Jameson Tasting

A Jameson rep at the pub tomorrow afternoon and the owners want me there. Hard to say no. Was going to get back to the ridge tonight but Pegi had to meet a window contractor at the Cirque building. She got a 5 thousand matching grant for sprucing up the front of the place, and boarded-up windows on the upper floor is definitely the place to start. Wintertime, if I don't leave at 4, to get a fire started before dark, I can't get the house warm. So I stay, lock up, go to the pub for a draft. Took down the altered furniture this morning, got the packing materials up from the basement; the artist, Stephen, showed up at lunch (they almost always do, so I had eaten early) and my helper, John, one of Pegi's boys from the Cirque. I like John, he's strong, and we have the cut down piano to move. Upright pianos are top-heavy, and a pain in the ass generally. The wheels are too small and there are enough good places to get a grip. Plus we had already settled a small claim on some imagined shipping damage to the piece. It actually left here in much better condition than it arrived, because our piano tuner took a real interest in improving the sound. Stephen never meant for it to be played, I think, and now it is playable, insofar as you can play anything on three white keys and two black. Because there had been a claim, I let him (forced him to) make every call on how things were packed and loaded. Of course, it all took twice as long to accomplish, but I was friendly and chatted with him about the Kohler Fellowship, the work of various people that use plastic mediums, the proper display of 3-D pieces. Finally got him loaded and out of here, then took down the small fabric art show, got it ready for Sharee to transport wherever, then she called and said she couldn't pick it up and give me the next student show that I need to install yesterday. Not a big deal, but it might eat into my Jameson tasting tomorrow. Started a list for the week, and crossed off several things, but, unfortunately, added several more. I'm reminded of doing summer professional rep theater. The Globe would have 3 or 4 plays in rotation, have them DOWN, and Hamlet might be done 3 times: imagine how you do that. Fucking Hamlet, man. Probably didn't seem much at the time, that play about a crazy Dane. To be so many walls removed from the wind is strange. The winter wind, on the ridge, is a fact of life, it blows through the very layers of veneer. You can wake, of a morning, with a little pile of ice crystals, right next to your nose; and it should be clear to you that you're dehydrated. I drink lots of liquids when I first get up, mostly juice. I have a simple formula I use, converting weight of ice to ounces of water. An algorithm that's served me well. !0 or 12 inches of snow is probably about an inch of water. Ice is variable, no one understands ice. A liquid becomes a solid. Along what lines? Just asking. Ice formation is variable. So many factors at play, wanted to make sure you knew what was at risk. You either lose the thread completely, or understand what's being said. There's not much middle ground. Pretty sure I wanted it that way. Either, or. Now that we've settled back with a drink, let's examine the battlefield. Mostly lead soldiers fulfilling a certain function, I see them clearly, they announce a point-of-view, then suddenly, the spread makes sense. What I thought you meant. Read more...

Running Around

Busy week ahead, and D's back in Athens except for Friday and Saturday. I'll have to start working Saturdays for us to have a shot at getting everything on the list, and the things not yet on the list, all done in the four weeks we have for Preventive Maintenance. A week of that painting. Then two more weeks to install new shows. I take down two small shows this week. Everything set for doing the floors this upcoming Friday and Saturday. Enough mopping to purge my soul. I'll have to wear gloves to do this much mopping, so I've modified a pair of the gallery cotton gloves, which we're not to use for handling art anymore because it's the very little nubbles that make them such good gallery gloves, that are non-archival, and therefor a no-no. Someone is out there, inventing an archival nubble. By modified I mean I've cut off the fingers. Be prepared. I've haven't been doing enough mopping to keep my callouses firm and I do hate a blister on the palm of my hand. When I mop a lot, I keep a goodly callous in the valley between thumb and first finger on my right hand and another on the rising ridge of flesh before the fingers on the left. But then I suppose any place is a bad place to get a blister. I got the word right out on the Janitor Net, about turning the last generation of gallery gloves into mopping gloves with the Bridwell Adaption and WON, get this, some award, for my stirring prose, encouraging the gloves be recycled one last time, before they were composted, nubbles and all. Nubbles might hold water. They might be a good addition to soil. And the prize, knowing me as they do, was a virgin 32 ounce Fantail Loop, in a lovely small hand-stitched pillowcase. Perfect for travel. Compact. A decent weapon if you find yourself being attached while sleeping. Met with Anthony and D for lunch, leftover Meat Pie at the pub for half-price. Talked about installation art. I want to do a show of vacuum-formed plastic sheets that reproduce the detritus in eddies. Call it "Ohio Eddies", introduce that fecund salt smell, get Barnhart to do a ten-minute sound loop. Anthony can get me access to a vacuum-form machine. I think I might start casting. The uniform-sized formed sheets would hang from some kind of grid-work. We 'd need some artificial wind. Nothing that can't be done.I walk all over town, my footprints are everywhere, as a rule, I contaminate any scene. But my intent is to never confuse anything. I'm not mean I, I don't know how to be. I thought I might be a closet critic. Read more...

