Above Freezing

The ridge is still snow-bound but rotting fast, spike out the stove quickly with very dry red maple. Wait, that was yesterday. Too many split-shots of Irish Whisky, with Murphy's Stout to chase. Anthony is a perfect drinking companion. The conversations I'd missed since the fracture with B. We talked about site-specific installations, specific gravity, and where we'll be when the cows came home. Open up the museum early because I'm expecting an electrician D has talked to about repairing some of the light tracks in the main gallery. Mark, I think his name is. He shows, a little late, because his 19 month-old first child, a boy, wanted Daddy. I've got a world of things to do, Clean up some dried vomit, on carpet, in the Carter gallery, strip hardware, fill holes, erase marks (there are numerous light pencil marks hidden by a hung piece: center-line, distance from floor, spacing from the neighbor) to allow for easier touch-up. Because the vomit is dry, I cover it with a very wet towel, leave it to moisten. I took a course in this. Removal Efficiency, after the mandatory Detention Time. Vomit is easy to clean, if you catch it wet. This case is a little odd because the vomitor was moving away from the bathrooms, toward a quiet corner, which me wonder what he or she was drinking. I get a whiff, through the towel, of gin, which must have been from a flask, because it wasn't an event with a bar. I have to remember to tell you about the recent experiments with left-over mashed potato croquettes. Pegi asked me about finger-food for the opening, mid-western and my first thought was potatoes. Sling whatever barbs about profiling, but they were the first thing I thought about. I'd seen some on the Food Network, god bless Hulu. The electrician shows and this is a two-man job, because the dimmers and breakers are 70 feet away from where Mark is working on a ladder. I need to stay close, so I refill and sand the holes from the last show, flip switches on and off. Once you soaked the dried vomit, you wipe it up, I keep old tee-shirts for the soaking and wiping and then just throw them away. Not that different from baby-milk-puke, or a ewe dying from a prolapsed uterus. All of it is pretty much the same. There's a new show of Rockwell Kent at Denison. I know way too much about Rockwell Kent, I own some of his work, found two of his original cartoons, in an attic on Cape Cod. I was teaching Waste Water Management at the time, but there was this Hungarian, teaching a curse in Transcendental Waste; a weird woman, She took no excuses and failed almost everyone. It's hard to say when I'm serious, and when I'm poking fun. Take Astra, for instance. Consider the three different leaves on a sassafras. Consider almost anything, for that matter. Patsy Cline, John Lee Hooker, always the other side. I actually wrote down a recipe, does that make me a Republican? Read more...

