Travels with Art

Mid-West vacation

2010-09-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

we just got back from whirlwind Mid-West vacation. we covered
a lot of territory in a week crammed full of activity.
we were in Mn, WI, Mi, In and OH. we visited the Minnesota valley wildlife
refuge and a Japanese garden in twin cities, went to a family reunion at
nancy's cousin's acreage outside menomonie wi.
...we had good time and Nancy was glad she was able to spend a few hours with her cousins though she didn't know anyone very well
having only vague memories of brief childhood encounters.
we then drove to Door county WI and camped in state park and saw the sights : beaches , wineries, galleries and nature trails.
there are suppose to be good restaurants but the one we picked was lacking something in the good area. we then took 4 hour car ferry from manitowoc wi to ludington mi then camped at ludington sand dunes state park which was nice but overly popular. next day we drove all day to Streetsburo OH near Cuyahoga Valley NP and camped 2 nights .
we spent whole day at NP our 45th. we rented bikes and rode towpath which runs along remnant of Erie canal which in its heyday went from Cleveland to Akron then we took train back to bike rental place for only $2. on way to toledo we stopped at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Cleveland city greenhouse for nancy's garden fix. in toledo we visited their deservedly highly touted
Botanical Gardens and Art Museum where there was live music by a polka band called Polka Floyd who played Pink Floyd music. Believe me you ain't heard nothing till you hear the polka version of 'We Don't need no education'.

Art and Nancy National Parks Tour 1980-2010

2010-04-08T05:36:00.000-07:00

Do we live in a snarky world?

2009-04-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Snark
Snark is mean, it’s personal, and it’s ruining our conversations.

“Snark” is a new book by David Denby on the history of snark.

What is snark? You recognize it when you see it — a tone of teasing, snide, undermining abuse, nasty and knowing, that is spreading like pinkeye through the media and threatening to take over how Americans converse with each other and what they can count on as true. Snark attempts to steal someone’s mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness. In this sharp and witty polemic, New Yorker critic and bestselling author David Denby takes on the snarkers, naming the nine principles of snark — the standard techniques its practitioners use to poison their arrows. Snarkers like to think they are deploying wit, but mostly they are exposing the seethe and snarl of an unhappy country, releasing bad feeling but little laughter.

David is a staff writer and film critic at The New Yorker.

Here’s the synopsis:

What is snark? You recognize it when you see it — a tone of teasing, snide, undermining abuse, nasty and knowing, that is spreading like pinkeye through the media and threatening to take over how Americans converse with each other and what they can count on as true. Snark attempts to steal someone’s mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness. In this sharp and witty polemic, New Yorker critic and bestselling author David Denby takes on the snarkers, naming the nine principles of snark — the standard techniques its practitioners use to poison their arrows. Snarkers like to think they are deploying wit, but mostly they are exposing the seethe and snarl of an unhappy country, releasing bad feeling but little laughter. In this highly entertaining essay, Denby traces the history of snark through the ages, starting with its invention as personal insult in the drinking clubs of ancient Athens, tracking its development all the way to the age of the Internet, where it has become the sole purpose and style of many media, political, and celebrity Web sites. Snark releases the anguish of the dispossessed, envious, and frightened; it flows when a dying class of the powerful struggles to keep the barbarians outside the gates, or, alternately, when those outsiders want to take over the halls of the powerful and expel the office-holders. Snark was behind the London-based magazine Private Eye, launched amid the dying embers of the British empire in 1961; it was also central to the career-hungry, New York-based magazine Spy. It has flourished over the years in the works of everyone from the startling Roman poet Juvenal to Alexander Pope to Tom Wolfe to a million commenters snarlingat other people behind handles. Thanks to the grand dame of snark, it has a prominent place twice a week on the opinion page of the New York Times.

Denby has fun snarking the snarkers, expelling the bums and promoting the true wits, but he is also making a serious point: the Internet has put snark on steroids. In politics, snark means the lowest, most insinuating and insulting side can win. For the young, a savage piece of gossip could ruin a reputation and possibly a future career. And for all of us, snark just sucks the humor out of life. Denby defends the right of any of us to be cruel, but shows us how the real pros pull it off. Snark, he says, is for the amateurs.

What I Believe

2009-03-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

When no one was looking I had a great idea...while driving alone in the car I used to compose and recite to myself my credo: what i believe. Whitmanesquely I would list ideas and
personal philosophy intending to write it down someday and inspire my friends to do the same. But then about four years ago NPR started a segment called 'This I Believe' in which
they do that very thing eclipsing my idea and making me redundant (which so often happens). So 'what i believe' is unnecessary and hence I've forgotten what i believe but
'This I Believe' has produced two books full of articulate and insightful compositions by many famous and non-famous people of the world. (The series is going to end this year).
I was reminded of this when i recently read this poem which i like very much:

What I Believe
by Michael Blumenthal

I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.

