Various Projects

To reconstruct is never the same as to build; G. Spencer Brown, you can read the literature, there's a track record there, but what it says might not be true. That world, out there, might well be a web of lies. Everything could be false. I was walking with a magician once, on the outer beach at Wellfleet, when he pulled a rabbit from his hat. I'm used to magic, but this was a real rabbit. Knowing people like this, what are you to make of the nature if reality? It's a great mushroom year and I have these Porcini, a Boletus, that I slice into a risotto. Slept late this morning, exhausted from trying to make sense to the Chinese students. Cleaned the bathrooms, did some mopping. Trying to locate a piece of light track, to build a strip for testing lamps and bulbs. I know it's somewhere at the museum, just like I know there's an old 16 ounce Estwing hammer under something somewhere. Bolted from work as rain showers looked imminent. The driveway has been rebuilt three times, by three different people, and B put our name in with Scott, who is clearly the best; he handles a smallish bulldozer (a D 4, or a D 6) like it was an extension of his hand. It amazes me that someone can use a bulldozer with such delicacy. B reminded me to keep the gas tank in the Jeep filled, so that when Scott comes to do the work, we can drive up and down, to compact the surface. It's an important part of the rebuilding the driveway process. Then there's the ditch. If there's enough camber in the upper part, the ditch digs itself a bed, and B helps it along, by driving down with his truck's left tires in the ditch, but we'll have to dig the catchments for the culverts out by hand. The fines, until they all disappear, are a pain in the ass; heavy, and awkward to get at, but after mucking them out a couple of times, the culverts are self-cleaning. If the next rain is just hard enough. You can't control this stuff. Nature is a wanton and devious mistress, she'll always clip you from behind. Three crows at the lake, coming home, and I had a batch of buns, so I stopped to feed them, and gave the rest to a bunch of ducks, that had swam over to see what was going on. I like the ducks, because they're not aggressive, and some of them are beautiful. The colors are so vibrant. The absolute color scale is a mid-winter Pileated Woodpecker, in a stick-tree forest that is all black and white and gray all over, and suddenly there's this red crest, and it's extremely red. Shocking, actually. Like Taylor Swift's mouth, I saw a picture, waiting in line at Kroger, otherwise I wouldn't have a clue who she was. She's skinny. All the skinny women I've known had a problem, I assume she has several. Read more...

Politics

I refuse to get involved. My experience is that it's a no-win situation. Whatever piece of turf you've staked out. I usually default to making a pot of coffee and mopping the floor. Finally selected 14 pages that I thought were pretty good, and I can read them in 42 minutes, which was my target time. I'd need to explain a couple of things, but I'd still fall under an hour, and that feels about right. I read through a couple of times, and some of these pages are very good. Aralee, now gone, liked a particular page, and I'll start with that, from October 22, 2011. I re-title it "Hazel" and make a note in pencil, to explain that "Lucy's Crotch" is an actual physical spot, where a tidal inlet looks like a pair of legs. Seamen are crude in their naming. I see why Arelee liked it, it's direct. I didn't know Gus was dead, I thought some of us lived forever. But we die. It happens. Up early and into town, so I could stop at the museum, before taking on the Chinese students. Interesting time. I ended up spending all day with them. Talked with them, about life-style, and they could barely believe I lived the way I do. No running water? no TV? no CELL PHONE? It was quickly apparent that these were affluent single-children, and that though they had all studied English since they were six or seven years old, their command of the spoken language wasn't that great. They all had IPads, with a translation function, but English is a difficult language, the nuance and the irregularities, but we got along very well. The oldest of them, a young woman, 22, spoke quite well, beautifully, in fact, and the rest of them turned to her, when they were trying to figure out what I was saying; the simplest word would throw them off. I read a few pages, then talked some more, and most of them joined me for lunch at the pub. Ordering lunch was a ordeal. Then they all came over to the museum and I took them through the shows. It was exhausting, trying to explain why something mattered, how you placed a value on something. At one point I needed a break, I'd settled on one of the new back benches, to roll a smoke, I just wanted to get outside and be alone for a few minutes, but two of them followed me, and wondered how it was possible that I rolled such a perfect cigaret. I tried to explain that practice made perfect. Try to explain that in a second language They'd all assumed American English names: Ga Ga, whose name was almost the same in Chinese, and one of the guys was White, which I found amusing, and they took pictures and recorded me, and I realized I'm going to be all over the web in China. Jesus fucking christ. I don't do the whole social media thing, I live an extremely private life. I don't want attention. I'd rather be left alone. Suddenly you're in the limelight. Something you've said or a really expensive dress that reveals the side of your breasts. In truth, I'd rather not be noticed. Read more...

Side Bar

Everything is a side-bar. I OD on my own work trying to decide what to read to the Chinese students. I have piles of pages on every flat surface. I find that I generally make sense, and where I don't it's because you need to understand the context, which had been covered in an earlier post. I just need ten or twelve pages, to read the students, but I didn't want anything in those pages to contain something that needed explaining. After two days, I can honestly say that if you hadn't been reading me for years (or writing me for much longer than that) the flitting about might prove disconcerting, but it is the way I think. And I've spent decades trying to get my voice on paper to be the same as my speaking voice. I want to include certain things in the reading: a sense of the driveway, the sense of living alone, the sense of living in the woods, a recipe, a weather event, something about an animal, a noise in the night. The bird-shot approach. I always (the last fifteen years) read chronologically, in case something is explained, and it might help the understanding if you got things in the correct order. These considerations might matter, and they might not. I don't know. My intentions are to do my laundry, so I will smell clean, make the final cut tomorrow, read through the pages, as a sequence, a couple of times tomorrow night. I'm capable of reading the hell out of this stuff, but it all depends on so many extraneous distractions. I read best in a living room, with a smoke and an Irish whiskey, but I can do alright in larger venues because if I use my reading glasses (which I will have to) I can't actually see the people anyway. Reading myself requires attention to detail. I read, now, in a fairly flat, only slightly inflected way. Flutter my hands a bit. Gesture is an important part of rhetoric, additional punctuation. Nothing histrionic, but if I read something that has the phrase 'tree-tip-pit' embedded, I might punch the air for each of the words, as if they were a line of music. For all the casual qualities, my recent work (I've read two years, the last two days) attempts to be fairly precise. I had to laugh, reading about the fox, how she became a metaphor for everything hot and steamy. That's pure Harvey. He was a piece of work. Ultimately, it's the eccentrics that matter. I'm nearly normal, all things considered, I try to stay between 40 and 80 degrees, so that my fingers work, Black Dell is operational; and when that fails I just crawl in my mummy bag and go to sleep. Fuck a bunch of distractions. Read more...

Brain Science

A loud noise in the middle of the night (2:28 in the morning) followed by the yapping of a pack of hounds. On the way home yesterday, I'd stopped to pick up a five-gallon bucket. It had holes drilled in the bottom, which led me to believe it had been used to raise a tomato plant, and it was near where I pick up my throwing rocks. I stopped and threw a few. I do love throwing rocks. Collected a couple of dozen that fit my hand, put them in the bucket. When I got home, sat the bucket by the back door. So I knew, when I flipped on the backyard floods, that I was going to throw a few rocks. I remind myself, recounting this, to be careful with the periods and to consider every comma. When you think about it, there are a lot of constraints placed against trying to be clear. I was reading Basho's haiku and he had made a comment about the honking of the geese. It was a large cat defending the compost pile. A feral calico, with claws and an attitude. Cartomage mask of Nehmes, Basteta, an Egyptian feline deity. I'm very good with rocks at short range, sent the dogs running. Left in that odd position one assumes after throwing a knuckleball: somewhat exposed, but in the history of baseball there has never been a knuckleball pitcher killed by a line-drive. Even if you know what's going to happen, it's a surprise. I have to smile, remembering night-fishing off the outer beach. Basho:

no moon, no blossoms
just drinking sake
all alone

Samara calls and we have a delightful conversation. They both have shows opening in October and they want to come out for Thanksgiving; I know that means pork ribs instead of a turkey. There's nothing on my calendar for the next decade, I can fit them in. Ribs, with roasted root vegetables, and a slaw, sounds pretty good. I'll get them a room in town. That way we can work, our sexual passions dismissed. And I can have a shower. I have to go. The next line of squalls runs from horizon to horizon. A raw blues player. Tee Model Blues. Then the house band plays Booker, "Green Onions", on a couple of guitars with a great drummer. Fucking brings tears to my eyes. Tell me who's that rider? Certain songs, it's just a dream, I think I'm the only one that hears. Read more...

