Rain

Instead of snow (it is still February) we get an inch of rain. In western Colorado it was a twelve-to-one equation, here it's likely ten-to-one. I put out my buckets to harvest some water. Supposed to get violent weather, spring weather, but the frost is mostly out of the ground. Walking in, I used a stick to move matted leaves from the mouths of the culverts. The drainage all looks good, but it's at the whim of nature, any odd debris pile could force water into a desire path that undermines the driveway. Thunder rolls across the ridges, low and ominous, I feel it in my feet and ankles more than I hear it. But there's that bass note, sustained, then flashes of lightning. I'd better save. Suddenly quiet, the rain stops, and the wind, a lull. Silent flashes of light, silhouette trees, the expectation, then the rolling sound. This cell, or system, whatever it is, is miles to the south of me, well across the river, deep into Kentucky. Some higher notes now, as the sky cracks open, a ripple that rends from one horizon to the other. Otto Rank. I still read him, he's useful. Jesus, the thunder is in layers, the house is shaking, vibrating, as concussive waves rattle the timbers. It's right on top of me now, rain in sheets, and my chair is bouncing across the floor. Torrential rain, thunder, lightning. I'd better go. It passes. Severe events seem to pass quickly. A cramp, or being struck by lightning. You know what I mean. Later, when we wash down the killing floor, there might be some remorse, but rarely a sense of guilt. I fabricate. It's what I do. Almost late for work, staying up with the storm, but I get there in time to shave and wash my hair, set-to with the punch list. A lot of little things. TR and I dug out the bonnets (vitrines, in the trade), which meant shuffling all the bonnets we weren't going to use. Many fingerprints, but we try to keep them all on the outside, that way they can be cleaned (alcohol and lintless cloth) after they're installed. Several loads to the basement. Devising a method to hang a quilt, a lovely quilt, on the wall behind the receptionist. Only a problem because it's a very hard wall and I'll have to hammer-drill anchor pockets. Hanging quilts is tricky because they're never exactly straight, so we use an empirical method that involves attaching one end then moving the other end around and marking the spot where we like it best. Problem is that we often adjust these several times, but when you're sinking an anchor in well aged concrete, you want to get it right the first time. I have tricks. There are ways that I can easily deceive the eye. One can. Deceive is too strong a word, 'fool' might be better. I can insert dowels, above or below the hanging stick within the pocket. Talk about micro-managing, bend the screw up or down a wee bit. Perfect is relative. Wait, that isn't supposed to be possible, but you do it as a matter of course. It's just the next thing. Life is one crisis after another. Like crows in a dead oak tree. Read more...

Didn't Mean

What you thought I said. Confusion, I know, reigns supreme; but I'd never rat on a friend. Some things are inviolate. Maybe Glenn actually writes this, and I'm the fiction. I have to think about that. My goal was to disappear and I might have succeeded. They could probably take DNA off the rim of the glass, but it would only match with a homeless guy in Mississippi that died five years ago. A house fire. Got up for a couple of hours in the night and read, turned off the fridge, lovely quiet. Then slept too late and B had to come knock on the door. Nice morning chat riding into town. Punch List at the museum, a great many things to take care of before Friday. Prioritize. I finished the labels, then started touch-up painting. A lot of that to do. Then the plexiglass bonnets. I take something down to the basement every trip I make. Piles everywhere, tools, extension cords, shipping blankets, and I've got to get down to the floor so I can clean it. Friday starts early, with a panel discussion at four, then the opening/reception 5:30 to 7:30. Jury is still out on whether or not I'll stay for the whole thing. Trish and Pegi have scheduled a wedding reception for the next day, and I wish them well, really stupid scheduling, only exceeded in stupidity by what they've scheduled for next June. I'm sure we can do it, but I'm not happy about it. Someone should consult the rest of the staff. Safe to say, there are control issues here, someone is insecure. Water over the spillway, I just want to know what is the next thing I need to do. Read more...

Seeming Odd

Justin was wrapping his head around the idea that we were eating a sauce that was eight years old, I was explaining how you could preserve something by keeping it in jars under a layer of pure fat. When I resurrect the sauce, I throw away the disc of fat, a hardened bit of lard, and boil the key-note speaker. It's usually a bit stale, after a slumber, and I brighten it with some acidic liquids, white balsamic, some fruit juice, and half a gram of a superior ground green chili a friend sent from New Mexico. Thus you keep things alive, not unlike rescuing an animal at the shelter, or skinning and gutting a roadkill coon and turning it into a meal. I could hear B, hammering in the distance, putting walls on his woodshed, and I walked over, to ask him for a ride into town on Tuesday, the case-of-beer for idler arm installation is at the mercy of the installer. Out here in the country, things move slowly. Fine with me. Slow the whole show down. It must seem odd, from Justin's point of view, that I can live this way, without certain amenities. At four, I got up to pee, and there was an animal rooting in the compost pile. I've long since given up on inventing a narrative. The next thing is always more important. A coon in the compost heap. People always comment on the quantity of books, and always ask if I've read them all. First, I say that they're only seeing half of the books, and that the entire library has been culled twice, and that yes, I'd read them all, a lot of them more than once, and that's why any given book was still around. Justin didn't comment on the teetering piles that are a new design feature, and as almost everyone does, at one point spent a few minutes scanning the titles on a shelf. Commented that I seemed to have a wide variety of interests, and I explained my process of learning: watching and reading. We talked about song writing and various guitarists. Two generations apart, but we like a lot of the same people. I told some stories, in answer to questions. I hadn't spent a few hours in someone's company, in my house, since Neil was here, months ago. I spend well over half my time completely alone, with the fridge turned off. It doesn't seem odd to me. Just the hum of my black Dell, the irregular tapping of keys, and me, talking to myself. Nothing odd about it. I accept the implication that I could be perceived as odd, but I can explain everything. I thought she was eighteen, the rice is gummy, why not to use an egg in a crab-cake; certain truths, it seems, are inevitable. Sun setting over Hanged Man Hollow is spectacular. Exactly why I built a bleacher, on the Vineyard, to watch the sunset; probably still there, wrapped in vines and hidden in tall grass, a testament to observation. I watch therefore I am. The end of February I can have a beer at the pub and still get home before dark. Dinner was great, left-overs from last night; a feast, actually, I ate until I got tired of chewing. The sauce is resplendent, with some balsamic heat, and I take an extra portion of bread to clean my plate. Read more...