Riverfront

Walked about. Went to Tim Horton's for a breakfast sandwich, but I don't like their coffee and Market Street was closed so I went to Kroger, where there is a Starbucks embedded. Then down to the river where I watched the water flow. Detritus, plastic crap in eddies and a muskrat poking his nose around. Quicksand down on the riverbank, or not quite quicksand but a mixture of sand and sludge that would make wish you hadn't walked there. Down where the Scioto flows into the Ohio the colors were different and it was actually possible to see the flow integration. I study that for a while, and an island of silt the river has built downstream of the confluence. A transient island, the next high water will take it away, but it's above river level now and boasting a few grasses and sumac. Because the river is channelized, there are severe eddies, significant eddies, severe is probably too strong a word. This island resembles the bar at Chatham. Silt/sand moving from one place to another. I need a rubber raft and a paddle. I'd love to sit out there, on a folding lawn chair, and watch the river. It's the best show in town. Watching the wake of a string of coal barges it occurs to me that water is like sand. The leeward side is shallower, the windward steeper. What a surfer rides is that differential. 20% going up and 35% coming down, you catch it right, you ride it all the way to the beach. 15% times the volume and it's a large number, the BTU's or ergs that could be generated. Or that awful scree slope of talus. I read Annie Dillard all day. She's so good. Lost a paragraph to user error. Too bummed to attempt a reconstruction. I miss Arial 10, because I could often reconstruct by the shape of the line. I made a pot of red beans with Andouille sausage and peppers, wrote about that, I remember. Wrote about sand, the process by which it spreads, saltation, and my fascination with words. Vow to never again be caught at the museum without an unabridged dictionary, I'm sure I can spare one from the ridge. Where lives my OED is truly my home. And my various encyclopedias. Read more...

Wearing Hats

I wore a great many hats today, filling my pathic and empathic functions. D dumped a bunch of data from his old main-frame onto his lap-top, then upgraded the computer in the office where I'm set-up to write. Not my office, but the office for Pegi's new assistant , when that new hire happens. I've been talking with Pegi about it, needs to happen, she needs help. And the result is that I'm working on a much faster machine. D calls it a dinosaur, but it's like a hundred times faster than my dial-up on the ridge. Felt a very strong connection with Paul, who drove down and over from Pennsylvania with Roberta, to talk about the Carter Collection; we talked mostly about water use and wood, but touched a lot of bases. I liked Roberta a lot too, I love bright women. I'm going to propose that I visit them, cook a meal, spend a night drinking and talking. I really enjoyed them. D walked something over to John's print shop and on his way back, walking through the alley, discovered one of the basement windows broken. This was a bank, this was really thick glass, behind bars, someone really wanted to break it. We revue our options. On the inside, this particular window jamb is almost inaccessible; when the weather is warmer I could get to it, but not now. So we agree that what we need is an outside temporary repair. This is tricky ground, where the temporary becomes permanent. D buys a sheet of tile substrate, they all have cute names, but they are durable and cut with a circular saw. He gets some concrete chalk, which is also cementitious and will bound perfectly with both the backer and the jamb. The back side of the backer board looks just like the limestone slabs that face the building. This temporary repair just became permanent. When I can get to it, I'll insulate the back, but this gap, 18 inches by 54 inches, at grade, in a shaded alley, was pouring cold air into the basement. We fixed that. We did some other things. I stood D to a pint, after work, so we could map out the week ahead, won't see him again until a week from tomorrow, when we do the floors. I've got to ship a show out, in the mean time, and a list of other chores. Never a boring moment. I elected to go back to the ridge because of the mud. There is nothing worse than two inches of slush over a frozen substrate. Where you slip and fall. We can laugh about that now. Read more...