Junk

The basement and the third floor acquire junk. It never leaves. I was throwing stuff away today that should never have been saved. Appalling quantities of crap, but I have the new space almost cleared, and by the end of tomorrow, there should be enough storage space, and enough work space, to put together the African Show. I'm going to need a night in a motel room, with a shower and hot running water, very soon. I can stay clean and non-odiferous, with my daily sponge bath; but a few times a year I like to shower, then soak, then shower again, rub my entire body with baby lotion, order a pizza, and watch a soccer match. It's a zen thing. I was going to stop at the pub on the way out of town, but I just wanted to get home. Got to the bottom of the driveway, at the mailbox, and realized someone had taken my mail out, opened it, and dropped it on the ground. Happened to be the day that the bush-hog mowed the verge, and my electric bill was shredded. I'm thinking about fixes for this. It's not good, you know, when you live this far out in the country, and so far away from your mailbox. These good-old-boys are brutal, but there's no chance I could ever live in Florence. So, what do you do? Get my Visa bill sent to the museum, otherwise I can't see a problem, I lose my phone and power anyway, and I can go pay a late bill in person. Why would anyone target me? I'm so innocuous as to be invisible. Seriously. I'm not a threat to anyone. Allow me my tree tip pit and a tarp, and I will gladly pass beneath notice. It's got to be that kid Travis or his Dad, imagining some slight. They don't understand, I don't like or dislike them, I just don't want other people in my life, certainly not some goddamn gypsies that just want to use my phone or get me to drive them somewhere. I'm concerned about this whole idea of entitlement. I want to be left alone. And that doesn't include taxi service or late night drug connections over the phone. I have my own problems. And the situation is becoming untenable. Taking mail out of my mailbox and opening it? I'm so pissed I'm seeing red. If I actually caught the person doing this I'd smash them in the back of the head with a baseball bat. What's the alternative? I suppose I could live in town, but I prefer the natural world. I thought, if I removed myself completely, I wouldn't have to play games. Turns out the opposite is true. Games are the coin of the realm. Nothing is real anymore. I did a survey, recently, and everything came back false-positive. What you see is not what you get. Phone was out last night and I couldn't send. Slept like a rock and woke up feeling great. More work on the third floor, two more trips to the dumpster. Nice chat with Charlotte about the Carter collection. I surprise myself with my knowledge of the permanent collection. I have my day with the Chinese students next Tuesday, so I need to spend some time this weekend figuring out what I'm going to say to them, what I'm going to read, and it all depends on what I feel their competency with the language is. I look forward to it. I like experiencing things I've never experienced, or at least I used to like them, and what did Clair say, that I'd be reading to hundreds of people at Chautuagua, and I wonder how I'll manage that without an anxiety attack. My usual target audience is between one and three. I can read well for a class at the University, maybe 16 to 25 people; my ace in the hole, is that I'll need to use reading glasses, so the audience will just be a blur. I hope they'll let me read sitting down. I read much better if I'm sitting down. I hate fucking podiums and the way they make everything pompous bullshit. If I can cross my legs, and have a glass of whiskey, I join the rank of raconteurs, and that's more certainly where I place myself. B recommended that I go back through and break each of the nine years I've been doing this, into the seasons of that year, 36 files of 83.3 pages, and that I could remember, that way, what happened when, which is probably true. God forgive me but I just added two commas. Often adding one comma means adding two commas, subordinate clauses, but when you're striving for clarity, you pretty much do what you have to do. I was thinking about this earlier, the way images emerge from the ether. Read more...

Radio On

I had the radio on, listening to some delta blues, Mississippi John Hurt. And a weather alert came on, saying I was fixing to get slammed, so I turned everything off and got out the oil lamps. A few minutes later a squall hit that turned all the trees inside out. Violent winds and a drumming rain that made me wonder what the driveway would be like tomorrow morning. Mature trees whipping around like teenagers. The power and phone are both out in an instant, thunder and lightening, the house is shaking. I'd used most of one of the five-gallon buckets of water, taking a bath yesterday, washing my hair, shaving, so I poured the remainder of that unit (I think of five gallons as a unit) into the stock pot (which I keep on the stove) and set the bucket out under the eave. It was full in scant minutes. It was raining so hard that young green leaves were being stripped from branches. I enjoy a storm like this. There's nothing you can do but watch and listen, dearly pray that your preparations had been adequate. In this case they were. I harvested five gallons of storm water and wondered if it was any different. When the storm moved off to the east, I nosed outside. The air was still electric.The future of the planet, I think, concerns harnessing the energy contained in a single thunder cell. Storage is the problem. It's heat, right? You could probably store it in a bar of lead. We know it's possible to attract lightening, hold up a metal pole, but what do you do with it then? I'm convinced the answer concerns heavy metals and heat. A few billion BTU's is not to be sneezed at. Oddly still and quiet morning. Left home early, in case there was a tree down on the driveway or on Mackletree, and I did have to haul some brush off the road but nothing major. Stopped and got a sausage/egg biscuit at the gas station formerly known as Bodie's, now I think it's called Weavers Kwik Stop, but we all still refer to it as Bodie's. Spent most of the day cleaning on the third floor, where we're going to store the African Show (as yet unnamed), and hauling debris to the dumpster. One of the trips I was standing there, thinking about the premier dumpster diving fiend in the world, my good friend Kim, and I remembered he (and his brothers) had a significant piece of hemp rope they had pulled from a dumpster, a single piece, 600 feet long, two inches in diameter. Later, when I got home, had gotten that first drink and rolled a smoke, I started thinking about that piece of rope, and how I wanted to do an installation with it. Just wind it around the Richards gallery, plucking up the occasional strand, but leaving most of it on the floor. Five times around. This could be very cool. I see it in my mind's eye. I called Kim and he would loan the rope and come up for the installation. I could hear his brain working. What it comes down to is knowing the right people. My 'A' list is a concentrated thing, I know the best people in the world. Read more...

Drone

There it is again. They take a perfectly good word away from me. They should have to make up a new word. Neither here nor there. Something woke me, and I just laid there, it was very dark; one o'clock in the morning and overcast. I listened closely, turning my hand in front of my face until I could almost see it; I think the noise is coming from the outhouse, and I think about that. Andy, my light bulb guy (we buy a lot of light bulbs), keeps me well supplied with small LED flashlights and I have one stashed wherever I might sleep. I had the thought that I had forgotten something, got the nearest flashlight (under the corner of the mattress), and went downstairs to check. Yes, I had neglected to bring in the coffee-can in which I keep a roll of toilet paper on my last trip to the outhouse. This story has legs. Several generations ago, a coon figured out where I kept the toilet paper (in a coffee can, so it doesn't get wet, toilet paper is one of the most hygroscopic things ever) and had befouled the outhouse with stringers of paper. And he seems to have passed it down through several generations. What I'm hearing, I'm pretty sure, is two coons fighting over a roll of toilet paper. I can pass on that, roll over and go back to sleep. I get to town early enough to get a protein smoothie at Kroger (30 grams of protein, 4 servings of fruits and vegetables) and go below the floodwall. The river is wrapped in fog, I can't even see the Perkins Bridge and it can't be more than a quarter mile away. I could barely see a tow of barges, right in front of me. Staff meeting at nine, M tasks me with fabricating a portable light strip we can use for testing instruments and bulbs. I've wanted one of these for years. Then C tasks me with finding and cleaning an area upstairs where we can work on a show she wants to put on the road. We'd need to store the work, devise some packing, and build mounts for many of the pieces; sounds like fun, I enjoy building mounts. I recommended the back of the third floor, and she agreed it would work, but driving home I realized all of our fabrication equipage is at the front of the third floor, and that I should bite the bullet, and clean out that area, which is a disaster. It'd be easier in the long run. I need to take some funky clothes in. The pub was closed again today, last day of the remodel, and I went over to see how they were doing. Under control, they'll have it opened again tomorrow. I'd like to stop in for a beer, one night this week, talk trash with the staff. They all look like I look after I've hung a major show. Wasted. Walked over to Kroger, to get a few things, juice, cream, some fresh corn, before the five o'clock rush; got some sushi for lunch, and I couldn't eat all of it, so I took it home. Late last night I opened a tin of duck liver pate, had it with a divine hot pepper mayonnaise on unsalted crackers. Also, I have to admit, nothing is what it seems. I think. Read more...

