David Bowie

So I'm surfing FB a bit, and there's a post from my high school alumni group (SAMOHI CLASS of 1972), with a meme: *You can only purchase 1 ticket!* And 9 images—a few of whom I'm so dorky, I don't even know... but the ones I do know are Bob Marley, Prince, David Bowie, X, Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, X, Freddie Mercury, X (this last X being the only female in the lineup, go figure).

Most of the responses are for Jimi. Also Freddie, Marley. Me: David Bowie all the way. In part because I completely missed him back in the day. But the more I've encountered him over the years, the more impressive I find him. 

So yeah, I'd have loved to have seen him perform. Boy and how.

So here are a few performances I've conjured up on YouTube. Just for fun. Or remembrance. 

"Spiders from Mars":

"Heroes" (he gets started around 1:45):
 

"Rebel Rebel":

 "Young Americans":

Oh, okay, here he is with Freddie Mercury, "Under Pressure." Amazing vocalists, both.

 And finally, here he is chatting with Conan O'Brien. He just seemed so *likable*.

David Bowie has been gone eight years now. He died at 69—my age now. He'd be 77 now. He did so much. 

Keith Bymer Jones and Paul Cummins, potters

I've been watching The Great Pottery Throwdown, and each week I am captivated by the technical challenge—which might be a set of three different-sized flower pots or a perfect globe or six identical plates, etc. It's always demonstrated by one of the two main hosts/judges, Keith Bymer Jones. So I thought I'd search him out on YouTube, see if there are any representative features on him. And yes! Of course. But it turns out, he's more than just a potter. He seems to be a British sensation.

Here are a couple of the more pottery-focused features I enjoyed:

And then there's this: 

On the episode I watched this evening, the special challenge was a dozen (ceramic) roses, and the special judge was Paul Cummins, who in 2014, together with Tom Piper and 300 ceramicists, created an installation at the Tower of London commemorating the start of WWI called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, featuring a bazillion ceramic poppies—or to be exact, 888,246, each representing a British fatality in that war. Here are some photos:

It's always so thrilling to see passion in action. No mattter what the medium.

Curiosity 100: Rhiannon Giddens, musician

Yay, 100! But that's irrelevant, compared to the artist I'm featuring here: Rhiannon Giddens, banjo player, fiddler, and wonderful vocalist. I don't have much to say, except that I learned about her about 20 years ago, via the Carolina Chocolate Drops. And then last night we saw and listened to her perform at our Golden State Theater, and it was amazing. Rhiannon and five others, sometimes six or seven. Roots music, with her minstrel banjo or a Cajun tune or two; music evoking the 1920s; and lots of love (or almost-love) songs.

This song about the experience of being a slave, "Come Love Come," is nicely done in this recorded version, but her performance last night was more powerful, a searing lament. 

Here's her Tiny Desk Concert from three years ago. (She's chatty; keep scrolling if you lose interest. She won't know.)

I felt enriched by Rhiannon's (and the others') passion and talent, and by the American nature of the music. I keep feeling so conflicted over the course this country seems to be taking, which seems so idiotic to me—but then I'm reminded of the many treasures this culture, this diverse culture, has to offer. And I'm glad it's mine. (Then again, talk to me again in November...)

For now, I am so glad we went to hear and see Rhiannon Giddens perform. She's one of those treasures, for sure.

Book Report: Erasure

7. Percival Everett, Erasure (2001)

According to Wikipedia, Percival Everett has written 22 novels, many books of short stories and poetry, and a children's book. Why hadn't I heard of him before American Fiction—the movie on which Erasure is based?

Well, it doesn't matter, because now I have heard of him, and I will continue to read him. I loved Erasure: it's smart, it's funny, it's poignant, it's angry, it's fully lived. 

It's the story of Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a Black writer and critical theorist who becomes fed up with the publishing world and the cubbyholes they'd like to shove him in, and so decides to embrace the stereotype—in full irony. Yet, the irony overtakes him, for the gangsta novella that he quickly writes as something of a sendoff joke becomes celebrated as the "real" thing.

Meanwhile, he is dealing with family issues, and money issues, and job issues. And perhaps most directly, identity issues. 

Immediately after I finished the book, we watched American Fiction. It was okay. But it missed the internal dialogue and a lot of the nuance of the novel (of course). That said, it also made for a different ending than the book did. The book was very much in Monk's head, whereas the movie needed to externalize—and it was allowed, perhaps, a looser play on "fiction" than the book. Both work. Different media.

I loved Everett's writing, and seeing the experience of being Black—by which I mean, an individual American—through his eyes. I flagged many passages. Here are the first few.

Anyone who speaks to members of his family knows that sharing a language does not mean you share the rules governing the use of that language. No matter what is said, something else is meant and I knew that for all my mother's seeming incoherence or out-of-itness, she was trying to tell me something over tea. The way she had mentioned the smoke in the living room twice. Her calling the blue box gray. Her easy and quick capitulation to what it was she and her cronies actually did at their meetings. But since I didn't know the rules, which were forever changing, I could only know that she was trying to say something not what that something was. 

