who I am and where I live, common knowledge, I guess. The house is cold but I get a ripping fire going and go back out to cut a few starter sticks, roll a couple more large rounds into the shed. If the forecast is correct, tomorrow morning should be beautiful. I'm well supplied, my truck is at the bottom of the hill, what could be nicer than a blanket of snow? I'm more ready than I have been for several years, the tiff with B has focused my attention, being completely alone is not so bad, it tends to hone your reflexes. And there's no compromise involved. I don't have to wait for someone else, other, to fuss with their appearance. When I want to do something, I can do it, without synchronizing watches. My time is my own. I'm distracted constantly, and that's ok, my 'schedule' is a textbook with pages missing. I'm a good worker and the people I work with know that, and also know that if the frogs are having an orgy, I'll probably not show up for work. Unless it be imperative that I be there, in which case I would be. I'm a fucking rock when it comes to opening a show, as good as ever was, but I am still easily distracted. Walking up the driveway, this afternoon, there was a plant still intensely green, I stopped and took off my pack. What is this, still green? We've had several hard freezes. I don't know what it is, a mullein I think, and what are the mechanics involved in it not dying, or going into hibernation or whatever. If you're going to wander about and look at things in winter, you really have to carry a piece of foam. I have a piece of ethafoam, three inches thick, four inches wide, and twelve inches long that I carry with me everywhere. You never know when you're going to have to sit or kneel. The mysteries. This could be a significant snow event, I just went out to check the temp and it's right at 32 degrees, and the rain drops are large, changing to snow, then the sound changes, strange, everything muffled. I expect a blanket by morning. Yes, and she said yes, and yes it was. I'm always leaning on Molly or Emily, but tonight, I'm going to just stoke up the fire and retreat to my bag. I can't wait for tomorrow. Read more...

Fickle Server

Couldn't send last night, forgot this morning, running late, so you get two tonight. Staff meeting, many events upcoming, get everybody on the same page, then Anthony over from Cincy, lunch, errands. Back-up supplies, extra whiskey, extra tobacco, extra juice, against good chance of snow this weekend. Bottom of the hill parking for the next week, looks like. Good shape on wood. Makings for squash soup, an acorn squash to stuff and bake, but I plan to eat breakfast most of the weekend; a new batch of acorn meal and I want to try a few things. A Harrison book from the library I'd missed, a collection of novellas "The Summer He Didn't Die" and I'm looking forward to that sofa time. Hand-cutting so much wood, the muscle across the back of my right shoulder is getting larger that the left one. I can't saw left-handed or I refuse to learn how. I drink left-handed, when I'm writing, because that's where there's a place to put my drink; I think I socially drink right-handed. I have to stop and visualize, nope, depends on whether or not there are snacks. I'm an ambidextrous drinker. Above freezing in town, all that asphalt in the sun, but still frozen solid once I get back to the lake. It's wanting to freeze, float ice where ever there's shade. Freeze-up is generally around xmas, maybe 60 days, the heart of winter, December and March can go either way, usually both ways and that means a lot of mud. Standing outside yesterday, having a smoke, D, James and I, we were the victims of a drive-by cursing. Some fairly young white woman, passenger in a mini-van, felt it necessary to scream out her window that we were stupid mother fuckers. Maybe it was a comment on our smoking. She had a furious expression. If it had been South Boston, we'd be dead. I can understand rage, but I don't approve. Acting out is generally dumb. Damn it, I forgot lamp oil, I hated to pay 8 bucks for a half-gallon, so I waited to check at Big Lots and then I forgot. I'm good on candles, so all is not lost, but I've been trying to stay ahead of things, and this is a lapse. Next time I drive up, I'm bringing lamp-oil. Along with the growing anxieties about heights and flying and being trapped in an elevator, I can no longer gut chickens or smell kerosene. The list of things I will no longer do grows. I'm fine with this, I need to do less. I do too many things. But I'm fine with what I do. Though I'm hard-pressed to describe exactly what it is I do, mostly I listen, and pass things along, install shows as a matter of course. I love this job, did I mention that? Read more...