Dead Calm

Steel gray sky. The squirrels are out, and they have way too much to eat right now. Their front paws are like human hands, and they roll unripe blackberries between them, take a single bite, and throw it away. Wasteful fuckers. B is just hot-packing blackberries right now, a kind of thin jam, which is a fine way to preserve them, but I like to put a cup in a sterilized pint jar, a tablespoon of sugar, cover them with boiling water, and process them in a canner. I can use the berries later, in any number of ways, and I have this blackberry juice, which I either use as a marinade, or drink diluted in orange juice. I need supplies, and it's supposed to be nice, tomorrow, so maybe I can run to town. Doesn't matter, actually, but I'd like to do a load of laundry, and get some seafood at Kroger, some Littleneck clams or mussels, just so I can remember what the sea smells like. And I could use another library book, something completely escapist, because I've been reading non-fiction forever, and I feel mired in my own footsteps. Reading about that period between 1400 and 1600. !400 the Catholic quagmire is still burning people at the stake, there are three popes, and only 5% of the population can read; suddenly you have paper, printing, and in 1600, Shakespeare writing Hamlet. A sea-change. The church would have been happiest if no one ever learned to read. That way, they could keep the lid on. Look at the way social media has changed the world recently, it was like that, when Poggio found the last copy of Lucretius, moldering in Germany, and made a copy for his buddy, Niccoli, back in Italy, and the flood gates opened. We're not pawns, each of us is a prime mover, reconcile that with a church that offers indulgences. I can't wrap my head around it. I can, actually: the powers that be. Take any hierarchy, give them a huge amount of money, and let them run things, see the way things go. I can pretty much guarantee you'll end up with a few very rich people and everyone else eating rice twice a day. Human nature, the way things play out. The Church Of England is a joke, Luther is a footnote, really, on the ladder toward independence. What emerges, if you allow things to flow, is a trickle of self: It has nothing to do with whatever pope, or whoever might be currently managing affairs. Thunderstorms, another loss of power. Spent most of the day reading about disasters and The Army Corp response. Interesting reading. Flash flood warnings. Seems to be clearing, though, and I should able to get to town tomorrow. The napp at the spillway will be spectacular. I was watching one of last year's squirrels (he's probably about 16 months old) slumming around on the front deck, eating blackberries, and just as I was wondering how he could walk around on blackberry canes, he got a thorn in his right rear foot. He limped out of the tangle, plopped back on his ass, grabbed the offending foot with both front paws, and pulled out the thorn with his teeth. Excellent. Just what I would have done, given the equipage. The rain has driven the mice indoors, I trap them relentlessly; and the crows like this relationship. I don't have an axe to grind. Nuclear explosions of lightening. I have to go. Read more...

Critical Commentary

Linda is my best critic. The self-deprecation, everything I leave out, she gets it. Close reading is an art form, maybe one in a thousand practice it, most of them actors, who are used to reading scripts. I'm surprised, when someone gets what I'm saying, not that what I consider I'm saying is new or different, which it's not, but merely that I'm understood. I think it's cool, meaning being a papaya on a tree, or a California avocado that only begins to ripen when it's picked. Awakened by hard rain about six in the morning, I let it wash the pollen and litter off the roof for a few minutes before I got up and put a couple of buckets out under the eaves on the back porch. In just thirty minutes I'd harvested enough rain to completely replenished my supply of water, plus filled my stock pot for a bath later in the day. When the rain finally stops, the birds are out in force, dancing in the under-story, eating bugs and worms coming up out of the ground gasping for air. The forest floor is saturated. Watching the birds had gotten me interested in what, exactly was going on, so I pulled on a very funky pair of overalls (I have several sets of very funky clothes, washed one last time, then thrown away after one last muddy adventure), got my foam kneeling pad and my magnifying glass and went outside. It was an amazing scene, a flood relief operation in miniature. I don't know the bug world, to name the varieties, but there were a lot of them, and I'd never noticed this particular feeding habit of birds, though I must have seen it ten thousand times. The salamanders in the driveway puddles (soon, I hope, to be drained and filled with gravel) are excited about the new water. They whip along through the clay silt that lines the bottoms of the puddles, leaving that distinctive reptilian endless 's'. Rattlesnakes in the desert. It strikes me that I'm slow and getting slower. Realized that I'd just spent an hour working on a sentence; that I had started writing this paragraph at six this morning, when I started with the water; had a little outside time, but mostly I'd been writing, and I had maybe twenty lines. Pretty impressive for six hours. Two rounds of golf. I don't actually know how long it takes to play a round of golf. Do you walk or use a cart? Just asking. The day reached a crescendo when a crow landed on a newly formed sumac head right outside the window. The whole sumac fruiting-body thing is extremely interesting, the way the individual seeds cluster. The crow was too heavy for a sumac branch that had sacrificed any strength whatsoever in the dash toward available sunlight, but it hung on, pecked a few seeds, hanging upside down, then squawked over to the outhouse to see if there was a mouse. I had the radio on, Mozart (I'm not a big fan, too many notes), but there was a mouse, that I had thrown up there this morning on my daily visit, and just as the crow realized his good fortune, the Mozart climaxed. Maybe you had to be there, but it was a special moment. Later, eating the last of the stew, I question my principles. Just hanging around to see what happens? What about all those starving people? Where do you stand in all of this? Leads nowhere but to a wee dram, and a not so much considered as an absolutely necessary break. Thank god for thunder. Janus looks both ways. Read more...

Mushroom Season

Mind-numbing rains. Safe, on the ridge, from flooding, and it's made for the best mushroom year since I've been here. B said he'd found some Chanterelles, so I went out looking. Before I left, I sliced a couple of Boletus and put them in the dehydrator; and not fifty feet away, I found a nice stand of Cantharellus Cibarius and went right back home to fry some in butter and serve them on toast. I have so many choice mushrooms, that I decide to make a stew. Thin slice some baby potatoes and carrots, cook them chicken stock with a large sliced onion, then add a pound or more of various mushrooms, pan-fried in butter with copious salt and pepper. I serve this with a spoon-full of sour cream and dry toast that I dip in the broth. It's way beyond good, into the nether-reaches of taste experience. I like vegetables that are earthy, turnips and parsnips, and other things, cat-tail roots and wild asparagus, but this is the best vegetarian stew I've ever made. Most of the day rereading Chandler Burr's book "The Emperor Of Scent", which turned me on to Luca Turin years ago; then Sara got me Turin's book on perfumes. For years I was ordering little sample vials of various scents that he mentioned in "Perfumes: The Guide". Threatens rain all day, but never does. Much thunder in the distance. The power went out, briefly, but the relays worked and it was right back on. The relays try and reset the transformers right away, think of it as a large circuit breaker; but if there's real damage to something, an actual person has to go out and fix it. If he doesn't have the correct part on his truck he has to go back to the garage/depot and get whatever it is. So the problem is fixed in either a minute, or one-to-four hours; if someone takes out a telephone pole, on a Saturday, it won't be fixed until Monday morning. I have a long history with power outages. My old friend Joel, The Wittgenstein Plumber, called from Atlanta, he's not in good health, failed kidneys, but he sounded pretty good and laughs the same. Sent me into a spiral of thinking about the past, which is not a train of thought I ride very often. I'd rather talk about the mating habits of frogs than go to any reunion of any sort. I thought about the ten years on Cape Cod, 1968 to 1978, before the move to the The Vineyard, and it was a glorious and expansive period. Actually I first went to the Cape in 1964, but just for the summers, when we'd do ten shows in ten weeks; but in 1968 I started spending time alone. It's a whole different kettle of fish. Now I can't imagine not being alone. Read more...

Things Happen

You live this deep in the woods, there are sounds in the night. The fight or flight reflex is always at play. Something wakes me almost every night, usually I just roll over and go back to sleep. A pack of dogs, a rabid coon, two opossums fighting over a treat from the compost pile; I listen, assess the threat, either get up or not. If I'm in the middle of a dream, I just incorporate the sound into the background, but sometimes I get up, roll a smoke, have a wee dram, and go outside with a flashlight. Tonight it was a bobcat scolding a ragged black lab about who was king of the hill. I threw a couple of rocks, to impose my sense of order, sat on the back porch, in the dark, and thought about how strange any given life could be. I've lived here, now, longer than I've ever lived anywhere. The ridge, it's seasonal cycles, is pretty much my life, and my attachment is rooted in natural phenomena. I could be anywhere, but I'm here, right now. That sound? Bugs, rubbing their legs together; a Nightjar looking for a roost, the haunting voice of an owl, voles scratching through the leaf litter. Meaning accrues. After a time, things make sense. But making sense is extremely relative. What I accept as completely natural you might find weird, and certainly the other way around. The cloud of uncertainty, tubular fog on the Ohio River, nothing is ever clear. Even when it seems to be. No morning receptionist today and I filled in at the front desk. Not an odious task for me because the library is right there, and I started reading a tome on the Renaissance. Excellent essays interleaved with color plates. Betty T came in, down from Columbus, to see M and C; she's the director of the ODC museum and originator of the current show, a wonderful and informed person; they all went for an early lunch, which meant I went for a late lunch, over which I lingered, watching the British Open, at the bar, with no sound. Very busy there, today, and the staff was exhausted, they'd even brought Billy out of the kitchen, to clear tables, and I offered to wash dishes, but Barb said they had it under control. She knew that I was serious. I can wash dishes with the best of them. They still wash dishes by hand at the pub, which I think is noble. I didn't get much done in the afternoon, M and C left early, for Springfield (M's birthday celebration) and Pegi was out all day with Art Camp. I was the only staff there. I did a gratuitous tour of the Carters for a family down from Cleveland, mostly because there was a beautiful young daughter, an Art History major at Binghamton, with straight black hair and ankles to die for, that kept making eye contact with me. As it happened, her MFA was on Curry, Hopper, and Grant Wood, and we ended up talking about regionalism. We agreed to meet for lunch, tomorrow, at the pub, if I can get off the ridge, 50-50 chance, more rain coming in waves. Of course her name is Emily. She was amazed I knew so much about Carter, she knew who he was, had looked at some reproductions, but here they were, and I was pointing out subtle things. When I'm offhand, my Carter lectures can be very good. And I'm usually offhand. Ask me a question, and I'll tell you what I really think. I don't dwell in the area of expectation. I sense a sea change. Read more...