Reconsidering

The fact that I'm a virtual hermit, that I hate almost all artifice. I do love Art Nouveau, though, and a lot of things that really straight people would consider camp. I don't like small dogs nor a whiney quality in anyone's response to anything. My standards are a joke. A parrot and a Rabbi go into a bar. I often mean more than I say. Dendritic drainage. Take time to draw a flow chart and it resembles the roots of a tree. Brownian motion. The edge always resembles the edge ever finer. Patterns. If you travel with a magnifying glass, as I do, and examine the edges, you begin to see patterns. I found a perfect portrait of Elvis recently, in a tortilla. I ate it quickly, because, frankly, I didn't want the traffic. This stint in town, what I realize, is that I can be alone anywhere. You, maybe, knew that, but I wasn't sure. Isolation is important to me, because it allows me to think about things. Stare into the middle distance. Intrinsically, I'm not sure anything actually signifies. Meaning is a can of worms. But I like losing myself in the middle distance. Everything sounds like a Bach progression and the light is perfect. Keep your hands at your side and listen. Back to the ridge tomorrow. A good day, today, walked to the library and liquor store. Lunch at the pub. A bit of banter with a couple of people I know well enough to talk to. Chili in the crock pot generates (rather, holds) all the moisture, so I added a can of crushed navy beans. Excellent. D set his computer up for me to watch some TV on Hulu, where you can see five episodes of almost anything. I found I could read and watch, so went through most of the shows that people had mentioned to me, over the years. I watched stuff for a day-and-a-half. Then got very bored. I never really watched more than a few hours a week. If I had cable I could wile away a few hours watching cooking shows and The History Channel. Mostly I read and stare off into space. I spend a lot of time writing paragraphs. Some of them take a long time, with many diversions. This morning, looking at the altered furniture in the upstairs gallery got me thinking about chairs, so at the library I got a history of chairs. The book Neil sent, "Mechanization Takes Command" also takes an interesting look at furniture generally, but chairs in particular. In my current state (one in which I study things closely) reading about chairs seems about right. Having the library nearby is very cool. Reading about cast iron stoves, now, too. Rumford. Another guy, Philo Penfield Stewart, one of the founders of Oberlin College, developed a stove (he ended up building 90,000 of them, "Oberlins", and they helped to fund the college). Technology was slow developing, because the guys that built stoves weren't engineers. Rumford and Stewart developed prototypes of the modern range. I've used so many wood-fired stoves that I can follow the language and schematics with attention to detail. Engages me for an entire afternoon. Over to the pub, again, for a draft Guinness, at Happy Hour, where I ignore conversation, smile, happily, over certain smoke chases and damper arrangements. I'm a cheap date. Back at the museum, I eat another bowl of the thickened and improved chili, with saltines, smeared with an herbed butter, and hot pickled pepper slices. It's very good, a transport, actually, and then I write you, which pretty much fills the time remaining. Usually, when I start writing, that place I'm in, remembering, doesn't allow a serious interruption until a final period. Increasingly, I leave part of a paragraph in limbo, go back later, make some changes, correct the flow, alter the time-line. It's all non-fiction. But even the next day I can seldom remember what actually happened. I make a show of it, present evidence, but I don't really know what happened. This is the problem, of course, with history, it's just another lie. Read more...

