elisabeth blair

gone grief & episodic certainty

2011-01-19T17:22:00.006-06:00

I've been saving these pictures; the private place I go to calm myself, which isn't private at all, simply Portsmouth. Damn if I wish I wasn't across the ocean at the moment and could just pop down there. But I haven't posted on this thing in years so it's fitting to do it with a personal bang.
Voila, signore e signori - 'Io sono qui!' come ha detto quella donna annegando nel film Titanic.
Meaning, "I am here!" like the drowning woman said in Titanic.
(I used the line the first time I was disturbed in a public Italian bathroom, before I learned to say 'occupato!')
And so.

The jewels for him and the jewels out of doors crash to a halt, with the silencing of the many bells. She places her hand with care. This isn’t the sky we wanted but it’s better than that one; we hold our chins high and crouch quickly, pull our knees back til we fall onto a ground that holds such a layer of deterioration and history that it’s as if a bed; downfall like a quilt. We join the things to the things and watch them connect up; magnets on our eyes. Oh god, the sense of the cranium, the tarnishing that makes it homey, the many love songs, the joining of the making, the pushing down the hill, the rolling in surrender, the pain of the fall. Oh god, we ache down here, the light is in our eyes, we tremble and shake, we hold our knees up again, protecting ourselves. We are small girls, we are rebels; sawdust in our shoulders. How far to next-of-kin? The distance you and I are standing.

2009-10-06T01:12:00.001-05:00

hobble hobble quack quack

rain runs through

2009-08-08T12:41:00.007-05:00

clean

2009-04-20T18:27:00.006-05:00

godforsaken dusty tundra home sweet envelope home tie me into the thing and seal the edges
move your legs out of my way
I'm coming through them and leaving you at the entrance
shelter me little cave
push me around
untie me and lay me out
sniffly strong fingers rubbing your nose with cloth
old man I am sorry for your need
you can't get it off your face and neck and head
Oh I am, I am sorry
Really
I would give you something
But what is there to observe, nothing new. You're crying, I'm crying too
You're wiping your face with a cloth, and then your neck and head and nose and mouth
and face again

old man we get up when it's time
we get up when it's time to go
we get up when it's time to go

When you get home you'll enlarge yourself to fill the house
so that your skin and bones fill all the gaps and spaces
and you'll not move at all
not move at all
You don't realize that you smell
and I love you, I'm sorry you get your comfort that way

When I get home I'll make amends
and push tiny holes into all of my belongings
with the pin an old woman threw away
singing 'fuck this' and 'fuck that' and 'if you want me you'll have to call
at this and this and such a time
when I can find it useful
to talk to you''

Strings start up in the hall and punch the air with bows
and oh I can't even walk to the bathroom without those
I can't move
I can't breathe

Thank the lord you know what I mean

I swing my legs against the entrance too
sometimes I sit up there with you

singing 'fuck you' and 'fuck you' and 'fuck you'

I'm not unclean or in the middle of a crisis
but the old man is
I'm going to leave him to it
leave him to sing "oh shit oh shit oh shit
I cannot get it, why can I never get it
clean"

I feel that I am mean.

relevant XLVVI

2009-03-07T15:09:00.003-06:00

I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.

- from 'Hysteria' by T.S. Eliot

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

- from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by T.S. Eliot

Paramanu Pentaquark

2009-02-14T21:42:00.002-06:00

A short story and a song of mine which was previously unreleased, appear in the debut issue of Paramanu Pentaquark, an art/lit/music journal put out by the artist's group I belong to, the Gothic Funk Nation.

The lyrics of the song, 1908, are based on text written on two separately acquired antique postcards.

The short story, Photograph, is based on an antique snapshot (which appears alongside the story). It was previously published in the now-defunct print journal, Be Which Magazine.

relevant quotes XLVV

2009-01-19T23:05:00.004-06:00

That was a way of putting it - not very satisfactory;
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.

....

There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.

...

Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

...

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.

...

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years -
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one had only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.

- selections from East Coker by T.S. Eliot

...Then again, maybe I want to.

2009-01-07T20:43:00.009-06:00

4 Definitions:

1. "To be on the right track."

To be ecstatic. To be in love with directional things - compasses, winds, snows. To be consecrated, consummated, baptized and be given roller skates, all in one day. To fall down immediately after putting on the roller skates. To bruise one's knees. To cry. To kick and scream. To end up laying on one's back staring at vertically falling snowflakes. To be completely distracted by the shapes of snowflakes. To waste time. To breathe deeply. To stand up and shake like a dog to rid one's self of snow. To learn something. To pray every evening that one will remember what one has learned, and thus be able to apply it. To read Emerson:

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

To go to sleep. To wake up in the morning and gather one's thoughts by laying very still in bed. To abruptly and temporarily stop caring about things that seem 'wrong'. To make lists. To write. To become frenzied with ambition. To be ecstatic.

2. "To mourn the death of someone you only knew a little."

To cry. To think too much. To feel too startled. To feel depressed. To feel anxiously hurried. To relax. To love. To understand. To be at peace with how things are. To relinquish wishing things were another way. To accept one's family and one's day. To grow determined to produce. To grow freshly determined to be as much me as is possible in the time I have left.

3. "To make."

To give. To sacrifice. To make love. To build. To render things on brown card. To give. To give. To give. To make up a thirty-minute-long song with Sandro, with my eyes closed. To discern. To parse.

4. "To throw one's self into one's work."

Secret studios for artists in a park in Rousse, Bulgaria. My room: partially painted murals on dollhouse walls, drawers filled with categories of antique photographs, shelves of books of poetry, computer filled with an unnamed manuscript. The practice of being here and now. The practice of adjustment to change. The practice of channeling passion undividedly into a creation and not losing one's way in the process. Forgetting to eat. Forgetting to sleep. (Devotedly working is a lot like being in love).

ugh.

2009-01-06T19:15:00.003-06:00

I would like to go home now.
I'm rather sick of traveling, this feels ridiculous. And stepping back and looking at it all, it looks ridiculous, though admittedly, mildly so, in most quarters.
I hope I feel better after conducting the interviews and applying for grants.
Because this isn't 'transition' anymore, this is just ridiculous. Pedaling a bicycle in place. I might as well be pedaling in place in London as anywhere. Right? No, wrong. In London I could never afford a flat.
All this almost-home stuff is getting ridiculous though. I mean, come on.
I feel distinctly odd. I must be looking for home too vigorously. How else to explain all these fits and starts? It kind of makes me want to just go back to some kind of horrible system. Some program. Some school. But not really.
I feel like I did in the last 6 months of boarding school. Kind of over it, in a big way.
But am I 'over it'?
I don't know that I've made a proper effort. I've made umpteen efforts, but properly?
God. I don't want to yell at myself though. I can't possibly do this shit any better than I've been doing - I'm doing the best I can, even if it's ridiculous.
Ugh. I don't think I want to go it alone anymore. It's getting to be beside the point.

E.

relevant quotes XLVIV

2009-01-06T12:19:00.006-06:00

Head first, so slow
Pull me under the undertow
What is with these questions?
I want you to come over

Your hands, tangled
hesitate across a table
Too late, let it all out
I know I've waited too long

Sunlight in the window
I want you to look over now

- Parts of Matt Marque's song 'Undertow.'

---

Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. Even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to. Sometimes the disciple bows to the master, sometimes the master bows to the disciple. A master who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to the Buddha. Sometimes the master and disciple bow together to the Buddha. Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs.

- Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971)

---

We just sit in the midst of this contradiction where, although we aim, we can never perceive hitting the mark. We just sit in the midst of this contradiction that is absolutely ridiculous when we think about it with our small mind. In our zazen, it is precisely at the point where our small, foolish self remains unsatisfied, or completely bewildered, that immeasurable natural life beyond the thoughts of that self functions. It is precisely at the point where we become completely lost that life operates and the power of Buddha is actualized.

- Kosho Uchiyama (1912 -1999)

---

Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'
Let us go and make our visit.

- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot

---

Won’t you please leave off me, George?
I have the feeling these pictures you’re taking will be expensive
And I’m isolated but if you take a picture George,
the whole wide world will know
You’ll make public all our private woe –

What woe? The hair, George, the hair, the fact I have no washing machine
The fact that my worth is all tied up in tiny knots in my hair, George, my hair

People will pass around the photographs and stare

- excerpt of #31, my manuscript

---

When we were grown
The tornadoes came to blow us together or apart
(we still don’t know; we never found out)
The beauty of it took us from life and from death
Our home blew away
We abandoned ship
We turned in circles in our boots in the snow
We grew into traveling carnivals.

Still together.
Still alone.
There are only ships -
there is no ‘home’.

Postscript:

Push away the pulse,
Receive a metronome.

A moving light is a hard star to follow.
Disguised as land, our ship is hollow
with hidden rooms and terraces,
balcony observatories,
wooden stairs and swaying floors
We're on an ocean sent from God’s lips.

He said, “You will have no home.
Only your tossing ships,
your violence, and your vows (they’re all the same)
to plow with through drought and rain,
unless you arrive in the oldest city
and plant yourself a tree.

Unless you can plant a tree, you are still
- my children - you are still at sea.”

- excerpt from #27, my manuscript

relevant quotes xlviii - jellyfishes having affairs with other jellyfishes.

2009-01-03T00:26:00.009-06:00

never to rest and never to have;only to grow.

Always the beautiful answer who asks the more beautiful question

---
- last lines of the Introduction to New Poems by E.E. Cummings.
---

I feel at home whenever
the unknown surrounds me

I receive its embrace
aboard my floating house

---
- From the lyrics of 'Wanderlust' by Björk
---

It's sort of, how hard can you make it on yourself, you know? I just think it was sort of funny, because it happens - the few times in your life when you feel you've got it right, your mind starts going off on "what happens if this goes wrong?" and this feeling of carrying a chinese vase across a motorway... "Oh, it's definitely gonna break, I know it's gonna break" - and you make it up in your head when everything is actually OK.

---
- Björk, XFM 25aug04 (from bjork.com)
---

It seems like the whole world has been talking about [September 11th] for the last three years, not only me. All unbelievable people are suddenly interested in politics. And maybe me in the end wanting my music to offer something else, and saying I want to look for a shelter with an altar away from the Osamas and Bushes. And maybe these politicians think that they are 95% of our lives and that we should all just worry about if Bush gets re-elected or not and what's gonna happen to the Muslims or whatever. And I think it's about 5% important, and 95% is like... children going to school, the latest breakdancer, people starving and people losing their jobs and people telling awful jokes, and all these other stuff, you know. People in space, and jellyfishes in the ocean having affairs with other jellyfishes. I'm inventing marinal soap operas here, sorry. But there's just a lot of other stuff, and it just got boring after a while. So maybe this record is partly an attempt to say, "wait a minute, there's other stuff out there, you know". That's it.

---
- Björk, XFM 25aug04 (from bjork.com)
---

Relevant quotes XLVII, and relevancy in general

2009-01-01T21:10:00.010-06:00

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Of cattle in the marketplace
Of scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!

---

She says the joke is on me
I say the joke is on her
I said I have no opinion about that
Well, we'll just have to wait and confer

---

There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say,
Woah, so this is what she means
She means we're bouncing into Graceland

I'm going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me wants to see Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now

---

- Above are all from Paul Simon's album, Graceland.

---

We search for everything
Keeping what we would win

Orchids or tiny flowers
Wooden huts or ivory towers
Centuries or hours

Dark are the winter days
Holy in many ways

---

- From 'All Our Days' by Sandy Denny

---

Also, when I was 18 and working at the daycare in Saginaw, waiting to go to London, driving the old '72 Mercedes that I had to heat the glowplug to start - I was obsessed with 'Old Man' by Neil Young. I listened to it on the way there, and on the way home, and driving at night for no purpose over the Zilwaukee bridge, just to look down at the lights of the city, over the bridge and back again, so that I could feel some kind of valuable height.