There are times when fishing that I feel like a real detective. I study the water, the lay of the land, seine the streambottom and look at the larvae of aquatic insects. I watch, look for hatches and terrestrial activity. I select my fly, one I've tied at streamside, plucking a couple of fibers from my sweater to mix with the dubbing to get just the right color. I present the fly while hiding behind a rock or in tall grass and wait patiently. Then there are times when I wrap pocket lint around a hook, splash it into the water while standing on a fat boulder. Both methods have worked and failed. It's all up to the trout.

I tried to distance myself from the position where the newly sold piece-of-shit novel had placed me vis-à-vis my art. It was not exactly the case that I had sold out, but I was not, apparently, going to turn away the check. I considered my woodworking and why I did it. In my writing my instinct was to defy form, but I very much sought in defying it to affirm it, an irony that was difficult enough to articulate, much less defend. But the wood, the feel of it, the smell of it, the weight of it. It was so much more real than words. The wood was so simple. Damnit, a table was a table was a table. 

Lately, I've had trouble keeping my attention on a book. This book, though, I had no trouble sticking with. I've now got I Am Not Sidney Poiter on the Kindle. 

Curiosity 99: Washed Ashore

We spent the last couple of days in Tucson visiting a dear old friend, Trudy. Among other outings, we visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens, which is currently hosting a show of ocean trash. Well, ocean trash artfully reconfigured: as jellyfish, a humpback whale, a puffin, a mako shark, and a rockhopper penguin. Here is what the gardens' website says about the the Bandon, Oregon–based group that provided the oversized sculptures made of junk: 

Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea is a non-profit organization committed to combating plastic pollution in the ocean and waterways. In ten years, Washed Ashore has processed over 35 tons of plastic pollution from the Pacific Northwest’s ocean beaches to create over 85 works of art that are awakening the hearts and minds of viewers to the global marine debris crisis. Washed Ashore has exhibited their giant sculptures at many noteworthy venues including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian exhibit is permanent; others, including, currently, venues in Galveston Island, TX; Brooklyn, NY; and Clearwater, FL, are traveling shows—bringing the message of plastic pollution far and wide. 

The signage included a scavenger hunt: find the lighters, children's toys, flipflops, tires, bottle caps, fishing line, buoys, plastic this, plastic that. There were even some Department of Fish & Wildlife marker-tags on some of the creations.

I took photos.

Trudy and David, with toothy friend

I am skeptical that such "educational" creations convince us humans that we should be more careful with our garbage. But at least the beaches of Oregon are getting cleaned up. And that's certainly a good thing.

Curiosity 98: West Wing

The numbering of this iteration of my blog has become ridiculous, but I will get to 100! I am so close!

In any case, I just wanted to note here that last night we finished watching the last two episodes of the seven-season series The West Wing (1999–2006)—154 episodes altogether. We've been at it for months. And so often during that time, I was struck by how prescient that show was: bringing us crises and causes that even today we encounter. Things don't ever really change, do they?

Except, no, that show (or more specifically, the writer, Aaron Sorkin) didn't anticipate that things could fly so out of whack that we'd ever have a dictator on our doorstep. Indeed, the show's "Democrat" President Bartlet and the final season's "Republican" contender for office on Bartlet's departure were both gentlemen, and moderates. Nothing like the gibbering, hateful narcissist who is banging—again—on the White House door. The West Wing's politicians were much more like the current resident of the People's House: statesmen, aware of the hard work all the people all around them do to keep the country running. 

Anyway, I didn't come here for a political rant. I am already tired of the next seven months. I know who I'm voting for. I know who is impossible as president. And I guess I'm starting to consider an exit strategy (while trying to remain hopeful that rationality will prevail). Then again, there's the fact that our house will be fully paid off in only another 17, 18 months. And we have our animals. So leaving, while appealing in a certain sense, is also not.

I'll just end with a few videos I found googling YouTube for West Wing moments. I'm so glad we watched it from start to finish. It was a great show.

Seriously, can you imagine Trump being challenged to articulate his "thoughts," as in the last video? Derision and scorn seem to be the only things in his vocabulary. Or "love me love me love."

I could almost feel sorry for the man. He is so pathetic.

And yet, a good percentage of the country either loves him so much or is so beholden to their "Republican" (nowadays, read MAGA) ideology that they don't care that a sick, sick man might become president again.

Yeah, exit strategy. That, and prayer. 

Curiosity 97: Writing retreat

This actually is an example of curiosity: how sane/engaged can I keep myself over the course of two weeks on a hillside overlooking the southern California town of Temecula? I have brought myself here on a writing retreat, nudged by a howler friend who has been here twice before herself. I have brought books galore—on poetry, of poetry, on the Japanese incarceration of WWII, various nonfiction that I'd like to finish. My laptop, of course. A huge stack of old journals that I haven't peeked inside for decades. 

Today I read a book—mostly illustrations—about internment camp artistic creations. It feels too slight to write a report on. But I used it to write a very short section (perhaps) of the novel I'm hoping to put some time in on while I'm here. I also took a couple of short hikes. All the hikes here are short, but they do have the challenge of being vertical. Up to "the top"! Of Dorland Mountain, the name of the artist colony I've planted myself in. 