Small Things

I couldn't help but notice. It's like a whirlwind that gathers in the lee of the Masonic building. A trash bunny. The other day it was carrying plastic trash bags up 50 feet or more. Walked out to the graveyard this morning and there was one of those Venturi generated whirlwind effects happening in the hollow to the NW. Swirling leaves. Justin came out from town for his first cooking lesson. We prepared and roasted root vegetables: parsnips, turnips, carrots, a sweet potato and some baby red potatoes, tossed in olive oil with salt, pepper, and some dried rosemary. I slightly froze a pork tenderloin so we could cut it into medallions, then pounded those and lightly rubbed them with a mixture (always a mystery, depends on what's at hand) that didn't include anything you'd put in an apple pie. Seared quickly in very hot olive oil, until they showed a little color; with the sauce, boiled and tempered with some juice; some bread, dipped in olive oil. It was good. The parsnips were particularly good, they'd been kissed with frost and weren't from Peru. After a frost the starches start converting to sugars. I love parsnips and turnips in the wintertime, sweet and earthy. Which, if I ever developed a perfume, would be alone those lines. That smell of a dancer, after practice, before she hit the shower, with an undertone of sweet southern flower, Gardenia maybe. Just thinking. Imagining smell is a lot like visualization. It's a complete fabrication, but it allows entry into a thought process. What if that? What language lacks is a voice. I've been studying this for awhile, the way we fail to communicate. I thought about writing a book, but I'd already done that, and now I'm afraid of heights. Small smile on my face, because I wouldn't want for anything to be different, I met a lot of the players and I never developed a cocaine habit.To be honest, I might have, but I never had enough money. If I had ever been elected to the Supreme Court, I would have reversed some decisions, and been a general pain in the ass. Goes, as they say, with the territory. Thinking politically. I question all of this, believe me, I question everything; when it comes to push versa shove. Read more...

Drinking Water

The other place I get drinking water is from wet weather springs, ground water hitting a layer of sandstone and punching out in a stream. I excavate a ledge, where I can place a gallon jug, and direct the water with various pieces of plastic, little diversion devices I fabricate on the spot. I let the spring run for a couple of minutes, to clean itself out; generally I roll a smoke and sit on a near-by stump. I can usually harvest a gallon of sweet water in less than five minutes. The drinking water I buy, for forty cents a gallon, is nowhere near as good, but more dependable, who wants to sit on a hillside and watch the birds for five minutes? 300 seconds, counting down. It's good to be home. D drove me out, I'll hitch a ride in with B on Tuesday. After the big push, this week, I needed some time alone, some quiet time, some writing time. Incredibly productive time yesterday with D, we solved problems and hung some difficult pieces. Decided (after our four o'clock limit for doing math or handling art) that we could hang one last wall, and my math completely failed me. The end of the day I tend to over-think and thereby fuck up. I can crunch the numbers fine if I don't think about it too much; and the converting (endlessly) fractions into inches, but by the end of a long hard day none of it makes any sense. I ran the numbers three times for the final wall and every time they came out different. D laughed, ran the numbers, and he was wrong too. We check the numbers by sliding the pieces along the floor, underneath where they'll hang, the empirical conformation, confirmation (I make a note to look at those words this week-end). We finally arrive at a set that looks fine, that we both know is slightly incorrect, and hang the wall anyway. Let the eye be the judge. Still, 13 pages of math for this show, I use a legal-pad and don't use the lines; there were a lot of small arrows and circled numbers, it's arcane. We spent several hours taking apart an expensive piece, framed, under glass, matted, that had slipped on its hinges. We have to take the whole thing apart, re-hinge it, re-frame it, and the frame needs some work; neatly solved by D with a couple of screw-eyes and a run of braided wire. Distribute the load, that's the key. The hinges are Japanese rice-paper tape, archival of course, that we activate with what we always call archival spit. Hike in with a heavy pack, cooking school tomorrow, and there's no way I could count on the student bringing the correct ingredients, so I brought in what we needed. My first Sherpa load this year. I just take smaller steps and walk more slowly, there's an algorithm for any given situation. Even if I didn't stop to get a gallon of water, I might have meant to, could have, might have. I love the informed. Read more...

Closing Time

Closed down the pub with the owners on each side of me, the bartender had long since just put the bottle of Paddy Irish whiskey on the bar in front of us and told John he was too busy to pour us shots, a great finish to a great day. I hadn't started hanging the show before Sara came in because I knew we'd change some things, we always do. Sara goes home and visualizes some of the bays looking different, and she's always right: it would look better if we shuffled a few things. So we discuss, and shuffle a few things, all part of the process. Hanging folk art is different from hanging fine art because nothing is regular, nothing is square, the edges are all blurred, things tend to have a relative footprint. Times like this, I can read Sara's mind and we don't even finish sentences, no need to; I can see that TR is perplexed, but he's fast enough and bright enough that he catches on pretty quickly. I'm a savant at this, for whatever reason, how to get the spacing nearly perfect in several dimensions, it's just something I can do. After lunch we hang the front wall, six pieces and two signage panels, in a configuration we've never used before, and I call Sara and Pegi over to the balcony rail to see if that's what they wanted. I can do anything, actually, and I just want everyone to be happy. Happy my not be the correct word. Satisfied. Day two of the hanging and TR is off to Cincy to get the conserved (new ) Carter oil painting, and the two bays I need to hang are are both large, awkward, fairly heavy pieces. Usually we hang left to right, in order, measuring off the previous piece, but I can't hang these pieces alone, and there's no one else at the museum qualified, tall enough, or strong enough to help. So I set all the hardware mathematically, triple checking all the numbers, waiting for TR to return. It's headache inducing, especially as I catch a mistake, and have to redo two sets. Slow going, as one of the walls is very hard bank-vault concrete and requires a hammer-drill (the wall I caught a mistake on) for the anchors. Ten holes and I've ruined a drill bit. Four o'clock and TR gets back from Cincy, Sara, TR, Pegi and I gather around and I unwrap the painting. It's beautiful, cleaned and the old varnish removed, tightened on the stretcher, touched up, re-varnished, even the frame touched up, we don't have anything like it; there had been talk of maybe selling it, to raise money for operating expenses, but we need this painting in the permanent collection. We take down another painting in the Carter gallery and hang it, so we can see it in the correct light, and it's stunning, we all agree to keep it, though the board will be the ultimate judge. While Sara and Pegi are still looking at it, I get TR to go downstairs with me and hang the paintings I've hung hardware for, and I've gotten the numbers correctly, everything is as close to perfect as matters, an eight of of inch in 18 feet doesn't make any difference, I'm outside, having a smoke, and Chris, from the bar next door, asks me what's wrong with my truck, and when I describe the symptoms he says it's the idler arm and if I''ll get the part, he'll change it in the parking lot for a case of beer. On a roll. I never thought I'd be a fixture at a pub. Neither did the owners. What did Dylan say? a simple twist of faith. Read more...