Muggy Weather

It was uncomfortable outside today. I walked over to the pub at lunch, but because they'd been closed for two days, for remodeling, it was packed; left there, walked over to Kroger to get a protein shake for lunch, and when I got back to the museum, I was slightly nauseous. I worked manual labor outdoors for thirty years, now, 95 degrees with 95% humidity makes me want to vomit. Nice back and forth with Diana today, about the Chautuaqua bio. Mac wanted to get the word 'goat' in there somewhere, and I had almost said that I was a goat herder for 15 years, but I felt I had mentioned enough things that I had been or done. At the reception last Friday, someone I was talking with said that they had Goggled me, so today, in the midst of the bio thing, I Goggled myself, which I hadn't done in years, to see who I was. There's a nice review of The Cistern. Then I read few paragraphs, because Diana had asked what I considered my form to be, correctly anticipating what I thought, that I write paragraphs. I sometimes think of them as blocks of text. It's just a manner of working. Hard left margin and let the computer control the line breaks. That way I just have to focus on the words and the punctuation, which is more than enough for my addled brain. If I had known it wasn't going to rain, I would have stopped at the pub for a mug, to see the painted new stage, compliment everyone on their efforts, but there were some large thunder-heads building to the northwest, my weather direction, and I beat it on home. There wasn't any rain, of course, and I could have had a drink with John Hogan, himself, and still got home safely. Truth be known, I do most of my drinking alone, writing paragraphs. I never get a drink before I turn on my computer. It's a house rule. Before I go to bed, I always go outside and pee, look and listen. House rule. If I'm in the middle of a sentence, I don't answer the phone. I don't have an answering machine but I do have a mute button, and I mute almost everything, otherwise you can't hear what's going on around you: what did Jim Harrison say, the dulcet cry of a meadowlark? Loons have a way of making it real. Or bullfrogs. Crows work, for me, they're always around, and they're always casting criticism, they never like anything, everything is always sub-par. Two crows get together and they always bitch. The nature of the beast. I find some great mushrooms, a delicious pored mushroom, Boletus Edulis, which I commonly use in risotto as a dried substitute original (risotto recipes often call for the dried European Boletus). I didn't send this last night, because I hadn't gone back and deleted the last two sentences, which I usually do. Then I woke up a bit late this morning and the power was out, and I wanted to get to the museum early, to shave. Several groups of Summer Camp kids in today, and I couldn't do much, so I holed up in my office doing Carter research. Did go down and clean the kitchen, haul trash, stock the bathrooms. When I got home, B came over for a drink, and we talked about the driveway. It needs serious work. We'll split the price, and as an extra I'll get the frog ponds drained, and be able to drive closer to my back door. This was on my list, and now it's going to happen. A couple of loads of fill, this whole operation might set me back $500, and will make my life infinitely easier. Another $1000 on the Jeep, for new shocks and butt-kicking tires, and I'll be set for another winter. It was so hot and muggy today that it was hard to breathe. I picked enough blackberries for dessert and breakfast, B is already canning them, he figured he'd already picked four gallons, his energy amazes me, I've picked a few quarts to keep up with my consumption, but I rarely get ahead with anything. B hangs a gallon bucket down his front, with a string around his neck, so he can pick with both hands. You have to admire his technique. Read more...

Ticks

Couldn't resist picking blackberries when I got home yesterday, and had a large bowl of them with plain Greek yogurt and a little maple syrup. Itching in the night and I realized blackberries were just the vector ticks used to find a human host. I have to get up, strip down, and, using mirrors, check every square inch of my body. I blot them with alcohol, pull them off with tweezers, and drop them into an inverted jar lid in which I've put a tablespoon of kerosene. When I'm done I carry the lid out to the Weber Grill, set it on the rack, and torch them. Tick fire. Saw the very beautiful yellow Timber Rattlesnake, she was coiled loosely in the patch of berries near the outhouse. I didn't want to kill her, and I didn't feel like relocating her (The Snake Protection Program), so I went back to the house and got a firecracker. I keep a pack of them around, in case I need to work under the house. Snakes hate firecrackers. I don't much like them myself, but it's a short term fix I can live with. It probably damages their rather delicate vibration detection system, but I want those blackberries and the ticks want me to gather them, and I don't want to have another major scene with a rattlesnake. I've had so many run-ins with snakes, Cotton-Mouths, Copper-Heads, Rattlesnakes, and mostly Black Snakes, which are, of course, 'good' snakes, but still can scare the shit out of you. I have to do a brief bio for the Chautauqua gig. I make some notes and it reads like fiction. I can't believe I've done all those things. I'll amuse myself copying it out tomorrow and getting a copy off to Diana. Next weekend I need to pull out twenty or so paragraphs to read to the Chinese students, something sequential (to give them a life-line), especially as Kate (their field-guide while they're here) came over to the museum today concerned that they might find me difficult to understand. I had certainly thought about that, but had thought, what the hell, I enjoy listening to people talk in a language I only half understand. I'll probably read them a tadpole section. I'll need Glenn to come back, before Chautauqua, to teach me how to do word searches, because I'll need a lot of material for that: the frog stuff, the fox stuff, the winter ridge stuff, the janitor stuff. I had a sloth day and sorted screws, made notes for the bio, walked over to the pub to check the state of the new stage. John Hogan, himself, was beaming like a drunken Irishman, oh, wait. It's a substantial improvement, changes the whole demeanor of the space, places the talent, as it were, on a higher level; and they generally do better there, where they can look over of heads of burly citizens throwing tomatoes at their lower parts. I think it needs a brass rail, where the third John cut a 45 degree angle on the edge of the stage .A very good idea. I would have cut each of them at twenty-two and a half degrees, I'm always thinking about attachment. I'll often stop, in West Virginia, to straighten a black velvet painting of Elvis. This is true. I can't stand for things to be out of plumb. The only time I was arrested, it involved a painting, there.as a reproduction of that iconic photograph of Elvis in the white jump-suit, must have been Vegas, in acrylic, on velvet, at a filling station in Flatwoods, West Virginia. I'd stopped for gas and a snack. It looked like a normal Interstate exit, you get off the highway, do your business, be on your way, but when I got off the highway there was nothing there, just some signage saying gas (BP) and food (Subway) was available 4.3 miles west. I needed gas and I was hungry, so I went that way, and I was suddenly in a Stephen King novel, where even the trees were threatening. Not so much that I had gone backwards in time, but that I had gone sideways in time and I was in a parallel universe. Right after I got off the highway, there was a dumpster, overflowing with brown stained mattresses, in a turn-around area that was just dead grass and hard-packed earth; the State Road dipped into a tunnel of trees that was lined with dead refrigerators. I'm a seasoned traveler, not easily spooked, but there wasn't an immediate entrance back to the Interstate and I was committed to a state road through Flatwoods. This is not someplace you want to be, the only people I saw were good-old-boys with shotguns broken across their shoulders, walking in the path above the grader ditch. I didn't want to ask them for direction. Finally found the gas station, and the road out, but Jesus, it was a tribulation. Read more...