-

Old man, look at my life, 24 and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise that makes me think of true
love lost at such a cost
Give me things that won't get lost,
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you

Old man, take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
One look in my eyes and you can tell that's true

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you

I been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I'm all alone at last
Rolling home to you

-

I think its relevance had to do with the banjo and the bass, the movement of the car, the way life repeats itself, the community shared between history and the present, and the act of resignation to the basic need (love) - also, especially, the admitting to it. Also, it didn't mean that much to me to mean that much to my hometown, or to my recent ex, or to the United States. I was on my way to be alone at last, going home to a place I'd never been.

Kind of like John Denver's song, Rocky Mountain High, which I was also obsessed with during this short 4-month period, but which I had only on vinyl. Standing over the grand piano, playing it over and over, internally and rapidly verifying my idea of my near future.

-

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
Left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found the key for every door

When he first came to the mountains
His life was far away, on the road hanging by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
He keeps changing fast, and it don't last too long

-

So now, 9 years later, I'm sitting on a cushion at my cousin's house, drinking tea and hand-writing a poem to go with an antique picture of two girls about to have their First Holy Communion.

No nostalgia - just relevance. Do I want to charge away again to a hilltop and a new way of life in rainy London? No, it's not so simple anymore, I've grown up enough and gathered enough experience that the task is now more internal than that - but I'm working on visualizing my near future in a very similar way to how I worked on visualizing it at age 18. It has, this time, less to do with geography and much more to do with maps - constructing useful ones, and then using them with skill to get to the points I need to get to. If only an airplane and a visa could do what it used to! These days it's about lists, and calendars, and actions.

I think an intrinsic thing about me is that I love relevance - identifying it as well as sharing it.
One can identify what is relevant and no one else can challenge it, because it's really all about the feelings attached to the thing identified. But finding a way to express that perhaps quirky personal relevance in a manner that will make sense to people - in a manner people won't want to challenge - is my exciting, challenging task these days. I think I can do it.

3 New Year's Eve dreams, set to Paul Simon's album, 'Graceland'.

2009-01-01T20:30:00.006-06:00

1. I was meant to teach a history class for adults. I was unprepared, but I felt recklessly confident. I thought that I could hide my ignorance by creating a class discussion to which everyone could contribute, and I was excited to lead it. But somehow I fell asleep and no one woke me up - I slept through the first hour of class on a stone bed, outside in a courtyard. Finally R came to wake me up. He emanated a benign violence, and a harshness. To wake me, he insisted on blowing into my mouth, but the angle was wrong and I didn't let the air in. I was frustrated that he had not woken me earlier.
I went to where the class was being held, outside on a ledge right on the sea. I began passing out handouts about several different ancient cultures, and apologized to the students for being so late.
Quite suddenly, just as I was about to dive into somehow leading the class (since I had been sleeping I had not even had time to read the handouts I was using, so was kind of baffled as to how I would begin), mud-people began emerging out of the sea and walking through the water toward the shore. The class scattered, and we all embarked on a long, eventful escape. R helped me, in a limited sort of way. The last thing I remember, we were on a jeep trying to rescue people from the town's square.

2. A young girl trusted her mother so much, or rather, was so devoted to her mother, that even when I - an FBI agent, as I revealed to her - warned her that I knew her hot Agave drink had been poisoned by her mother, she decided to drink it. She looked at me long and carefully, with an expression of quiet, humble, and deadly determination. She would drink it, despite the fact that she believed me. She seemed aware and as if she had values that I could not comprehend or like, but that I somehow could not help but respect. I had to let her drink it; it didn't occur to me to stop her forcefully.

3. I was on a boat with several men - artists who were drawing me. I was modeling for them, holding a pose as the boat drove down a river, past tall German-village style buildings topped with Christmas lights, with small passageways between them. I could not keep still. I could not remember to keep still. I could not, no matter how many times I vowed to myself that I would remain in position, I inevitably moved my position completely, and only realized a second after, and then vowed again, and so on. I was extremely confused, as none of the artists were protesting at my changes, or even saying anything. My back was to them, I faced the river water, and I struggled to get back into position, over and over.
When class was over and we were riding back I spoke with the men about my confusion and found that they were confused too. No one had an answer as to why my constant movement had not been remarked upon by anyone, not even the man leading the class. I apologized to them, and remained hopelessly confused about the intentions and desires of the people on the boat, and about my utter lack of self-discipline or self-control.

"...unlike the snail, we carry our homes within us..."

2008-12-18T19:24:00.009-06:00

Oh Lord, if it seems like the sea and sounds like the sea
If it seems, oh Lord, if it seems to be the sea --

But if it is not, if it is not the sea,
Then that which is inside is holier than me.

Sea

2008-12-07T16:13:00.004-06:00

So sad. These waves I'm painting and these songs that are playing. It's all cold outside and there is the brick I love, the dark brick I used to love. Just outside. Just across the street. London is quite far. Here I am. Here. What am I doing, exactly? Fortunately I have not had time to consider this recently.
I'm certainly not standing still. I seem to be getting better at things, or maybe realizing my potential.
Still.
You'd think I'd get sick of these patterns, enough to avoid them successfully. But apparently I love the romance of it all. Apparently I like it. Apparently it's still what I'm comfortable with.
Makes me want to go do something crazy in protest. But it's far too cold outside for that. If it was summer, I would probably hop on my bike and go sit at that silly bar with my guitar and flirt with all the douchebags and the nice guys. Let the old man buy me a drink. Feel famous. Most importantly, sing.
I could probably still do that. It's Sunday, isn't it? Yes, I could do that. But I might cry if I did. How strange I am today.
It would be nice to have grandparents. Useful ones, who were not mentally ill.
Singing with him last night was a relief. I hardly realize how godawful much I miss it, until it's 5 minutes to show but we're still urgently running through the entire Leonard Cohen song Famous Blue Raincoat, even though the sound check is done, even though there is no time, we had to (or I had to, and he obliged? I do not know) finish it, every single verse. Harmonizing with each other. Then I was okay; much better. I could deal with everything and everyone.

What can I tell you, my brother, my killer?
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way.

I had some sunlight today, to paint.
A lot of paintings to make. A lot of Christmas presents but I can't really think about that. Just have to paint and then later think about who gets what.
The switch comes from daylight to tungsten now and I burned my incense down.
What on earth feels so unsatisfying and sad about today?
I'm not sure whether I am lonely or feeling completely driven, creatively. The feelings are similar.

Strange, too, that I'm writing a journal-style entry here. Odd.
Oh well.

What's in it.

2008-12-04T23:38:00.021-06:00

1. What's in it is some meditation on the nature of death.

Settling the question of communication.
We do not speak.
He never did. I am learning not to.
We don't look at each other; the music begins spontaneously.
Cello, guitar, the same revolution.
Everyone hustles around us, but we have a few moments.
No acknowledgement that we are writing a song.
Maybe it's already his song, and I am writing my part.
Maybe the song was just born tonight. I don't ask. We don't speak.
He never did. I'm learning not to.

The sounds we make are seaweed bumping imperceptibly against holes
once bored by vicious, hungry, now-dead animals.
The only living parts of this driftwood altar:
green tendrils moving through dead and silent water.
Perfectly beautiful, of course.
A tiny piece of life, for what it may - or may not - be worth.

2. I'm just looking to get it right.

How to look at injustice with compassion?
How they treat her; how they treat him.
How they are all so frightened.
(Big boys, big girls, working in the big big world,
frightened they'll drown if they dive for a single pearl.
And that everyone around them will, too -
it's not just selfish fear that keeps them mute.)
And she has been calling me. I don't know why.
The loneliness in the world is overwhelming.

There may not end up being much I can do or say,
but I witnessed communal fear today.

3. What's in it are counterfeit medicines and a whole lot of being "sensible".

Grass used to hook around my toes
and throw me off, throw me forward.
Snow now, but I suppose it's the same.
I get ready to leave, I am stopped by the snow.
I get ready to stay, I am stopped by the grass.

Don't wander off, stay here while you dance.

Take some sugar with the medicine of being "sensible":
Draw your love out of you with a pen.
Press it down, then hold it above your head, just like heaven.
Maintain its dignity. Take good care of it.
Four walls can mean no need to worry if you are too delicate...

But really, now, it's not so bad, this,
when joy's surrounding all of your sadness?

4. The fourth quarter. The close of the year.

relevancy XLVI

2008-11-29T14:58:00.005-06:00

Perhaps poet Robert Penn Warren put it best when he wrote that people really don't want to remember their actual past if it had defects, that they have to manufacture a new one, that they need a new one, that we need to believe we were good and righteous before, even if we were not, in order that we can be good and righteous today and tomorrow. "Inevitably, the past, so far as we know it, is an inference, a creation, and this, without being paradoxical, can be said to be its chief value to us. In creating the image of the past we create ourselves, and without that task of creating the past we might be said scarcely to exist," he wrote.

- Bruce Chadwick, 'The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film"

Half of the time we're gone
and we don't know where, we don't know where

- The Only Living Boy in New York, Paul Simon

his voice on the phone betrayed control or reticence so that
you might have assumed you had disturbed him at work.
but actually, he said, he had been sitting by the phone all
afternoon waiting for the call.
the words squandered, he said, in our family that is,
wastefulness, this goddess that all have always fallen prey to.
so why not me.
without a trace, he said, self-abnegation.
each family, he said, thus has its own christmas tradition.
landscreen, he said.
as if we were speaking different languages, localities.
different localities, he said, so that in the end you no longer
know what is right.

- last lines of 'four o'clock deep in the morning' by Friederike Mayrocker.

House & Bird (www.houseandbird.com)

2008-02-21T14:01:00.005-06:00

I am now 1/2 of an acoustic folk noir duo:

House & Bird

We're currently recording our first 5-song EP in our home recording space, Porkpie Hat Studio, and it will be mixed externally.

You can join our mailing list to receive an email once a month about upcoming shows and album releases, and if I know you, OR if you write me or leave a comment I can put you in the right area of the world, so that if you live in London you won't get info about Chicago shows, etc.

Live Performance drawings by Jenny Blair.

from Suzanne, by Leonard Cohen

2007-10-18T14:45:00.000-05:00

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her
and you know that she's half crazy but that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China
and just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her
then she gets you on her wavelength and she lets the river answer
that you've always been her lover

And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower
and when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
he said "All men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

Now Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counter
and the sun pours down like honey on Our Lady of the Harbor
and she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever
while Suzanne holds the mirror

... corresponding notes on the symbolism of birds and lavender

2007-09-24T14:12:00.000-05:00

To help illuminate the dream described in the post below, I gathered randomly from various websites.

Birds

"BIRDS - enlightenment, perspective, swiftness, vision, prophetic knowledge"

"The symbol of a bird is thought to have been a symbol of the soul."

"In a wider sense birds symbolise your own vision of the future. They can also simply link to the possibility of change and usually some specific change."

Lavender

"One of the oldest and most revered herbs is lavender, whose symbol is devotion."

"It is helpful for all disorders that trouble the head and spirit, for its scent is calming."

"Reputed to be one of the plants most loved by the Virgin Mary."

"As it does now, in ancient times it represented purity, cleanliness and virtue."

"In flower symbolism lavender symbolizes affection; cleansing; or concealment (something packed away can be said to be 'in lavender')."

Dreamt

2007-09-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

I plucked a small fruit or flower when I was in another country or environment. When I got back to where I came from I discovered that accidentally I had also brought along a small, beautiful red-brown bird who had been standing on the fruit/flower. My heart went out to the beautiful bird and its sweet chirp but I felt hopeless inside - I was sure it would die. Out of its environment, plucked by me, and I had no knowledge of how to take care of it or how to feed it. I resigned myself to its imminent death.
Nevertheless I tried to feed it with little drops of lavender water from my hand. I fed it too big of a beakful and the bird fell out of my hands. I couldn't see where it went and meanwhile other people wanted me, and there was commotion.

relevancy XLV

2007-08-29T10:06:00.000-05:00

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

- from Prelude IV, by T. S. Eliot

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet - and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

- from The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot

The Giving Tree Band - album release show 6/23

2007-06-25T18:08:00.000-05:00

I was honored to be part of The Giving Tree Band's big show at the Frank Lloyd Wright Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, officially marking the release of their debut double album, Unified Folk Theory.