Movement

Duchamp probably saw Muybridge photographs. Muybridge got the idea from the frenchman E. J. Marey. It had become necessary to accurately depict movement through time. The assembly line was just around the corner. Already existed, in primitive form. Modern assembly line starts in the meat packing plants in Cincy,1870. Pigs on tracks. Even earlier, though hardly modern, was the biscuit bakery for the British Navy at Deptford, 1833. Having high speed internet and more than one computer really puts a spring in my step. Fairly sure the mend to the roof is good, similar weather conditions to when the new leak leaked and no leakage. Steady filling all three humidifiers, struggling to get the humidity up into the range to which we're committed. Not so important (it's always important) for the shows now, but the Mid-Western Modernism show specifies temp and moisture levels. I can tell, fairly closely, what the relative humidity is by how quickly my mopping evaporates. Often, in winter, first thing in the morning, when I first fill the units, I'll wet mop the floor with plain water, to give the level a boost. Side-tracked up to the roof, to watch the snow melt one last time before everything re-freezes. Then watching the re-freezing. A tongue or finger of water develops a skin, which stops movement, then things solidify. Watching anything, I'm amazed at the gaps in my knowledge, by the unanswered questions. Iron filings, for instance, and the interference of a magnet, becomes form and design. The language of phenomena. Seems anti-entropic. But I've read Maxwell and I know I'm wrong. Art, though, is not science, and Duchamp, breaks on through, to the other side. Movement depicted in a single frame. Not a simple parlor trick. Then too, modernism bows to the primitive, Braque and Picasso, visiting those caves, where the process of 'over-drawing', year after year, also depicts movement in a single frame. Vaucanson is an interesting dude, that duck was amazing; Jacquard and his loom. Their work adumbrates the punch card and computers. Count Rumford, a notorious Tory, and a genius, invented a stove that re-circulated hot gases from a wood stove, around the oven, before expelling them out the flue, for a soup kitchen he ran in Munich. An ingenious inventor, with his regulated cast iron plates, invented the modern oven. Also 'green', in that he saw no profit in wasting heat. I've always loved him, because his fireplace was such an improvement over the Franklin Stove. From arcane texts he developed an algorithm involving depth and width of fire and the size of the flue. Solving for three unknowns. Mostly it's poets that can do that, or pregnant mothers. Read more...

Alone Again

I spend a great many holidays alone. It doesn't mean anything, just that most other people are busy and I hate to intrude. Today I read "The Best American Essays of the Century" and a book by Roy Blount, Jr. "Camels Are Easy, Comedy's Hard". Fixed a fine crock pot of chili and took a long walk in a deserted town. That pretty much used up the day. Everything was closed, of course, and I spent most of the walk looking closely at architectural detail. A light snow this morning and I was able to go up on the roof and examine the repair to the EPDM membrane. No sign of leakage. Out of the blue I remember Lynn Ward's novel in woodcuts "God' Man", one of the first graphic novels, I used to own a copy but I haven't seen it in years. Remember a quote by Satre, about Genet (probably in "Saint Genet") about elegance being the quality that transforms the greatest amount of being into appearing. Can't help a certain quotient of retrospection. The lean and leather years, the number of xmases holed up with a good book, steady feeding wood to a fire. Finding a range of comfort in situations that most others would find very uncomfortable indeed. Neil sent along an interesting book, I got it at the mailbox on the ridge yesterday: "Mechanization Takes Command". The writing, I think, is fairly dreadful, condescending and asinine, but the subject matter is really interesting, redeems the book (1948!) especially the section on The Mechanization Of The Bath. I might yet write a history of shit. A subject about which, I find, I know a great deal. Ending my outside-job-working-career as a janitor in an art museum continues to be instructive on that subject. The less said. But I had an experience recently that had D apologizing that he hadn't been there to help me with the mess. Nice of him to say that, but it was fine, I'm not offended by bodily function. Too many animals, too many years. When you've had your arm stuck to the shoulder up a goat's ass, trying to correct a potential breech birth, changing a diaper isn't a problem. And to extend that thought, dealing with art, everyone is a critic. One man's waste is another man's mortar, or fuel, or whatever. Hardware you might need to hang a door, some cable you could use as a windlass. Just saying. A degree in technical theater or a few years at Janitor College might almost prepare you, but the world is a rocky place, mostly you learn it off the road. A dirt-bike spinning out of control. Listen. First thing you have to do is listen, to determine where you are. Right, the Flats seem to say one thing, but mean another, 5. Glenn, you have to help me out. Nothing makes any sense. Read more...