Foiled Plans

The Jeep Liberty was already sold, so I'm looking around on the web, the way I've seen D do. The drive into town this morning was harrowing. Drove in at thirty MPH and kept pulling over to let cars pass. The steering was wanky. Not happy with this turn of events because the weather is nice (warmer) and I'd rather be home. But, we have a major show to install and that will be the priority starting tomorrow, i have to be here. It'll be good to see Sara, to deal with art, to establish that we are an art museum and not just a venue for wedding receptions and concerts. I drive out to the salvage yard, it's only a few miles, after packing my pockets with jerky and dried fruit, only to discover that the Jeep is sold, and limp back into town, with the wanky steering, wondering what I'd done to deserve this. TR drives me to look at a vehicle and when we get back to the museum Sara is there and ready to set the show, which we do, in record time. There are some problems involved, with displaying a few of the pieces, but the problems are the very things that make this job interesting. Only a couple of difficult situations and nothing impossible, we should have the show installed by the end of the day Friday, and the labels are already made. This show is done, and a week early, because all the prep was finished ahead of time. TR is molding into the flow, I feel like I'm training my replacement, which, I suppose I am; I impress on him to take care and move slowly. I can't believe the value of some of the pieces, shocked, actually, because value is a matter of galleries and collections, it has very little to do with the work itself. I begin to consider myself a judge, which is scary. Me a judge with my limited knowledge. Back at the pub there's an event scheduled for the main room, and those of us at the bar are shuffled into the front room. I hate when my pattern is interrupted. Read more...

Too Paranoid

I begin to wonder if my anxiety is greater than the situation demands. If the hackles on my arm are raised, I tend to be deliberate in my actions. But I'd rather err on the side of caution. I didn't want to get paint on a good denim shirt, and the gallery was warm, so I stripped down to a tee-shirt to do some painting. I look like a hick, baseball cap and jeans, painting the pedestals, but this is actually a considered action. Had taken a book home from the art library and tackle some essays on Picasso and Braque that I started reading before dawn, sitting in my Selma Alabama rocker next to the cookstove. The essays are tough going, because they're filled with phrases like "indeterminate paintly tesserae", but I'm interested enough to plow through them, and after a while I don't pay any attention to the academic-speak, I can understand it well enough, hell, even I'm getting that way, when I docent through the Carters. 1907 through the teens, the birth of modernism, the way P and B slammed the door on representation. Altered the way we saw things. So many factors at play: cave art, African art, the atom, stress failure analysis, the desire to shock, and a healthy dose of libido. Just at full light, a flicker out the south windows, and it's a Pileated Woodpecker, one of my favorite shows, so went over and cranked up the computer, so I could watch outside through my writing window. A completely gray day. Oddly, snow to the south of us, but a bit too warm here, where a uniform cloud cover seems to trap some heat. The woodpecker selects a tree 30 feet out from me and does its peculiar little hopping backward down the tree thing. It uses its talons, that's probably not the correct word, barbs? as breaks. Little hops, checking for bugs under the outer bark. These birds are great fighter pilots, they fly down among the tree trunks, and even in brutal winter weather, they find their mark. I love them for that intense flash of red, color in a colorless world, and the fact that they just go about their work. It's all about finding bugs. I type that, then laugh, go get a drink, roll a smoke. What bugs were we talking about? A chink in your armor? Why do armor and amor look so much alike? Just a few questions, before you go. Where were you on the afternoon of January 19th, what was the sub-text of what your daughter said on the phone, how the hell could we ever trust you to be an expert witness? My argument is only that what is seen is a construct. Read more...

Interesting Situations

This gallery in Clearwater, Florida, gets in touch with me, who knows how they got my name, and they want me to re-hang some paintings in a nursing home; they had a contract through god knows whom, to hang a bunch of art. Six pieces, if I understand this missive correctly, are hung incorrectly, and someone on the design team wants the situation rectified. So they wonder what I would charge them to re-hang the paintings. If they had to send a crew, flying in, renting a car, renting a room, meals, it would cost a fortune, but I'm local, and my name popped up. They can't not know the situation they find themselves in, how over the barrel. I don't need or want to re-hang their paintings, but I'm the number they call. So what would you charge? A moral issue. I agree to go look at the situation, my contact person is Erin, and I imagine her ankles. She sounds hot, sultry, southern, a taste of coastal North Carolina, slightly salty. Still, I'm the one that would have to re-hang the paintings, and I'm here, Tommy on the spot. (That's a reach, but you realize that.) Katy put her foot in the door. I'm not trying to be difficult, it just comes naturally, where do you draw the line? What is the line, technically, and when do you cross it? The truck is definitely not well and even D says to get rid of it while it still runs. So we went to a car lot he passes on the way to work to look at a Jeep Liberty, 2002, for 6 thousand. A nice vehicle, clean, dark blue, I'll drive it Monday and look at everything D told me to check. I need a dependable vehicle, one less thing to be paranoid about. Put up panels and painted pedestals, left work half-an-hour early and drove slowly home. Everything is budding, especially along the river, and things could get ugly if we have another hard freeze (by all rights we should), especially with the fruit trees. The oaks are fine, they have back-up buds, and the walnuts don't leaf-out until the end of May no matter what. Even up here, on the driveway, the blackberries are budded; and the floating egg casings from the bullfrog orgy are in plain sight. The sugars in that embryonic sack will protect the unborn tadpoles to a certain extent, but if the puddles freeze solid, everything dies. No salamanders yet, which I view as an ominous portent. Because the winter has been so mild, I have plenty of firewood, and I have designs on starting to drop small trees near the house for next year, managing my tree-farm. After the frogs are gone, I want to drain the puddles, a 25 foot ditch is all it would take, and fill the depressions with rubble. I need to be able to drive up to the house, this hiking-in shit is getting old. I'm nearly out of water, because this time of year I'm usually melting snow for drinking water. I have a ramp of exterior plywood, 16 feet long and 18 inches wide, that I harvest snow from, I use a designated dust pan for this, the only other people I know who harvest drinking water this way use dust-pans. Is that weird or not? The Chinese frog legs finally hit the remaindered bin, and I bought a bunch. I do love frog legs. I usually just cook them in butter with garlic, sometimes I add mushrooms or cranberries, but usually just salt and pepper and maybe one other thing, whatever catches my eye. Read more...