Pictures taken by Conner Burke.

Please, vote

2007-06-14T12:40:00.000-05:00

The Giving Tree Band, the group whose album I appear on and who have helped me so much musically, the group I will appear with on June 23rd singing an arrangement of one of my songs, and the group that consists of my dear friends, is going for a gig at Lollapalooza. Contrary to how this might sound, it is actually very feasible, for a number of reasons. Please, vote for them ONCE A DAY from as many email addresses as you've got. It makes all the difference for them, and it will help me out too.

Just go here once a day:

http://lollapalooza.mp3.com/feature/2007lollapalooza/?band=THE-GIVING-TREE-BAND

Thank you, many times over!!

Next two performances

2007-06-14T12:33:00.000-05:00

I always love seeing a familiar face when I'm performing, so please do stop by.

Thursday, June 21st, 2:00
Kalamazoo Fete de la Musique
Address: downtown Kalamazoo, MI
Cost: free

2:00 at the Water Street Coffee Joint
3:00 at Bell's Brewery

From www.kalamazoofete.com:

On June 21st over 100 countries will welcome the beginning of summer with Fete de la Musique, an all-day music festival. In cities such as Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Rome, and New York, musicians will take to the outdoors and indoor locations performing free public concerts. See who's playing at this year's Kalamazoo Fete! In downtown Kalamazoo, the Fete will begin at 11:00 am until 11:00 pm. With over 15 event locations, the beginning of summer will be music to our ears!

Saturday, June 23rd, 8:00
The Giving Tree Band: Album Release Concert
Address: Unity Church, 875 Lake St, Oak Park
Cost: $15

The Giving Tree Band's debut double album, 'Unified Folk Theory,' will be officially released at Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Church. I'll be appearing for an arrangement of one of my songs, and for a duet with Bob Salihar. The rest will be magnificent folk beauty by these four amazing musicians.

The Abbey, May 14

2007-05-22T10:53:00.001-05:00

With Bob Salihar and Patrick Burke.

Show and recording

2007-05-14T11:36:00.000-05:00

Tonight I'll be performing at The Abbey Pub, an Irish pub at 3420 W. Grace, at Grace & Elston in Chicago. I'll go on at 8:30 and will be accompanied midway through the set by the eminent and lovely musicians Bob Salihar and Pat Burke, of The Giving Tree Band.

Also, there are new recordings online of me performing three songs at an open mic last week. The first is a song by Richard Farina (though I'm covering Sandy Denny's version), 'Quiet Joys of Brotherhood'. The second and third (bunched onto one track) are two of my originals, 'To Be Alone' and 'Traveling as a Dawn.'

Have a listen if you'd like:

Mercury Cafe open mic

Matt Gandurski, a left-handed and wondrous musician, runs the open mic and was so kind as to do the recording.

Cheers!

Elisabeth

The Orphanage

2007-04-10T11:35:00.000-05:00

Myself and Patrick Burke at The Orphanage, Sunday April 8.

Elisabeth and Patrick at The Orphanage

2007-04-05T09:19:00.000-05:00

04/08/2007 07:00 PM - 1:00 AM
The Orphanage
643 W. 31st St.
Chicago, Illinois 60616

Cost: $5 donation

Myself (voice and guitar) and Patrick Burke of The Giving Tree Band (voice, mandolin, guitar, harmonica) will be performing a set of originals.

The doors open at 7:00, and music starts at 8:00. The line-up right now is:

- Lyrical Siberia - electronic group w/live viola
- Tim Pool
- GK Duo - live drum n bass
- Elisabeth Blair w/ Patrick Burke of the Giving Tree Band (acoustic duo)
- Tim Wais (trio)

The Orphanage is a nonprofit performance space, operating currently on a donation only basis, with a coffeehouse atmosphere fit into an auditorium sized room complete with a stage. The Orphanage is open every Sunday from 7pm - 1am. It is currently in its 3rd year of operation, hosting events that feature original music, both acoustic and amplified in nature, spanning nearly all genres of music as well as DJs, poetry, and a host of other varieties of performance.

Throughout the course of the evening guests are encouraged to dine buffet-style on the consistently amazing food (vegetarian friendly) that is provided.

Unified Folk Theory

2007-03-21T10:30:00.000-05:00

Great news!

‘Unified Folk Theory,’ the debut double album of The Giving Tree Band (the bluegrass/folk group I have been involved with as a guest singer) is now available. It features 33 original songs on 2 CDs. It was manufactured at a wind-powered facility with recycled materials in the most environmentally friendly way currently possible. The cases are post-consumer recycled paperboard with hand drawn custom artwork by illustrator Ania Klimiuk.

This album is amazing. I can genuinely and so! enthusiastically! say that all of the tracks on the album are beautiful as well as brilliantly arranged. And I had the great privilege of being a guest vocalist for two songs written by Bob Salihar on this album.

The album is selling for $15 on the band's website, with $2 from every sale being donated to Hand In Hand USA.

If you know of anyone in your area who would be willing/able to write a review of the album for a local newspaper, magazine, or other form of media, please let me know!

Relevant quotes XLIV

2007-03-05T09:34:00.000-06:00

At this moment what is there that you lack?
Nirvana presents itself before you.
Where you stand is the Land of Purity.
Your person, the body of Buddha.

- Hakuin Ekaku

Dream of a bowl of Apples that I never turned around to see.
He wanted one dearly.
I laughed - why would you need permission from me?

Hungry Rats Theme

2007-03-01T14:44:00.000-06:00

I am very honored to have contributed to the writer Connor Coyne's novel by way of a song which I composed for the novel especially. To hear the Hungry Rats Theme please visit the novel's website, Hungry Rats, and click on 'Listen to music.'

It's myself on vocals, guitar and banderia.

I wrote the music but the lyrics are by Charles Mackay, Esq, written in 1836:

Some love to roam o'er the dark sea foam
Where the wild winds whistle free
But a chosen band in a forest land
And a life in the woods for me

Everything is silly, everything is serious.

2007-02-19T15:02:00.001-06:00

When I was fifteen years old I had an experience in which I saw many things and heard a voice. I was calm while it happened, and when it ended, I became terrified.

Was I asleep? Was I halfway between sleep and waking? Maybe, and probably. Still, I'm someone who holds a lot of stock in her dreams, so regardless of what the experience *was*, its *message* has continued to resound. The voice said the following:

And then a shadow passed over her.

I was recently mulling this phrase over as I have been wont to do from time to time during the past 11 years, and by way of making a fresh attempt at the wonderful mystery of it all, I sent it to a certain expert on words who I am fortunate to know, one Nicholas S. I thought he might, in dissecting the very elements of the phrase (its letters), be able to shed some new light, or at least enlarge and illuminate the mystery.

His response was fantastic. These are brilliant anagrams. Also, he illustrated two of the best ones, which I include here.

--------------------------------------
First, a poem, each line being an anagram.
--------------------------------------

Past snows have adorned her head;
She's wended a sharp road to heav'n.
"Have sadness, dear, and throw hope"
Death drowns her, posed as a haven.

--------------------------------------
Next, a loner (or combine it with Shredder to make a rhyming couplet):
--------------------------------------

He has dewdrops, as on the veranda.

--------------------------------------
And the two illustrated ones:
--------------------------------------

Shredder avows he hates no panda.

We have stranded her hoss on a pad.

On legends becoming real

2007-02-14T10:14:00.000-06:00

In my dream, the Kraken surfaced near the dock where we were standing. He was standing further out, though, and with strange power it sucked him off of the wooden walkway and across the water, until he was plastered against its body, whereupon it submerged, drowning him. We were all a bit shaken.

I did the best I could to comfort his daughter as we all walked down along the ocean bay where the small town was nestled, and into the large house with many rooms. From room to room I comforted her, and from balcony to balcony on the outside of the house, looking out onto the town's small curving streets, the harbor, and the road leading around the edge of it. A serious, dark, muddy, crisp and beautiful time and place.

'rusted orange and oceanic green'

2007-02-06T14:10:00.000-06:00

Lake Michigan, Grand Traverse Bay
December 24, 2006

Relevancy

2007-02-02T11:23:00.000-06:00

Beauty.

A relevant song is 'Moving Pictures Silent Films' by the Great Lake Swimmers. Recorded in an abandoned grain silo in southern Ontario.

I've had two violent dreams over the past two nights. When this happens, which it hasn't for about a year, it usually means I'm feeling great joy in the daytimes. Like a scale, the balance must be returned to.

In one, I witnessed the murder of a woman in a silent movie (this was the night before I encountered - without looking for it - the song of the above-mentioned title). As I watched I realized that special effects were not advanced enough in the silent film days to render such a realistic murder, and that what I was watching was a documented, real murder from 90 years ago. I was horrified, and awoke at 4:30 to think about this.

The difference between 'old' death and new death; the position of suffering when it is presented as a part of history, removing it partly from our experience of reality. What exactly (besides horror) could we/should we feel when all participants in a violent act are gone forever? I think the gift this dream gave me is an idea that compassion at its purest is a compassion raised above timelines and generations; one that does not differentiate (selfishly?) between suffering now and suffering then; that instead understands that suffering is a shared human vulnerability that could be a banner representing our togetherness; a compassion that separates itself entirely from all other reactions - protectiveness, a desire for revenge, even empathy. A compassion that does not even differentiate between the sufferer and the inflicter.

When there is nothing left to do, as in this dream's situation; when the killer, the killed, and any other participants are gone and their secrets gone with them, one is more easily able to enter into this compassion.

When the people involved are still present, complications arise and can stand in the way of the compassion I'm speaking about. There is a human drive to put things right, and to actively prevent further suffering.

I suspect though that a glimpse of a more divine compassion, one that sits above the world at a soft but lofty height, could help with the necessary scattering and gathering that happens at ground level. A patience, perhaps, could arrive, or a peace. A clearer mind, more able to enfold a difficult situation in its hands, turn it around, and find the best paths to take.

All of this, in addition to some reading I did yesterday, has inspired me to continue working on the novel I haven't been able to provide an ending for. Maybe I know its direction now. Maybe not.

----

Where have you been?
And what have you done?

I've been under the ground
Reading prayers from this old book I found
Under the ground
Saving it up
And spending it all
On moving pictures
Silent films
Moving pictures
Silent films

- lyrics from the song mentioned above

Quickly stop thinking: "Wisdom begins in wonder." (Socrates)

2007-01-18T16:30:00.000-06:00

Image from Nasa's website here:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_740.html

relevant quotes XLIII

2007-01-18T11:49:00.000-06:00

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.

- the last lines of 'Be Lost in the Call' by Rumi

The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away,
afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love
is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.

- from 'The intellectual is always showing off' by Rumi

you said Is
there anything which
is dead or alive more beautiful
than my body,to have in your fingers
(trembling ever so little)?
Looking into
your eyes Nothing,i said,except the
air of spring smelling of never and forever.

....and through the lattice which moved as
if a hand is touched by a
hand(which
moved as though
fingers touch a girl's
breast,
lightly)
Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered

- by E.E. Cummings

California (pt. 1)

2007-01-14T16:33:00.000-06:00

All these photos taken by Cara. I haven't been able to get my own off my camera yet but those will constitute part 2.

The Giving Tree Band and myself at the Red Victorian on Haight St. in San Francisco, Dec. 30th.

Eric Fink and myself on a rooftop in San Francisco after the show.

Eric, me, Bob, and a very friendly girl named Lisa whose roof it was we were standing on.

The Fink brothers working on one of Eric's new songs, in our cottage in Guerneville, CA.