Sentimental

Kicking the fire in the ass, stoking the coals, it's 20 degrees and dropping. North country fair, she once was a true love of mine. Back home in Yonkers, we had nothing to lose. A Willie Nelson line. I could get maudlin. There are ups and downs. Saw-Mill Road. I think that's R Cash. Get a fire started on a bed of coals. Don't think. Merely act. Restart the fire and continue. There's no reason to argue, wasted breath. I heard on the wind, last night, that it's going to get colder. Big surprise. I worry about D, commuting to Athens, what's that line, "I don't care if the world don't turn, as long as you love me" and I don't know who that is, and my radio goes on the blink. Figures that my tenuous connection would disconnect. I was enjoying Bela Fleck and suddenly the radio fails., fucking communist plot. Late at night I require one light and the radio, it figures they'd fuck up the radio. I can light my way with a candle, with a match, for that matter. I certainly recognize my failings . Caves are hell. That incident in Kentucky I can explain, we'd been drinking moonshine. Not unlike Emily, when she pauses to breathe. The beat, now, comes from South America, we're too deep in debt to hear. Raucous fucking crows. It's useless to even try and keep up. Nothing you can do. Like Marley said, the ghost of xmas past. I have to go sleep, hold that thought. That's what happens when I get up at 3 or 4 and start a fire, I have to stay up 30 minutes, minimum, to get the thing damped down properly and I often start a new page that doesn't make much sense. Usually I throw them away. Almost always great music on NPR then, one of the only times I listen to music while writing. Discussed packing the show today, looked at some options, checked our stash of crates. The diaramas are going to be difficult. Drew, History professor at Shawnee, came into the museum today, went to lunch with D and me, we explained to him the finer points of making a good bean soup, then he talked about the early history of Scioto County, about which he's writing a book. Excellent informative conversation. Need to get a new grate made for the cookstove, to buy the replacement part from Stanley Waterford, and have it shipped would be several hundred dollars, but if I can find a cast iron grate I can get Rush Welding to cut it for $10 with their plasma cutting rig. I've found several objects that would work, but I don't think they're heavy enough. The fact that I've nearly burned one out is an indicator. Have to go to the scrap metal yard, which, along with the sandstone quarry, is one of my favorite places. That strange tubular fog that sometimes squats on the river was back today, I have a place below the floodwall (which usually contains said fog, that and the rather steep bank over on the Kentucky side) that is another favorite, because I'm inside the tube there. As I think about it, I have and have had an enormous number of special spots. Being a Navy brat conditions one to moving about. We lived 10 places in 12 years, Dad did recruiting duty when he wasn't at sea. Then, for me, Cape Cod, the Vineyard, Missip, Colorado, a stint in Virginia, then Ohio, so the potential for sweet spots is exponential. Especially when you specifically look for them. Remember, I built a bleacher, on the Vineyard, just to watch the sunset. That spring, on Saturday, was right up there, I'm pretty sure I can find it again. An aspect of just wandering around in the woods, here, is that I can't be lost, but as Jim Bridger famously said, I might not know exactly where I am. Whether an apocryphal tale or not, is a great line. The last of the hot Italian sausages, sliced and fried with onions and peppers, on a bed of mashed potatoes. This is sinfully good. I slice the sausage so I can cook it quickly, amongst the onions and peppers, which I've already cooked for 20 minutes, to bring out the sugars, and I'm drooling at this point. You spear a round of sausage, then ice it with mashed potatoes. Every bite is a transport of joy. I had a little side dish of pickled peppers. I had the thought that I didn't deserve this, then dismissed it. This is precisely what I deserve. It always is. You can't always get what you want. I just talked with Glenn, the Wrack Movie is available, through the museum, 825 Gallia, Portsmouth, Ohio, 45662, $10 postpaid; he wants to do a movie about the frogs, and then one about the fox, yours truly as the romantic lead. I'm deeply flattered and ill prepared, mostly what I do is stay is stay under the radar. Read more...

Road Show

We start planning to send this Circus Show on the road, to pack it and send it on the road. It's made more complex by the fact that we originated the show, collected all the disparate things, some our own, many from other places, and it's never been packed up and shipped as an entity before. Also, we somehow have to figure cubic footage when packed, so we'll how large a truck is needed. Logistics. We need to know when Columbus needs it, we need to feather that with lunch at the North Market, so I can get some of those incredible Vietnamese sandwiches and squeeze in a trip to the various ethnic markets to lay in 10 pounds of basmati rice and a gallon of olive oil, a 5 pound block of squid, and a couple of cheeses. In rural Ohio, it's hard to get a decent stinky cheese. They've chosen the middle course, baloney and American bland. But Columbus, with 'The' Ohio State University is very cool when it comes to diversity and truly spectacular restaurants and stalls. If I moved to Columbus I would gain weight, something that's never happened to me. I could live at the North Market, food stalls lining the entire perimeter, and the place must be 100 yards by 200 yards, with a balcony second floor with several hundred tables, where you take the stall food and eat. In the middle is just great everything: seafood, hot sauces, cheese, sausages, flowers, wine, jams, fetishes; and thousands of people. I prefer going after the lunch rush because I'm a touch claustrophobic and a country bumpkin to boot. I then to gawk and tie up traffic when I go to places like that. But I love them, the best places, because you can get, excuse the use of the word, authentic stuff. Authentic is a word much abused, but I hate to loose words from my vocabulary because they've become politically incorrect. I know what the word means, and I'm using it correctly. Fuck a bunch of society. Something else got my dander up recently, what was it... right, I was listening to the radio for the local weather, there's a front moving in, it's 8 in the morning. The guy says it is currently 42 degrees and today's high will be 38. I have to pull over and think about that. When did today begin? Nothing makes a certain amount of sense, as Beckett might say. Can't wait to get a copy of the new Manet play "Race", he's a gift, his language is a beautiful thing. The way it turns upon itself and constantly confronts. Intense. Emily, when she writes to a nephew about a butterfly. Here's an odd thing, I was considering my life, recently, considering the yeas and neighs, and I was struck with the fact that I always retreat. Not only not a role model, but a coward to boot. Read more...