Titular Hero

This happens three or four nights a year. The frogs are mating. They're loud, a drone of lust and reproduction, but they're sensitive to predators, so they fall silent and dive for the bottom when anything moves in that large world above them. Maybe it's the vibration, maybe it's something occulting starlight, or maybe they hear a noise in the night; but if anything stirs, they fall silent. It's the occasion of them falling silent. You acclimate to a certain level of sound. I woke from a mildly pornographic dream, something about birds, because suddenly everything fell silent. Awakened by the absence of sound, which meant, probably, that a coon or opossum was lurking, attracted by the sound of all those frogs mating. In my own defense, it's only a random thing that my name is also Tom. Therefor there is an assumption. Our titular hero is not me, but rather someone with the same name who did a lot of the same things, and, easily confused, might be considered me. Peeping. Forget about it. I only observe in the interest of science. Fuck a bunch of prurient intrigue: I both am, and am not, who I seem to be. Leave it at that. I have to take a college group through the Carters tomorrow, which should be fun. Got up and wrote in the night, got back to sleep, and the sun woke me right at seven, so I could get to the museum, shave and wash my hair. Met the college group, the teacher knew a lot of people I knew; was a musician, plays with people I know. He was surprised to see the folk art show scattered around, was afraid he was going to miss it, so I gave them a preview showing. Then the photography show, then spent an hour with the Carters. Good tour, I was on my mettle. D, with TR as a gofer, built a dolly with sides and swivel casters that fits in the elevator (so we can store them in the basement) for the new folding tables. An ugly piece of work, because everything but the casters is recycled material: AND a testament to function. We might spray paint it red enamel, do some detailing. We have a huge supply of new vinyl signage, left-overs and mistakes, extra verbage, that we could use to mislabel all the component parts, a stile could became a rail, or the bottom could become the top, you can label anything. Great last light, a rare clear sky, lit from around the curve, and stick trees. Stark and beautiful. No two windows ever offer the same view. I favor a southwestern window for where I write, despite the problem of keeping the sun out of my eyes, because I like watching the sun set. I once built a bleacher just for watching the sun set over a terminal moraine. It's probably still there, buried in vines. It's hard, working behind the scenes. If you're perfect, no one gets mad at you. Believe me, I strive for perfection, I know I'll never get there, consider those red walls, but I make an effort: my goal is to make the impossible happen most of the time. A working class hero is so hard to be. Right, right, right. What actually happened? Of course you opened the show, then you took a day off and read Proust. Then you split firewood. Whatever you do. Read more...

Frogs

Good day, third coat of paint on the entry wall, then make a staggering numbers of labels, forty sheets before they're cut and trimmed. Sara calls at the end of the day, and I'm able to report serious progress. D tomorrow and Saturday so we should be in decent shape come Tuesday, when Sara arrives and we set the show. We have to put up a couple of panels and I have to paint pedestals. Walked over and got my truck, not knowing what it was going to cost, as I had told the guy to fix what he needed to align it. I go through there garage so I can talk with him and he says nothing was wrong, that I'd probably accumulated an ice chunk in the last cold spell. He checked everything and aligned it and the total bill was $42. I thought it was going to be hundreds, and do a little jig on my way out to the truck. Going home I'm thinking that if there is any snow left, it'll be at my house, and sure enough, there's a dirty pile at the bottom of the hill on Mackletree. The bottom of the driveway is a quagmire and I don't have my boots, but I can walk in the median, on leaves. The problem with that is that you can't actually what you're walking on because of the sodden leaves. My aluminum kitchen-mop handle walking-stick serves me well. It's very calm, and I'm walking slowly with a medium pack. I feel like the janitor at a Sherpa college. The sound around is rich, birds in the underbrush, a nice trickle of water in the grader ditch. I stop several times to look at crazy, stupid, tricked buds. There's going to be a horrific kill-off when we get a late winter blast. On that note, I get about half-way to the top, and I hear the frogs fucking. Saturnalia in the driveway puddles. I sneak up on them, so I can watch. This is so too early, four weeks anyway, that this generation of eggs and tadpoles is fodder, but the frogs seem to enjoy it. I can hear them now, as I write, through fairly well insulated walls and thermo-paned windows. They're loud, at an average Fuck-Fest, in the early spring, it approaches the sound of a small chainsaw. Soon as I get in the door I start a fire in the cookstove, the house is comfortable enough, but I want to cook. Some great looking little fillets of flounder at Kroger, and I had an idea about cooking them. Bought a parsnip and a bag of those small strange potatoes, original strains from Peru. These are good. I just scrub them, boil them in salted water with the parsnip, mash them with butter and cream. Serve anything on top of that. The little fillets are good, I just salt and pepper them, pat a few breadcrumbs into the surface, and sear them in a hot skillet, fruity olive oil, smear on a layer of Hellman's and a sprinkle of herbs, run them through the toaster oven. Hard to get any better than that, any easier. Read more...

Alignment

Way too many things to do. Got my usual priority list. Noticed in the paper an ad for 6 foot folding tables, good price ($35), so TR and I went and bought three of them. Back at the museum we got Trish and Pegi to test them, went back to Big Lots and bought six more. Got the truck to the shop. A huge number of labels to manufacture and we no longer get free off-cuts of the matte board so went to Tom Russell Glass for some full sheets. After lunch I painted the second coat of Outside Red on the entry wall, better, but not good enough, and I'm out of paint, which means buying another gallon, for $46, of which I will use one fifth and the rest of it will go to waste or be given away. We never use the same color on the two signage walls. The guy calls from the auto shop and he says everything is good and he can align it first thing tomorrow morning. Home tomorrow night. Start carrying in supplies. Giving Justin a cooking lesson Sunday. Good chance to give The Sauce a boil, I generally keep it under a layer of fat or oil through the winter. Sauce confit. I think we'll do the tenderloin medallions on refried grits with the sauce, and roast some vegetables, maybe make the kale chips. TR's girl will be out of town, maybe he'll come out and eat with us. I'd have to clean off the table, the piles of printed matter, and a growing stack of very good images, pictures or reproductions, people send me things, I separate them out. End up with a lot of piles. Sometimes I go through one of them, they're good piles, keepers, I shred everything else. I shred almost everything. I was thinking about that today, how much of the record I destroy. I don't feel good about it, but when the piles reach a certain height, they fall. My advice, if they're slick magazines, is step over the pile and clean up in the morning. Your ability to re-stack slick magazines will be better in the morning. Trust me on this. Read more...

Water Colors

I'm looking at these earliest water colors Still in his teens, Carter was trying to catch the atmosphere, the hills and hollows, the seasons. Some of them are quite good, a few blow me away. Truck worries, they can't take it in the shop until tomorrow, so I walked around used car lots down on Second Street. Looking at vehicles. Instructive, and boring, at the same time. Went to the pub for lunch, Shepherd"s Pie and a draft, then read Mary's letters for a couple of hours. In the afternoon I walked beneath the flood-wall and found a stump that was a perfect piece of post-modern sculpture. This one was large, wet and heavy. I only thought briefly about taking it home. How many stumps do you need, to make a point? Maybe there's more to it than that, maybe there's a connection between the way you feel and what happens. Of course there is. Despite all odds, when push comes to shove (it's always a bifurcation, listen to those blues songs), the balls of a brass monkey are indeed cold, whoever might make that examination. I seem to be within the bounds of control, Not acting out, or anything, but I didn't post last night, then remembered what had happened. I was reading Mary's letters, and she mentioned a painting I know, so I dug out the earliest Carter water colors, there was a logic involved, but it escapes me now. And I looked at them the rest of the evening. Noodling in art appreciation. Like I had an opinion, which of course I do, you can't handle this stuff and not have an opinion. Another red wall. This is difficult painting project: prep, tape, and first coat on the entry. It looks like shit. But it's only the first coat, and I know it will get better with additional layers. Take something through the bad into the better. Cool transition from one thing to another. I'm at the pub, later. having a beer, and the owners come in, and want me to sit sit at a table with them, talk about doing Shakespeare as a lark. We, actually, could do that. Read more...