Unhanging Alice

First, though, I must mop the back hallway, to see how the new finish held up to reception traffic, tracking in road salt. Excellent mopability. Then, as I was in mopping mode, swept then mopped the common room and bathroom upstairs, then vacuumed the offices. The Alice pieces are fairly light. I get 16 of the 19 pieces in the monster crate solo, while D designs an announcement card for the Brent Lee glass show. Early afternoon D joins me and we get all of the Alice crated. 15 pieces in each of the two other crates. 49 pieces in three crates. By comparison, the Mid-West modernist show, "Against The Grain" is in nine crates, four shipping boxes and five large open boxes holding several bubble-wrapped paintings each, so 18 packages. Total of 53 pieces. Much to do before that show hangs. Everything needs painting, after patching the 78 holes. Have to get the pedestals ready for the glass show. Found a missing painting from the permanent collection yesterday, it's in the Governor's Office in Columbus. Some confusion with the loan forms. So, I've found everything in the collection except for two photos of Roy Rogers. He was from around here, the esplanade is named for him. Best hot-dogs in town used to be from a street vendor there, but he's gone, now, and there's just a plaque. Roy in bronze relief, with his hat at that cocky angle. D had to get home, with Cool Whip for the pumpkin pie Carma had baked, but I went to the pub and had a shot of Paddy, my new favorite of the Irish Whiskies. Had a small chat with Jordan, the beautiful but seldom smiling and always quiet waitress. She asked me where my partners-in-crime were, and I said they had families and a life, She asked what about you, and I told her I lived alone in the woods but the Director of the museum was out-of-pocket and had asked me to stay in town in case there was any problem. "Against The Grain" is a very valuable show. She, Jordan, asked where I slept, and I told her I didn't sleep, just drank coffee and walked around with a baseball bat. Got a laugh out of her. It's hard to be completely up to speed in real time. Usually you think of what to have said later. So many filters between what we think and what we say. "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." George Orwell. If you're not in it for the bucks, you tease out meaning for it's own sake. The problem with history is deciding what to believe. There's this weird guy we run into at the pub occasionally, who feels it necessary to invade our private conversation. I can ignore almost anything, but the hair on D's neck prickles. The guy came in while we were lunching today, D picked up his bowl and downed his soup, asked Isaac for our checks, and got us out of there before he would say something really rude. He, D. hates these interruptions in our conversation. I'm afraid he's going to kill the guy, it occurs to me I might have to kill the guy, so D doesn't have to. I don't have much of a temper, but I won't see my friends suffer. If it wasn't for the Cool Whip I might have gone for a piece of pumpkin pie, so I could explain the theory of fall-back positions. On the Intimacy Scale, most of the people at the pub touch me now, when they're passing or giving me some water. I hear Bach in the heating ducts, a sonorous longing; what's bringing Alice down off the wall? A change of venue. Internet server went out. I'd stopped writing for a while, to read, and had saved, so didn't lose anything. Went out to the ridge this morning. A different world. The snow is mostly gone in town, and the temps above freezing, but on the ridge the snow has settled to a four inch crust and the driveway was solid ice. I'll try again tomorrow to get to the house. Dave said he could work on the truck net weekend. The lake was frozen over and covered with snow. I stopped to walk down to the spillway. That interesting visual phenomenon where the napp of water lifts the edge of ice so it can escape. A pileated woodpecker and three crows. The remaining ducks were crowded into a picnic shelter. St Augustine said that memory is the belly of the soul. Read more...

Fairly Abstract

Heavy lifting. Days that D works we need to get many things done that I can't do alone. The awkward and heavy. Place is a mess, serious work to be done. Take down the Alice show, pack it in the ridiculous crates, the heaviest one is 303 pounds. Stupid. Get those ready to ship. The modernism show arrived, on schedule, during the reception for the student show. Well packed, we unload the truck, there are four of us, in twenty minutes flat; all through the back door, didn't have to use the loading door, which was a good thing, because the alley is a sheet of ice. Good test for the re-finished floor. Put that show in the main gallery, which is closed and newly secure. Big show, 53 painting, can't wait to see them, hold them, hang them, look at them for a couple of months. One of the cool perks of hanging art is the degree of intimacy involved. We get to wear the white gloves and handle things. First though, after unhanging Alice there will be 90 or more holes in the walls. The next show for upstairs Brent Lee glass, will be coming in next week. Rapidly becoming a warehouse. Keeping everything away from the walls so I can do the patch and repair. Crazy amount of damage this time, so many anchors, and the next show will be the same. Wall anchors generally, by their nature, are permanent attachments; but in museums, they're temporary, fleeting even, a one-night stand. Several lists started in broad outline; projected needed hardware, schedule of daily events, painting projects, keeping an eye at the market for more of those mussels. Pegi, with a co-worker and six kids are going on a retreat (a yearly thing) where they listen to music and consider what Cirque dance stuff they might do in the coming year. In a paranoid frenzy, Pegi asked me to be the person someone would call if something went wrong at the museum, asked me to stay in town for another couple of nights. Sure, I said, it's heated, and there's hot running water. Being a "B" writer is OK, a minor regionalist, I'd take that. I'm not much, really, other than minor regionalist. The problem is if I stopped writing, I wouldn't have anything to do; then, I'd already b a problem. I've done the math. If nothing you ever say counts against you, you might plead simply dumb. These these Wal-Mart gals are perfect. I rest my case. What I thought I meant. Read more...