I also ventured into Old Town Temecula this afternoon, which was a bustling place if you're interested in food and drink. Which I wasn't. So my visit was brief. It looks like I'll mostly be perching up here on my mountain, with the occasional dip down to Temecula Parkway to pick up sustenance.

In any case, I took a few photos today and yesterday. Here they are.

The view from my porch upon arrival.

My cabin: Connors.

A beautiful sunset.

I was in search of a trail that departed from this stone circle
—which I found, but which didn't amount to much...

Stone circle detail (who can resist a hedgehog? I can't!).

Upside down, sorry. But... doesn't everything feel upside down
right now?

 

 

 

That's Mount San Gorgonio in the distance.

That's Mount San Jacinto on the left (with the snow).

The top of Dorland Mountain Trail.

Curiosity 96: A few photos

Years ago on Flickr—I've written about this before—I did a few "Project 365s": posting a photo every day  for a year, usually with a fairly detailed caption. Of course, to get the one, I snapped all sorts of shots most days. Just stuff I noticed.

Today, I took four pictures—little snapshots of moments from the day. It reminded me how much I enjoyed (mostly) paying that sort of attention. (There were days I was not in the mood. But still I did it. It was my job. For 365 days, anyway.)

Here today's four are—monkeyed with with Snapseed.

First, we went tire shopping. The bear is courtesy of the business that shares the tire store's property, which does chainsaw sculptures. 

I was impressed by the pile of tires out the back door.

Then we went for coffee and croissants. These, uh, decorations adorned the tables.

And finally, this weekend I am leaving on a two-week writing retreat in Southern California. And I am gathering supplies. Among which will be my favorite pens. These fountain pens needed cleaning.

That's all. A few moments from a day.

Curiosity 95: A few random videos

Tonight I offer a few random videos that I enjoyed today. Starting with something someone shared on FB, of course—CDK Company, with the song "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye:

Which led to a band, OK Panda, two of whose members are young friends of mine from Brussels; I did find myself thinking of OK Panda while watching the above, and YouTube apparently channeled that, because the next offering was this, the acoustic DIY "Echoes":

And then, in the list off to the right of other videos I might find interesting, was Taika Waititi in the "Letters Live" series reading "a hilarious letter about a parking ticket." The potential success of this video was no doubt divined by YouTube from the fact that I binged four episodes of Our Flag Means Death last night.

And speaking of bingeing, we've been watching the absolutely delightfully hysterical Staged with David Tennant and Michael Sheen the last little while, and that, too, was sparked by a video that I bumped into on FB. So I'll end with it (the bumped-into video, that is). 

Mind you, I rarely visit YouTube. Occasionally, like today, I'll stumble into a video that I enjoy, but that's it: nothing further. I did once actively use YouTube to figure out how to get the hatch on my brand-new Subaru to close, and I've used YouTube suggestions to clean the glass shower door or the microwave, that sort of thing. I tend to be pretty utilitarian when it comes to YouTube.

 I can't quite imagine what it's like to just flow from video to video to video to video to video, and on and on, thanks to the YouTube algorithm. To get carried along on that stream. It feels like it would end up being a closed loop, the flattening of time. Brrrrrrrr.

But I've had fun this evening doing a tiny bit of following along. Three's my limit, I think, though.

Anyway, here's that DT/MS video, a sort of prelude to the recent BAFTA awards. I hadn't ever realized how funny David Tennant is.

Book Report: The Kill Artist

6. Daniel Silva, The Kill Artist (1998) (2/27/24)

I have about four nonfiction books going at the moment (which I won't list here, because hopefully I'll eventually finish them all and offer book reports—but writ large they're, variously, about geography, colonialism, and poetry—twice). I like nonfiction, very much, but of course it's not as compelling (usually) as plot-driven fiction. You read a chapter, you've learned something, you put the book down, maybe pick up something else. Well, "you" being me. Though I did read The Library Book straight through, which perhaps attests to both Susan Orlean's skill as a writer and the draw of the subject matter (books, local LA history, fire) for me personally. 

In any case, when I find myself shuffling too much from book to book to book, I will often put a stop to the restlessness by settling in with pure plot-driven schlock. Which The Kill Artist definitely is. I don't know where I stumbled into a mention of Silva, but I believe it was with regard to one of the more recent volumes in his Gabriel Allon series of, now, 23 novels about this art restorer–cum–Israeli assassin. I was intrigued by the enthusiastic review, but, as I do, I decided to start with the first in the series. 

Well. It was okay—despite it's rating of 4.02 on Goodreads (I gave it 2 stars out of 5, meaning, according to the site, "it was okay"). I found the story rather obvious, some of the situating scenes unmotivated, the dialogue pedestrian, and the twist at the end unnecessary and, hence, puzzling. I almost abandoned it midway, but a scan of Goodreads reviews kept me going. I guess I'm glad to have closure.

It is, in brief, the story of this assassin brought out of retirement when an Israeli ambassador is ambushed and killed in Paris by a Palestinian hit man who, years earlier, murdered Allon's wife and child. (Well, there's a twist there too, but it doesn't change anything.) This after, more years earlier, Allon murdered the hit man's brother. Revenge carries far. 