Balance Disruption

Something's off, ear infection or water on the brain. My sense of balance is generally quite attuned, I move well for a man my age, so this attack of unsteadiness is surprising. I retreat to the sofa, after boxing the armload of wood I'd gone outside to fetch. Nothing serious, but I have to think about it, consider ramifications. I read a novel by Andrew Vachuss, "Haiku", which I quite liked. Good timing, because it is a book about a band of disjointed homeless guys and therefore germane. In light of the vertigo, what I need to do is watch my feet more closely and not stare into the middle distance when walking, spouting meaningless tautologies. I shoot for a kind of vertical integration in my life, where things relate, so I might not draw enough distinction to the details that make me say something. I don't have to, with you, you know me, so I tend toward leaving out connective tissue, when I'm writing; when I'm cooking, I leave it in, because I love the mouth-feel. Like tripe in that Mexican soup. One of the things that draws us together is that we've all failed, we've all known failure. If you haven't you're lying to yourself. It's really the only way you learn. Failure is a good thing, it highlights shortcomings. And it's good to know where you're weak. Like Harrison, I had a good arm, but I never could hit major league pitching. Have to go to bed, not feeling right. Beautiful dawn, a band of blue sky an inch high, straight as a ruler; by the time I eat and suit up, the clouds are gone, I have to take off a layer. I feel great today, a good thing because I have much to do. I split kindling, hand-cut starter sticks, then chainsaw for a couple of sessions, another fire of knots all day. I re-organize the remains of the Wrack Show one last time, make room for some serious wood. There's a stack of pre-cuts from the wood dump, Ash and Red Maple, I bust them a couple of times and take the pieces to the shed, they're quite dry, just a little surface moisture. The Ash splits like a dream. The Red Maple pieces are not very thick (6 inches) because the damned things are so large and someone had to move them; I roll them like wheels to a flat spot in the driveway and bust them in half just to move them. I remember collecting these, I rolled them to the truck and they were higher that the tailgate, so I was able to tip them into the bed of the truck without ever lifting the whole weight. The only way I could have gotten them, because I can only easily carry half of one now, and they're dry. A surprising amount of wood under the shed, busted into large chunks. I can split for 30 minutes when I get home from work. At this point, after a late lunch of sardines, pickled jalapenos, cheese and crackers, I suit up in my motor-pool jumpsuit with velcro closures at wrist and ankles, crawl under the house, repair and redo some insulation. If I can lure D out here for half a day, I could finish the final layer of dense foam and never have to do this again. But I'm good, now, sealed against temps in the teens by Thursday. And I am quite dirty at this point, had been heating water on the cookstove: shave, sponge bath, hair wash. It was just getting dark, everything on the day's list is done, and I was clean. Opened a decent Zinfandel, pan-fried a nice T-Bone, roasted some small root vegetables, couple of turnips, a potato, the smallest acorn squash I could find, drizzled with walnut oil, salt and pepper. There's a wonderful sense of well-being, working hard physically, cleaning up, eating a hardly meal. There are times it feels good to be a little sore, to see a very clear connection between labor expended and your life. I don't know what disrupted my balance, but it's nice to have it back. I think it's raining, then realize it's one of those winter flies, trapped under my reading light lamp-shade. It's important to keep your balance. I watched a gorilla, once, at the Jacksonville Zoo, walk around and around in circles. It bothered me for days. I'm oddly easily upset, you'd be surprised, what set me off. Sometimes it's almost nothing, some lichen on a rock, a flood of krill, a really bad piece of reporting, and I'll rip someone a new ass. Nothing is worse than misrepresentation, and few things more instructive. Like I was saying, failure is how we learn. Read more...

Nighttime Noises

I needed to get up anyway, to stoke the fire, but what woke me was something scuffling through the leaves outside, most likely a deer, but it sounds like a smaller mammal, a coon or a opossum. I don't want to get up, it's three in the morning, and cold enough for either the witch or the brass monkey, but there is the fire to think about, so I don my new bathrobe, grab a flashlight and go out to see what's what. It's a mother coon and a yearling kit and when they look back at me, in my beam of light, their eyes are rubies. I leave them to their devices, get an armload of wood, go back inside. Cold enough that my nose-hairs freeze almost immediately and I wish I'd worn a hat. My fingers don't work and I can't roll a cigaret until I get a decent fire going. The wages of winter. Four in the morning, I wonder why I live this way, not like it was a conscious decision to suffer, more like a hand fate dealt. Mostly it's logistics, carry water when you can, keep the home fires burning, a simple enough equation; the rub is the weather, what can't be predicted. A litany of things. There are times I think I live this way so that no one else needs to, supporting one end of the Bell Curve, nothing but a statistic. Then the sun comes up and I feel I am the luckiest man alive. The world, in all its frozen beauty. I believe in something, but I don't know what it is: the way slanted light hits a frozen leaf, bird song in the gathering dawn. The world's a mess, but stars shine, nothing matters, really, but the way you feel. Finally got back to sleep for a couple of hours, then up and out, down the driveway, zip into town, lay in supplies, back up the driveway before it thaws. Emily said "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." I cut enough wood by hand to last a couple of days, Monday I'll spend the day at it but today I need the solace of a long meandering walk in the woods. I carry a light pack with a block of foam to sit or kneel on, a magnifying glass, a couple of acorn muffins and a tin cup to sample the various wet-weather springs. I follow several little rills to their source, one of them, at the head of a nameless (to me) hollow, looks like a bullet hole in a stock tank, squirting water. So cold it hurts my teeth. Excellent taste, sweet and slightly flinty. Sitting there on my foam, eating a muffin, sipping spring water, nothing but natural sound, next time, I'm taking Basho along. I'm out most of the afternoon, twice tangled so badly in green-briar that I had to cut my way out. Carhartt bibs and jacket turn the thorns, so I'm not physically damaged, well a few scratches but nothing serious, and they don't rip. I lose a lot of clothes to thorns, so I'm sensitive to rippage. Bibs all have a tool pocket, I'm sure it has another name, my clippers fit perfectly, no chance of losing them, and you do not walk in these woods without clippers. You could die in a briar thicket, I think, or have to cut off your arm with a pocket-knife. I drag home a couple of oak branches, dead and dry from last year's ice-storm, and finally blown free by last week's wind-storm. Break off everything I can and haul them by the butt, one under each arm, I get tangled a few times, but I've learned how to do this, I've done it forever, and I haul branches pretty well. And I make a mean bean soup, this last one tops the scale, I don't remember that much about making it, bean soup is mostly pro forma, but this one is different. Then I get it, it was thin, and I wanted a thicker soup, so I mashed a can of pork-and-beans, generic, and added them; it's the sweetness, I never would have added something sweet, never would have thought of it, because I don't do sweet. I just don't, I don't know why. Never developed the habit. I get most of my sugar from juice, to which I am addicted. The trip to town today was mostly about juice. I spent twice my normal food budget, but my pantry looks good. Concentrated juice in the freezer, I melt snow for water, and a few tins of tomato juice, for when I feel a need for that. I seem to steer increasing away from the acidic. A drift where tomatoes are used less often. I'd rather dip French Fries in a very garlic (ally) mayonnaise, than catsup. If that makes me Un-American, so be it. I had a friend once who only ate potato chips dipped in French mustard. The ways of the world are intricate. Read more...