Trapped

Stayed in town to listen to some live music at the pub, Jack Vetter, a guitarist I like very much and a couple of his friends. Up too late drinking with TR, but the music was fine. Slept well, went out for breakfast, headed home. Got a couple of miles out of town and the truck made a horrible rumbling sound. I pulled over and the noise stopped, so I turned around, going slowly, limped back to town, got to a parking lot. Maybe I can limp to a repair shop tomorrow. Bummed, I walked below the flood-wall and examined detritus. Found a spot in the lee of the world's ugliest jetty. Since I had dressed for the hike up the driveway I was comfortable enough to stay for a while despite cold temps and a biting wind. Ice, anchored to the bottom of the jetty was filled with river trash (I know the spot is an back-eddy from previous visits), and a muskrat worked the unfrozen edge for anything edible. As the ground was frozen, I could wander into the copse of trees that fill the first terrace. It's a wonderland of river tossed sticks that always tickles my imagination. Walked all the way down to where there's the rusting hulk of a barge with trees growing up through where the bottom used to be. By then I was cold, and I headed for the museum, to use my computer there, to write. I stupidly write in an AOL file, I've been meaning to change the way I work, but in the meantime it does allow me to access posts I've sent, and the Apple is about 50 times faster than my PC at home. Walked over to Kroger and got an avocado, a small can of crab meat, and a piece of English double-cheddar. Made a very good tarter sauce with leftover odds and ends from the kitchen and stuffed the avocado. There are always packets of crackers kicking around the upstairs common space, the excellent cheese, an idle hour watching a soccer match on Hulu, and I feel I can deal with my probably dying truck. A sequence of steps: get it to a shop, find the problem, estimate the expense, make a decision. Decision-trees are how we end up where we are. At every bifurcation you have to decide. You choose. It happens on a more-than-daily basis. You decide you can live with something, or you can't; the rock and drill might be more than you can handle, or you might be able to calm a horse with the touch of your hand. Mostly we're stuffed into casings based on a kind of profiling. I view any time I can add or subtract a comma as a positive situation. Un-needed notes. Fuck a bunch of scribbles, what I send is the best I can do right then. Read more...

Lost Pages

I hate it when I lose a page, no excuse, except that I work on an Apple at work and a PC at home, the formats are just different enough that some lines slip beneath the ether. The cold is a referent. Maybe I hit the wrong key. Nothing if not flexible. A teacher impressed on me once, fifth year Latin, we were translating Ovid, that language was slippery, and it was difficult to nail down exactly what was said. Which is certainly true. Left to my own devices is the way I prefer things, juggling my several lists. So first thing, I head to the paint store, because I can see that the two signage walls are going to take some time. I have about six balls in the air, and I need to finish something. A color for the signage walls would be good. Not even remotely impossible, and far from depressing, I actually enjoy the process. So I go to the paint store and the kid there calls Ron out of the back room because he's unsure about scanning a match from the announcement card. Ron looks at the color, looks at me, and laughs. Trust me, you don't want your paint guy to laugh at you. He snorted I'd be lucky to get a smooth finish in four coats. I'm thinking three, if I'm careful. A large about of solids in this color and it will tend toward streaky. I have strategies. The main problem is around the perimeter, where you use a brush to cut in the edges, everything else is rolled, and the textures are different. The signature, the stroke, they are completely different, so on the third pass I focus closely on getting the roller as close to the edge as possible. At that point, texture is everything. A complication right now, at this change-over, is that the gallery signage wall merges into the old bank structure, and someone, correctly, chalked that joint, and did a handsome job, running a finger down the entire length to create a very nice inside curve. But because there isn't an actual corner, when I tape it, to paint another color on the signage wall, the color tends to migrate out. Eventually, the entire gallery would be whatever that color was. To halt the spread, every once in a while I have to tape the wall off in reverse (we call this back-painting, I don't know what anyone else calls it) and bring Gallery White back into where we might imagine a corner to be. To tape very straight lines is difficult. I'm borderline mental about this. The whole idea of mental is an interesting subject. Me, today, for instance, all I could think about was getting home and working in 10 point Arial. I was already thinking about punctuation marks I'd be using. I love the way punctuation factors interpretation. I'm more honest now than I've ever been. And clear, I think I'm clear. Actually it's a muddy mess, there's nothing clear about it. How do you deal with longing? Cold night at home and I just wear my writing outfit into work, no one says anything and I never do shave or clean up. We just set right to the tasks at hand, painting brick red over medium blue; take off the tape from the back-painting, re-tape the new Gallery White edge, get on a first coat before noon. After a hasty lunch, we bring up pedestals from the basement, refocus lights in all the galleries upstairs, get a second coat on the signage wall. Another busy day tomorrow, so I stay in town, it's snowing at a pretty good clip by four-o-clock. At five, after I close up, I go over to the pub for a draft, and it's dead, that early, in a snow storm, which is fine by me, I just want a beer; then I walk over to Kroger, in a blinding, tear-gathering, blast of frozen rain to get an avocado. Spare me, I just wanted one, with lime juice and a little black pepper. Read more...

There's That

Nothing is a possibility. Everything built on a hedge. Phrases running through my head, while TR and I re-hang some Carters. Great work if you can get it. I love going to the vault and pulling out some paintings I haven't seen in a while. We hang one painting, "River Boat Pilot", an oil, that has a high value, but when we get to the watercolor bay, I let TR do the math and make the marks, we hang together, because I want a hand on the work, but the only way to learn is to do. He's deliberate and delicate: it works, for this business. Even those watercolors, now, have a history with me: I know from Mary's letters, exactly when one of them was painted, the very day. For a show in Cleveland. I think I probably tend to over-think things. One of these pieces, a drawing, had never been displayed before, kind of a treat to hang that. First time, and all. TR is fixated on 'level' and I'm not, so I let him level everything, he's better at it than me. Server went out so I had to stop writing. Snow coming down was lovely in the pools of streetlight. I went for a walk. Ended up at the pub. A comic morning, snow, so no receptionist, and TR ends up at the desk. He's emailed Darren about the confusion we're having getting a color nailed down for the signage walls. Same color as the background in the catalog, a kind of brick red. We all have the document, on our computers, but every one of them prints out in a different shade. D calls and gives us two names 'Thiondagaid Red' (what?) and 'Warm Red Oxide', both of which are awful names for a color, and neither of which we can find in any swatch-book we own. Fortunately, the post card announcement for the show came in, and it uses the same color (as dictated and printed from D's machine) and Ron, at the Porter Paint Store, can scan from that. I'll get a gallon of semi-gloss tomorrow and get started. It might cover in two coats. Red is the most difficult color to paint a wall. I touch up most of the Carter walls, but I need to repaint two of them. Blue painter's tape, which we use to hold up the labels, now marks the walls, it never did before. They've clearly changed the glue. I'm having some trust issues with the tape industry right now. I use a lot of tape, and I have my criteria. Goddamn executives, that ain't never tried to tape a box shut, should keep their hands out of the glue pot. There's residue now, that I have to sand off, what's that about? What are they making this shit from? used kitty litter and spent transmission fluid? Actually, probably, yes, something like that. The traditional light source is upper left, I'm not sure why that is, maybe it's simply a convention, but it might mean something. Like a diminished chord might, or just a touch of red on her lips. Means I face the sunrise, as I look at the geometry, which is usually true, also that the full moon rises over my left shoulder. Always, I'm a stickler for this. It's a long history of everyone sacrificing everything for the commonweal. Give me a full-moon over my left shoulder and I'll go the extra mile. Read more...