Excerpts from a sketchbook from 2003

2007-01-07T18:56:00.000-06:00

The education I really want is individualized, one-on-one debate, discussion, reading, commenting, and this I can provide through meeting people with which to give and receive learning and opinion. This ‘class’ with a ‘master’ is out of date in an age where one can so easily educate one’s self much better than a class in which the goal is like mass media’s – to teach the whole class and thus level it off to a certain level, and constant question and comments are not possible due to (a) time constraints and (b) social constraints. Thus I must create my own dialogues with people whom I seek out myself.
It is my responsibility to educate myself.

---

All my work is mere practice for something which will come, and which still will not be perfect, but will be my Best.
practice = ideas enacted, even good or very good ideas
final Best = the adding together of all these ideas

---

I’m not interested in DOING SOMETHING NEW.
I’m interested in putting Art into action to allow social change.
This involves (a) education and (b) merging of subjects.

---

I dislike the separation and can remember disliking it as a child – of classes and subjects, how each one had/has a sort of murderous disinterest in the others, how in school it didn’t matter to one class how you were doing in another class. I think the best kind of school would be a forum where experienced people would be around to talk to, in different corners of the room, and where students could ask virtually anything they’d like to ask, and this could happen every day for four years.

---

God I wish class was real discussion, emotional expression, intellectual rising – just like a therapy session but speaking of ideas and not inner self-concerned thoughts. No getting violent or bossy – just excitement, constant challenging of ideas and of each other – grabbing the latent intellectual passion present in each student and teacher, and most of all, unanimous agreement that no one is definitely right. In other words, progression THROUGH ideas and claims, not simply declarations of these.

---

I’m not sure where the people I belong with are, but this is the place, this place of Europe. I appreciate it grinning. I’m overjoyed to be alive.

---

What I want to do is implement something, not protest something. Not anti-negative action but positive action.

---

Fear will not stop me.

---

I’m sure I don’t have to accept everyone else’s jaded partnerships. I’m certain that it does not have to be like that and that it can be magical throughout, that we can see the world new every morning, discovering and appreciating. I’m sure I don’t have to become part of a smoothed-out ‘well once you’ve been together for a long time you get used to each other’ semi-alive 'partnership,' or really, ‘thereness.’ I’m positive!

---

The continuation/explanation behind my premise, “no moment is more boring than the others – every moment is equally exciting,” is that when you choose to experience everyday actions and living as ART, you experience joyful peace – i.e. to use awareness to bring aesthetic aspects and feelings to the participation/observation of everyday living.

So one would give up – I would give up – and just enjoy it, except that I wish to share it. But could I be satisfied with simply finding other people who already share this with me?

---

Don’t sit around and revere – just pick it up and go. Don’t waste time in reverence. Familiarize yourself – gather your tools – then get up and leave. It does only stagnant pond scum good to sit and repetitively revere.

If you're going to San Francisco,

2006-12-21T15:16:00.000-06:00

be sure to wear some flowers in your hair,
and come out to the Red Vic Sessions where The Giving Tree Band will be performing at 7 pm next Saturday Dec. 30th.

Address: Red Victorian Peace Center, 1665 Haight St, San Francisco

See you there.

Also, they'll be in Cotati, CA on Friday the 29th at 7pm, playing at North Light Books & Cafe, 550 E Cotati Ave.

relevant quotes XLII

2006-12-11T10:15:00.000-06:00

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

- Virginia Woolf

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.

- Virginia Woolf

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

- Leo Tolstoy

Being the change

2006-12-05T15:40:00.000-06:00

relevant quote XLI

2006-12-01T10:06:00.000-06:00

Next Time Around

(song by Sandy Denny)

Then came the question, and it was about time
The answer came back and it was long
The house, it was built by some man in a rhyme
but whatever came of his talented son?

Who wrote me a dialogue set to a tune?
Always you told me of being alone
Except for the stories about God and you
And do you still live there in Buffalo?

They put up the walls, with no more to say
Nobody stopped to ask why it was done
The stream was too far and the rain was too high,
So into the city the river did run

Because of the architect, the buildings fell down,
smothered or drowned all the seeds which were sown
I wish I were somewhere, not in this town...
maybe the ocean, next time around.

I seem to remember the face and the name
but if it's not you, I won't care.
I know of changes, but nothing would change you
to Theo the sailor who sings in his lair.

And then I'll turn, and he won't be there
Dusty black windows to light the dark stair
Candles all gnarled in the musty air
All without flames, for many's the year.

runes

2006-11-21T12:32:00.000-06:00

The left rune represents one of the forces acting on the issue at hand. Isa is the rune symbolizing Ice - cold, stagnant, frozen, and unchanging. This rune suggests heat removed not just from anger or conflict, but from passion as well. Paradoxically, Isa conveys images of slippery slopes and unsure footing, but also of circumstances that have crystallized and become utterly immutable. Remember that in the cold north, ice is not just THE challenge to be overcome, but the very nature of the environment. Be courageous, for you work against this element every day. Will you fight alone or with others against this, our common foe? Is there much worse than lack of change?

The top rune represents the conclusion to which your strivings can carry you. Algiz can be easily recognized as the antlers of the elk that it represents. The elk can represent victory, but is much more appropriately associated with the thrill of the hunt itself. This rune therefore can portend vigor and success in active endeavors. Also, this rune seems symbolic of a hand with outstretched fingers - a protective hand. This hand may suggest that you will be shielded from things negative - the problems still exist, but you are spared the brunt of their force.

Love, danger, childhood, total ignorance... the works

2006-11-18T23:32:00.000-06:00

Excerpt from unfinished novel, Run Away! by Elisabeth Catherine Blair, age 10.

...As she was walking back to the strawberry bush to fill the basket, she suddenly heard a small rustling sound. Winnie stopped cold in her tracks. Was this her parents or the police coming to find her? She held her breath and stood stock still. Just then she heard it again and a medium-sized figure emerged from behind the trees. She couldn't see the figure's face very well because, after all, it was only 6:30 in the morning. The only thing she could recognize was that it was a he.

When the figure stepped into the newly-made sunlight, Winnie nearly gasped. He was the most gorgeous boy she had ever seen.

She immediately backed away; almost instinctively. The boy looked surprised himself. Winnie grabbed her bag and began to run. "Wait!" he yelled. Winnie stopped and slowly turned around.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Winnie. Why are you here?" she asked cautiously.
"I live here. This is my home. I used to have a family, but then they left," the boy said sadly.
"Well, I ran away because my parents don't ever seem to get along with me. I was afraid that you were my parents coming to look for me. I heard you rustle in the bushes," Winnie said. Suddenly she felt very silly because she had run away from the boy. Suddenly the boy said, "Oh, I've got to go now. In case you need to know, my name is William." Then William dashed through the bushes, making a horrendous noise. Then all was quiet.

***

"Wake up, Winnie!! Wake up!"
Winnie felt very drowsy and didn't in the least bit feel like going away from her comfortable mossy spot. She yawned very loudly.
"Open your eyes! This is William! You've got to go! Wake up!"
Winnie sat straight up and opened her eyes. "William! Why are you here?" she asked.
"There's no time for that now! We've got to get out of here!"
Winnie looked deep into the young, scraggly boy's gorgeous blue eyes, searching for some clue of what the danger was.
"What's hap -"
Suddenly she couldn't hear anything, and then everything went black.

Chapter Three: Escape

When Winnie woke up, she opened her eyes and looked around. There was no light and she couldn't see anything. She tried to lift her head, but it fell back in pain. She winced. Where was she? She couldn't hear or smell anything. She called out very softly. "W-William? I-is a-anybody here?" She heard a soft movement and then a soothing voice. It sounded like William.
"Are you all right?" he asked solemnly.
"I think so. But my head really hurts. Where are we?"
Silence.
"William? Are you there?" She shuddered. "Where is my bag? I-I-I need it!!"
"Just stay quiet. We have to get out of here!" he said.
"But what happened?" Winnie inquired.
"They got you. I came in here to get you out, when I got captured, too. If we can get out of here at all, we'll be very lucky. But if we can manage to get out of here alive, it'll be a miracle."

She shivered again. Where was this awful place? For a split second, she wished she was at home, taking care of the horrible triplets with her mother screaming at her to do this and do that. Then she began to feel very warm inside. After all, right now the most gorgeous boy in the world was sitting right next to her. She suddenly had an overwhelming urge to kiss him. Her eyes were slowly getting used to the darkness. He was sitting in front of her looking very worried. She struggled to sit up, and, withstanding the pain of her head, she kissed him almost passionately. They stared at each other for a moment, and then William blurted out, "We-We've got to go!" He pushed her down on the bed, or whatever it was she was lying on, glanced around him, and said, "Stay low! And be quiet!"
Winnie was beginning to get quite scared.
Suddenly, she heard a low voice grumbling in a strange language she had never heard. She reached down to find William but found nothing but air. She began to worry about him. Suddenly the voices came into English.
"What should we do with them?"
Another voice. " Well, they were intruding. I suppose that we will just simply have to execute them -"

Just then, Winnie gasped. They were going to kill them! She listened some more.

"Well that is, of course, we will only have to do that if they find out anything!"
"They MUST be killed. They know where our base is!"
Silence.
"I know. It's just that I hate to kill such little kids -"
"Oh shaddup! You're so stupid!"

Soon the voices seemed to get softer and Winnie realized that they were walking away. She wanted to get away from it all, and she called out, "William? Where's my bag?"
"It's right here. I managed to grab it when they grabbed us."
Winnie was discouraged now. "Will, you've just simply got to tell me who these people who kidnapped us are!" She heard William sigh. Then he said, slowly, "Well, they're a big mob of the Ku Klux Klan who have a secret base here in the woods. I first found out last spring, when they were setting up this base. I accidentally overheard them."
Winnie asked, "What do they want to do?"
William replied, "They - well, they want to kill us and every white person they can find."
"Oh, god! Oh, god, oh god! How will we ever get out of here!?"
"We probably won't. But, there is a chance that tomorrow afternoon we can get out. You see, they're going to stay up tomorrow in the night, all night, to plan something. I've been hearing them for a long time, talking about something big happening tomorrow night."
Both Winnie and William were silent for a little bit. Then, Winnie said in a soft voice, "W-William? I, well, I'm sorry I didn't thank you before, but thank you for, well, I know it sounds silly, but, thanks for saving me."
William giggled slightly. "You're welcome!"
Then, still smiling, he leaned down, embracing her, kissed her again but only briefly. Then he sat up. "I think you'd better go to sleep, and so shall I! We have a big day tomorrow."
William stepped off the bench-thing that Winnie was lying on and lay down on the just as hard ground. Then they both went to sleep.

very relevant quotes XL

2006-11-13T15:20:00.000-06:00

It's not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.

- Francis Bacon, Sr.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

- E.E. Cummings, last lines of 'maggie and milly and molly and may'

Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you.

- excerpt from T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'

I almost don't feel like I can do this.
I know I can do this.
But I almost feel as if I can't.
My integrity is tearing up my ability to do this.

- my main thought today

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.

- Virginia Woolf

On Homesickness

2006-11-09T10:51:00.000-06:00

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

The Palm Tree Pub, in Mile End Park, London. The place I first sang to the public... "A Foggy Day," with a fantastic jazz band. They play there every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights and invite people up to sing with them.
A lovely, secret place, with pretty much only locals. Family owned and run.

image source:
http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/38/3808/Palm_Tree/Mile_End

If I give myself even an inch of space to feel it, the homesickness flows in with an ocean to push it. The balance is that I can find home in people as well as places, and I'm very at home with the dear and talented group of people who are The Giving Tree Band. Please look them up if you haven't. On this past Saturday night they put on a fantastic concert in which I was able to participate, singing two duets with Bob Salihar, who has a marvelous voice and is an excellent songwriter and guitarist, among other grand qualities. Each of the boys are brilliant multi-instrumentalists, and I am always blown away when I hear them play. Their album, Unified Folk Theory, will be out in early 2007 - a double album of 36 amazing original songs, taking influence from Indian music, country, and bluegrass to name a few.