Thinking Clearly

I've got to start thinking more clearly. Missed the boat today, as I should have just taken off work an extra hour and did the whole drinking water, heavy item shop today, as I knew the driveway would be frozen and snowless when I got home. Now I'm counting on being able to get out and in tomorrow. Never make assumptions. I'll probably be ok. Still, it was a sure thing today, and tomorrow is an unknown. This new Jim Harrison collection of three novellas is wonderful reading, "The Farmer's Daughter"; the cold woke me this morning about 4 AM, got up and started a fire, brewed an espresso, snuggled back on the sofa and read for a couple of hours while the house heated enough for me to shave. Winter mode. I'm attuned to the seasons, not through any master plan, but by necessity, the choices I've made. Sometimes even I can't believe them, the choices, and I'm forced to consider. Having Tammy around the museum is a good thing, for the museum, and for me. She almost doesn't believe me, I'm almost a fictional character in a physical workspace. She'll ask me something and I'll answer her, and she'll look at me like I'm making things up. Which I do, which confuses the issue. The temps are dropping so fast, I put the oil-filled electric heater right next to where I write, and warm my hands, so I can type. What becomes normal. I stop writing at night now, when my hands are too cold to roll a cigaret. And even then, I allow myself two failures. I love writing and I love smoking, and it's hard to give either of them up, any given night. I leave out almost everything, to say something. No great shakes. Another day. I was so pissed at Trish and Penny that I could have shot them, but I really don't want to go the prison. So I retreat to the basement, as far away as possible, so I don't have to be there, to hear them talk. I hate hearing the English language slaughtered. I'll cross the street, rather than say something stupid. The Scioto has escaped its banks, the Ohio is flooded, I need to take rubber boots, tomorrow, walk the wrack line. Nothing else makes any sense. Maybe the crows, if I understood more Crow. The river rises and falls. I merely report. High water, wear boots. Read more...

Deep Freeze

Dipping to 10 degrees tonight, so I came home early to get a fire going. Thank god for bean soup. Slow at the museum, getting the theater ready for the Cirque's "Winterscape" and talking with D about cleaning and painting the kitchen floor. It takes a beating. An edge of ice around the lake. I stopped to feed stale crackers to the ducks. Considered my movements for the next few days. To a certain extent, I have to be opportunistic in winter. Saturday, for instance, I don't really need to go to town, but I'll be able to drive up a frozen driveway, so I will go to town, back-up a few supplies, the heavy things, juice, drinking water, milk, cream, chicken stock (of which I'm using record amounts, since I started drinking so much as a hot beverage), canned things, and eggs. I hate walking in on eggs, walking in with eggs, I mean, as it's often a disaster. You find yourself standing at the sink, wiping down the 11 survivors and transferring them to another carton. Not that it happens often, but often enough that I avoid it when I can. As a special treat I'll lunch at the pub and have a beer, as they now have Newcastle Brown Ale on tap and it is one of the great beers of the world. And there's some dead dry wood down at the clear-cut on Mackletree, where the fire came through, and there's no reason not to pick some up. In the wind storm, a few large snags dislodged, and I dragged one home, after I achieved the ridge this afternoon. I love this life, rooted in the real. If you don't have a thermostat, you tend to be more engaged with the natural world. Just a comment, not an argument. I was talking with Tammy today, about lifestyles, realized had radically different mine was from anyone else I knew. But I'm not trying to make a point. I just try and be as comfortable as I can, given wherever I find myself. The soup is even better. Funny. At the museum today someone ask me about the power outage and I explained that I made soup at the cookstove by candlelight, and they asked why I didn't bring them some. Because it was so good, I said, I wanted to keep it for myself. I might take them a sample, to show where the bean soup can go, but, really, when something like this happens, you eat it all as quickly as possible, and guard your space with elbows. It's great, the best thing I've made in ages. Maybe it's the corn-sticks I made with the cornmeal Joel sent, buttering ever bite, beware my heart. Doctrine of Signatures would mandate I die on the driveway, struggling home with cream for my coffee, and butter, to butter every bite. I can't believe I write the way I do, with such assurance, I'm only opinionated if you ask the right questions. In the matter of bean soups, I am a master, I can't deny, that in any competition this pot would win a metal. Taste and mouth-feel, it's off the scale, nothing more you could ask. Read more...

Freight Train

The wind is howling, and my fingers are so cold I can hardly type. I've learned. I'm a student of wind, I've lived in windy places, I face into it, count the tears, bleeding from my eyes, multiply by three, divide by two, add a zero, then just guess, based on how quickly my nose-hairs freeze. I hold hypothermia at bay with chicken broth. The cookstove is maxed, oven temp over 600 degrees, I decide to make the ham and bean soup now, because it's so cold over where I write. I cooked a pound of beans last night, Great Northern, and had bought a pound package of ham scarps cheap, caramelized an onion and orange pepper, two cans of chicken stock. It was thin, so I thickened it with acorn meal. This is the soup from heaven, manna, it rests in your belly, still warm, saying yes you can. I had been writing longhand, the power was out, and suddenly it came back on, completely unexpected. I'd better go back to the beginning. A long and serpentine day. I've learned to not plan. Big wind storm all day, precip early and Turkey Creek is running spate. Mackletree Creek has escaped its banks and Booby's yard is flooded, it's not so much the water as his chickens that bother me. I'm going to kill that fucking rooster, that stands in the middle of the road, and defies the sure knowledge that me and my truck weigh way more that him. Stupid shit. When it's slaving over a hot stove, and that's the hot end of the house, I'm game. The oven is too hot, but I open the door and cook some corn sticks. I eat seven, the last two with molasses. Death by corn sticks. I eat what I must, mast. I make very little of this up, I mop as a matter of course. Fix a hole and the rain gets in. Finish cleaning the floor at the museum by scraping gummy things off with my knife and re-mopping, Then, I had forgotten, a local artist, arrives with two huge, heavy, pieces that we're supposed to hang in the back hallway for an Artist's League 'Art Walk' Friday and Saturday, 5'x7' and 5'x8', half-inch plywood with a doubled 2x4 frame, fuckers must weigh a hundred pounds, and they've never been hung before, so we must invent a method. We do that, and hang them, but it takes all afternoon. Outside, the wind is blowing 60 mph, bark is blowing off the trees, whole shacks are being dismantled, but inside we're hanging art, which we do very well. I know my power will be out when I get home. Gusts so hard, it's hard to drive. At the bottom of the driveway it's not so bad, but when I crest the ridge, it is fucking brutal. Hits you like a wall, and you have to reconsider everything. That nature could be so violent. Hurricane winds, I have to lean to walk. Learn to talk. Use a cane, whatever. Of course you're getting older, time passes; saw wood, carry water. Read more...