Suspected Branchings

I just hold my place. No claim to do better. The pace the world out there moves is way beyond anything I could muster. My speed is bringing a magnifying glass into focus. With crabbed feet and broken toes, I no longer walk for sport. Not a complaint, exactly, but maybe a comment on the human condition. At a certain place, you're on your own, a monad of uncertainty. Not to draw too fine a point. Dance, what the fuck, a little shuffle. Pretend all you want. Still, I see what I see, tadpoles turning into frogs, stay with me here, and the order of the day is that there is progress, a movement forward. The future becomes the present. Bifurcation was the word I was looking for, the way thought branches. If I have the day off I often end up mired in a definition or readings Mary's letters or just looking at a reproduction of one of Modigliani's last nudes. I'd argue that the "Reclining Nude" at the Met is one of the great paintings ever, a short list, a Vermeer, a Picasso, a Velazquez. You know, if you had your choice. Read more...

Something Said

A single act of patience. Waiting for the fish to hit. When, exactly, is the moon full? Drum-roll, several spatters on the roof below, I have to laugh, what I thought you were watching, the moon is almost clear. Over my left-shoulder, waxing toward full. A triumph, beyond my mere imaging. Bi-lateral symmetry. A balance that's created when the second half exactly balances the first. Most leaves, for instance, almost anything you find naturally. Cleave a billet cleanly and the two sides look just the same; take an Exacto knife to the stem of any roadside plant, symmetry is the order of the day. "Last refuge of the simple-minded." Herbert used to say, yet he used forced symmetry, as a kind of bench-mark, toward the end. A list of things and things to do that I really need to get out of the way before the push that starts tomorrow. Land taxes are due, and I have to file for my agricultural exemption (I'm a tree farm), so a trip to the courthouse; need tobacco and papers; cream for my coffee and frog legs for dinner, with mashed potatoes. I stopped at the museum, to shave and wash my hair and I'm glad I did because it was chilly inside. I'd killed the boilers several days before (in February!) so I turned them back on, went to lunch, and came back to check them. It was down to 62 degrees, and we're supposed to keep the temp between 68 and 70, with humidity at 40 to 50%. Harder than it might seem, in an old, un-insulated, thick-walled, stone and brick structure. Nice lunch at the pub, stew and a draft, chatted with Astra and Justin. Justin wants to come out to the house and take some cooking lessons, which sounds like fun; he's a droll guy, and sharp, fast on the uptake, and I suspect he's a stoner. Clouds moving in just as the moon was set to rise. Damn. But she was beautiful last night, take it when you can. I'm a failed astronomer, among a great many failed things. I won't bother you with a list, it's appalling. I've failed at significantly more things than I've succeeded at. That's badly said. 'I fail more often that not' might be better, at least there's not that repetition of 'at', but sometimes repetition is fine, meaning is the point, but what is meaning, exactly? Read more...

Condensate

I get this drip, from the overhang of the second roof onto the first, that is not without a certain rhythm. Irregular enough that there isn't a specific pattern but regular enough to catch my attention. As if you had scored a piece of music that relied on the random call of bullfrogs. I put an empty pickle bucket on the back deck, to harvest water, and think that's a good use of my time: five gallons of water is not a joke, it weighs forty pounds, carry that up a hill. I get testy, when anyone calls my aptitude into question I do what I do pretty well. Not perfect, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who could do it better. I actually have an address book with the names of people who do specific things better than me. I'm not the best at anything, no matter how hard I try, but I limp along. Wallow in self-pity long enough, and you might find something on the other side. Something non-standard, that fits. Maybe a tattoo, or some minor scarification. Just prove that you love me. I've been there, I don't want to go there again. I'd rather be alone forever. Just saying. I'll leave this to tomorrow, where it rightly resolves. I'm pretty sure the drip means something. Back to sleep. A dream about maps, then awakened by the light at around eight (I know by the pattern of light, there isn't a clock in my bedroom), dress warmly in layers with the fleece bathrobe on top, and mutter around, making coffee and breakfast. Soon I have the sofa covered in periodicals and books. I use the reading glasses for dictionaries and my small-print 11th Britannica and they give me a headache. Several new perfumes, little sample vials, arrived in the mail yesterday; so I stretched out on the floor on my mummy bag with a damp warm cloth over my eyes, and smelled them. 'Odalisque' is wonderful, floral and briny, in the dry down: like where the wild roses grow close to the bay on Cape Cod. I have a bare scant amount of 'Dzing!' left, which breaks my heart. I need to stop at that perfume warehouse in North Carolina (I think) that Turin talks about. Maybe I could find a bottle. Join a 'Super Bowl' party. Never again vote on anything, voting is bullshit, it's all manipulated, money buys position; stance, however awkward, reveals information. Have you ever worn a bow-tie? I gave up white shirts when I realized my life was going to be dirty, I can't afford the dry-cleaning and I don't bathe often enough to completely eliminate that ring around my collar. It's a dirty world. My shoes are a testament. I scrape several pounds of mud off, on the back stoop, and ditch them, just inside the back door, for a pair of slippers. Fuck a bunch of muddy shoes. Read more...