There exists more than one 'home.' If I leave one, I ache for it because I cannot caress it with my presence and be caressed in return. But then again, as John Cage put it in his piece Lecture on Nothing,

unlike the snail
we carry our homes within us

And since I believe this is true, I know when I ache for London that I ache for nothing but a unique expression of my own self.

So it's all here, with me. As they used to say at boarding school, to experience peace you can bring yourself to the mountains, but the real task in life is to bring the mountains to yourself, wherever you may be.
And so it should be with home.

And these are my thoughts on love and life for the day.

relevant quotes XXXIX

2006-11-05T19:48:00.000-06:00

And yet there is more to spiritual touch than expression alone; power is involved. When persons truly touch there is a flow of spiritual power, whatever the personal message may be. Jesus knew "that power had gone out of him." So will anyone else who touches as a means of revealing himself rather than feeling of the other person. Historically, religious groups have used the rite of laying-on-hands in ordaining chosen ones. When the contact is spiritual, the event is more than symbolic. Power is in fact conveyed.

Thus we may say that this form of touching is literally a giving rather than an attempt to get. In it one gives of himself to the other. His power of being goes out to the one touched.

- passage from essay “Being Close: A Look at Intimacy” by J. Bruce Evans, 1979.

'I wonder,' he said to himself, 'what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut up in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.'
Suddenly an almost festive mood came over him.
He settled himself, picked up the book, opened it to the first page, and began to read
The Neverending Story.

- from 'The Neverending Story' by Michael Ende

It was a Sunday, and extremely cold as it was nearly Christmas. This gave her no end of unhappiness because she had great difficulty imagining that her father could possibly have been warm as he lay dying in a battlefield, and the idea of him not only having to die but having to die while shivering made her terribly mournful. When she arrived at Mrs. Doeppler's [her Italian tutor] house she had just decided that he had in fact died during the summer preceding this winter, and that news of his death had taken a circuitous route and everyone was mixed up about the facts except her, who knew now that her father had died in the sunlight with a blue and red butterfly perched on his nose.

The door opened and out bustled a plump person. This quite took Grace aback, literally, because when one knocks on a door, one then normally proceeds to go into the house, whereas here the person inside came out.

"You must be Grace," the person said, "and that," she pointed, "is an uccello."
The tiny dancing creature she was gesturing at had red feathers and itsy-bitsy feet and Grace was very familiar with it. It was a bird.
"That's a bird," she said in wonder.
"Too true!" said Mrs. Doeppler (for that's who she was) and stepped back into the house, making way for Grace to enter.

- passage from 'Life of Grace' - young adult novel I'm currently working on, which spans the years 1853-1949

I know I look dry when my colorless mouth is open,
or wet and supplied when it's shut, or red,
but moving-picture kisses cause the saddest, most
preferred thoughts and ideas. I dream of men, loving men.
A man says: "Descending to the idea, I love you." The boy said
Come on, girl, quick or we will lose time on the grass.
Haste.

- poem, 2003

relevant quotes XXXVIII

2006-11-02T15:01:00.000-06:00

I find it very difficult to draw a line between what's sexy and what isn't. It can be very, very sexy to drive a car, and completely unsexy to flirt with someone at a bar.

- Bjork

Destiny has a lot to do with it, but so do you. You have to persevere, you have to insist.

- Andrea Bocelli

You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way.

- Johnny Cash

relevant quotes XXXVII

2006-10-30T10:26:00.000-06:00

The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside.

- Rabindranath Tagore; 1861-1941

If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it.

- Pierre Beaumarchais; 1732-99

Sons of the thief, sons of the saint
Who is the child with no complaint
Sons of the great or sons unknown
All were children like your own

The same sweet smiles, the same sad tears
The cries at night, the nightmare fears
Sons of the great or sons unknown
All were children like your own

Sons of tycoons, sons from the farms
All the children ran from your arms
Through fields of gold, through fields of ruin
All the children vanished too soon

In tow'ring waves, in walls of flesh
Amid dying birds trembling with death
Sons of tycoons, sons from the farms
All the children ran from your arms

Sons of your sons, sons passing by
Children lost in lullaby
Sons of true love, sons of regret
All the sons you can never forget

Some built the roads, some wrote the poems
Some went to war, some never came home
Sons of your sons, sons passing by
Children lost in lullaby,
in lullaby, in lullaby

- 'Sons Of;' song by Jacques Brel; 1929-1978

And where do you look for this hope that you're seeking?
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burning?
Where do you look for this oil well gushing?
Where do you look for this candle that's glowing?
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
and out there somewhere?

And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist and turn two kinds of doorknobs

You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion; I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both in the Grand Canyon, at sundown.

- from 'Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie;' Bob Dylan

relevant quotes XXXVI

2006-10-28T01:13:00.000-05:00

Seeking God? Each path marks a river; each river flows into the same lake. Go anywhere - and the search is over. Go anywhere - and it begins again.

----

Nothing real stays tidy for very long. We are knit into the cloth of life, like a burr woven into rough country wool.

from book 'Everyday Zen.'

relevant quotes XXXV

2006-10-25T09:14:00.000-05:00

If you cannot see God in all,
you cannot see God at all.

- from my teabag this morning

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee.
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

- 'To make a prairie;' Emily Dickinson

relevant quotes XXXIV

2006-10-24T08:54:00.000-05:00

You will feel exalted when you do the impossible for someone else.

- from my Yogi Tea bag this morning

I think the hardest things to learn are the things we already know.

- from a conversation with my sister last night

My wife and my mother and all the rest were begrimed with dirt and smoke; everybody was. The "bloated aristocrats" all along the streets, who supposed they had lost both home and fortune at one swoop, were a sorry but not despairing congregation. They had saved their lives at all events, and they knew that many of their fellow creatures must have lost theirs. I saw a great many kindly acts done as we moved along. The poor helped the rich, and the rich helped the poor (if anybody could be called rich at such a time), to get on with their loads. I heard of cartmen demanding one hundred and fifty dollars (in hand, of course) for carrying a single load. Very likely it was so, but those cases did not come under my own notice. It did come under my notice that some cartmen worked for whatever the sufferers felt able to pay, and one I knew worked with alacrity for nothing. It takes all sorts of people to make a great fire.

- from Horace White's account of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, written six days after, on Oct. 14

Heaven

2006-10-18T09:31:00.000-05:00

How I feel, demonstrated by starlings (who, bringing a kind of beauty to me which I'd never known, altered my life path three years ago).

- sources:
1) http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0710/csmimg/p13a.jpg
2) flickr.com/photos/raysto/123352283/

It's that time of year again

2006-10-16T20:26:00.000-05:00

... for private-turned-public honesty. I've not done this in rather a long while. Here are some important private notes I've made regarding my life in the last year.

Because it feels necessary to me to challenge myself in this difficult way once a year.

---

holy she spoke, she spoke, she said the rosary over
and over.
We've all been
Will you pray for me
Will you ask - did you ask
My mother is crying
We're all each of us too happy

What are you smiling about Lisa

We each have our private mind
we each communicate when we want to
we each possess nothing
we sing the prayers
silently - in the pews, in the muttering
under our breath. We remove the cancer
with nothing, we put it away into
nowhere. Our sacrifice is only ever time
and we can be misguided and end up
seeing fireworks.

quiet because quiet
we are silent
our prayers are these mutterings
our rosaries our hail marys
because we love each other
because undone is not our
once-upon-a-time
Pursuing the reluctant dark
our noise is a muttering
our arms are the fireworks that
you didn't know you were going to see.
You didn't mean to go
but your mutterings and your happiness
showed you the right road in the city
to roll upon to roll over
to move quiet quiet
yes you're right to quietly mutter.
You'll get there exactly
well
precisely on time.

- October 2006

---

Beauty in singing
Because we all become drowned,
even the most beautiful of us
But it's a kind of letting go -
colorado - marriage - death - song -
We harbor a few precious birds
and we come from some important
places - out from beautiful people,
dead and alive

My voice is like his
more than it is like hers

- August 2006

---

We’ve over-excited ourselves. Calm down. Certain things remove themselves from you and the curtains blow. You know. The mark left twenty-four years ago, or nineteen. When? Now. Startled? No. Pushed into overdrive, carefully lowered off the cliff? Yeah. You know who. The darkest fall imaginable. You know. The unimaginably home-like kiss on the eyelid. Pushed to the edge, into a strangeness. Bordering the fall. What we prepared for – pushing, falling. What we, solitary, enraged within ourselves. Go, come, move: evolve this direction, now, without question.
And so I do, pounding on the surfaces.

- May 2006

---

Instead of the usual drumbeat, she cares more about the end result, the waves.
Her rooftop view is rhythmic. She can see the waves of tiles moving up and instead of each other. Making each one a partner. The life and times of the rooftop tiles is a storm. Storm of rhythm. We’ve all thought of that before. Haven’t we.
The sadness and the point? the tiny chimneys. There they are. I see them, they are real. Oh yes. Just like the love in someone’s heart can be real. It’s a moment, saved and held onto. “I want to live in a wooden house.”
Hey. What if you were here. The songs! The chances! Here is the morning, unspoiled by commitment. Here is the view, and the three-level view, and the window scene. If I were staying, it could be home. But I am not. The love is the end result. The movements now, the solitude, these are the ingredients. Let’s let it wait, let it sift, until the horrors of the parts I lost can be seen through happy goggles. It’s a glorious pattern. I am proud. We stand together and apart. We move in a line of people, of death. The same way it has happened forever. The only one life. The stranded. The you-will-not-leave. The facts about what will happen, about what has happened. You are sorry. You are full of love. And I gave you music full of love. I’m sorry that it was sad. It was full of love.

- April 2006

---

I was one of the first ones, you know, to solicit nothing, and try for it on my own. I functioned and still, really, do function, under moving trees, on a pitch-black ground, under a night sky with no unnatural light, so that the blackness and the light coexist, lying on the grass so close to people walking by who cannot see me for lack of light and excess of dark. In a separate universe, outside of the senses of the people.

I bargained my way there, gave up a lot. You’ll know you’ve given up a lot when you find out you have no more patience. I no longer did, no longer do, and so I’m leaving.

I wouldn’t have believed a year ago that these would be my problems.

I write: I function through writing, not through men. My symptoms are universal but my cause is lack of worship. Here is the idol, here is the god, and you do not worship, the world seems to say to me. Why do you not worship? Well, I remark, it’s hard.
And it responds with a scoff and a load of prunes set on me, thrown at me in lieu of rocks, and I am called an old woman, and I retire to my sand. I move my toes under it.

Well, I say, I have tendencies.
Well, I say again, I have tendencies to believe in the men.

But at last, at long last, my opinion will matter less and less about these things, and I will find myself carefully, slowly organizing my books. I will live ascetically and without debate. I will have less room, less time to orbit the men. At last I will be alone on the sand. I will find and relieve myself of my stress, remove it and put it in the window, coax it out, and send it along to the bottom of the alley. I will move from room to room, shelving things and loving things. I will carefully love my books. My writing I will put on the wall. I will have everything that demonstrates me laid out in full view of me and anyone who might arrive. I will be Emerson, I will be Thoreau for a few months of my life. I will be in heaven, I will eat cucumbers and ginger. I will share with myself what I cannot share with men: the mourning of the men in peace.

- March 2006

---

I feel I’ve been taken away
A stolen bit of money
Helpless and dismayed
Under clothing laid
Secretly and nastily
by a thief who said
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,
I know you don’t want to hear
but I’m so sorry my dear”

It needs to end, to be put back
I’ll gather myself in counter-attack
and force the wretch to show
and force myself from him, so
and show him whose I am –
no one’s possession in any land

Rear up and throw
all my books of writing
at his frustrating hiding
and regain myself again

- February 2006

---

Unbelievable beauty. We know that the wet red brick and green grass are the trademark of the east coast. We know that baskets are the trademark of a newlywed. And here somehow the height is more extreme. Oh the length of time between the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn. Oh the difference? A set of lights, identical, sloping. In between? purity and a willingness to walk for miles.