Nasty Weather

Sleet, then rain, big winds tomorrow (maybe 50 mph) then very cold, probably snow. Pegi ran me off, told me to get my ass home and build a fire. Park at the bottom of the hill and slog up, carrying extra whiskey and makings for a ham and bean soup. Finally, the hospital crew came and got their stuff and I could clean the floor in the main gallery, pretty much encompassed my day. Hoping the rain will stop before very cold temps tomorrow night, there'll be ice enough. I try to track down the Wittgenstein Plumber, to thank him for the corn products, but he's maybe living under an assumed name, I can't find him. If anyone sees him, tell him to call. I guess I could send him a postcard, but my handwriting has become illegible. Read Emily letters for several hours, yesterday, last night, and Linda is correct, about the sexuality. Having known a great many poets and read hundreds of manuscripts, I've got to say, that in a way, the style, the punctuation, could be construed as a cover for a really randy Victorian. They didn't say leg, for god's sake. One could admit an almost masturbational glee in certain poems. I'm not a critic, and a worse editor, but I'm running this over, in my mind, creating a fiction, what a novel idea. Or a film script. The wind has moved in already, that sound it makes, broken only by stick trees, a kind of whoose. Shaping up as the first tribulation of winter. I'm in better shape than I was last year, which should count for something. A different sound, the rain has turned back to sleet. Not looking good, but probably just the opposite of that, it will most likely be beautiful, tomorrow morning. Mornings are generally beautiful for me, another day, another dollar, and the fact that I walk in the real world. I wouldn't trade this for a barrel of monkeys. You accept the changes, and then you die. This is the way it's always been. I have to go down and do some damage control, holding a flashlight under my arm, because I don't want the drainage to jump the driveway. Another rut, who's keeping track. One thing becomes another. Three crows, I merely watch. Read more...

Nothing Matters

Senior year at undergraduate school, Janitor College, I was writing papers for everyone, it's how I earned a living. Three books, two hundred bucks, a black beauty, I can write a term paper on anything. I recently read myself quoted as gospel, five times removed, a turn of phrase I remembered from a paper I wrote for Joel when he was doing graduate study in Finland. Things only change in appearance, their nature is the same. A leaf, for instance, might be green and pliable, or brown and dead. Still, a leaf. There was this Janus festival every year, you walked through a doorway throwing salt over your shoulder; we carried braziers, swinging smoke everywhere. Now that I know I have to do all the parts. What if Emily interrupted you in the middle of the day? Say you were going about you business, chopping wood or carrying water, and suddenly an apparition in white questioned something you had done. Sweet baby Loraine. To round it out, I needed something more (moire) positive, like a fabric, or a way of seeing, and I was splitting wood; the grain, suddenly, made a kind of sense. Nothing matters, but occasionally something makes sense. I finally bust an obstinate knot and in the pattern of the grain I make a kind of sense. Tuesday or Thursday would be good for me. Have your people get in touch with mine. Make yourself easy. Read more...

Exhausted

More light snow but I still work on firewood most of the day, cleaning up the woodshed. Odd knots accumulate and I keep a hot fire going using chunks as small as a baseball. Slippery Elm and Osage Orange chunks burn incredibly well. Picked up a good heavy plastic trash can, with lid, from the dumpster at the lake, a 35 gallon Rubbermaid, with a hole in the bottom. Perfect chunk container. A strange beam at the bottom of the pile (should finish cutting up the Wrack Show next weekend, I am getting sorted out) that I had forgotten. Hornbeam or Ironwood or something, incredibly dense, and someone, it seems, had been practicing with a circular saw, or cutting four inch slabs from an eight-by-eight, for a use I can't imagine. I could imagine them as thick tiles, or even as an entry floor, but I don't know what they were thinking. All four sides are cut as deep as a contractor's saw will cut. On the right bed of coals, one of these slabs will burn a very long time. I cut one off today, with a handsaw, it heated my bath water, cooked my dinner, and is still going strong. Split several difficult crotches today, quite a long time with the maul and sledge and wedges. These are good logs for late a cold night. All day I'm melting snow in one pot and heating water in the canning kettle, finally stop working outside just before four, come into a warm house, strip down, and scrub every inch of my body, shave, wash my hair, trim my nails. I'm sore, mostly in my upper body, but I'm getting into shape: walking the driveway, swinging the maul. I drink a mug of chicken stock while I fix dinner, squirrel and gravy on toast. Silly bastards. I parboil the body parts, dry them, dredge them in egg and then pulverized sweet potato chips, fry them in olive oil. De-bone the meat, scrape the mast, cook them together until I can't stand it any longer, serve myself on toast. Squirrel makes good gravy. In a moment of clarity I make more grits. I'll fry these tomorrow, and I wonder why everyone thinks they're getting old, I want an acorn recipe, I don't care where it comes from. The first step is always the hardest. Read more...