Should've Known

My left hip is killing me, and my feet hurt, working on those tile floors is murder. I'd rather burn in Dante's hell than complain, but this has been a rough couple of weeks. Only because I'm well versed in the art of suffering makes it possible. The primary lesson, at Janitor College, was that people make a mess, and you have to clean up after them. A rule of thumb. Went to town this morning, and worked all day at the pub. Re-upholstered seats and backs for the booths and a ten foot long bench seat. Free lunch, free beer. Did a nice job. Had a Red Stripe at lunch, and a Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout (one of the greatest beers in the world) when I finished, right at five o'clock. I know the staff over there so well, it's like family. Several other regular customers and friends were building a stage, John T., the manager not the owner (there was yet another John working on the platforms), was rearranging the front room to accommodate two dart boards. Barb was being the mother hen. Billy had the worst job, sanding and staining tables out in the sun. It was a bloody hot day, the first in what promises to be a very hot week. It was comfortable inside, and John Hogan, himself, was in attendance, slightly under the weather, breathing problems; he mostly sat, and pointed at things with his cane. I love these people. Got home and my younger daughter, Rhea, called, we hadn't talked for many weeks, so it was great fun to hear her voice and make her laugh. I'm going to pay for her to fly out in the fall or spring, She's too young to rent a car, so I'll have to drive over to Cincy a couple of times, which might involve staying a night in a motel, watching TV, eating take-out, and several showers. I can live with that. Read more...

Another Ruckus

A pack of dogs had treed a coon on the compost pile. I usually wouldn't interfere but I hate that fucking yapping, and after thirty minutes or so I finally flip on the back porch light and step into the fray. A bunch of red eyes. Bonny Raitt on the radio, doing something South African, "Help Me Lord", and I threw a rock, a major league fastball, that made contact with something and the animals all disperse, except for a beagle-lab cross that I seem to have killed with a stone to the head, I should feel worse than I do, but the mother-fuckers were disturbing my sleep. There's a cleared area, down in the State Forest, where I can open up the carcass, tomorrow, on my way in to work at the pub, a few minutes work, and all trace will be gone within a couple of days. A Tibetan sky-burial. I agreed to re-upholster the bench seats at the pub in exchange for a couple of free lunches. It's a fair trade, I don't need money, and I eat lunch there every day during the work week, a day's work for a week's free lunch seems about right. The Tibetan sky-burial is a product of necessity. At ten thousand feet, mid-winter, the ground is very hard, and a dead body is merely an empty vessel, food for birds, dear Percy. Mac should get that, "food for worms...", Prince Hal, soon to be Henry the Fifth, standing over Hotspur's body. Atoms to atoms. 1600, Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, and he had discovered this internal dynamic; he'd played around the edges before (in Antony and Cleopatra especially), but this was the real deal; his son and father had died, and he couldn't deny certain things. The finality of life. What is germane to the argument. A squall line moving through, I'd better go. Read more...

Slides Under

Slips by. Say what you will. A single swallow of that creosote single malt sends me spinning. I can't shake the idea of having a foot-long hot dog with some fried onion rings. I've only done this a time or two in the thirteen years I've lived on the ridge, but I actually drove ten miles out and ten miles back to get a footer (with sauce, mustard, cheese, and onions) and an order of those delightful rings. Ignoring all those warning about my heart, I also got an order of deep-fried cheese-stuffed jalapenos. The smell nearly drove me crazy before I got home. I would have stopped at the lake and eaten everything at a picnic table, but there were other people around, and I'm used to eating alone. So I got back home, spread everything out on a plate at the island and ate with that curious delight that one feels enjoying an almost sinful meal. There are a couple of swimming holes in Turkey Creek, one of them, the most popular, is right next to Route 125, with pull-off parking next to the road. There were a dozen vehicles pulled off, and on a Sunday, that means full-immersion baptism from the Fundamental Church down the way. I pulled off to watch, not that baptism is a spectator sport, but it is interesting, in such a public place, and invites observation. What it looks like, from a distance (I was probably fifty yards away), is a public drowning. Like something from the Inquisition. Most Christian faiths just sprinkle a few drops of water, but these Pentecostals go the whole nine yards. The baptisee clamps his or her own nose, between thumb and forefinger. This is an important point, I think: if the preacher did it for you, it would imply mediation, and the basic precept of Fundamental Religions is that there is no mediation. My grandparents, on my mother's side, were Pentecostal, and it was a shock to me, when I first went to church with them. I was 14, spending a couple of weeks in rural Tennessee, and I had no idea that people could behave that way. It could be argued, I suppose, that the glossolalia affected me more than I care to admit. Once you got over worrying about whether the people rolling in the aisles were dying or not, it was interesting. A lot of the 'tongues' sounded Hebrew or Ancient Greek. I never went to church again except for one Greek Orthodox Easter service, which was spectacular. Sunday, for me, has always meant a day in the natural world, fishing with my Dad, when I was a kid, then walking alone, as I got older; the outer beaches on Cape Cod, the woodlands of Mississippi, the butts and mesas of western Colorado, and, now this particular ridge in southern Ohio, where I've lived longer than I've ever previously lived in one place. Walked out to the cemetery today, I knew the shallow depressions would be filled from the recent rains, with a dark tannic water (leaves and acorns), and they were. I counted 18 graves, ten of them marked with fieldstones. No names or dates or anything, just a couple of rocks. Lucretius would agree, I think. Dust to dust. Read more...

Rhetoric

I have to think about that, I haven't heard the word used in a long time. I speak well because I had five years of Latin, translated Cicero, and spend a fair amount of time listening closely to conversation. It interests me to speak clearly. The second tour through the Carters was a much smaller group and I was able to get down and personal, talk specific details, because I actually do know what was going on in 1943, when Clarence was painting "Let Us Give Thanks", and the great watercolor, "Convoy At Sunset" where the surface of the ocean is turned to rose. Sara and I were talking about it today, I know way too much about Carter, because we have the entire archive. I know the provenance of some of the pieces, what day he painted a certain detail: a particular sumac bush, in the great portrait of his favorite aunt and uncle. Look at the hands. I've found that looking at hands is informative. I meet way too many people. I can't keep their names straight. Even when I'm being perfectly clear I leave almost everything out. Any realistic map is too detailed to actually see; all those little lines, for instance, what do they represent? They found some etched symbols on a rock, 5,000 years old, in China, it might be language. I think it probably is. Rambling. One tired body when I got home last night. Couple of drinks and I was gone. Slept like a rock. Crow-noise out back woke me about 10, and I had slept longer than any time in recent weeks. There were three crows fighting over the two mice I'd put on the outhouse roof, two of them finally get one of the mice torn into pieces and everyone was happy. The caw they make when they're happy isn't nearly as frenzied as their warning cackle, or the pissed-off cackle they make when they're forced to move off a road-kill by a passing vehicle... more a satisfied caw. Pretty much vegetate through the rest of the day, read a New Yorker, tried to read "Lord Of The Barnyard" by Tristan Egolf, but it wasn't working for me. I sat and stared out a window for long periods of time thinking about various things: my daughters, my own benign neglect of myself and my personal environment, my new bosses, my failed first kimchi. I hadn't mentioned that, because, frankly, I was embarrassed. The house was too warm for the open-air primary fermentation. That's why they bury the fermentation vessels in the ground in Korea, now I get it. What you don't want to come home to, is a fiercely overflowing vat of rampantly fermenting cabbage. It was a mess, a smelly mess. Next time I'll do the two days of primary fermentation when I'm home and can better control the temperature. Life is a learning curve, there have to be mistakes, and I'm used to cleaning up messes. I've looked at dozens of recipes for kimchi, and many of them, in addition to fish sauce (fish sauce goes back to the Roman garum, literally a fermentation of fish heads and parts) call for the addition of tiny salted baby shrimp, which I shall stock up on, the next time I'm near an Asian market. It never did rain today, though it was forecast that it might. Some scudding clouds, but mostly a blue sky. The under-story was alive with bugs and birds, until I had to close the windows and crank the AC for Black Dell. Artificial climate is fine, but it certainly cuts you off from the natural world. I talked with M's daughter, last night, about blogging, explained to her that I wrote in the wrong program, didn't have a cell phone, or a TV, had a dial-up connection, and that my friend Glenn maintained the web-site. She looked at me with that kind of slanted head that implies incredulity. Another couple was there, I forget their names; they had come into the museum last winter. I was the only one there, they'd driven down from Cleveland, or some forbidding place, and I'd talked with them about the permanent collection, they'd joined the museum, and came to the opening especially, an overnight trip, to see the show. And to talk with me again, because good conversion is hard to find. Even if you're an enormously successful gynecologist in Cleveland. Evidently I'm a good conversationalist. I just listen closely and speak specifically, try to be clear, usually I look down, avoid any eye contact. The best rhetoric just calls you back to yourself, the best iteration. Spare me a moment's grief. When Cicero was cutting the arms and legs off any opponent in the Senate, verbally; the greatest sport was killing people in plain view. Lions, Tigers, and Bears. Not unlike pro-football; the price is bid ever upward; pro-baseball, or basketball: is anyone actually worth that kind of money? I don't know. Maybe they are. Maybe distraction is worth the price. All I ever see is highlights, on ESPN, at the pub, at lunch. I can take it or leave it, I don't care which college wins the championship in whatever sport. I do enjoy watching anything that is gracefully done, but more generally, for me, that's going to be a lady lawyer, holding the door to the courthouse open with her hip, while she wheels in her trolley of evidence. There are so many fat people in Kroger, when I stop for supplies, that I only look at people's feet and ankles. How could you allow yourself to get that fat? The distance around your waist should never exceed your height. There are rules. I thought there were rules, maybe there aren't any rules. If Lucretius is correct, all that really matters is how you feel. And, for the most part, I agree with that. I'd much rather do one thing than another. Flash a long leg and I'm gone. Otherwise, life, as usual. Read more...