Along the way we do get a tiny bit of insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but mostly the book is about the operation, and flits around from Cornwall to Greece to Zürich to Tel Aviv to London to Paris to Jerusalem to Provence to Lisbon to, ultimately, Montreal and New York City. The flitting around was perhaps the one thing that kept me reading. (I like geography.)

Anyway, will I read more Silva? Mmmm, maybe. The Goodreads reviews do indicate that this book (despite its 4.02 rating) does not measure up to his later ones; that Silva becomes more skilled, more nuanced, the Allon character deeper. Then again, part of me wishes that when Allon accomplishes his goal and heads back to the centuries-old Renaissance painting he was in the midst of restoring when he was so rudely interrupted, he'd just stay put, enjoying his work and his little boat and the kid next door. If I don't read any more books in the series, I can keep him retired. I'd be doing him a favor.

Curiosity 94: Best boy Dipper

I was really glad to see that Jon Stewart was returning to the Daily Show. And I haven't been disappointed. I know his first episode, on Joe Biden, was controversial, but honestly? If we aren't aware of the potential disabilities of our leaders (think, for example, Reagan, in full-blown Alzheimer's), where do we really stand? 

In the case of a somewhat demented Biden (which, personally, I'm skeptical of) and a flat-out crazy Trump (of that, I'm absolutely certain)... well, it might be the slate we're stuck with. And I sure as hell know how I'm going to vote. Good God, is there really any choice at all? (Don't get me started.)

I hope to that same God (okay, you got me started) that the journalists of this country, including ones like Stewart, stop going on about Biden's age and start focusing on how profoundly destructive the alternative will be for the United States. As a friend commented re the endless (and meaningless) polls, "Don't tell us what the odds are; tell us what's at stake." Biden is surrounded by smart, able people; his opponent is surrounded by power-hungry, twisted sycophants. I repeat: is there really a choice?

Anyway, that's not why I came here. I came here because in the third installment of Jon Stewart helming the Daily Show, he ended with these amazing few minutes of love. Which I just want to keep here, because I know that not too long from now—up to a year maybe, with luck two—I'll be shedding the same tears. And I really appreciated that Jon broke up in front of millions, because of his love for his best boy, Dipper.

Curiosity 93: Leap Day

It's been a week.

Back issues, starting last Thursday—an entire week. (I am just this evening coming out from under the blanket of discomfort, if not outright pain. I do not suffer well.)

Cataract surgery, yesterday. And today: it's a miracle! I can see! I've shoved my old red- and blue-framed prescription spectacles (one for reading, the other for distance) aside for a brand-new CVS-purchased pair of +1.50 readers. Turquoise framed. For the price of the old glasses I can probably buy six or eight new pair, all manner of styles, to scatter about the house and even the car.

The cataract surgery itself left several impressions (I was a little drugged):

• surfing, and my doctor commenting that a lot more time is spent paddling than actually on the wave
• the wheezy, not entirely in-tune, rising melody repeated over and over by the ultrasound machine...
• ...that was used to "disperse the cloudiness" of the cataract, before the new lens was inserted
• and throughout much of it (it was a short procedure: 15 minutes) Jim Croce in the background, singing "Time in a Bottle"

(Though I'm beginning to wonder if the back issues weren't due to the surgery. A little nervous, a little tense, perhaps? And now that it's all over, everything back to normal?)

This morning, still with the post-operative eye shield in place (Aaarrrrgggghhhh), to avoid sitting—which my back did not appreciate—I went for an early walk, with the dog, to the Frog Pond. I met a young man near our little redwood grove, shooting a video with an anamorphic lens, which allowed a 16x9 ratio; he said he had an interview that afternoon. I wished him luck. I do hope he had a good interview It was a sweet encounter.

Just a couple of blocks from my house, I ran into another fellow, who was turning up a nearby street to the staircase that leads to the highway and, across that, to the other side of our little town. (It's a funny little town.) He admired Milo—as everyone does—and we chatted. I asked his name, and he said it was Mark, but everyone calls him Voodoo—at which he pulled up his sweatshirt to reveal the tattoo: Voodoo Chile, emblazoned up his left side. He got it in the army. He asked if my eye was okay, and I told him my story, said the shield was coming off in an hour. He was wearing superhero red shoes. Another sweet encounter.

That hour later, after seeing my darling doctor (he really is: he's funny and kind), while waiting to present my paperwork and schedule another appointment, I felt drawn to the woman before me, doing her own scheduling—some cancer treatment of her own, her husband's colonoscopy, sticking points.

We all have stuff that we have to deal with. Some of it's serious. I've felt annoyed this week by my back, and anxious because of the surgery, but really? I'm fine. I'm lucky. If anything, this week taught me to feel more for all the people who are dealing with serious stuff: illness, poverty, fears and needs of all sorts.

I don't have an image to go with all this. So I'll end with one of a surfer. Why not? We're all surfing our own waves. And yet, all those waves are part of the same ocean.

Curiosity 92: Health matters

On Wednesday, I'm having cataract surgery—which will remove the lens of my right eye and replace it with an artificial lens. After that, I'll have pretty good distance vision, and I'll need glasses for reading. Okay. Better than now, when I have pretty good distance vision in my left eye only, and I still need glasses for reading. At the moment, my left eye is doing all the work.