Cold Blast

I get up to stoke the stove and it's cold outside, first night in the teens, back to bed, burrowing under. Clear dawn, I walk over and the driveway, frozen hard, is doable, so I clean house a bit, collect laundry, head to town. During the wash cycle I go to Big Lots and buy a few things, light things, dehydrated Asian soups mostly, because I'll be carrying everything back up the hill. Treat myself to a footer and jalapeno poppers, go below the floodwall and watch the river traffic; after I eat I walk the wrack line to see what's washed ashore. 20 oz soda bottles are the most common litter, several balls, a dead dog (black, lab-like), a section of snow fence that I almost take (the slats would be perfect kindling), an ugly end table, three foam coolers, a fair amount of pre-cut fire-wood, but I'm quite a distance from the truck. Drive home the long way around, so I can come completely up the creek that begins on my property. Upper Twin is a lovely thing, a meandering drainage over slate falls. I stop several places, then clean the undercarriage of the truck by going forward and backward over the ford below the bridge. Letting it drip-dry for a few minutes, I'm rolling a cigaret on the hood when two deer hunters come out of the woods, they're half-tanked, I roll them each a cig, and we talk hunting. They both know where I live, but I've never seen them before. Everybody knows where I live, the locals. I'm that guy that lives on the ridge. I am, truly a stranger. This area, this region of the country, is so family oriented, that I stick out like a sore thumb. I holiday alone, my idea of a good time is not going out for several days in a row. I don't even know my neighbors. It's a failing, in a way, to not be more integrated, but I'm avoiding involvement right now, I need a lot of time alone. I'm frying some bacon right now, because when you don't know what your fixing for dinner frying bacon is a good first step. First off, the house smells good, even vegetarians like the smell of bacon, been my experience they'd eat a slice, occasionally, if there was a closet close by. Spend the afternoon cutting wood and over-heating the house, drag in the sheep-watering trough and take a bath, walk around in my new bath-robe, looking like a character from Wodehouse, shouting imprecations. WHERE'S MY SHERRY? IF THAT DOG HAS MY SLIPPER AGAIN, I SWEAR I"LL KILL HIM. WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY COLLARS HAVEN'T BEEN DONE! In a British accent. It was embarrassing, really, but quite funny. When I turn on the radio later, to hear Crossing Boundaries, it's Skip James, a transport of blues. And this is where I fall, when it comes to music.They move me like nothing else.The blues. Many fish bite if you've got good bait. Mind games. I give her my cheek, we buzz. Read more...

What

I built myself a mountain, not dead yet, it's something to do. That's just the way it goes. As long as there's a road, what's that lyric, I'm a loser at the top of my game. Sins I've never confessed, I wish I was something else, but I'm merely mortal, getting older. I still carry heavy billets for hundreds of yards, a beast of burden, but I'd rather than not. Watching where my feet fall engages me completely, don't fall is the mandate. I'm careful. Expect the unexpected. You can't blame anyone but yourself. Doesn't matter how anyone tells you how you should feel. What you experience is an individual thing, hermeneutics, essentially it's you and Melville on a desert isle. "Omoo." I don't want to walk on water, I just want to not freeze to death. Crawling with Joel, under various floors, I learned some lessons, the major one being don't try to encompass more than you can encompass. I'm a fool for the impossible. Memphis in the mean time. John Hyatt, I'm sure that's Ry Cooder playing guitar. I'm going down to Memphis. Someday baby. Woke up to light snow, already accumulating, snows on for hours. When it finally stops there's just a scant inch and I go out to the woodshed, handsaw enough wood for today and the projected coldest night this season. I'll break out the chainsaw tomorrow, but it was too lovely for that sound today. Split kindling, cur starter sticks, the winter routine. Read an interesting article on proto-hominid locomotion. Odd to get visitors on a day like this, but a History Professor from the college and his small son showed up, mid-afternoon. They been visiting B, who's staying on the ridge when the nights get cold, to protect his cabin; he's making his winter wood, I could hear him cutting in the distance earlier today. It's strange, such a strained relationship, not a word in 9 months. Third time in two weeks I make a meal of caramelized
onions and peppers with hot Italian sausage, on a bed of mashed potatoes. Crab cakes for breakfast tomorrow, with a fried egg for sauce. On Cape Cod I had a fried egg on a codfish cake nearly every morning for years. I'll need to get up in the night to stoke the stove, I'll need to do this maybe 30 times in the next 90 days, and I've developed a technique, for waking, that's become habit. I sleep on the sofa, and I wake up several times every night, noise events and light events and the occasional bad dream, and I stick a leg out from under the covers. I don't think about doing this, it's become more like covering your mouth when you cough. If the leg gets cold I come to full consciousness and put a couple of logs on the fire. Sometimes I roll a smoke, turn on the computer, and start writing again, sometimes I pee off the deck and go back to bed. My life has a structure but it's not rigid. Really need to get off the ridge tomorrow, do a load of laundry, replenish the sock supply, and might be able to, if I go out when it's frozen. Hate to go down a frozen driveway, but probably be ok in four-wheel drive low, sticking to the ruts. Leave the truck at the bottom of the hill on the way back in. This snow wasn't forecast, just the cold, which is quite real, since the skies have cleared. But now we enter that period where the top few inches of driveway freezes and thaws. The ground will freeze to 3 feet or more, but I'm really only interested in the top few inches. Can I drive on it? I used to take more risks, but now I mostly walk when there's a question. It helps, I think it's just the time between A and B, the interval becomes a beat, music is all about interval. I indulge myself, from time to time, tapping a beat, it means nothing but it causes me to think. I'm not sure what meaning even is. An abstract fabrication. Aesthetics of necessity. Read more...