Eye Level

An interesting discussion about height and the mid-point of where to hang art. In the main gallery, we used to use 60 inches, but now we center everything at 57 inches. Charlotte was arguing (too strong a word) that the new horizontal signage, down the hallway from the front entry, was too high, which it is, because of a Fire Alarm panel set in that wall. I didn't say anything, because I don't know her well enough yet, but it seemed to me, that her argument was incorrect, because signage, by it's very nature, requires that you look up. It's signage, you look up. Tilting your head pays homage to where you are. Everywhere, it's a universal. I go off (in my head), for a while, on the various situations to which the phrase eye level might apply. It's an interesting phrase. And that time thing I was talking about... right now it's just after two in the morning... I awoke because my mouth was dry. Remembered I had crashed early, but was pretty sure I'd sent a paragraph. Easy enough to check, I just have to look at Mail Waiting To Be Sent, which is my holding area, if I'd had some thoughts, the night before. Listen, I hit an all-time high today: C and I were doing something, hovering, not talking, then she said that a lot of other museum people, from throughout the state were coming down for the opening. It's a big deal, for people who pay attention to that aspect of things, the local art scene; and would I docent them through the Carters. I told her that of course I would. Not much left to do for the opening, M and C hang a couple of pictures in other parts of the museum, I haul stuff to the basement, then clean the back hall, mop that and the bathrooms. After lunch M and C's friends started arriving, and I ended up doing two tours through the Carters. For the first one Sara, and M and C strung along. Sara knew Clarence, for god's sake, he stayed at their house, so I was a little nervous, until I got into my rhythm. These were mostly museum professionals, and they applauded my presentation. My bosses were all beaming. One of the women, Clair, I think, told me that my rhetoric and voice was a lovely thing, that she wasn't used to hearing people talk that way. Then it was the opening, and people started arriving; I had a couple of beers and mingled, some artists I knew, some gallery owners. And I would have stayed longer, but my feet hurt and I really wanted to take off my shoes. Julie-Ellen, a wonderful ceramic artist from Columbus was there, I would have talked more with her, and Dan, the head of the theater program at Ohio State, but I was burned out. TR said he'd lock up, and I left without saying good-bye to anyone. I required the ridge, that level of quiet, where mute became an option. Read more...

Mission Accomplished

Charlotte asked what I thought Sara would think. Which is an interesting question but irrelevant. What we had to do, those of us here, C and M, and myself, with our feet on the ground, was install a show. And it's beautiful, the space is glorious; there are a hundred last minute adjustments, but the show is set. A show like this, 100 pieces, there are ten thousand ways it could be arranged, none of the them necessarily better than any other. I marvel that we actually do it, that even the smallest enameled do-dad is given fair shake. When you're swinging around a blind face that overhangs by maybe 15 degrees, you're operating on blind faith. Someone said there was a hand-hold. I check my anchor, and it's good, swing around to check the next foot-hold, and it's good, and I make some progress, climbing an impossible wall. Despite what everyone said, this just gets more difficult. Not just the physicality but the mental state. An intense line of squalls just after I got home yesterday, the power went out, and the phone; no AC, no fan, and I could only open one window (SSW). A very hot , uncomfortable night with only fitful sleep. Sara and Clay got in yesterday, for the opening tomorrow, and for a couple of meetings. Sara loved the installation, and loved that she hadn't had to do it. I finished affixing the labels and started the nearly endless clean-up. Stopped at the pub for a free birthday beer, got home, the squall-line hit and I dined on a can of tuna with hot sauce, gherkins, and saltine crackers. At least I was, by god, home. I could drink, smoke, and read by the light of my LED headlamp. The good life. Couldn't shave this morning, because the power was still out and it was too hot to start a fire. Heard, on my wind-up radio, that dozens of transformers had been struck by lightning, and AEP (American Electric Power) thought they would be 90% restored by Friday afternoon. There's a person I can call at my small branch of the power conglomerate, Adams County Rural Electric, another Sarah, who, can tell me whether or not MY power has been restored and she says I was back on-line at 2:30 this afternoon (my meter is monitored electronically, because the meter-readers can' make it up the driveway so I knew I was good to come home, which pleased me deeply in my tired soul. Most of the day we lit the show, which is always a great treat; Mark was on the ladder, and I handed him the instruments. The last show was all two-dimensional, and this one is mostly three. Wall work takes flood lamps and pedestal work takes spots. So I'm steady changing bulbs and passing up lamps. I didn't anticipate this, that I would spend so much time working on the lighting, but I'm a day ahead. TR spent most of the day mopping, what's the next thing on the list? I might be able to get home before dark tomorrow. Christ, I have a dial tone, I'd better send this now. Read more...

Fixated

What happens, when you mount a show, is that everything else fades into the background. Sleep habits change to suit demands. I fell asleep last night, in the middle of a thought. Literally. I had been writing, stopped to eat an omelet (blue cheese and onion chutney) and a piece of toast, rolled a smoke, and settled into my reading position at the end of the sofa where I have a floor lamp perfectly positioned. I never lit the cigaret. I was asleep almost instantly, woke with a start, about four in the morning, cleaned up the paragraph I was writing and shipped it off, that's why the odd time signature. It's a particular mind-set, opening a show. I've opened a lot of them, most of them very easy, 'soft' openings, as we refer to them, but some of them enormously complex, I go into what I've always thought of as a production mode, and it pretty much allows me to do what needs to be done, at the expense of anything else. As I get older, it can be taxing. The mental drain, of trying to get things correct, adequately installed, figuring out how to do a specific thing with the tools at my disposal. I can still do it, and do it well, but I no longer go out and court the ingenue after. I pretty much go home and crash. Living alone, my schedule is subject to a good bit of change, I come and go. It's not a bad state, but not having a significant other worries me sometimes. How long before they found my body? How long before they even looked? And what the fuck would it even matter, then? Another day installing. Charlotte and I set the balloons and arrows piece. I attached the balloons (they're heavy) with a large "J" hook which I cover with clear plastic tubing so that no metal contacts the glass. Plastic anchors, pan-head screws. The arrows have a screw welded to the wall end, and they literally screw into the wall. The whole thing looks very nice, and I compliment C on using it for the front wall. Hang the last pieces, set the last pedestals, and trundle off to the third floor to make the labels, a lot of labels; and I spend the rest of the day trimming labels to size. I don't finish, I have three more pages to trim out, and I used the paper cutter so much today that I feel like I might have damaged my right shoulder. My birthday, and it was on the calendar, so the bosses took me to lunch, and all the help at the pub offered a free beer after work, but it looked like rain and I went home. A 'rain check' for real. As it turned out I could have stayed in town for a couple of beers, the rain held off, but when it comes to the driveway, I err on the side of caution. My older daughter calls, and we chat about things, I burn a cream of broccoli soup while we're on the phone; but we laugh, and her boyfriend, Scott, makes a fresh tomato pie that I'm dying to try. I'm fixing to be knee-deep in tomatoes. Read more...