Over twenty years ago, I had Lasik surgery, which changed the shape of my corneas to give me 20/40 vision after four decades of extreme myopia—corrected for much of that time (as an adult) by hard contact lenses. One day atop the three-pitch Monkey Face climb at Smith Rock in Oregon, the wind was up and whipping the straps on my backpack around and into my face, when whoop, out popped a contact. We still had a long rappel and then a many-mile hike back to our vehicle, and I was basically one-eyed. At that moment, I knew I was willing to submit myself to the gods of ophthalmology.

Well, the Lasik worked just fine until a couple of years ago, but now my right eye is blurry like it used to be. And so: I'm off to surgery again. Everyone I know who's had the procedure blesses science: the glory of sight! I hope I'll be lucky as well. Though of course, I'm a little nervous. It's my vision we're talking about. I rely on my vision for, well, everything I know about making my way in the world. Editing and proofreading, for starters. Photography. Parsing the colors of my immediate landscape. Reading—though I know so many books are recorded; but I can't listen to books-on-tape: my attention wanders. The green and blue and brown of my cats' and dog's and husband's eyes.

So yeah, I'm hoping all goes well. Naturally. 

Meanwhile, I visited my GP this morning to go over some recent bloodwork (high cholesterol, so what else is new), and we got to chatting—because he asked how I was doing—about the knot in my shoulder blade. Which led to a lovely hour with a massage therapist this afternoon.

And I've now got an appointment for late May to see if there's calcium buildup around my heart (thanks to that high cholesterol).

And two new bottles of Vitamin D (for the price of 1).

As a rule, I try to stay away from doctors. But today I can say: I am so taking care of myself.

And as a reward: a pint of Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge. I also believe in rewarding myself. Absolutely!

Curiosity 91: Armed conflict worldwide

Today in the New York Times there was a piece about a right-wing "nerve center" in Washington DC, the Conservative Partnership Institute, a "breeding ground for the next generation of Trump's loyalists and the policies he might pursue." As usual, I checked out the comments, and although most (it being the New York Times) were ones I could agree with (like, scoffing at the very idea that the "conservatives" have any "policies" other than slaying the "woke"), one woman mentioned how good it was under Trump vis-à-vis Biden because prices were lower and there were no wars.

Ah, well. Prices: there was that little crisis called Covid, which debilitated the supply chains, raising prices. Plus, the president has nothing to do with the cost of toothpaste.

But then: wars. Today while driving I was listening to NPR (you can no doubt tell what political persuasion I am just by those two media mentions) and the reports were all about Ukraine and Gaza. Which caused me to wonder what other conflicts are ongoing in this world right now. And of course—this should surprise no one, except possibly Trump supporters—there are many:

The source for this map is Wikipedia's "List of Ongoing Armed Conflicts," with chart after chart of major wars, wars, minor conflicts, and skirmishes and clashes (as shown on the map in varying shades of red), by country, by year. In 2023, for example, the five major ongoing wars (10,000 or more combat or related deaths in current or past year) were:

• Myanmar (start of conflict, 1948; deaths 2023, 15,773)
• the Arab-Israeli conflict (1948, involving 9 nations; deaths 2023, 24,550–33,103)
• insurgency in the Maghreb (2002, involving 15 nations; deaths 2023, 14,728)
• Russo-Ukrainian war (2014; deaths 2023, 30,915–95,088+)
• war in Sudan (2023; deaths 2023, 13,225)

I'd wager the woman touting Trump hasn't even heard of the Maghreb or Myanmar. Though perhaps I am ungenerous.

Wars seem to be what people do. We are such a ridiculous species. Not only are we willfully destroying the planet, but we willfully destroy one another.

Tonight we watched The West Wing on TV—it's our regular go-to lately; we're in season 4—and there was a crisis in a made-up country in Africa where genocide was being waged. President Bartlet decided to care, and the episode (which was organized around his second inauguration) ended with him sending troops to that country to stop the killing.

Can we imagine Trump doing the same? Not if it doesn't give him any personal benefit. (I'm sorry. I try to stay away from politics, but I am beginning to feel alarmed about this next election. And I don't care if Biden is old and feeble—well, actually, I do, but there's nothing I can do about it, if he's the candidate; but I do know that he is surrounded by people I trust. And I cannot begin to say the same thing about Comrade Trump.)

Here is a chart of deaths related to armed conflict, by country, for the past several years. The players change position, but there tends to be an ongoing top ten.

Never mind the woman touting Trump: I wonder if Trump has even heard of these countries, or cares that they exist. Or that people are killing one another. I sure haven't seen him say much about Ukraine, except "Yay Putin, my buddy," or, really, anything about Israel and Palestine. (Okay: he has heard of Mexico, because it shares a border with us. But I'm not going to that particular issue just now.)

Anyway. There: a rare political rant. Though they may well become less rare as this year goes on. Not that my ranting will change anything. But maybe you didn't know about all the killing going on. And now you do. I'm sorry. We are an awful species. But enough of us are also generous and caring, and that continues to give me hope. I don't know who reads this blog, but I happen to believe that you are among the generous and caring. Thank you.