And I, my feet in the mud and the airport behind me making passes at me and failing, and the gallery district is now there.

I don’t think that the rut is likely, she said.
I wonder about this though.
What makes you so ungrateful?
Am I just as blind?
The welcome height and the welcoming extravagance and the most extreme of time casting.

- January 2006

---

---

Keep going snarl keep going without the leaves without the reading. Keep going. It’s been a while but hey you have time. Right, ha, where is this time, who am I today that I should exhibit time.
what was it what was all that about, with the endlessness and the periods and ticket-taking. I feel sorry. Don’t we all get perfect lives? Doesn’t something have to be understood? Don’t cellars become a reality? Don’t characters become overpowering? Don’t I wish for one thing and pleasure from one thing? To be published, is to share my writing. Don’t I wish for the chance to share my invisible mind with other people and show them how alike we are. Give them shivers, maybe? Have a critique written? Never would I feel this way about art. And music is difficult. Let me get over the threshold before I can begin to speculate on that. But my writing, however sparse it is, is the key to getting out of the hospital and out of the routine and into a new tiny little green and pink leaf. Green and pink covering my hands opening an envelope from someone who might or might not want my writing. London 1851 at ten at night on October the fourth is irrelevant, I am told, but I don't agree. It isn’t and is of the utmost importance. That is what I must communicate. That we are all influencing each other, that we are all cushioned by each other, catching each other. The past’s past by the past’s future.
One at a time, one step at a time, and a book each step or ten steps… It is okay to trust my judgment because it must be, it is important that I do. And I have to rise above the death and the generations, into a place that looks a little more broadly at things.

- November 2005

The End, for another year or so

associations #6

2006-10-16T09:53:00.000-05:00

faith

sorrow, truth, depth, fortune; darkening; the evening is darkening, as it should; drape; me; perusal; casual perusal is dance; we all mean what we sing; we hold ourselves this way; serious and beautiful; the rounded brick fireplace; understood; tranquility

On elephants

2006-10-12T13:52:00.000-05:00

My lord.

---

Elephants, when left to their own devices, are profoundly social creatures. A herd of them is, in essence, one incomprehensibly massive elephant: a somewhat loosely bound and yet intricately interconnected, tensile organism. Young elephants are raised within an extended, multitiered network of doting female caregivers that includes the birth mother, grandmothers, aunts and friends. These relations are maintained over a life span as long as 70 years. Studies of established herds have shown that young elephants stay within 15 feet of their mothers for nearly all of their first eight years of life, after which young females are socialized into the matriarchal network, while young males go off for a time into an all-male social group before coming back into the fold as mature adults.

When an elephant dies, its family members engage in intense mourning and burial rituals, conducting weeklong vigils over the body, carefully covering it with earth and brush, revisiting the bones for years afterward, caressing the bones with their trunks, often taking turns rubbing their trunks along the teeth of a skull’s lower jaw, the way living elephants do in greeting.

---

Though most scientific knowledge of trauma is still understood through research on human subjects, neural studies of elephants are now under way. (The first functional M.R.I. scan of an elephant brain, taken this year, revealed, perhaps not surprisingly, a huge hippocampus, a seat of memory in the mammalian brain, as well as a prominent structure in the limbic system, which processes emotions.)

---

For Bradshaw, these continuities between human and elephant brains resonate far outside the field of neuroscience. ‘‘Elephants are suffering and behaving in the same ways that we recognize in ourselves as a result of violence,’’ she told me. ‘‘It is entirely congruent with what we know about humans and other mammals. Except perhaps for a few specific features, brain organization and early development of elephants and humans are extremely similar. That’s not news. What is news is when you start asking, What does this mean beyond the science? How do we respond to the fact that we are causing other species like elephants to psychologically break down? In a way, it’s not so much a cognitive or imaginative leap anymore as it is a political one.’’

---

I thought back to a moment in Queen Elizabeth National Park this past June. As Nelson Okello and I sat waiting for the matriarch and her calf to pass, he mentioned to me an odd little detail about the killing two months earlier of the man from the village of Katwe, something that, the more I thought about it, seemed to capture this particularly fraught moment we’ve arrived at with the elephants. Okello said that after the man’s killing [by an elephant], the elephant herd buried him as it would one of its own, carefully covering the body with earth and brush and then standing vigil over it.

Even as we’re forcing them out, it seems, the elephants are going out of their way to put us, the keepers, in an ever more discomfiting place, challenging us to preserve someplace for them, the ones who in many ways seem to regard the matter of life and death more devoutly than we. In fact, elephant culture could be considered the precursor of our own, the first permanent human settlements having sprung up around the desire of wandering tribes to stay by the graves of their dead. ‘‘The city of the dead,’’ as Lewis Mumford once wrote, ‘‘antedates the city of the living.’’

When a group of villagers from Katwe went out to reclaim the man’s body for his family’s funeral rites, the elephants refused to budge. Human remains, a number of researchers have observed, are the only other ones that elephants will treat as they do their own. In the end, the villagers resorted to a tactic that has long been etched in the elephant’s collective memory, firing volleys of gunfire into the air at close range, finally scaring the mourning herd away.

- from a New York Times article by Charles Siebert, entitled "An Elephant Crackup?" from October 8, 2006

1) relevant quotes XXXIII & 2) November Is Coming

2006-10-10T12:16:00.000-05:00

There seldom is a single wave.

- Icelandic proverb

My novel is called Grace, A Life.

Or maybe it's A Life of Grace.

At any rate, it's 'A Life' in the old-fashioned sense of the phrase, meaning biography.

I'm almost-though-not-quite done with the planning stage! I've started the research stage now too. To give you hints, this currently involves:

- looking up the early history of the hobby of scrapbooking
- learning about the General Federation of Women's Clubs, founded in 1890
- pulling together an historically accurate monthly calendar for the years 1774 - 1949.
- Investigating late 19th c. childhood diseases
- gaining an understanding of prices and dollar value during the period 1853-1949
- History of the city of Marquette, MI

Any help or pointers are always, of course, appreciated.

Yeeeee!
Come November, check out my progress on the novel (which has to be written entirely during that month) at the National Novel Writing Month's website:

e blair's Nanowrimo profile

Maybe you'd like to take on this happy challenge too?

relevant quotes XXXII

2006-10-09T12:32:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Darling was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.

Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.

- from 'Peter Pan,' by J.M. Barrie

I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this... that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes... pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts... all of them fixed and inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees "steel" as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not.

These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's "potential"? That's also in someone's mind!

- from 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,' by Robert M. Pirsig

Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.

- Emerson

relevant quotes XXXI

2006-10-08T19:47:00.000-05:00

HIDING FROM NOTHING

Harder and harder the storm howls. Will you stay inside forever?

- page from book, 'Everyday Zen'

1. go out to sea By the rocks. for a half an our.
2. Play on the trampaleen's. for 10 minutes.
3. try to get a Swing for 5 minutes.
4. Climd on the rokcs for 6 minutes.
5, and then go Swimming for 10 minutes.
6. and last Butt not least pick some shells up and go in the hotel.

- List, made during family vacation in France, age 7

Sometimes

Sometimes it seems so very hard,
So I just play with a card.

- poem, age 8+-

relevant folklore/culture/history, chapter I

2006-10-03T16:35:00.000-05:00

Spring-Heeled Jack. Beginning in London, in September 1837, a man dressed strangely, who could breathe fire and leap over tall walls, began terrorizing people. Accounts of him popped up at various times throughout the century and throughout England. They never caught him.

This image is of the cover of a penny dreadful from 1904. (Penny dreadfuls were small multi-part publications of fiction; each part cost a penny.)

relevant quotes XXX

2006-09-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face,
but you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror,
but you are eternity and you are the mirror.

- Khalil Gibran, 'The Prophet'

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
for they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,
for life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

- Khalil Gibran, 'The Prophet'

The advancing man discovers how deep a property he has in literature, — in all fable as well as in all history. He finds that the poet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations, but that universal man wrote by his pen a confession true for one and true for all. His own secret biography he finds in lines wonderfully intelligible to him, dotted down before he was born. One after another he comes up in his private adventures with every fable of Aesop, of Homer, of Hafiz, of Ariosto, of Chaucer, of Scott, and verifies them with his own head and hands.

- Emerson, 'History'

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

- Emerson, 'Self-Reliance'

Autumn!

2006-09-19T11:39:00.000-05:00

Beautiful Autumn! My lovely new neighbors Tai and Andrew brought me back a pumpkin and many ears of corn from Tai's family's farm. Oh how lovely they look on my porch! I will carve the pumpkin and roast the seeds! Maybe I'll even try my hand at pumpkin bread!
Beautiful Autumn! Lovely Life!

Michigan, Fall 2005.

relevant quotes XXIX

2006-09-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

I don’t care a single jot for The Lord Of Bothwell’s bejeweled sceptre.

- Adam

relevant quotes XXVIII

2006-09-08T10:50:00.000-05:00

He just had knee surgery, you see, on his knee.

- Kathryn

That's all the relevant quotes I can come up with right now. Look, a dollhouse.

relevant quotes XXVII

2006-08-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

"I've seen young children going along and saying 'a jellyfish, I'll drop a stone on it' not realising that by dropping a stone on it, it can actually splash, like a puddle," he said.

- from this article, BBC Northern Ireland

Graceland Cemetary, Sunday August 13th

2006-08-15T08:39:00.000-05:00

Love

relevant quotes XXVI

2006-08-14T08:24:00.000-05:00

Good morning, young lady.

- elderly Mexican man to me this morning

---------

She: Have you found what you've been looking for?

Me: Every day I get closer.

- from a dream I had Saturday night, in which I went to my childhood piano teacher's house. I stood outside the door to the living room, in the shadow, and listened to her daughter play a complex and delicate piece. Then I stepped in. My old piano teacher and I had the above exchange. Then she showed me paintings she'd done, of clouds. Hanging on the walls were square porcelain tiles, each painted with part of a scene of clouds, and then many put together in large wall-covering rectangles. I wanted to tell her I'd done paintings of clouds before, but I did not say anything.
In reality I've not seen or spoken with my piano teacher for perhaps 11 years.

Jonathan the Ferocious

2006-07-31T15:09:00.000-05:00

Taken June 2006 in the garden in Pilsen.

relevant quotes XXV

2006-07-31T12:14:00.000-05:00

I am the eagle - I live in high country,
in rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky

I am the hawk and there's blood on my feathers,
but time is still turning - they soon will be dry

----

I think I'd rather be a cowboy -
I think I'd rather ride the range

I think I'd rather be a cowboy
than to lay me down in love and lady's chains

- John Denver

let go

2006-07-28T14:59:00.000-05:00

It all comes down to music and love

- antique photograph of unknown origin, found in an antique shop, 2005

Aggravation and Theatre

2006-07-28T14:16:00.000-05:00

Yup. They're all an aside.
Here is grace.
Here is potency. Here is publicity.
Here is derivation and splendidness.

Here is "the bust of jesus christ"
from the poem that came out of his name.

Where's the round-up?
Who has my hat?

Whoa, now.

BLIMEY. Blimey blimey blimey.

Well we've had misunderstandings, incompletions, hugs.
You've had business, and hurry, and mining
and I'm terribly sorry in a way for my delay

God, here we are in the thick of the forest that the city tries to be. Where are the stars? Away from the shops and the trinkets and money? Just the stars?
The dark and light?
The guidebooks don't tell you and your family doesn't know.

Time to stop asking around and just go.

relevant quotes XXIV

2006-07-26T10:52:00.000-05:00

"He likes the water, and
he likes...
he likes exit signs..."

- father speaking about his toddler while holding him in the doorway of an antique shop, Empire, MI

Capii lí per lí che cosa vuol dire non essere nato in un posto, non averlo nel sangue...

-"I understood there and then what it meant to not have been born in a place, to not have it in your blood..." - from 'La luna e i falò' (the moon and the bonfires) by Cesare Pavese.