Much Colder

The Aftermath. Museum is a shambles, and yes, they broke the glass on one of the photos. D and I turn to, break apart their tables, bag up their linen, I focus on getting the garbage out. They've done it again, overfilled garbage bags, and I'm elbow deep into sorting things out. The basement class-room was a child-care center and it's been wiped down pretty seriously with applesauce and Mac-and-Cheese. At Janitor College, freshmen had to clean up after the senior's Janus Party, and it was good training, I appreciate that, because most of us clean up after a party or two in our lives. I do 8 to12 a year, and I am no longer confounded by how dumb we can be. I leave at 4, to get a fire started before dark, and 2 of the 3 catering parties (booze, food, equipage) still hadn't picked up their stuff. Fuck it, I've got a cold house to deal with, and I make off with half a dozen roast beef, cream cheese with chives, on bread rounds, sandwiches, and an opened bottle of Cab. Makes dinner easy in the gathering cold. Glenn mentioned that I was sounding more like Melville but I think of it as Proust, then I think he's probably correct. The earthiness, which Proust certainly wasn't. How very like a whale, which is Hamlet (Polonius, I'm pretty sure), but seems germane. Burning a lot of wood this week, having fires mornings and then again at night. I need to step up my output. By the end of Monday I want December in the bag, and at least one rick moved under cover. I only got one book at the library today and the librarian raised an eyebrow, I explained that I had some other things to do. Going into survival mode here, something you couldn't understand if you have a thermostat. I told Tammy I didn't trust people that had a thermostat, and she looked back at me, said she couldn't trust people that didn't have running water. Fair enough. I know speaking truth is a fiction, nothing is what we think it is, therefore not nothing. I'm not writing with gloves yet, so it can't be that cold. I read some Pound, some Dickinson. Read more...

The Wind

I'm asleep and this dry whisper of a wind becomes a voracious, house shaking thing. Perfect timing, because I can restart the fire, pee, get a drink of juice; not concerned, really, that I'll blow away, I tend toward overbuilding and this house could probably roll several times before the roof caved in. But the wind is a freight train, howling and shaking my timbers. I like it, I have to admit, it's so astoundingly real. That's the thing with me, I'd rather the wind, sweeping in from Minnesota, than nothing at all. When the natural world consumes you, when the wind blows so hard you're forced to consider your building techniques, when trees fall as a matter of course, then I am engaged. I, what, enjoy the struggle. In a lull, I go out to get a few sticks for the fire. Nothing is more real than the natural world. Fucking wind has gained new ground, sounds like a young war. I put a log on the fire and go to bed. Annual hospital xmas party is a pain in the ass, and huge. 177 people booked and that's beyond capacity. I fear for the art work, but I always do. We put the two Cleveland paintings in the vault because they came with a no-food-or-drink restriction. Late for work, which I seldom am, always allowing extra time for everything in case I have to stop and look at something or field-dress a woodchuck, but another tree down on Mackletree and I stopped to help Booby clear it away. Re-fried grits. Excellent. Just had a couple of rounds, fried in bacon fat, with salsa. Need to mix some acorn meal with the next batch. Buy some limes, to fight off scurvy, and I could probably live on these. Eat a few weeds. Want to make a pate for the holidays, duck, pork and chicken livers. There was a duck in my mail box this afternoon, probably Shane left it for me. It was fresh, I dressed it out and put it in the freezer. I like duck fine, I do a couple of different things with them, roasted with an orange sauce, roasted on a bed of salt, lightly smoked; but I love them in a country pate. As an equal weight to the main ingredients, mushrooms, and some kind of nut, acorns, of course, for me. I used to use Filberts, I like them a lot. D and I had an interesting conversation about nuts recently and decided we liked them all. Some shallots, some watercress (I just found some in Mackletree Creek), two sticks of butter and half a bottle of decent sherry. I'll probably put some ginger in this, a few drops of hot sauce, lots of black pepper. A wing and a prayer. For instance when I write you and am cooking dinner at the same time. I talk to myself, I talk to the stove, I talk to the wind, if it's strong enough to stir the under-story. Hermeneutics, the way things are constellated. I can't not respond. That's all this is. A response to a certain stimulus. I always suspected me, the likely target, but I knew I was innocent. Suffice it to say, I was well out of the way when the shit finally surfaced. I distance myself from disaster. Like I have in a GPD that knows where I am: I fuck that up, as a matter of course, every time I open my mouth. Read more...

Whatever

I hold my distance, I admit to anything and I always tell the truth. My guidelines, I only play by my rules. I'm a stickler for this, what might be reviewed as evidence. I'm innocent, of anything you could bring to bear. My Lawyers assure me I'm in the clear here, where things self-assembled, what we thought we meant.. Read more...