Book Report: The Cuckoo's Calling

5. Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling), The Cuckoo's Calling ( 2013) (2/12/ 24)

I was searching through my (many) (stacks of) books for a particular title, which I never did find, but I did find—variously: thricely, in fact—this book. I figured if I had it in triplicate, I should probably actually read it.

Never mind that I'd already seen the story played out on the TV series Strike. Of course I didn't remember who the perpetrator was. This is not an old-age thing. I've never remembered who dunnit. It makes rereadings so pleasurable.

In any case: I enjoyed the protagonist, Cormoran Strike, an Afghan war vet with a destroyed leg, down on his luck, turned PI; and his temp secretary, Robin, whose upcoming marriage may not be precisely what she seeks but who is very good at investigation. Good conflict right there, without a death. But the death, and its solution too: well done. The writing—which involves a lot of dialogue—is great. 

I'm not sure what more to say really. I very much enjoyed this book. I think I'll read the next one in the series, The Silkworm. And apparently the series is up to eight now, so I've got a lot to look forward to.

Curiosity 90: Poetry (Deer)

This weekend I gave myself the gift of a poetry workshop with a poet I admire, Mark Doty (whom I've written about many times here), and his guest, Marie Howe, whom I've also quoted, twice: once here, with a poem about her brother John, who died of AIDS (a poem I first encountered, I now realize, in another workshop with Mark); and again here. For the second one, called "One Day"—as in "one day, all this will be over"—she described its inception, at a poetry reading by Stanley Kunitz. And so yet another coincidence: it was at that event that he read for the very first time his beautiful poem "Touch Me"—which I presented here, too, just a couple of months ago, with its own little story. It all keeps swirling around in one big beautiful isness, this poetry stuff.

Anyway, here are a few poems (the first two came up at the workshop), all featuring, in one way or another, deer:

Psalm

by George Oppen

Veritas sequitur...  

In the small beauty of the forest
The wild deer bedding down—

That they are there!

       Their eyes
Effortless, the soft lips
Nuzzle and the alien small teeth
Tear at the grass

       The roots of it
Dangle from their mouths
Scattering earth in the strange woods.
They who are there.

       Their paths
Nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shade them
Hang in the distances
Of sun

       The small nouns
Crying faith
In this in which the wild deer
Startle, and stare out. 

 

Rooms

by Nancy Willard

All winter the rooms of the forest stand empty.
Now light lives there, and comes and goes as she likes.
She has sold her furniture, which no one remembers.
The dogwoods rearrange their ivory bowls on the air,
and clouds of leaves return to nest in the rafters.
The deer follow the stream from one room to the next.
The stream talks, and its talking scours the stones.
The skin of the river is cut into many small hills,
blond needles fall thick as hair under the pines,
where the comet that so many saw hang over the city
sailed each night in the still pond on the farm
yet left not a single track on its heavenly shore.
The mountains grow brighter and brighter – what can
        be in them?

Why do you knock, when you yourself are the door?

 

The Deer

by Mary Oliver

You never know.
The body of night opens
like a river, it drifts upward like white smoke,

like so many wrappings of mist.
And on the hillside two deer are walking along
just as though this wasn’t

the owned, tilled earth of today
but the past.
I did not see them the next day, or the next,

but in my mind’s eye –
there they are, in the long grass,
like two sisters.

This is the earnest work. Each of us is given
only so many mornings to do it –
to look around and love

the oily fur of our lives,
the hoof and the grass-stained muzzle.
Days I don’t do this

I feel the terror of idleness,
like a red thirst.
Death isn’t just an idea.

When we die the body breaks open
like a river;
the old body goes on, climbing the hill. 

 

And yes, I do still intend to get to 100, meaningless though that number is at this point!

Curiosity 89: The Grammys

I was enjoying a sweet power outage this evening, reading The Cookoo's Call by headlamp. But my phone still worked. And I heard about two performances at tonight's Grammys in particular: Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," which was awarded a Grammy for best song in 1989 (or maybe it was Chapman herself who won the Grammy for best new artist?) and tonight was performed as a duet by Tracy and the song's recent interpreter, Luke Combs; and Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now." Both of which I immediately sought out when the confoundedly wonderful and magical electricity reappeared. Here they are—the first, in its original version (I found the duet fine, but her own iteration is, well, better):

And the second, via a link to the Grammy performance (because the YouTube video I first found got taken down) and in its original version from 1969:

It's so good. The sweet forthrightness of her voice.

I always count myself lucky to have lived when I did, music-wise. But I suppose anyone would do that. I don't follow music, and so don't recognize most of the winners this evening. Maybe I'll try to give a listen. Or... maybe I'll just stick to the 60s, 70s, 80s, which feed my soul.

Which reminds me of a podcast I recently heard recommended by Rick Rubin: The History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs (which was covered in a New Yorker article by Bill McKibben last July). I have added it to my queue of shows to listen to on my daily walk. It sounds fabulous.