Ridge Report

Nice to be back in Arial 10. Need to go back to the museum tomorrow for a couple more days, and not just because more snow is forecast, but in my new capacity as Night Watchman. Seems our whole security system is essentially non-existent, and until it's resurrected and improved, next week, Pegi will sleep better if I'm there. We need for Pegi to be well-rested. Market Street was closed early for the holiday, and good for them, so we had to get coffee at Starbucks. There was still some coffee in my travel mug and the lady asked me if I wanted her to rinse it out. God no, I said, it's like a sour dough starter, I never rinse it out, it's what makes my coffee what it is. She looked at me curiously. Years ago, when they built the new high school we salvaged a carton of paper, 1200 mother sheets, 38 x 28 inches, but the cardboard carton had broken and the whole heavy thing had become aggressively floppy. It needed to be removed from the basement into D's truck, he can use it for dozens of books, and it's in my way. We slid a piece of plywood under it today, and got the damned thing into his truck. Also a very heavy, stainless steel drying rack, top of the line. We salvaged a huge amount of stuff when they moved into the new high school. A treasure trove. I'm teaching myself to become a graffiti artist, using paste pottery glaze as a medium (I have two cases of the stuff); I'm just doing large letters now, but I hope very soon to advance into pictographs. Herbert Senn could draw a nearly perfect capital Bodoni 'B' freehand. Try that at home. The really good painters I've known, it was all in the stroke. Fully charge the brush, Helen would say, and she would proceed to paint an entire Acanthus leaf in a single stroke. Sidetracks are often the message. I was going somewhere: right, the ridge. Did a few things at the museum, got rid of the paper, and I could then re-stack the pedestals, a little more space is all. Had to get dog food (Sherpa Carries Dog Food For Reality Show Host's Poodle On Their Attempt Of Everest) to the ridge. Needed to get home. Then I had to examine that and wonder what 'home' meant. Then think about what meant meant. Loops to get caught on. Without 4-wheel drive, I couldn't even get into the bottom of the driveway, so I parked in the mailbox pull-out. Probably safe enough, though I could get side-swiped if two vehicles passed there, long odds. Slog up the hill, with dog food and groceries in my back pack, another bag of dog food in my left hand, my mop-handle walking stick in my right, crampons, of course, stopping to admire the view. And the view, my god, black stick trees against a glaring white. It's stunning. This is my world. This is where I want to be, I just need to focus more attention on making it easier. The first take. Then the second take when I realize how fucking cold I am, and I need to start cutting wood now, for next winter. Talk about vacillate. I'm back in long-underwear, with jeans, a sweatshirt, fleece bathrobe and watch-cap, and happy as a stuck pig. Don't get me started on that. Camus on the killing floor. What is 'happy' and what is 'as'? Dog is crazy, running in circles, I feed her, to stop her antics. Get a drink, roll a smoke, consider my down pallet on the floor. Read more...

Distancing Myself

Standing outside with D, having a smoke, talking about bookbinding, and especially that final moment in making a hard-bound, when you 'tip' the finished insides into the finished case. The most difficult step. I go get the mail and there's a small package from Glenn and Linda, a handmade book from Florence. Bound in some very thin leather, it is a perfectly made object, flawless, tipped perfectly into the case. An older guy, Linda said, not a word of English, and this book represents a life-long apprenticeship. Exquisite. Craftsmanship tells. It's always a joy to see something so well made. A cold, clammy, windy day, much more uncomfortable than many days colder, and just when I'm about to leave for home, it starts spitting snow pellets. Without 4-wheel drive, I have to postpone return to the ridge. Tomorrow promises some sun and I must get out there, if only for a few hours. I may spend the holiday in town. Snow forecast. Loose ends at the museum, cleaning some truly awful things out of the fridge, hauling trash to the dumpster, mopping salt-encrusted floors. D joined me for a beer after work and we discussed plans for the weekend. His family is all close around, and there's a schedule; mine involves a trip to the library, making a pot of chili, and reading. I did my family thing at Thanksgiving. It's difficult to explain my attitude toward holidays, I love my family and my friends, and I'm comfortable around them, but I dislike crowds and mouthing platitudes. Pegi said I was welcome to stay at the Cirque studio, where, in the basement, there's a TV with cable; and I might go over there, watch a movie or some sporting event, the History Channel or something. Or I might just walk beneath the floodwall, examining wrack, I don't need reason for what I do, but there probably is one, buried somewhere. Reason enough. The fact that D was surprised I knew the name of the pass the Greeks were defending is surprising to me. I've not seen the movie but I know my history. Be it ever such a fiction, a matter of record, if you choose to believe anything. Fortunately my name is Thomas and I can doubt everything. Peeping, even. Read more...