Geography of Memory

Gray day with drizzle. I spend most of it at the museum, watching D finish the catalog. It's a lovely thing, good work by all involved, and a pile of credit to D. I can't wait to install the show, but I want to re-hang the Carters first. A long list of things I need to do. I have to stop reading Mary's letters for a month or so, and read some literature about outsider art so I can docent that show without sounding like an idiot. Left work at four and came the long way home, up the creek, where fog was filling the hollows and everything was slightly surreal. Went through the ford, to clean the mud out of my wheel-wells. It had gotten so thick it was affecting the alignment. The creek, at the ford, is about thirty feet wide, on smooth sandstone and you have to gauge the depth from landmarks. To clean the wheel-wells well requires five or six repetitions, back and forth, forward and reverse. Some times, in the Spring, there's a small line of pick-up trucks, waiting to wash their underbellies. Walked up the hill with an umbrella, so I could stop and watch the ground fog or mist, or whatever it was, curtail vision at maybe 100 yards. Off-beat staccato pattern of raindrops on the umbrella and also the sound of light rain on leaves. I'm struck, again, by the mediation the walk-in provides; even after you achieve the top of the hill (not quite, you still need to gain 80 feet) there's still 200 yards to the house. Makes my eye water to think about it. Mid-winter, when the wind is blowing: it's a bastard shot from hell. But in the house, there is relative comfort, a place you kick back, probably in multiple layers, a fire to tend, what was not said earlier, what you might have said: that's it, what you might have said, what it comes down to. I can't believe the way I string myself along. In my lucid moments, when I think coherently about life and death, I'm pretty good, utter some last words and pass into compost. That's my plan. Deal with the signage. I have to go to bed. Read more...

Up To Speed

D brought in equipage from the tech lab at OU, $15,000 worth of camera and tripod. The images actually look better than the pieces. We set up a photo booth in the rear of the main gallery, where the ceilings are just over eight feet and we could reach the lights to adjust them. I brought the pieces over and D shot them, if they were covered with glass or plexi, I'd hold a piece of muslin, to break the glare, and he'd shoot from an angle, so that he wasn't in the reflection. He can easily correct the parallax before he inserts the pictures in the catalog. This is a big deal for us, 44 pages, full color, but it's our show and it needs a catalog. Because of the other venues, it should turn a profit. I spend some time studying the chronology of the individual works, because Sara wants to see them in that order. Do have to put up some additional panels as there's a lot of linear feet in this show. Several of the pieces have never been hung, so we'll have to invent some attachments, which is always interesting. Spent some time in the vault, sorting Carters. Met TR and the Music Guy, along with B, at the pub for a beer. There was a couple at the next table, from out of town, that I docented through the Carters this afternoon, and had shown them the vault. I talked with them for a few minutes, they were effusive about the museum. They'd never been given a tour like I gave them, one on one, and were impressed that I knew so much about the collection. I get an hour, next week, with a group of out-of-town art students, to talk about Carter, am I'm looking forward to it. Introduced TR to that stage of working together where actual language isn't necessary. We'd loaded the elevator and taken it downstairs, but it was loaded in a kind of reverse order, large crates first and then then smaller stuff, and we had unloaded some of the smaller boxes, but we were going to have to get the larger crates out and stashed. I waited for him to get this, and he started, right on time, "I think we should..." and I cut him out with a "yes we should" knowing exactly what he meant. I've always worked like that. When I'm working with D I usually know what he needs before he asks for it. Routine. Certain procedures. It's not difficult to project the next step when you've done something a hundred times. Knit one, pearl two. Whatever. D rattles off some numbers at me, I do some calculations, and rattle some numbers back at him. We're usually correct within fairly strict tolerances, though maybe four times out of a hundred, one of us makes a mistake. It's a lot of numbers. Mistakes are the bed-rock of faith, and fairly common. I got a phone call this afternoon from a gallery in Clear Water, Florida, how they got my name I'll never know, asking me if I could give them a price on rehanging some paintings in a gallery where (I guess) they'd been miss-hung. I was highly recommended. They'd cover all expenses and pay well for my time. Six paintings, it can't be more of my time than a single day, and they don't want to send one of their people because it would involve two days of travel. Clearly I'm the guy I tell them six hundred dollars, because I know they can't do it cheaper than that. I become the shipper of choice. Read more...

Further Logistics

Big push starting tomorrow, despite the fact that the folk art show doesn't open for a month. Ten thousand things to do. Brought up some pedestals and organized the rest so that I could get to the ones I need and still have room to store all the boxes that the show came in. Then TR and I loaded the elevator completely full, and I mean completely full, floor to ceiling, and got them all to the basement, and stacked them all there, in their designated slot. I've got a little Girl Scout show to install in the smallest gallery next month, and I hate having to move things more times than absolutely necessary. A good phone call from Sara, about arranging the folk art show (which is called "Outsiders In Ohio"), after I'd spent some time in the (literal) vault, where we keep the permanent collection, digging out some of Carter's work. Re-hanging those galleries maybe tomorrow or Saturday, because I have to clear some things off my plate. I come home to chili on toast with a fried egg on top, such a great meal, it has that whole 'trencher' thing going for it, where the bread soaks up all the liquid and becomes delectable. Ever since reading Chichester's "Voyage of the Gypsy Moth" and especially after Tim Roth's great TV series (did they cancel it?) "Lie To Me" I've been a big fan of eating things on toast. I've always eaten some things on toast, notably certain mushrooms and a wide variety of sea foods, but now I'll eat anything on toast. Fried bananas over a melted layer of peanut butter is very good, a can of sardines with a topping of stinky cheese, the meat pulled from Chinese frog-legs with garlic butter, chipped beef in gravy, even plain with maybe an exotic jam. I could recommend a hedge fond. Water-cress with a white balsamic. Lunched with a great guitarist today, he's going to play at the pub February 11th and he wanted me to be there. I love to hear him play, so I'll probably stay in town that night. He's loose, and free-form, makes some mistakes; it's my favorite kind of music. The major way you learn is from mistakes, success only teaches you to expect shelled pistachios in a bowl, roasted squash seeds with a side of goat cheese. I was so comfortable in the shirt I wore today, that I'm going to wear the exact same thing tomorrow, dirty socks and all, to see if the next day could possibly come out the same. Walking up the driveway with a light pack, a waxing half-moon over my shoulder, knowing the chili-toast thing is going to happen. The second of February and I don't need a fire, unbelievable, as usually, this night of the year, I'd be burning the stove as hot as it could go. I'm fine on firewood even if-when we get a serious bout of cold weather; it's not difficult to keep from dying, as long as you're reasonably mobile. Walking in, this afternoon, I was struck extremely by the mediation that layer of insulation provided me, how walking in allowed me to decompress. 2/2/22, the publication of "Ulysses" and that probably doesn't mean anything. Just throwing it into the mix. Read more...