God is alive, magic is afoot
God is alive, magic is afoot
God is alive, magic is afoot
God is afoot, magic is alive
Alive is afoot, magic never died
God never sickened
Many poor men lied
Many sick men lied
Magic never weakened
Magic never hid
Magic always ruled
God is afoot, God never died
God was ruler
Though his funeral lengthened
Though his mourners thickened
Magic never fled
Though his shrouds were hoisted
The naked God did live
Though his words were twisted
The naked magic thrived
Though his death was published
Round and round the world
The heart did not believe

Many hurt men wondered
Many struck men bled
Magic never faltered
Magic always led
Many stones were rolled
But God would not lie down
Many wild men lied
Many fat men listened
Though they offered stones
Magic still was fed
Though they locked their coffers
God was always served
Magic is afoot, God is alive
Alive is afoot

Alive is in command
Many weak men hungered
Many strong men thrived
Though they boast of solitude
God was at their side
Nor the dreamer in his cell
Nor the captain on the hill
Magic is alive
Though his death was pardoned
Round and round the world
The heart would not believe

Though laws were carved in marble
They could not shelter men
Though altars built in parliaments
They could not order men
Police arrested magic and magic went with them
Mmmmm.... for magic loves the hungry
But magic would not tarry
It moves from arm to arm
It would not stay with them
Magic is afoot
It cannot come to harm
It rests in an empty palm
It spawns in an empty mind
But magic is no instrument
Magic is the end
Many men drove magic
But magic stayed behind
Many strong men lied
They only passed through magic
And out the other side
Many weak men lied
They came to God in secret
And though they left Him nourished
They would not tell who healed
Though mountains danced before them
They said that God was dead
Though his shrouds were hoisted
The naked God did live
This I mean to whisper to my mind
This I mean to laugh within my mind
This I mean my mind to serve
Til' service is but magic
Moving through the world
And mind itself is magic
Coursing through the flesh
And flesh itself is magic
Dancing on a clock
And time itself
The magic length of God

- (Lyrics: Leonard Cohen; recorded By Buffy Sainte-Marie)

relevant songs I

2006-07-19T15:42:00.000-05:00

In the middle of a fortress

and

Home is a building

Artist: Ygdrassil

Album: Nice Days Under Darkest Skies

Home is a building
I just came home
Home is a building
There's all kinds of stuff
There's a chair,
there's another one, and there's
a table
There's a view, there's another one

It's me who left it
I went with you
But you're not there, nowhere
Now there's all kinds of good
Good for you
Good for me
Good for us...

Home is a building
I just came home

relevant quotes XXIII

2006-07-05T14:11:00.000-05:00

[Public school is a place] where the sensitive experience a horrified disassociation from reality that can sometimes never fade away.

- Nick Drake

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there -- I do not sleep;
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
...
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

- by Mary Elizabeth Frye. Quoted at end of eulogy for Angela Volan, given by Father Evagoras Constantinides on June 29th.

look no further
look no further

cruelest almost always to ourselves
it mustn't get any better off

well, now aren't we scaring ourselves unnecessarily?
aren't we trying too hard?

it's in our hands
it always was

- Bjork, 'It's in our hands'

Annie wanders on the land,
she loves the freedom of the air,
she finds a friend in every place she goes;
there's always a face she knows.
I wish that I was there.

She says, "I'm leaving here tomorrow
to find a new town far away."
She says, "Won't you come too? You need a break.
You'd love to wake up somewhere new
and find another day."

But I live in the city
and imagine country scenes.
For among the rich,
within four walls and out of reach,
I live behind the screen.

We all live in the city
and imagine country scenes.
For among the rich,
within four walls and out of reach,
we live behind a screen.

- Sandy Denny, 'The Pond and the Stream'

Folk

2006-06-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

This summer, I'm volunteering at the Great Lakes Folk Festival (August 11-13 in East Lansing, Michigan) and I am thinking about buying a ticket to the Pickathon (August 4 & 5, Oregon).

The Great Lakes Folk Festival is free.

The Pickathon is $85 for weekend entrance and includes camping.

If you're interested in going too, let me know.

Also, these guys are brilliant: The Giving Tree Band.
Brilliant. Furthermore, they let me sing accompanying vocals for a few songs that will be on their upcoming double album, Unified Folk Theory.
It was a genuine honor.

Also, I'm back at the guitar, plucking away.

relevant quotes XXII

2006-06-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

Some [scientists] believe God and human beings have far more freedom of give-and-take than a Theory of Everything would allow. They believe that as in the performance of a great piece of orchestral music, though the notes are written down, there may yet be enormous creativity in the playing of the notes that is not at all predetermined.

- Kitty Ferguson, “Stephen Hawking: Quest for a Theory of Everything,” 1991

And will you never return to see
your bruised and beaten sons?

Oh I would, I would, if welcome I were,
for they loathe me, every one

And will you never cut the cloth
or drink the light to be?

And can you never swear a year
to any one of we?

No, I will never cut the cloth
or drink the light to be

But I’ll swear a year to one who lies
asleep alongside of me

- Sandy Denny, ‘Farewell’

relevant quotes XXI

2006-06-22T08:22:00.000-05:00

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

- Emerson

As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.

- Emerson

Do you curse where you come from
do you swear in the night
will it mean much to you
if I treat you right

Do you like what you're doing
would you do it some more
or will you stop once and wonder
what you're doing it for

Hey slow Jane, make sense
slow, slow, Jane, cross fence

- Nick Drake, 'Hazey Jane I'

You hope there is no futility
but we know it.

- from notes, May 06

associations # 5

2006-06-07T16:25:00.000-05:00

STOVE

gas, warm, death, rumors of death, baby bottles, orange and green, forgetting your affairs, boiling, taking the time, spread evenly, age 13 and the windows rattled, I got up out of bed but there was no movement but my own, could I trust the dark, had there really been a movement, was it really something happening and did it happen so quickly, a taste of movement, but death for him, death by the fire blanket, thick and warm and baby bottled

associations 1 - 4

2006-05-26T11:57:00.000-05:00

SMALL HANGING BIRDCAGE

yellow, orange, hope, trepidation, stasis, coyly silent, square, spacemen, thick warm concerned impenetrable space between two humans

LUST

terrific, godspeed, an imagined waterfall from childhood, rugs, holding, staying, avoiding and longing, brightly colored glossy kitchen wallpaper, plastic aprons, old ratted fur, dust, countertop, laughter

TRACKS

summer, all seasons, but most of all summer, immaculate, impossible, dangerous or not dangerous, forebode; death, force, the end, the sound, the rhythm, the switch, the cliff, I dare you, the boys jump, the water below holds a refrigerator, a cannonball, "I wonder what I was wearing the day he asked me out under the trestle;" spine

SUN

ingratiate yourself, pollution, forgetful, urgent but ignored, crowds gather, insolence, storm mounts inside, why is it always so invisibly hard, such a dream; let me move, alright I'm moving, let me see, let me see

----

What do you associate with SUN, TRACKS, LUST, or a SMALL HANGING BIRDCAGE?

relevant quotes XX

2006-05-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

Stanley Kunitz is dead. Long live Stanley Kunitz.

- letter received today from John S.

Already the iron door of the North
Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
Order their populations forth,
And a cruel wind blows.

- Stanley Kunitz; last lines of 'End of Summer'

relevant quotes XIX

2006-05-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

Is it something important? Maybe not.
What was it you wanted? Tell me again, I forgot.

Where were you when it started? Do you want it for free?
What was it you wanted? Are you talking to me?

- Bob Dylan

The Making of an Un-American.

- book by Paul Cowan

You gave your life to become the person you are right now.

Was it worth it?

- Richard Bach

Yes, yes, this post is more obvious than most. I think I'll move to New York, but not right now; maybe in November. All these people and their pencil cases. It's getting to be sillier and sillier, how much of a visitor I feel, and how it doesn't go away with time. One of these days I'll have to head in the direction of home.

- Lisa

relevant quotes XVIII

2006-05-10T13:36:00.000-05:00

"The sailors were not told the time by the hour but rather by how much of their watch had passed, striking every thirty minutes.”

"…and the ointment in another jar was so well preserved that when excavated, finger marks could still be seen."

- from museum of the Mary Rose, a ship sunk in England in 1545.
Portsmouth, England

God

2006-04-28T13:25:00.000-05:00

the ruined words, lost words, he said, the words misplaced.
in the fallows, we said, missing.
maybe i'm a chaotic pedant, he said.
i think i've always acted under duress, he said.
even as a child, he said, my mark of Cain was fear of ridicule.
in the fallows, we said, nickering.
back then all i needed to do was think of a word like fever chart and i ran a fever and had to be put to bed.
headblock, he said, in the ocean of air.
trousercuffs, cuffed-to-death, as in my childhood, he said.
as in my childhood, he said, when i desperately tried to ingest language.
dying, he said, for the splendor of words, cries, questions, tangled structures, coupling cupolas above all, business streets, markets, greenhouses, train stations.
my grounds of grace, he said.
radiant words, he said, cries, calls, questions, tangled structures.
dying for them, he said.
when i had chewed them long enough i spit them out of my mouth, cut them to pieces and started all over.
scribbled them down, one to a sheet, tacked them on furniture, covered them with kisses.
dying, he said, poetic transport.

- from in the ocean of air, poem by Friederike Mayröcker

the Michigan project

2006-04-25T14:39:00.000-05:00

Purpose:

1. To come to know my home state (or, at this point, the southwest/west coast) better.
2. To carry out research for The Situation.

Places:
Click here for a map.

1. Saugatuck and Douglas
"The Art Coast of Michigan." The villages "retain their essential traditional character and quaint charm, having been spared the suburbanization and chain store and 'mall' invasion that makes most other places look almost identical to each other" as its website states. Inspired by the man at the DMV who fascinated me with talk of it and its role in rebuilding Chicago after it burned down.

2. Holland
Where I also intend to go for a day or two during the upcoming Tulip Festival, May 6-13.

3. Muskegon
"The Lumber Queen of the world, the Port City and the Riviera of the Midwest" as its website states.

What:

1. Flea Markets/Antique Houses (for area notebooks, photographs, autobiographical books/pamphlets, and other personal objects)
2. A comprehensive walk
3. All museums
4. All galleries
5. create sketches
6. write
7. Any other points of interest (cemeteries, shipwrecks, boats, swimming, music, etc)
8. People (anyone, but particularly the elderly)

It will require a bit of planning, and will take place mostly in June or July, with, as I noted, a weekend in May trying to get some of Holland covered. Anyone is welcome to come with me.

I may go more places in the future, but for now it is only this area that I am tackling. Coastal areas hold a special importance - in history, in art, and in my head.
The history is what most interests me. After that, I am interested in the current relevance/significance of the towns, as represented by the people, art, activities, and places/spaces.

place

2006-04-23T12:57:00.001-05:00

The entryway to my new place:

The street:

I move next weekend.

relevant quote XVII

2006-04-22T00:20:00.000-05:00

As gentle tides go rolling by
along the salt sea strand

The colors blend and roll as one
together in the sand

And often do the winds entwine,
do send their distant call

The quiet joys of brotherhood
and love is lord of all

The oak and weed together rise
along the common ground

The mare and stallion light and dark
have thunder in their sound

The rainbow sign, the blended flower
still have my heart enthralled

The quiet joys of brotherhood
and love is lord of all

But man has come to plough the tide
The oak lies on the ground

I hear their fires in the fields
They drive the stallion down

The roses bleed both light and dark
The winds do seldom call

The running sands recall the time
when love was lord of all

- lyrics, 'Quiet Joys of Brotherhood,' by Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention

relevant quotes XVI

2006-04-20T14:51:00.000-05:00

It was in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself - struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage, to say: "But this is what I see; this is what I see," and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to pluck from her.

- Virginia Woolf, from To The Lighthouse

----

The replacement of naturalness with abnormality, mutation, impurity. The calling of a thing by something other than its given name. A thing that is continually being shut up in a room with no windows.