Flexible Hours

My thinking is, right now, that I'll probably go into the museum tomorrow. There's a four-part piece that needs hanging on what I refer to as a 'hard' wall, plaster over concrete, and they want to be aligned both horizontally and vertically. They're imperfect, and the wall demands plastic anchors, which have to be installed with a hammer drill and a quarter- inch bit which makes small adjustments very difficult. Sometimes I wallow out the hole and shim the anchor into an exact position, but I discovered, recently that I can drive a nail into the plastic anchor, which I can then bend into position with little raps of a tack hammer. It's low-tech, but it works, sometimes I have to file the nail-head down, so it'll fit in the clever little D-rings that are usually small washers stitched on the back. Did I mention that these pieces are a pain in the ass? It does, though, tend to keep one alert. I've thought about the four-part piece for several days, and what I'd like to do is go into the museum when no one else is around, crank the Grateful Dead on the sound system, and drill the necessary eight holes. This could take as long as two hours, because I'll have to do the math a hundred times. Actually drilling the holes will take eight minutes. I just have to drill them in the correct place. It's simple math, in that there are no unknowns, but it's as complex as simple math gets. Then there's the front wall, which is seven pieces, three glass balloons with a mylar-like surface, shiny silver, and another glass balloon, pierced by a brass arrow, and three other brass arrows, wait, no, I think they're cast bronze arrows, and they have to be affixed in whatever pattern C decides, and they all hang on plastic washers that are screwed into the wall. That'll be fun. Everything else is simple, what one does, one foot in front of the other. I make it a point to not stir the pellucid pool. Go out of my way not to stir the water. The world itself is confusing enough. Swirl in some cream and you have chaos, I can hardly drink a cup of coffee without thinking about the heat death of the universe. I used to hang in the air, kick mule blocks around, now I can't even climb a ladder, go figure. Moby Dick factors in somewhere, it always does, that gold -piece hammered to the mast. Power was out again, so I couldn't send last night, did manage to save everything. Got to work early, day off, and Charlotte and Mark showed up shortly. I knew they would. We all just wanted to be certain that we can open on Friday. Worked hard all day. Tackled the four-piece unit first, did the math a few times, set the anchors, and got it correct in one attempt, no re-hanging. Took an hour. C said it looked great, as near to perfect as fabric art can be. I have to re-hang one other piece because we decided that a large ceramic platter wasn't rigged correctly for hanging and it was to be hung in a vertical twosome, now I have to re-hang the bottom piece. So, tomorrow is just the front wall (the balloon and arrow piece) and the signage wall (which is just a couple of framed pieces), then labels, lighting, and cleaning up. Trash is piling up and the bathrooms are a mess; they're serving finger-food and drinks at the opening, so the kitchen has to be cleaned. I'll have to work that night, probably pouring wine, but I should be able to get home before dark, if not, I'll stay in town and drink all the left-overs, watch a little television on Hulu, see if there's anything that interests me. I need to stay in town, a couple of nights, to finish editing the Janitor College book. It's a very funny manuscript. Actually makes it difficult to work on, because I'm laughing half the time, and I make more mistakes, because I'm tearing up and then can't see the keys accurately. Barb tells me, at lunch, that John Hogan has a couple of questions for me, and could I come back at Happy Hour for a free pint. Which, of course, I can; and we talk about building a stage for the pub, and Barb wants me to do new seat cushions for the booths. I can do that, though I tell them up-front that I don't want any money, I just want free lunch and the occasional pint. Read more...

Dedication

I have no idea why people do what they do. My own motivations are a mystery. All day today, my left hip was giving me problems, it hurt so bad, coming out of the store, I had to lean against the side of the building; and my feet are a mess, so many broken toes. I only mention them in passing, because sometimes I can barely walk, and I'm surprised people complain about what they have to do. At a certain age, 42, you should no longer be concerned about what other people think, and should just be getting on with your life, whether it's dressing as a French Whore or looking at tadpoles through a magnifying glass. I have trouble, even with my internal dialogue, when it comes to facing myself. I'd rather not; I'd rather, always, focus on something outside, two crows talking, or a tick sucking my blood. Wait. Slow down. Often, the only course through a debris field is wading through shit.; I don't recommend it, but sometimes it's the only way to stay in touch. The first thing I do is scramble three eggs, with a caramelized onion and enough jalapeno peppers to make my eyes water. I make a very dry piece of toast, slather it with butter and jam. It rains on and on. The radio announces flash flood alerts for my county, and I know that Upper Twin and Mackletree creeks have both slipped their banks, thank god I stopped at Kroger for supplies. First thing, when the power came back on, I made a crock pot of grits. The cool rain has lowered temperatures and I can start a small fire in the cookstove and vent most of the heat, through a dampered arrangement, without heating the body of the stove. For the 99% percent of you that don't cook on a woodstove, it probably doesn't make any sense, but I don't want any more heat than necessary, and I can still fry a round of polenta, cook an egg, and perk a pot of coffee. This time of year, I only burn small oak chairs that I smash up with a hatchet, or hickory limbs I've dried for several years and cut with a bow-saw. You live this way, you get particular about your wood. A cup of tea might require just a bundle of twigs. I make these bundles in a gig I devised that allows me to slip a couple of cords of hemp around a collection of sticks. I don't have a name for them, but I'm sure there is one. To be politically correct, I'm just trying to boil water. And fuck me, I don't have a dial tone. Talk to you later. Power's back but the phone's out. Read more...

Buffer Zone

I took a nap, because I wanted to get back up to listen to the radio, Dwayne Allman's daughter with her Dad's archive. His guitar playing was a transport of joy. He played lead on Boz Scagg's first album and it's incredible. That was Thursday night, and I was exhausted, couple of drinks and crashed, then yesterday, which the three of us knew needed to be a very production day. I spent 90 minutes hauling boxes to the basement, then, before lunch, C tells me that the wall art (mostly fabric art) was where it needed to be, and I could start hanging. Hanging fabric art is difficult, because the pieces are never exactly square or straight. There are 28 pieces for the walls, and while I start on those both M and C work on the 3D pieces that will fill every pedestal in the building (two dozen of them, ranging in size up to the very large), and we're all incredibly busy right up until quitting time. It's a huge show. By the end of the day I'd hung 15 pieces, was talking to myself and whimpering. We were all three brain-dead, but when we were leaving we all knew that we were in good shape, that there was still a lot to be done, but that there were several days in which to accomplish it. I stopped at the pub for a pint, and John T said that I looked as if I had worked myself into a coma. When I got home the power was out, no AC, no writing (it's become difficult for me to write longhand), no heating dinner, and no way to heat water for cleaning up. I sponged off, with tepid rain, ate a can of tuna with hot sauce, and read by the light of two oil lamps, until my eyes got tired. I felt pretty good actually, that I was still able to stay in the game. And I love this part of it, closing in on the opening, opening time and opening date set maybe two years ago, and all the publicity was mailed weeks ago, and it will all come down to a five-O-clock on a Friday afternoon, July 12th. Not quite cast in iron, but close. I've been lucky my entire life to work with people that were good at what they did. Sets the bar a bit higher, which is a good thing, in a world of increasing distraction. I can see how people would want to deny that they have a life. It's the system come to bear. You plug in the Mac-And-Cheese, add an aromatic, this is the way universes are created. I don't care one way or the other (that's not fair, I do care) but I require a certain buffer zone between me and the outside world. I went in this morning to re-hang two pieces, M and C had both said not to bother, but I actually wanted both of them closer to perfect. And no one bothered me all day. Beat a line of thunderstorms back to the ridge, give me a medal, I watch the weather channel, and right on cue, a squall-line moved through, raining about as strong as it's possible to rain, an inch in half-an-hour; sheets, an opaque curtain. I imagine this much rain, on saturated ground, will flood all the bottoms, but I can sit tight tomorrow, and this land drains quickly. The other reason I went to town, my larder was low, and I had a hankering for a few things. I wanted an avocado, a small strip steak, a baked potato; and a box of dried cod from which I could make codfish cakes as God intended. I flush the salted cod in three or four changes of water, over a twenty-four hour period, then poach in white wine, with rosemary, salt and black pepper. Caramelize a couple of shallots, add a couple of those left over baby baked potatoes, mash it all up with some fresh herbs. I dredge these in a highly seasoned corn meal. I get the corn meal from the Logan Turnpike Mill, Blairsville Ga., and it's the best I've ever had. Fried in a mixture of walnut oil and butter, these are incredibly good. I don't make codfish cakes that often anymore, because I'm tired of people talking about committing suicide. They're not that good. Fucking codfish cakes. Maybe, as your Jewish mother said, you should pay more attention to detail. Read more...

If Not

Nothing, if not quite enough. I had a dream in which some red-neck asshole was about to slug me for some imagined slur I'd made concerning his heritage. I had actually just made a comment on the mating habits of bullfrogs, and it was taken out of context, but the dude had taken offense and was right in my face. Generally I hold my tongue, even when someone is saying something very stupid; I don't care, as is said locally, to get into an argument. But twice, recently, people I held in high esteem have said hurtful things to me. I'm Lutheran, for the most part, and assume I've done something wrong, but when I think about both of these cases, that assumption was wrong. When I'm on my knees, with a magnifying glass, examining a miniature iris, I'm not a palpable threat. Why, then, would people I know well, and care for, go off on me? This is a complex question. Break it down, it's simple enough, I get it, and it's lessons learned. But please, please, don't get in my face. I've spent most of adult life avoiding confrontation because I've found it just isn't worth the bother. I prefer to be left alone. Left being sinister, and alone, we know about that. I have too many books to ever move again, it's a nightmare, even the thought, as books arrive in the mail. My ability... let's just say I'm inadequate to the task... my ability pales. My evil twin Pthomas thought that his idea was the worst, and that he should be sequestered first. He thought fat people should be made to eat less. I doubted that was possible. The power of dumb. Broken branches festoon the forest floor. Broken wind and sheets of rain. The new bosses lead by example and their energy level is frightening. I don't have an opinion about this, whatever works is the rule of thumb, there's more than one way to skin a cat. This is a difficult show to install, there is no unifying theme, and even the sub-sets are vague. I watch Charlotte looking at the space and looking at the art, and I'm careful to not express what I actually think about the merit of particular pieces; we're just beginning to work out a relationship here: it's all new terrain. But a couple of times she asks what I think about a grouping, whether or not, for instance, did a blue section work, and I tell her that, yes, it does, because the white lines in a post-modern quilt mimic the lines in a woven rattan basket thing. Which seems to satisfy her that I actually have a useful opinion. Then, later, considering how to install a difficult piece that involves blown glass balloons and brass arrows, we arrive at the same solution. Bodes well. I don't unduly brag when I say I could install anything, if I don't know how, I know who to call, Kim or George or Glenn, we consistently did the impossible in a week. I have a group of friends that can solve any problem at a glance. Nice to have that in your back pocket. Read more...