Bowling Trophies

Just kidding about the bowling, though I did enjoy it when I was in High School. For five bucks you could bowl unlimited games between midnight and five AM. I played in a league for a year, because I wanted the shirt; bowled a 617 set, with a 239 high score. But I just found a picture of the trophy I won at the Mopping World Championships. It was, or still is, a beautiful thing. I sold it to finance the publication (pay for the mono-typing) of a book of strange Gaelic Tales that had never been translated. Excellent project, beautiful book, letterpress, of course, with four-color block print illustrations. The trophy was specially designed and constructed. A bronzed Fantail Loop mounted on what almost looks like a candle-stand. Oval chevron-inlaid top tilting above a baluster and urn-form support on three down-swept line-inlaid legs ending in spade feet A handsome thing. I gave all my Public Speaking and Debate trophies to my High School. Had all the medals, the gold and silver ones, mounted as charms on a bracelet my Mom wore for many years. Wrack and opinion. I don't keep photographs. Nothing left but memory. I'm almost done reading about the history of furniture, burning out on it. Anything can interest me for a while, even nothing. And now I can describe the base for the mopping trophy. In a book on chairs, today, here's the description: Outstanding Federal Mahogany Lolling Chair (a lolling chair, fuck me, I have one of those, but it doesn't look the same) having a serpentine crest, molded arms and arm supports and molded tapered legs joined by "H" stretchers. All Original. Massachusetts, circa 1790. They had fresh mussels at Kroger, so I bought a few things and devised a method to cook them in a small crock pot. This was tricky, but you know how necessity spawns invention. I cooked down some celery and onions in butter and white wine, with the setting on high, added the mussels. Took too long to open and they were a little tough, but I did this without a stove, and I'd made a lovely fairly hot Thai dipping sauce. Blue Mussels may be my favorite shellfish, followed closely by razor clams, and then, oysters, but this is a preference list from a guy who eats everything. Snails are good, large beetles without their legs, ant eggs are a lot like caviar. Pregnant women take note, high in folic acid . Fine set of six Federal carved mahogany side chairs, each having a molded shield back containing vertical slats connected with carved drapery, rosettes and a central urn, all over an over-upholstered seat, all on tapered legs ending in spade feet. Now that I understand the language, I could go on forever. Read more...

Secret Wishes

I communicate well with a wide spectrum of people. It's a talent. Bullshit, for the most part, but there is, embedded, a kernel of actual communication. Something. An interface. Language moves too fast for me, I'm several generations behind. I still spilt shingles with a froe. Not a question of right or wrong, but the way you learned to do a particular thing. I think about this a lot, being an autodidact and so rudely informed about so many things. I could make a list. I might do more things badly than anyone in the universe, I might well hold the record. The museum was closed today, no one could get to work, but I was there, so I fielded phone-calls. I made stuff up, and gave incorrect directions. This is a game I play, there are very few instructions, you roll dice and move a piece. Almost everything is a red herring. Talked with the bar-maid Libby, about playing fast-pitch softball. I love this game. I've learned to stop, on any Friday evening, wherever I find myself, Peoria, and watch a game. Buy a hot-dog, be a fan. What we were talking about. I forget so much, what I remember is interesting because I remember it. There a new book of 49 Emily poems, with illustrations by some graphic guy I'm supposed to know. Good to go, but I don't know him, and don't give a shit. because I know the poems. What other agent could you possibly bring in, a ringer, who would possibly meet your criteria. I was going to say maybe the bar was set too high, but I don't believe that, what we all really crave is to be engaged. I read Hannah and those fucking Germans. Critical Theory and everyday thought aren't that far apart. I call up my muse. I have her on speed-dial. I amuse myself mostly. Whatever else goes on. Assume you were me. What would you do? Read more...