- notes

----

'The fact is that I have little aptitude for reflection. I require the concrete in everything. It is so only that I lay hands upon the world. A good phrase, however, seems to me to have an independent existence. Yet I think it is likely that the best are made in solitude. They require some final refrigeration which I cannot give them, dabbling always in warm soluble words.
...Now I begin to be aware that action is demanded. We approach a junction; at a junction I have to change. I have to board a train for Edinburgh. I cannot precisely lay fingers on this fact - it lodges loosely among my thoughts like a button, like a small coin. Here is the jolly old boy who collects tickets. I had one - I had one certainly. But it does not matter. Either I shall find it, or I shall not find it. I examine my note-case. I look in all my pockets. These are the things that for ever interrupt the process upon which I am eternally engaged of finding some perfect phrase that fits this moment exactly.'

- Virginia Woolf, from The Waves

Heaven

2006-04-18T16:49:00.000-05:00

relevant quotes XV

2006-04-18T12:42:00.000-05:00

A language not patrolled by frontier guards, an English Pale not secure from the wild Irish beyond, a writing that is not performed under the shadow of the Censor is, appropriately enough, a species of dream language. The problem with dreams is that they are always re-presented in language; the priority of the dream over the language in which it is narrated cannot be established linguistically. That which is beyond language can only be indicated through language. This crux is absorbed into the Wake's narratives, always posing a threat that is denied by the very action of posing it.

- Seamus Deane, from Introduction, Finnegans Wake, Penguin.

-----------------

'And then we all feel Percival lying heavy among us. His curious guffaw seems to sanction our laughter. But now he has rolled himself over in the long grass. He is, I think, chewing a stalk between his teeth. He feels bored; I too feel bored. Bernard at once perceives that we are bored. I detect a certain effort, an extravagance in his phrase, as if he said "Look!" but Percival says "No". For he is always the first to detect insincerity; and is brutal in the extreme. The sentence tails off feebly. Yes, the appalling moment has come when Bernard's power fails him and there is no longer any sequence and he sags and twiddles a bit of string and falls silent, gaping as if about to burst into tears. Among the tortures and devastations of life is this then -
our friends are not able to finish their stories.'

- Virginia Woolf, from The Waves

-----------------

I have suspected many a time that meaning is really something added to verse. I know for a fact that we feel the beauty of a poem before we even begin to think of a meaning.

- Jorge Luis Borges, from This Craft of Verse

-----------------

Three conversations & The Jungle

2006-04-17T20:22:00.000-05:00

"So, is Kaitlin getting a boyfriend now or something?"
"Yes."
"What does he look like?"
"He is blonde."
"What is he like?"
"You're not gonna hear this from me."
"Is he unfaithful?"
"Probably, I don't know."

------------

"Are you going to stay until the light goes?"
"I'm going to stay until the chance goes away; until I can, in darkness yes, let it go."
"Isn't that dangerous?"
"Probably, I don't know."

------------

"But how do I escape, how have I ever escaped these preoccupations?"
"There is no escape."
"But what shall I ever do?"
"Take yourself seriously. Take yourself wholly."

------------

The Jungle - read over two days, which is much too fast perhaps - much too much to burden myself with in the space of 36 hours - but I cannot imagine reading it over longer a period of time, for I'd be in the mires of depression and hopelessness for as long as it would take to finish it. Better that I did it quickly, mercilessly, so that I can move on to Finnegans Wake as soon as I gather up my heart.
Poor Chicago. Poor socialism. Poor everything. My heart is so heavy!

"They [the evangelists] were trying to save their [the workingmen's] souls - and who but a fool could fail to see that all that was the matter with their souls was that they had not been able to get a decent existence for their bodies?"

- p. 279

If

2006-04-14T12:22:00.000-05:00

If ever there is the opportunity, I believe I will.

- taken downtown yesterday, during a walk between the Newberry and the Harold Washington. It may be important to note here that beauty and detail entered life yesterday evening in full force, and things as good as porcelain snails and compasses stepped into my immediate vicinity and washed me full-body with their home-made importance -- Kandinsky prints, spiral staircases, jungle-painted rooms, domed ceilings, tri-level roof balcony, city view through the rain, stained-glass windows, 1893 Worlds Fair map in my hands, Japanese screen, poodles, curled wood, "naive American" paintings by unknown artists, Inuit sculpture made of whale vertebrae, glass plate photographs found in the wall of a house, shutting windows against the rain, hearing tell of a family investigation to find what remains of an old bridge -- and all of these under my own fingers, far from museum walls, from the coldness of investment. The embodiment of love of beauty, life, objects, details, and listening.

Honestly

2006-04-13T00:50:00.000-05:00

Alright. I asked for the sea monsters back a year and a half ago. "Battles are fun while at sea." Now I am going to state my excitement for peace. Peace! Enough monsters!

My eyes have actual circles under them. I do not wish to fight or to see another battle, or - importantly - hear tell of one. Enough tragedy!

I hereby wield the book that is on its way to me:

There is no problem without a gift for you in its hands.
You seek problems because you need their gifts.

I also hereby wield (and herein practice) the right to write publicly about:

lace curtains, the color yellow, dolls who need names, hedgehogs who snort, skies that kiss, hope that isn't dashed, instincts that are correct, intuition that is trusty, news that is good, poetry that rises above the leftover scraps, fortunes that offer fame, handmade unfinished quilts from age 10, a porcelain snail, the wonder of horses and donkeys and mules, the miracle of living, the presence of now, wildflowers, courage, and compasses.

Otherwise, I will become so serious that I might turn into a floorboard, or cry myself silly.

Living

2006-04-10T11:22:00.000-05:00

Relevant quotes XIV

2006-04-08T11:41:00.000-05:00

"This is the Patrick."

- me, inserting extra words whilst introducing a crush, 2002

----------------------------

But the power of the poem, I will argue, comes from its refusal to supply anything to appease the longing for propriety. The poem treats myth, history, art, and religion as subject to the same fragmentation, appropriation, and degradation as modern life...

---

Much of the drama of this poem comes from the interweaving and crisscrossing of these two modes as desire disrupts order and desire for order sets up paradoxical and unbearable tensions.

---

Readers in the twenties argued over whether the poem was too radical and meaningless or too conservative and tied to traditional values.

- Harriet Daurdson writing on 'The Waste Land,' from The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot

----------------------------

Conversation, 2003

Me: "Buona notte. Sogno d'oro." [Goodnight. Dreams of gold.]

He pauses, shocked.
He turns and smiles.

Him: "Ho capito 'sogno duro.'" [I heard 'hard dreams.']

Me: "No, no!!"

Him: "Grazie, ho capito." [Thanks, I understand now.]

----------------------------

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

- Emerson, from On Self-Reliance

----------------------------

...Truth is not an invention or a monopoly, and a man's worth may be gauged by what he praises.

---

Petrarch replied to the doctor who forbade him to eat fruit that it would be very wicked and step-mother-like to hide poison in honey.

- J. H. Whitfield, from Petrarch and the Renascence (1965)

!!

2006-04-06T14:30:00.000-05:00

Notes

2006-04-06T09:37:00.000-05:00

Gerhard Richter
Found in The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1962-1993 (1995)

15 January 1984

All assertions concerning future events, concerning what we do not know, all assumptions, ideologies, speculations, constructions, all acts of faith, all proclaimed certainties, are nothing but superstition; they serve only to prove that we possess the faculty of imagination. We ought not to use this faculty to deceive ourselves (we ought to use it to deceive ourselves more unmercifully than ever).

From a letter to Edy de Wilde, 23 February 1975

Grey. It makes no statement whatever; it evokes neither feelings nor associations; it is really neither visible or invisible. Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make 'nothing' visible.
To me, grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, noncommitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape. But grey, like formlessness and the rest, can be real only as an idea, and so all I can do is create a colour nuance that means grey but is not it. The painting is then a mixture of grey as a fiction and grey as a visible, designated area of colour.

------

Me
Summer 2001, age 20, New Haven, CT & Manhattan, NY

Excerpts from an unsent "letter" to boyfriend at the time (a painter), typewritten

I can't let him read this I need to go to bed anyway Why am I so embarassed of my thoughts? Because he does not seem to have any god damn it. It. Past embarassment - - Fear. I am afraid of being something you won't like - how is that for reverting to age 14? Of course when you are there so close to me most if not all of this usually flies away boom it is gone and all I really know is the way your cheek contours down from your eye

But I do. I ache to be not complimented or coddled, but talked with. How come it doesn't bother you - we don't laugh genuinely much besides stupid giggles and we rarely talk genuinely? I feel like there is this forcedness or something is just plain missing or in the way. I am inclined to think that is all of my own fabrication. I make things oh complicated when there is just love but why do I feel this dumb blank ferocity raging calmly and blankly? It extends itself even to this love affair sometimes - either that or I am already your sister. Did you see I left the poster paints? Oh he is It is all Perfect - therefore these feelings and useless thoughts must be fully perfect - that is comforting to know - but then we create things - I can change this so it may be perfect in all forms (of course). Perfection isn't supposed to attach itself so clearly though! It should be omnipresent but vague - there but imperceptible - but he brings it all right to him - as I have brought it I guess - but it is easier to see in others - Perfection is right here to grasp! Not surprising to me. But exciting - I want to talk about it! But when you talk to me I am usually silent, as you are when I talk to you. There is all this 'to' business.

Notes, typewritten

I should ask him, Is there any painting that you truly love, above most others? Or is it all just a movement?
This isn't grey. It is brown, musty brown, like a moldy ceiling in an unkempt ward in hospital. Grey. grey. Grey is the color of what a squirrel's eye should be. Grey is the color of the hard cover of a book, a boring one or else it is the color of the atmosphere in the upstairs bedroom of a cousin in childhood - it wasn't really her room - thus things were strewn - but the stairs wound up and there was a door at the bottom. Carpeted. That - sirs - is what Grey is. When we played some board game that had spinning in that upstairs bedroom, facing away from the window.

Relevant quotes XIII

2006-04-04T14:15:00.000-05:00

The COMPLAINT. Or, NIGHT-THOUGHTS on LIFE, DEATH, and IMMORTALITY.

NIGHT the EIGHTH.

VIRTUE's APOLOGY:

OR,

The MAN of the WORLD Answer'd.

In which are Considered,
The LOVE of This LIFE;
The AMBITION and PLEASURE, with the WIT
and WISDOM of the WORLD.

- Title of Edward Young's Night Thoughts, (1797), the cover of which was Illustrated by William Blake.

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In the winter, the cold on the Barrens, as the [Newfoundland] inhabitants call them, is dreadful. The Barrens are the spaces where there is no wood. Over these we must use our utmost speed to reach the woods. When once there, we are in comparative comfort; it is even warm among the trees. The thoughts of the Barrens again to be crossed is the only damp to our present enjoyment, as we are soon in a sweat from the exercise in cutting the wood.
... I am certain it would be a cure for tardiness of any kind to be forced to cross the Barrens in winter.

- John Nicol, from The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner (1822)

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I was standing on a street in Paris once and this old lady was looking at me, and I thought, "Oh she's probably staring at me because she's English," because English people always know me from a London television disaster that somehow starred me. So I sort of looked away and she said, "Aren't you Andy?" I said yes and she said, "You came to my house in Provincetown twenty-eight and a half years ago. You were wearing a sunhat. You don't even remember me, but I'll never forget you in that sunhat. You see, you couldn't take any sun." I felt so strange because I couldn't remember at all and she remembered to the month. Because to remember "twenty-eight and a half years ago" without even stopping to calculate must mean that she really kept track and would say, "Well it's nineteen years now since he was here in the sunhat."

- Andy Warhol, from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (1975)

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Haul of all! Brace in after yards! Helm up! All hands wear ship!
Haul taut! Sheet home! Steady out the topgallant bowline! Lay aloft and loose the mainsail! Let fall!

- various sailing commands, from John Harland, Seamanship in the Age of Sail (1985)

Blackwaterside

2006-03-18T16:12:00.000-06:00

Regaining a power of having.