Slow Rain

Not forecast, but we get this slow rain, with thunder, underneath the clouds. It's strange, mostly because of the thunder, I didn't expect a sonic effect. Not that I did or didn't expect anything, I was merely awake. Not expecting a package, a package delivered in the middle of the night. When I close down, that's usually the end of it, I don't expect shit showing up on my desk. I mostly run a clean ship by not accepting requests. In so far as I can be serious. D thought it might be more serious than that. We discussed killing co-workers. This economic downturn. There's a bevy of shit going down. The cool thing is I just go get in my truck in the morning, no fanfare, maybe a lulling of the creek behind, and head off to work. These things aren't staged. It would cost too much and seem unreal. A flag would you go up, we'd be alerted. You thought you could get away with that? I'm sensitive to shit like this, what I thought was meant. I'm hungry, so I have an egg on chili on toast. It's 4:50 in the morning and very quiet. The Stella coaster, leaning against the espresso maker reminds me to flip the breaker to turn on the fridge. I don't actually flip the breaker yet, because the quiet is so delightful, just remember what the Stella coaster means. The murky business of communication. I take a foam pad out to the back porch, to sit on, and roll a smoke, get a short drink, put on my bathrobe and Linda's hat. The quiet is almost oppressive with the humidity hanging at almost 100%. It's not actually raining, but water condenses on any surface that is still, knowing moisture condenses around a particle of amything, I go back inside and collect a sampling of dust. In an extremely controlled environment, I can actually make it rain, or snow Cool, good to know. I thought I was almost useless, now I can precipitate condensate. What does that say about anything. Droplets or flakes condense around a particle of something, just a hint is enough, and dust is ubiquitous. I always have some laying around, lying around, wait: posit a dimwit in a tree at a fork in the road. You can ask him anything, but his answer might be hard to understand. Not unlike that hole in the rock that seemed to breathe a kind of meaning. I have to go sleep a couple of hours. Read more...

Not Exactly

This for that, I see the cogs turning, but I blow everything off, to get closer to you, which might peg me, a mere janitor, looking for closure, as something I'm not. I'm not actually dangerous, unless you strike me at exactly the wrong moment. It could happen, but the odds are astronomical. More likely you'd be struck with a rock from Mars. Consider the odds. This times that times that uncertainty. I can't come up with a number, but it's certainly small, less than one, almost nothing, yet it plagues me. 2:13 the next morning I have a bowl of this chili-like substance, with an egg on top. It's really good. Heart-stoppingly good. I have to go to bed, zipped in my mummy bag, I'll probably roll off the bed, trying to relieve some discomfort; but I padded the area, where I might fall, with several layers of foam. Fuck a bunch of broken bones, I have a handle on this. I'm good, the projected snow is merely sleet, and sleet is merely a fact of life. Four-wheel low, out of the bottom, is what I do; soon as I hit the main drag, everything is clear. I kill the breaker for the fridge, less sound and more silence. Though, when you think about it, quiet is not a natural state. Maybe I should just get a good set of head-phones or ear-plugs or something. Listen to books. The wind has died down, just a susurration now, like an abandoned lamb sucking on a bottle. A last image of living with my daughters, is them bottle feeding abandoned lambs, in a pen we'd constructed of pallets, near the stove, in the kitchen of the house in the canyon, in Colorado. I can't be more specific than that. Lamb birthing season is a nightmare, blood and gore up to your elbows, and the agonizing sound of ewes screaming to high heaven. Less Steven Hawking than Dante. Which could be the point. What if what is apparently true is actually false? B came over with Josh, I didn't offer them a drink, I'm not sure whether that meant something or not. I forget how to be social, I have so few house guests. Furl your mainsails, take a reef in your jib, whatever; now that the wind has died down, you probably don't need to bother. It's tomorrow already. Rare for me, I got back to sleep and slept late. Chili and eggs for breakfast. By the time I gather up my clothes, and stop by the museum for dirty clothes there, it's after one. By the time I run a few errands, it's close to four, Happy Hour at the pub, so I kill a few minutes searching the web for more information about the Amazon Civilization (which I hope they'll end up calling by its real name if they ever figure out what that is, and lose the moniker Oz). Astra behind the bar, always a treat. A dude at the bar, now an archeologist, I've talked to a few times, comes over, he just got back from southern California, where a job outside San Diego netted him some time in a different clime. He talks, knowledgeably, about a great many things, with very little inflection in his voice. A baritone dulcimer. Being a southern boy, I tend to inflect. He remembers me from a reading a decade ago. Since then, as I think about it, I read my work in an increasingly flat way. It's just text. The reader (or listener) has to add the inflection to suit themselves. A band of clouds, down low on the western horizon, get lit from below in a magenta light that you'd never believe. It's fifty degrees, I'm outside in my shirtsleeves watching the sunset. The driveway, at the top, is a quagmire of mud. It'll refreeze, but right now the frost is coming out of the ground, and the wet-weather springs are flowing. I stuck a piece of cpvc into one of the springs and I can fill a gallon jug in just a few minutes. It's good: mineral rich sandstone water. I like to collect my water when I can, and this spring water is way better than boiled melted snow, which always has metallic overtones. I wonder about stainless steel. Read more...

Entropy

That post I sent around five this afternoon was actually Monday's post. I'd printed my copy and everything, but then forgot to send, maybe punched Send Later, or some other slight confusion. Stayed in town last night because of rain, and because the flooding was already extensive. Floods all the time here. The quarter-mile dirt track in the Scioto bottom, you could of raced boats; most years, this would all be frozen. I started reading some Walter Benjamin and some Derrida, and the next thing I knew it was two in the morning; an incident pops out at me here, and I have to go back and reread myself to see if I'd mentioned it. I don't think I did. I was coming out of the pub Monday after a quick Happy Hour draft; last thing I do, when leaving the bar is to roll a cigaret, for the walk back to the truck, and there's a biker dude, leathers, standing there, smoking. I decide to test my mixer skills in a situation that I would normally just walk away from. Truth is I'm bored with the conversation at work: Sara's not there, D's on half-time, and Kristi is someplace down in Kentucky. I miss talking seriously. Usually when this happens I just move, sometimes it's easier starting all over. For one thing, you can reinvent yourself as the person you now find yourself being. That can be a comfort, and comfort is not to be denied. This dude, after a brief discussion of the weather, how unseasonably warm, launched into a monolog about be kicked out of bars FOR LIFE. He'd been both stabbed and shot, and he'd much rather be shot. Not to put too fine a point. But two out of three are dead, and the last one is a liar, what do you do then? I'm actually, seriously, asking. Consider reaching for the fence, and just popping a ball into play: which difference is significant. Look on the slides Here and There, there's bound to be a connection. A slow-roller down the third base line. My guess is they met in the locker-room, and something happened. But I don't have any proof that anything actually happened. What I most hate about the combined arts, is that I would eventually have to ask you what you thought happened. Pretty sure I saw what happened. Slight of hand. But when you know what to look for, it's all fairly obvious, the feints, the dodges, the postures, and when I go for your knees with a mop-handle, you see I'm serious. It's a single man standing event, and I actually think I am last man standing. We'd have to go back over the record, but it seems pretty clear.

Knock some shit out of the attic. You present yourself to be me, a voice, really, i hear from left field, but I respect the implication. Read more...