Unpacking

Charlotte is a meticulous unpacker and record keeper. Excellent qualities. I help her through the morning, then she asks TR and I to clean the pedestal room. It was the dirtiest room in the building, and now that the pedestals are all out, we could clean it for the storage of ODC boxes and packing material. It was the job from hell, but we did a very good job. The concrete dust got everywhere in the building, during the remodel. The back hallway if full of bags of trash that I'll have to haul to the dumpster. A good days work, and a clean space to store 102 boxes. This is an artist packed show, and the packing is always interesting and often funny. C took a lot of pictures so that we'd know how to repack. Six more peds to repaint. Raindrops falling through dappled sunlight right at sunset are quite lovely. Banged myself up pretty good today, bleeding in a couple of places and hit my head against a completely unforgiving cast iron pipe. We had to come up several times, to breathe fresh air. TR is very good with logistics, and I just let him do it his way, concerned myself with a different corner of the room. I throw away four fifty-five gallon trash bags of stuff, and two elevator loads of junk. So tired I fell asleep while I was writing. Got to town early this morning, stopped at the Kroger Starbucks for a Cheese Danish and went below the floodwall. There was a muskrat nosing around in the floating debris that gathers downstream of what passes for a jetty; and a family of ground-hogs eating hard red immature blackberries. Squirrels eat them too. They don't taste very good, the sugars haven't converted, but it is going to be a bumper year, and I need to think about what I might do with a large harvest. More unpacking today, finished painting the new batch of peds, which were actually the oldest, beat-up and buried, but they look good now. Then C asked about smaller blocks and boxes she might use to build arrangements, so I brought up all of those I could find, patched, sanded and painted them. Mark painted today too, the last wall in the front entry area, and then several of the walls in the back entry space. The place is looking spiffy. Kate came over from the University, to talk about my talk and reading for the Chinese students at the end of the month, and I'm excited about that. She was thrilled that I wanted to extend my time with them into lunch at the pub. I think that Chinese students, training to teach English as a second language, should definitely have lunch at an Irish pub in Ohio. I want to get John Hogan, himself, there, to spin some yarns, maybe sing a song. We have this talk, in the back hallway, where Mark was painting, and I couldn't help but note that he saw the way various other educators deferred to me. Listen, I don't want any responsibility, but I can do certain things. You learn, you know, over time. The impossible. happens. Talk about a fixed language talking from the dead. Read more...

More Voices

My first thought was that it was a dream. It's darker than a coal mine, I can't see my hand, then there's a shaft of light on the driveway. I keep a sawed-off shotgun, legal by an inch, in a hidden space near the back door, an old 12 gauge skeet gun, a pump, and the sound it makes, racking a round into the chamber, is quite distinctive. It may seem paranoid, but I've been robbed three times, and if I left the gun in plain sight, someone would steal it, so I made a hinged panel, complete with nail heads, that I can access in maybe two seconds. I keep three rounds of bird-shot in the magazine. It's Travis and his Dad. I tell them, in strong words of one syllable, that it's a very bad idea to disturb me after dark. They seem to get that, but still, the father uses my phone to call his mother, to set up transportation for the next day. They leave rather quickly, and I realized I was still holding the shotgun, with the barrel pointed down at the floor. I think it probably made an impression. Too many people. Not that, exactly, but too many stupid people. How could anyone think it was ok to intrude on someone who lived on an inaccessible ridge in the middle of a State Forest in the middle of nowhere after dark? I've had goats that were smarter than that. The interruption, though, does serve to wake me completely, and I read for a few hours, then realized I was hungry. Made a great omelet, stuffed with Linda's onion chutney, and a great piece of toast slathered in the last of the jalapeno/raspberry jam. Doesn't get much better than that. 2:40 in the morning, the first of July. Make a note. Finally got back to sleep for a few hours, got up, cleaned up, washed my hair, sauntered off to town; needed whiskey, and a few things for the first batch of kimchi. Stopped at the museum to check a couple of things online. I have to get my own copy of Greenblatt's "The Swerve" and found a copy for six bucks; also need the Lucretius in Latin, which I also found for six bucks. Stopped at the pub for a pint, and lamented with Barb over the death of Astra and Isaac's infant. I couldn't bear to go to the wake at the pub on Friday. Too raw and tragic. Got back home, before the afternoon rains. Started the batch of kimchi, twenty minutes work, chop up the Napa Cabbage, salt it, cover with water, and set it off to ferment. I didn't bring any fiction home, for the weekend, an interesting oversight. The baby dying, and the calls from my distant past have conspired to make me reflect. Hard not to. We prepare to bury our parents, never our babies. Lucretius didn't say there were no gods, he just said that they didn't give a shit. More or less what I find to be true. A gaited community, out of nowhere I suddenly remembered what the phrase was, that applied to all of those horse people that were clogging Mackletree. It was the gait. Tennessee Walkers. I remember now, how that phrase came to be lodged in my brain, seeing them all, with their prancing horses. I just wanted through, I drove slowly but I was insistent in that I was not going to be stopped. I live down here, motherfuckers, and you are blocking my way. I've noticed that most of these riders don't wear helmets, you might comment on that. But then Ohio is a state where it's not mandatory to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle. I'm a Libertarian, generally, and prefer less infringement on my personal life, but I shouldn't have to see some idiot's brains smeared across the road. Or maybe I should have to, as a reminder. The gene-pool is probably improved. I'll have to think about that. Another day. Gutenberg printed indulgences, a lovely bible in Latin, it was Claxton that invented the language. 1477, the first book printed in English. Something, I can't remember, another book of indulgences, maybe a prayer, a psalm. Read more...

Confrontation

Hearing voices, mid-afternoon, I go outside and encounter two good-old-boys with rifles. Squirrel hunters. They said that they didn't know anyone lived up here. I mentioned that a well used driveway and a mailbox indicated otherwise. They said the driveway was a piece of shit, with which I agreed, and not wanting things to escalate to a killing, I asked them if they wanted a beer. They leaned their guns against the porch steps and tailed me inside. I was a little anxious. Four steps inside the back door they both stopped dead, you can see most of the downstairs from there, and after a pause, one of them, Sam (the other was Ollie), said that, Jesus, man, this was a cool place. What I had for beer was not Bud Light, but a six-pack of Red Stripe, and they found that odd. They had never, they said, ever seen so many books, and, of course, had I read them all? Ollie thought the staircase was "the shits", a positive phrase meaning 'very nice', that I'd only ever heard in Erie, Pennsylvania, but then I don't get out much. He allowed that he could make 15 gun stocks from the treads and stringer. I told them The Froggy story, about getting the Black Walnut cheap, and they both knew Froggy. After the second beer, they admitted that they knew someone lived here, a weirdo, and they were just checking me out. I knew that. Hillbilly diplomacy. They brought me a squirrel, on their way back through, and watched while I skinned it out (like taking off a glove) and gutted it, saving the liver and heart. I'm fairly dexterous at this, I'd probably be toward the head of my class. A guy who can skin rabbits and squirrels. A dubious title, but hey, I'll take what I can get. Period, space, is probably what I wanted, commas are so bothersome, but it's nice, sometimes, to string things along. They asked how I was going to cook the squirrel, and I told them about Aunt Pearl's dumplings. It's true, what Joel said, that I could talk myself into or out of anything. Study Cicero, at a time when rhetoric was everything. Recovering the language was a primary focus of the humanists. Latin, of course, fixed, as it was, but as literacy increased, what becomes the language of the day? Claxon had his work carved out for him The first things ever printed are indulgences. You can buy your way out of this. I never bought that. Slavery is always simply slavery. Read more...