Pending Snow

Spent part of the day on the ridge, got my mail so I can pay bills, came back to town because of the forecast snow, walked down below the floodwall. Cooked a pot of greens with salt-pork, some cheese grits refried in butter. Walked to the library. The sludge was frozen, on the banks of the Ohio, so I could skip rocks and look for interesting things without getting my boots layered in mud. Almost remembering something I curse the faulty powers of retrieval. Distracted from the failure of memory by finding a nice pearl necklace. The delicate chain is gold, because it hasn't been corrupted by the PCPs and other crap at water's edge, and the single pearl, surrounded by diamond fragments extends the argument that white is almost never pure. In bright sun I see a light blue in the center. There's a knot in the chain that I finally tease out using a splinter I carved from a log beached by high water. What is the natural world anyway? The Ohio is no longer a natural river, she's channelized, but things that wash up are a natural product of a given environment. When I write on the ridge, I walk around a lot, from window to window, looking at the way things are framed, Walking in town I see more of a panorama. No, not true, I still focus on detail, but when I look up, the scene, the view is not what I expect. A paradigm shift, but not that far, really. What I see. Park me in China and I'd probably notice shoes. Not a reference back to boots, but I do notice footwear. Mostly because the first thing I look at are ankles. I'm a student of ankles. They interest me. When Madeline took off her boots, which was seldom, her ankles were exquisite. Neither here nor there. I flushed a murder of crows, down on the creek bank, scared me near to death. Everything prepares you for the next time you come across the unexpected. A rule of nature. My computer locks up, maybe it's the snow. Still sore, I go to my pallet early. Down pallet on the floor. Hung the student show today, 24 drawings, and got them labeled. The Memory Project, a yearly thing. Some guy went to Central America, overwhelmed by the number of orphans who had not a single possession that pre-dated them waking up in an orphanage. So he photographs them, then uses art classes in the USA to draw sketches from the photos. Now the kids have a drawing of themselves as kids. I checked it out enough to know it's legit. A niche, not to put a negative spin on it. Some of the drawings are quite good, and some closer to folk-art. They all hang from a single point, a little serrated hanger with notches. A pain in the butt. Hard to get them straight because you can't see behind them, to find the correct notch. I do a decent job, the show looks good, really; I move some lights and it looks better. D didn't leave me any signage but I had a graphic idea and decided to just do it myself, note to phone Victor tomorrow and call in a favor. Please sir, if you'll cut this vinyl lettering for me today, I'll gladly buy you a case of beer. The barter network. A code that allows great liberty but imposes certain limitations. You can't go anywhere, you can't be away overnight, as the goats need milking, and there is cheese, that needs turning and salting. Bottle three cases of beer, decant five gallons of Elder Blow wine, that is to be added as an aromatic to a mixed berry base. Nothing prepares you. As it happens, this is the best wine I ever make, I remember it like earlier today. You remember earlier today, don't you? When we promised to walk five miles a day? Read more...