My Readers

I was having a conversation with someone, and something was said I wanted to use later, when I was writing. I cull the day, really, the way I stay sane, or at least operational. I notice there's generally a time-line. That about does for me in terms of any kind of criticism. I watch tadpoles, I watch crows, my closest relationship is with a fox, I might not be the person you could use in a study of anything. If you write, somewhere in that dynamic is the concept of being read, and the reader is critical. It's a dialogue. The Brain Trust was spread along the bar at lunch today. You couldn't keep up with the conversation. High and wild. I didn't say anything because nothing needed to be said, I've read enough noir I know what needs to be said, I understand understanding. I know a couple of minor things. Shit flows downhill, that kind of thing, I profess to nothing, merely what I've heard. Catch 22. Watch it with the zipper. Had lost touch with the Wittgenstein Plumber, Joel, a package from him today, he's still, or back in Atlanta, the box barely fit the mailbox and heavy. I'm walking in, to assure I make it to the museum tomorrow, prep for the hospital xmas party, so I rearrange my backpack to carry it. Home, I start a fire, get an armload of wood, wash my face, then open the package. Excellent larder for the pantry: a couple of pounds of good southern cornmeal, and a couple of pounds of grits. I start a pot of grits as soon as the stove is hot enough, enough to have a meal, in a bowl, grits, salt and pepper, butter, and a couple of eggs over easy. The left-over grits I'll stuff into a soup can, slice, tomorrow or the next day, and fry in bacon fat as polenta. First thing, with the corn meal, is a pot of pintos, with cornbread sticks, this weekend for sure. I have four cast iron pans for making cornbread sticks, seven to a pan. It's a rotation thing, two pans in the oven, pre-heating (you have to get them smoking, a scant teaspoon of bacon fat in each slot, or they stick like a bastard) in a hot oven, maybe 450 degrees, then ladle them half-full, back in the oven, prep the other set, ten or twelve minutes, out of the oven and the other set of pans goes in to pre-heat, while you fork the first batch out of their pan. Repeat as needed. Everyone gets a big pat of butter on their plate, and butters every bite. At the end of the meal we usually have a couple more with molasses. You can hurt yourself with cornbread sticks, buttons are popped, belts are released a notch. I was feeding this meal to some very sophisticated people on Cape Cod, Hollywood writers and CIA agents, and at the apparent end of the meal, one of the CIA agents ask if I couldn't possibly mix up another batch, because he was sure he would never eat such a thing again. Grown men weep. Because I know I will be using these corn products soon, half of them anyway, the other half I'll save for deep winter, I immediately opened a bag of each, tasted the product on a dampened (archival) finger and the corn exploded. The taste was amazing. CORN. What the hell have I been eating? Oh, right, acorn. I added a letter and was left with no taste. When I go out for the girls' various graduations, I'll make a pilgrimage over to Dove Creek, a place I duly love. Bean Country, still in Colorado, but only a mile or two from Utah. I spent a week there once, a dozen years ago, Michael was building a house somewhere, I was helping, and I needed a place to stay. The only time I ever spent living a week in a motel. I rented a trailer on the Navaho Reservation after that, with bullet holes in the walls. It was considerably better. Fuck not profiling: Navaho women, from the age of 15 to 30 are beautiful, then they all turn into loaves of bread. I think it's the blackness of their hair. When they're young, it glistens in ways you've never seen before. Some enzyme or secretion that you cease making when you're beyond child-bearing age. I'll be going after beans, when I revisit Dove Creek, to get some 10 pound bags of burlaped beans. I'm a sucker for burlap bags, I'd buy bison chips, trail mix, whatever. But the Bean Cooperative has a retail outlet in Dove Creek, and I gravitate toward the local. I need some beans. I know where I can get them. A force not to be reconnected with. Read more...

Hood Release

I love the way two word titles can be so ambiguous. D, getting his terminal degree, an MFA in Hood Release, succeeded where everyone else, including the best mechanic on the creek (who was next going to cut a hole, to get to the release mechanism) as James and I watched closely. We'd (James and I) tried for an hour last week, and were buying in to the whole hole-cutting procedure. The trick was sticking a very stout screwdriver in exactly the right place. We all suspected that, and poked around, but D found it. Now I don't really need to get it fixed, because it's my screwdriver, and I now know where to poke it. If you've ever owned a tractor, you'd know that you never get anything fixed that you can poke, tie together (baling wire, I carry a roll in my truck), or bang the side of to get going. It's a rule. I've owned two tractors, and ancient tricycle John Deere, and a magnificent Ford 8-N. A 1947 tractor, with 24 horsepower, that, with the linotype machine, rank at the top of American manufacturing. You can still get every part for this tractor, you could put one together from new parts, and today it would cost, in parts, over $10,000, that sold for $800 new, I paid $500 for mine, but that was more a token, to a distant and aging relative in the Missip years. Doc Watson's son was killed in a tractor accident, and they are common, like chainsaw accidents. Let's not think about accidents. Two quarts low on oil, which was my fear, and I had the two quarts right there, and now I can open the hood. The traditional 8-N is Ford gray, with red detail, a lovely thing. I had a great mechanic in Missip, Rip Raper, who became the mayor of Duck Hill, and he did some work on it, steam cleaned and painted it. When it came to the painting, he came over to the house, for a home-brew and a chat. Seems the actual John Deere colors were quite expensive, but he painted vehicles, and he had a lot of left-over paint, high-quality stuff, a quart of this, a quart of that; and if he could just mix them together, he wouldn't charge me for the paint. Sure, I said, what do I care what color the damned thing is. I may have owned the only purple Ford 8-N ever. Big Roy thought it was very cool, that a white boy (he loved calling me a white boy), that wasn't gay, would drive such a thing. He'd bring his coon hunting buddies over, to watch me plow a field. It doesn't seem true now, but at the time, I always had a gallon of moonshine on hand. Moonshine capital of the world, and there were three or four guys that made very good shine. Twenty bucks a gallon, usually in a Coke syrup plastic jug. Roy had the run of my house, and he knew where the liquor was stored, he'd make a high sign and I'd wave him inside. I'm disking a corn field, and pretty soon, there are five dudes drinking on my front porch, watching me disk a field. I loved it, I've got to say. It's hard to talk about the ten years there, without wrongly profiling. We lived in the boonies and didn't socialize. Is there a thread here? And how do I address race issues when most of my friends then were black. I'm strongly conflicted here, because I'm to write about that time, and about a projection I made, nothing, against a background of nothing. I only do that because I can. Words allow me that. Sometimes phrases might be questionable. We strike a balance. Read more...