Book Report: The Library Book

4. Susan Orlean, The Library Book (2018) (2/4/24)

Another case of a book I've had for ages (as witness its hardbound status) and finally pulled off the shelf and settled in to read. And I'm glad I did. It's a wonderful book, kicked off by the raging fire at Los Angeles's Central Library on April 28, 1986—which burned for more than seven hours and destroyed or damaged more than a million books—but really about so much more: the early history of LA, the changing nature of libraries as enduring civic institutions, the fraught business of arson investigation, and so many personalities, from early pioneers up through the individuals safeguarding free access to knowledge and literature worldwide today. Orlean clearly had a ball infusing herself into the realm of librarians, sleuthing the mystery of the fire, and considering the very meaning of books in our lives.

It's impossible to summarize the book any further: it is jam-packed with fascinating information and people, and veers now one way, now another. It's almost like being in a library, surrounded by an entire universe of facts and fancies. So I'll just quote a couple of passages that I flagged. First, from early on:

In the physics of fire, there is a chemical phenomenon known as a stoichiometric condition, in which a fire achieves the perfect burning ratio of oxygen to fuel—in other words,, there is exactly enough air available for the fire to consume all of what it is burning. Such a ratio creates an ideal fire situation, which results in perfect combustion... [It] is almost impossible to create outside of a laboratory... [I]n a sense, it is more theoretical than actual. Many firefighters have never seen such a blaze and never will. Not long ago, I had coffee with a man named Ron Hamel. He is now an arson investigator, but at the time of the library fire, Hamel was a captain in the fire department. Although over thirty years have passed, he remains awed by what he saw that day at the library. He talked about it like someone might talk about seeing a UFO. In his decades with the department, Hamel fought thousands of fires, but he said he never experienced another that was as exceptional as the fire at Central Library. Usually, a fire is red and orange and yellow and black. The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot tht it appeared icy. Hamel said he felt like he was standing inside a blacksmith's forge. "We though we were looking at the bowels of hell," he said, tapping his coffee mug. "Combustion that complete is almost impossible to achieve, but in this case, it was achieved. It was surreal. Frank Borden, who now runs the Los Angeles Fire Department Museum, once said to me, "In every firefighter's career, there are those fires that are extraordinary and unforgettable. This was one of those."

You see: interesting information, beautiful description, the human touch. Every topic Orlean approaches has this breadth. She's a wonderful writer.

And from the very end, where she describes a late-afternoon visit to the now-rebuilt library, after the crowds had thinned out:

The silence was more soothing than solemn. A library is a good place to soften solitude; a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you're all alone. The library is a whispering post. You don't need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is speaking to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen. It was that affirmation that always amazed me. Even the oddest, most particular book was written with that kind of crazy courage—the writer's believe that someone would find his or her book important to read. I was struck by how precious and foolish and brave that belief is, and how necessary, and how full of hope it is to collect these books and manuscripts and preserve them. It declares that all these stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past and to what is still to come. 

And yes, Orlean's own curiosity and sensibilities and storytelling passion shines through consistently as well. She feels like a friend. (She feels that way on FB as well: a little quirky, approachable. The only other book of hers I've read is The Orchid Thief, which is similarly engaging. I may have to seek her out more.)

Curiosity 88: Photos

I have fallen completely out of a daily post, but I'm still numbering!!! Up to 100!!!!! Dammit!!!!!!!

Mostly because I haven't been looking for something to write about. And that includes today, but I'm feeling negligent. So I'll post a few photos.

When I searched Flickr for "February 2," it spit back 90 images—February 20 etc. also qualifying, apparently. And so I randomly selected a few of those. I'm not including captions this time. Let the images speak for themselves. 

The final one, of three-month-old Milo, actually was taken on February 2, 2011. The rest: who knows?

The first one is a rare selfie. I was so much younger once...

Curiosity 87: Kasen renku, pt. 2

A couple of weeks ago I had an elaborate post about the poetic form kasen renku, and mentioned that my two writing buddies and I were embarking on an attempt to create one. Well, here it is. I don't know how "good" it is—i.e., adhering to the rules, flowing, wabi-sabi—but I do know that the moon and blossoms got inserted at the appropriate spots, and I think people we miss waft up throughout. It was a joy to look each day for our GoogleDrive document, see what had been added, ruminate on the very different, and yet at the same time similarly striving, lives each of us three lives. Appreciation! Celebration! I love our little howler pack. (The stanzas here go SL, AC, KSR, ... I would include the designators, but lining things up in HTML is crazymaking.)

It has no title. Yet.

setting sun weaves
orange, pink into blue sky
blanket for chilled night

a tapestry of birdsound
fills the morning gloom

under the rainbow
she drives for vaccination
upcoming travel

giant heron wades in river
peeks at paddling

gutter drips after rain
each plop
sparkling in the moonlight

waking her heavy from sleep
sore arm preventing any more

contented snores from
the hospital bed, even
exhales, inhales, rest

rumpled sheets
long orange cat

cumulus clouds lit
within, some glow, some glare
puddle reflections

hummingbird rests
beak points to gray sky

climbing the Eiffel Tower—
the Seine a silver ribbon
through prickly humanity

rust patinas metal
heating in noonday sun

waxing crescent with
earthshine, a footprint of our
light cast on the moon

three pairs of boots and a saw
lay the fallen redwood to rest

and you, father, rest
on a brutal hoarfrost day
deer-guards raise their heads

tender heart watches
cold strange world

old hand, veined and knobby
inspects child’s palm
for ancient lotus wisdom

mysterious winds cyclone
dry leaves and limbs in the air

grown daughter reassures dad
jet engine drones
  What?
    I’ll tell you later.
  What?