Recovering

Meant to go home today, but couldn't face the hike up the driveway. Dave can look at my truck next weekend, see if he can fix the 4-wheel drive. Not like I don't have enough to do. Supposed to snow again tomorrow night, and I can't get trapped on the ridge. Got to hang the student show on Tuesday for the Wednesday opening, must restore order in the main gallery, the library and gift shop, where we moved everything for the floor cleaning. The kitchen is a wreck, and there are probably cookies and punch for the opening. The tool room and basement are disaster zones. Taking early delivery of the Modernism Show Friday, and the delicate glass show, for upstairs, next week. My dance card is full. What I don't need is to meet the woman of my dreams this week. Spent a lovely hour with a prostitute at the laundromat, we were the only ones there, a Sunday morning. She called herself Ruby but I don't think that's her name. I refused her services in a nice way, and we chatted while we folded our warm clothes. She's sweet, probably a speed freak because she was trembling in withdrawl. I took her to Tim Horton's, bought her chocolate milk and potato soup, listened to her abused life. I felt like a reporter and wished I'd had a tape recorder or a smart cell phone in my pocket. She asked me what I did, and I lied. I told her I was an Emergency Room janitor at the hospital. It's nice, writing in a warm space. I miss Arial 10 but I'm willing to make some sacrifices. She asked me to take her back to her corner, the southwest side of the old Mitchell Lace factory. Which made shoe-strings, 80 years ago, in the shoe capital of the world, the deserted streets of which I now walk on a regular, though unpredictable, schedule. I sleep different hours, I'm not ruled by sunrise and sunset, the way I was when I just kept a large fire going at the outside of my cave, ate a lot of grilled mastadon. You remember those days? When we fucked anything that moved? I once made love to a warm liver. If we're going to be straight with easy, go all the way. Linda will know what it meant. I only trust a few people. Trust is really difficult. Most people cut a deal and sell you to the highest bidder. I'm fortunate, in the Friend's Department, I have several. They always post my bail. That says something, doesn't it? The quality of mercy. When I got up to pee, four in the morning, I turned on the lights in the Carter gallery and looked at paintings for an hour. Decided white is almost never actually white. Consider snow. When it's really cold, it's blue, and at sunrise or sunset, under the right conditions, it glows a kind of pink. Color is like sound, I don't understand it, the way meaning is constructed. The world goes on, unabated, anything you are is insignificant. We merely try to live as long as possible. Sorry about that, I was just thinking about death, and the way it catches us, every one. There are light touches too, the kiss of humor. One of the few women at Janitor College was a fucking hoot. I loved her. Madeline. She wore cowboy boots over peg-leg jeans. There was a lot of blue. Severe clear. Her boots were spectacular. I'd better go. Read more...

Transformation

More snow, but D made it in. We went to Market Street for coffee, and Loretta made us a breakfast wrap (one, cut in half, is a meal for two) that was outstanding; bacon, eggs, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and a pile of cheese. Thus fortified, we scrubbed the back hall, the last three hundred square feet, the dirtiest by far. Another six buckets of water, then we mopped the entire gallery again, another four buckets of water; then we picked small pieces of debris off the floor. I carried a plastic Kroger bag, under my belt; both of us knelt often, to scrape hardened unknown substances from the grout joints. Most of them, I think, are deposits of solidified cup-cake icing. We're both in great spirits despite two marathons in two days, because we want to see the finish, see if our reasoning, about this particular task, was on target. Crap, embedded in the final glaze, would be a tragedy. Locked in forever. So we are meticulous. Dues for Allah, a few glittery sequins escape notice. They're part of the permanent collection now. I cut all the edges with a foam mop and D uses a virgin 20 ounce Standard to spread the product. Terra-Glaze is an acrylic polymer with an ether dryer. We shouldn't lose many brain cells but we might fall asleep. After lunch, we started the application. There were some streaks in the first coat, which we were expecting. D was good feathering his edges, and we applied the second coat in the opposite direction. The whole project came together. The floor is beautiful. A stunning piece of work. Another example of Bridwell's Law #1, you take the worst thing on the list, you make it much better, and everything looks good. I'm surprised it's not my idea but D wonders if there might not have been a cubic foot of dirt. We could have settled the rinse water, then strained it, formed the residue into a block. Specific gravity probably close to sand, It would probably stick together because of the icing (after 28 days, icing becomes cementitious), what a cool object that would be. Pegi wants me to do another show, and I think it'll be about specific gravity, still on the drawing board. Which is a curious phrase for me to use, since I don't draw and seldom keep notes. But I'm thinking about it, in those dim dark recesses. Usually it's Linda that points out where I was going, she's an actress and understands almost everything is theater. Sometimes Barhart hits me from behind, music (and smell) can trigger events. Even a single word. Adumbrate. For instance. I'm tired and sore. I'm going to ingest some legal drugs and go to bed. Fuck a bunch of causitry. Causealitry. A dozen different spellings, I only give you the most recent. Casual. Nothing we could book him for. Read more...