Roof Work

Just above freezing, a new dusting overnight, but we've narrowed down the general area where the leak must be, so D and I on the roof, sweeping away debris. With a large push-broom D urges the the last of the melt-water to the scuppers. We leave it to dry, busy ourselves with other chores until after lunch. An excellent tomato bisque. Back on the roof, he amazingly finds what we think (process of elimination) is the leak: a glue failure on the flashing around a vent. A tough repair in this weather, but we actually have an EPDM mastic that is factory spec for application in damp cold conditions. It must be massaged into flexibility, easily achieved with a disposable plastic putty knife on a piece of scrap matt board. The repair itself takes five minutes. Probably too good to be true, but we are ever hopeful, and besides, we haven't spent a dime. Worth a shot. D has web work to do, and I have to clean the theater and mop where road salt has tracked footprints inside. My Fantail Loop is the agent of change. I'm ready to go home, early, when Pegi asks me to please stay one more night, as a wintery mix of precipitation is due and she wants to be sure the roof repair will hold. OK, I tell her, I'll stay in the heated museum one more night, with hot and cold running water, and the pub just across the way, twist my arm. D leaves a little early, since I'm staying, because he and Carma are supposed to go view a dead person (I don't understand many religious customs) and Pegi and Trish are both staying a little late to balance numbers for the final report on a grant. I lock up and go to the pub for a pint, banter with the staff and owners, and when I get back, the museum is empty and quiet. Take a sponge bath at the kitchen sink, doctor the various cracks on my fingertips, take a smoke break outside, then retire to the seclusion of an upstairs office where I read an interesting article about earth-like planets in other solar systems. Seemed like a good day to me, although maybe I didn't suffer enough, I didn't split any wood and I was never really cold; hell, I'm not even wearing long underwear. A cruise in the Bahamas. Elide from one thing to another. A choppy style, until you catch the rhythm. Then it's purely jazz, a couple of notes, then an off-beat thing, then a cow-bell, Mickey Hart on drums, and then the theme returns. Not unlike Wagner. Music is a game, as words are, as life is, really. Note what I mean by game. Lives at issue. Three kids killed in a fire, a school bus overturned, that hard line where friends die by their own hand. Read more...

About Town

Forgive me, for I have signed. Up early, and it's not as cold, mid-twenties maybe. Pegi asked me to stay, in case a new leak recurred. Make a pot of coffee, wash my hair and shave in a warm bathroom, then walk over to Market Street for a breakfast wrap, which they do there in some style. I've measured, inside where the water was actually dripping, though with roof leaks this information is notoriously useless, especially in roofs that are EPDM membranes. Still, one needs a place to start. To further complicate the search, the immediate area, above, where the leak drips, below, is in a space comprised of "crickets" (built up sections of underlayment) that direct water toward a scupper (a hole in the parapet) so that it might escape. I spend several hours, to no avail, looking for a crack or hole or flashing failure. Lunchtime I go over to the pub for a pint and something to eat. They serve Shepherd's Pie on the weekend and reduce the price on Monday to get rid of the left-overs. Huge hot bowl of meat and vegetables with a mashed potato crust. I eat myself into a coma for 5 bucks. After lunch I walk over to the library, then down below the berm and floodwall at Glover Street and along the banks of the Ohio. A pair of muskrats in a debris filled eddy, not as elegant as otters, but plenty interesting to watch. I'm squatted on the riverbank, watching them frolic, under the new bridge, at the edge of a small parking lot where there's a kid's playground, and a city cop drives up, wonders what I'm doing there. I point out the muskrats, roll him a smoke, he squats and watches them with me for a few minutes. We talk about night-fishing for catfish, strickly catch-and-release, you can't eat bottom feeders when the bottom is toxic sludge, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the contest. Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie. I'd better go, next thing you know I'm eating Bambi. Read more...