the luxury of three seats
on a transatlantic flight

shama pair sing-song
in iridescent dress
then cat stalks by

circle on a riverbed rock
cat naps in sun

round mirror reflects
flickering candlelight
shrouded in silence

palm fronds ripping in the wind
another system leaving detritus

red niners jerseys
roller bags
gray clouds
white dog peeks around corner

white dog surveys the street
in the dark in the rain

change of wind brings
a few foreign leaves into
the garage; welcome

the last leaf waves
flexes endurance

tireless, the moon pulls
the ocean, long waves
of liquid energy

big ‘ol male turtle basking on beach
one eye slowly closes

sun insists it’s still with us,
gives warmth, light,
hold on Spring is on its way

the treefrogs yell up a racket
delighted by the rain

finally blue skies
just in time for downy chicks
hatching from mōlí eggs

bridges stretch from Kentucky to
Indiana from Ohio River to gray sky

by the echoing footbridge
two frilly blossoms
promise sweet blackberry juice

morning tea disrupted by night
ginger perfuming thoughts of day

Curiosity 86: Frog calls

Another FB finding! This one is via a "friend," David Hillis, who lives on a ranch in Texas and raises longhorn cattle. He is also a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Texas. You can read about him in this NewYork Times profile. I love following him because very often he posts some fascinating morsel about biology (phylogeny, vertebrate systematics), natural history (he is the author recently of a book on biodiversity in the Texas Hill Country), or, lately, electric vehicles. 

And yesterday he posted this: "Here's a great discussion of the history and impact of one of my favorite audio albums of all time. It was originally released in 1958, but it is so popular and enduring that it has recently been re-released by Folkways Records. Read the story to learn how it was critical for my own mating success" (yeah, he talks like that—but in this case, it's for real: he is featured in the article)—with a link to an AtlasObscura article, "The Many Lives of 'Sounds of North American Frogs.'"

Which of course I clicked on, because we have frogs—the Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla)—and I love their singing, which is happening right now: it's their glory time! And there's a whole record of frog sounds? Well, how wonderful!

The post got lots of amusing comments:

I used to invite women to my room to see my tropical fish. (I maintained a strain of fancy guppies and another of black mollies for years.) The ploy worked more often than not, and I have a wife of 48 years as proof. 😍

To which David responded, "Another in the series of how we dated before the internet!"

I have a copy [of Sounds of North American Frogs] on cassette that I bought in the early 90's. I was fresh out of college and working at the Smithsonian. My "desk" was in the "sound lab" where they digitized frog and bird calls (I wasn't working on anything auditory, there was just space in there for a kid). Met some very interesting scientists and got to hear even more interesting bird calls. I'll never forget there was one scientist who studied the calls of tropical owls. He was a WWII vet and cussed like a sailor. It was the first time I met an "educated" person who swore like a working man.

I dated an ecologist for a while. He loved to show me videos he had collect of amphibians and insects having sex. I sure learned a lot about amphibian and insect sex 😂 He would fill my place with little bottles with wildflowers in them and sage from when he was out in the field at the Audubon preserve. Wonderful wooing smells. Is this the way field ecologists lek?

There was another one called, “Voices of the Night” that my Herpetology professor, Anthony Gaudin, played during lab while we were doing a dissection. While we were all working quietly, the track for Hyla avivoca came on, and I immediately blurted out, “it’s THEM!” It seems that the makers of my favorite science fiction movie of 1954 used that track for the sounds made by the giant ants!

I put tracks from this on EVERY mixtape I made for girls, back in the day.

 Here is the album cover:

And if you go to the link (just click on the lefthand numbers) you will be treated to an encyclopedic recital by such creatures as the barking, squirrel, and pine woods treefrogs (all Hyla spp. on the album, though things have changed since the 1950s nomenclature-wise), the southern leopard, Florida gopher, and pig frogs (Rana spp.), or the red-spotted, southwestern Woodhouse's, or Sonoran desert toads (Bufo spp.)—and many more. Sometimes there are duets, and even multi-species choruses! All accompanied by droll and learned commentary by Charles M. Bogert, curator of amphibians and reptiles at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (As the article puts it, Bogert "pursued accuracy rather than vibes.") I gather the album is also available on Spotify, if you'd like to simply play through.

I wasn't sure I had anything to say about this, but the album sat there in an open tab, and I didn't want to lose track of it. What better way to keep it in my memory than to write about it here? And look! I did have something to say. 

Here are a few of the amphibians that are featured on the album (though their scientific names have changed a bit thanks to the efforts of developmental biologists such as Hillis):

Boreal toad (Anaxyrus boreas)

Pickerel frog (Lythobates palustris)

Squirrel treefrog (Hyla squirella)

I'm sure I could find a poem about frogs or toads if I looked—since that seems to be my pattern lately—for today, I'll just leave this at that. Ribbit.