Marathon

A perfect way to not spend a day. Tomorrow will be again. Every joint and muscle in my body is spent. D is half my age and he was walking dead, stopped us at 4:30, because we had stopped talking and were communicating with grunts and gestures. Seriously wasted. He had control of the scrubber, I mopped like a man possessed. We got 3700 square feet done, scrubbed and double mopped. Still have to do 300 feet of back hallway (the dirtiest floors in the building) then re-mop everything, let it dry, and do two coats of sealer tomorrow. This job would have cost a thousand dollars, at least. I used 20 changes of water in the six gallon Rubbermaid mop bucket, mopping up sludge. The Peroxy 2 foams the dirt out and there was an amazing amount of dirt. Disgusting, really. My senior year at Janitor College we took the gold in mopping at the Custodial Games, but I was so much younger then. Today, even using the Modified Chevron and the new 32 ounce Fantail Loop, paying attention to my body, using my thighs and paying close care to posture, it was all I could do to mop for seven hours. In my prime, well, I still hold the school record for Marathon Mopping. 42 hours (a ten minute break every two hours) before I literally fell asleep leaning on my handle. Mopping for the record requires intensive training. My mop wringer is dying, I'm going to need a new one in next year's budget, and they don't make the Geerpress Floor Prince anymore. I went online tonight, The Janitor Network, to see what anyone had to say about the new generation of wringers. I'm sure they're plastic. The heavy, metal, one I'm using now has lasted over thirty years. I used it today probably 10 times for every change of water, so 200 times, and I do that double-squeeze I learned in college, so 400 times. Heavy use. I can't imagine a piece-of-shit plastic wringer holding up under that kind of demand. We had to stop a couple of times to let the fucking scrubber cool down. An industrial tool. And we were pushing it right to the limit. Actually, the noise precluded any conversation that wasn't yelled. I mostly focused on what I think of, now, as a kind of mid-western zen state, in which doing and not doing are the same. I protect my body, the physical aspect of me, that's mopping endlessly, but I have that aspect well in hand, the rhythm of the Modified Chevron is like cross-country skiing, once you get your body in motion, assuming someone has laid track. Even laying track, I grew adept at gliding. There is no effort, when all the cells are firing. That many hours with a handle in my hand, and not a blister. That's what I'm talking about. What I thought I was talking about. Nine ways from Sunday. Probably mean something to someone. I have daughters, for instance. I got a new 32 ounce Fantail Loop, because I expected to total the recent new 32 ounce Fantail Loop. I can't write that enough, it makes me laugh. I'll get over it. But it is such a fine mop-head, so well constructed, so well designed, engineered, that I clean it at end of the day. D's collapsed on the stairs, and I'm cleaning my mop bucket, rinsing my mop-head, realizing she (mop-heads, like boats, are generally feminine) was good to go. I must have mopped eight thousand feet of floor today. This would have killed a cheap mop-head. I don't date those girls anymore. Fanny may be a keeper. You give a mop-head a name, and then what happens? You can't live within a mile of any church. I don't sleep with mop-head, that was an ugly rumor, but I do wash her hair, and comb it out. My god, I've thrown over the fox for a mop-head. Will my friends think less of me? Should I care about that? I monitor myself as close as I can, not much gets by me, but the deal is there's this panoply, a fugue, the ongoing nature of things. Which, of course, makes me think about the last time we connected. Forget the hand-cuffs. Read more...