Caught Out

The Freedom of Information act could get some janitors killed. Must be the internet, but my understanding was that all the records had been destroyed. To have it thrown back in my face now is quite a shock. That damned Barnhart is a ferret when it comes to search engines. I was at the Lamasery Lavatory Complex when the shit hit the fan. That much is true. But it was at Podoisk, not Potala. A great deal of time and money was spent on that ruse, despite the fact that Mary and I had both assured everyone that a cover-up would never work, the stink was just too great. Podoisk was where Lenin liked to meet his cronies, some agency got wind of something going on, and as there was a very good school there, offering graduate courses in Frozen Pipes and Composting Under Adverse Conditions. The Cold War going on, but there was still an exchange of information. We were inserted in the guise of simple Mid-Western students. As I'm the only one left alive, for the record, I feel the need to set things straight. When the "dirty bomb" went off, I was several miles away, looking for my glasses, in a sod hut, where, two afternoons a week, I'd meet a lovely Latvian exchange student, Greta, and we'd attempt sex under the weight of several bearskins. Movement was impossible and we often just talked about old movies. Because the sod huts were dug into the ground, when the explosion happened, I was several feet below grade, on my hands and knees. Everything at ground level was swept away. A day later, huddled under a bearskin and turf, I signaled a chopper, within days I was back in Iowa, told never to say anything to anyone. My life as a spy. Read more...

Final Performance

A zoo. During the celebration after, I stationed myself in the center of the main gallery, to prevent young kids from caroming off the walls. Too many sweets. One stopped toilet upstairs (a wad of toilet paper the size of my head) and a case of projectile vomiting in the Ladies Room on the ground floor. I was, early in my career, used to cleaning vomit. My first job, after Janitor College, was at the medical school, Long Island University, and when the students started their first dissections there was a lot of vomiting. I had a one year contract, to fill in for the long time janitor, Thorvald Isaacson, who had taken a sabbatical to study Organic Chemistry in Uppsala, Sweden. He was a wonderful fellow, a mentor of sorts, that I had met at a Janitor Conference where he had delivered a paper on protein binders. He had a taste for strong liquor. The lurid reports of his death as a terrorist bombing were finally put to rest when it came to light that he had built a still in the basement of the Chemistry Lab and the fumes from his triple-run apple brandy had ignited from the propane burner he was using to fire the operation. He was a smart guy, so I figure there was a ventilation failure, he was often drunk, and probably wouldn't notice, three sheets to the wind, a simple electrical outage. How do they generate electricity in Sweden anyway? Raindeer farts? At any rate, I kept the job for four years, and would have been tenured, but I couldn't stand dealing with hacked apart cadavers. Fucking students would leave body parts everywhere; and besides, I had my own interests by then, my first major paper, "Gender Differences In Treatment Of Public Bathrooms", and a grant that would send me to Japan. The ephemeral nature of things. In hindsight I probably should have just stayed on as an adjunct mopping instructor. But I had aspirations. Aspirations are the kiss of death. History isn't memory, it's a complete fiction, I can't even remember yesterday. Read more...

Marginally Better

Start a day with a couple of hours shoveling heavy wet snow, and breaking up the ice underneath where people have walked and the rest of the day is a piece of cake. Pegi had a performance tonight and two tomorrow, she asks me to please stay at the museum so I can lock up and look after things. Fine, I say, but I really have to run out to the ridge tomorrow for a couple of hours, make sure things are ok, get some clean socks. Getting colder, again, and the roads are terrible. As soon as the show was over tonight, I sent her home and dealt with the adrenalin crazed, sugar fueled cast. Finally got everyone out of the building, did a little clean-up. Need to haul trash tomorrow, clean a bit more, and restock the bathrooms. My floor is again a mess, what with road-salt footprints and cupcake icing in the grout joints. D and I talked logistics today, as the two main shows come down at the end of the month, another comes in for upstairs, the downstairs is black for a month, for major patch, repair, and painting. A long list of things that need to be done. Care and feeding of your facility. I miss the ridge, the wildness of it, not the brutality of the life, but that sense of being deeply embedded in the natural world. I've lived that way for so long, so close to the edge, that I'm accustomed to whatever degree of discomfort, in exchange for a life in which there is no mediation. A classic debate, the pope or bishop or landlord tells you what you can or cannot do, as opposed to doing what you damned well please to do, with the attendant dangers. I thought this hiatus would answer some questions, instead, there are only more issues. After all these years alone, I have trouble compromising. I'd rather die in a tree-tip pit, heating beans in a can, than listen to a sermon. After work, before the evening performance, I go over to the pub for a pint. Lively conversation. Astra is a thing of beauty, the way she moves breaks my heart, when she pops Isaac with a towel, I think, oh please, step on me. Read more...