Miscellaneous

First, made a list of errands. Try to remember the various things we'll need. Go by Janitorial Supply. They got in the Peroxy 2 cleaner we needed, the scrubber is ready, and one of their reps is loaning the correct brush. We buy his products, he supplies the brush. We've tried all the pads and brushes, this one has long medium-stiffness bristles that works on both the tile and the grout. Didn't get everything moved out of the gallery, but we'll make short work of that first thing. Got side-tracked into patching and repairing, then painting the little Mehser gallery as there's a student show opening the first of next week. What with the mopping and finishing, don't know when I'll install that. Stopped at the Office Supply for some things. Stopped at the hardware store for a throw away sponge mop, to do the edges with the Terra Glaze, and to get some spray glue, so I can do labels for the student show. Stopped at Kroger and got some Orange Cleaner, bought a few groceries, as it started snowing. I'm not going home until the floor is finished. They start installing the new alarm system Tuesday. I'll be the Night Watchman for a few more cycles. Just made the rounds, talking into my shoulder, rattling gates and checking doors. Curious, when I get back to writing, after the prowl, I notice that there seems to be another paragraph stored in Drafts. I'm new to Mac. Don't remember what it's about. Went over to the college, to touch a couple of bases. Involved issue. I talk with Pegi every day, and she needs help, an assistant, an intern, someone to do stuff for her, and also to help with the writing, press releases, radio spots. I thought a place to look might be among recent graduates from the Art Department who hadn't found work. Which would be most of them. I can vet the number down by asking them to write a short paragraph about whatever room in which we found ourselves. A simple exercise. Attention to detail is the critical element. So when I finished painting I went over to the U, talked with the art department secretary, told her to tell Lane, the finest of the Art History people, AND keeps in contact with his students. He might know someone. After work, a pint of Murphy's stout, the younger John, the manager, bar-tender four nights a week, comes over, where I'm sitting, nursing a pint, before retreating again to solitude. The Natchez Trace follows a buffalo trail. Compress history, you really don't have to remember everything. The occasional nod is often enough. Sure, I remember You. Listen, darling, I was there. Nothing, nothing, nothing, then a newsreel, your president admits he's a shyster. Kind of takes the cake. I don't know why I suddenly didn't give a damn. Fucking constructs. Pegi asked me to do another show, that really took my attention. Something that isn'd root-balls, was my first response. Life on the Ohio. I'm almost as Bob Evans as anyone else. I mean what the fuck, I need to eat breakfast. You, and your ilk. They drink decaffinated coffee as if was real. God bless their lost souls. Read more...

Toasted

Nothing quite like an Irish Whiskey tasting half a block from where you're sleeping. The sheer convenience of it. A dozen of us, sampled four, then Lee, next to me, ordered shots of three others, then the owner came over. I'd brought over the Johnny Walker Blue, that I more or less liberated from Florida. Karol had brought it over to drink, on the porch, at my parents; but there was a lot of other things to drink. The whole history of designer rums. So I took the scotch out of circulation, brought it back to Ohio, keep it in the vault at the museum. Had it here since Thanksgiving an still three-quarters full. At the pub I stand four, and then a fifth, to a taste, which then grants me a taste of Jameson 18 year old. A couple of draft Guinness, to cleanse the palette. I would never do this if I had to drive, period. Would not. And it is really nice to lay back, in a comfortable pub, and shoot the shit. I can do a line of talk, on a great many levels, about a great many things. Read 2 or 3 hundred books a year for 55 years and you can pretty much bullshit about anything. Really connected with the pub owners, Barb and John, tonight, We settled at the far end of the bar, and people came to us. Lee, a customer, and good friend of the owners, became the bartender for a while because John's leg was bothering him. I'm sitting there, watching, and participating in social interaction, and I think about how far off the ridge I am. Was then, when I was thinking about it. Which I remember now. Three removes in the blink of an eye. Ally ally in free. Trying to learn the language. Another plastic medium. I was taking signage off the wall today, vinyl detail, and I, as we, often do, left some words, plucked from the words that composed the signage. A cool medium, a deconstruction, whatever. Fact is, you can create meaning from left-overs. I don't know what that means. Interpretation is at least as difficult as translation. I left a message for D, in the Richard's gallery, it read:

INK SMALL
fen lit

and I liked it, it was suitably ambiguous, which gained stature for me, and seemed to be saying something. I listened, I'm a good listener; probably I was only ever laid because I listened. Originally, I thought I might be a lawyer, because I could imagine arguing my defense. More recently I wouldn't argue anything. Too much bother. Thought, like grass, should be mowed. Otherwise you end up with pre-verts. And verbs. Then nouns. God-damn mother-fucking language. What I'm thinking, is that I'd be more use to the movement, if I just died on top of a pole. We could get good coverage, Diane Sawyer. I'm not even tempted. I'd much rather die unknown. Read more...

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...