I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.

I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.

I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.

I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.

I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.

I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.

I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.

And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently.

so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.

"What I Believe" by Michael Blumenthal, from Days We Would Rather
Know. © Pleasure Boat Studio, 2005.

On a completely different note:
February 28th is the birthday of Daniel Handler, (books by this author) born on
this day in San Francisco (1970). He's most famous for his
best-selling series of macabre children's books, A Series of
Unfortunate Events, which he wrote under the pen name Lemony Snicket.
The books follow the adventures of the orphaned Baudelaire children —
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. Their parents die in a fire, and after that,
things keep getting worse and worse. There are 13 novels in A Series
of Unfortunate Events, including The Bad Beginning (1999), The
Carnivorous Carnival (2002), and The Penultimate Peril (2005).
Daniel Handler said, "A library is like an island in the middle of a
vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and
the surrounding area has been flooded."

Who Do?

2009-02-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

A question comes me: am I getting more(or less) agreeable with age? In years past I thought my taste was completely out of the mainstream, that maybe one in ten of
my friends and aquaintances would concur with my opinons about films, books or other cultural events. So when I shared this poem with some friends and 50%
concurred with me that it was delightfully creative, I thought maybe I'm coming around, maybe meditation is helping, maybe I won't become a grumpy old man after all.
(Of course the other 50% thought I needed more meds).
So here is the poem in question by Barbara Hamby :

Who Do Mambo
A sports writer complained to Joe Louis about another boxer who didn't like
to take punches to the body. Louis replied, "Who do?"

Mon Dieu, said the Hindoo, I don't want to stop drinking. Who do?
But sometimes you have to put down your glass so you
can pick it up for another round. At the University Ladies' Tea
with the pill-popping dean's wife and Marxist shrews,
you don't want to talk to them or anyone else. Who do?
But like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady you say
How do you do, call on Andrew Marvell and George Herbert
to rescue you, but you draw the short straw,
and there's Julie Andrews in The Sound if Music with her igloo
smile and Christmas sweater. You are the Sioux
in this cavalry charge, and you need some firewater pronto,
gin and lighter fluid or a gun, but that's so American,
and who would you shoot but yourself, so you try to spin some voodoo
around this vampire soirée. Where are the chicken bones
and bat fangs when you need them, Miss Nancy Drew?
Face facts, you don't have a clue. Let me preview
my upcoming bout of spinal meningitis for you,
or shall I invoke Bob Dylan, mathematician and Hebrew
troubadour, for I am tangled up in glue or something like it, goo
or ooze. If I were a cow, I'd be bigger than I am, say moo
and pray to Shiva, but as it is, I am a fourth-rate kangaroo
praying for rescue in a bottle, my mind a zoo,
a giraffe popping out my left ear, a zebra out my right. Whew,
that hurt, but so much does these days. Much Ado
About Nothing, that's my play, Beatrice and crew. Let's review.
Everything I adore is either forbidden to me or taboo,
which is pretty much the same thing. O Alice, I grew
an inch with that one, or was it my nose? Hey, Pinocchio, you
want me to chop you for firewood? Who do? Wait, I have a few
things to say about hue. I'm orange but, carissimo, you
are as blue as you were the day Picasso, or was it Braque, drew
you in Montmartre in the Bateau Lavoir, and now that my shoe
is wedged in my mouth again and my underpants askew,
I'll take this opportunity to bid you an affectionate adieu.
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I would pitch some woo
with you till next Wednesday; O Shiva, the queue
to your divine brain is teeming with supplicants, so in lieu
of the old one-two, I'll sign off. Something nasty just blew
in from Kazakhstan, and my electric bill's twenty years overdue.
Mirror, mirror on the wall—Oh, God, not you.

Barbara Hamby

All-Night Lingo Tango
University of Pittsburgh Press

Here are some reviews of the book (now wouldn't you like to get such nice reviews?)

About All-Night Lingo Tango

All-Night Lingo Tango

This collection is a love letter to language with poems that
are drunk and filled with references to the hyperkinetic
world of the twenty-first century. Yet Zeus and Hera tangle
with Leda on the interstate; Ava Gardner becomes a Hindu
princess; and Shiva, the Destroyer, reigns over all. English
is the primary god here, with its huge vocabulary and
omnivorous gluttony for new words, yet the mystery of the
alphabet is behind everything, a funky puppet master who
can make a new world out of nothing.
"Scant verbiage cannot rise to the occasion of these
brilliantly overbrimming, beautifully bountiful, life-stuffed,
word-smart, unconstrained but strangely formal, wise and
wicked and zaftig lovelies. They turn 'wretched excess' to
'blessed excess' and declare a new physics of plenitude."
—Albert Goldbarth

"With its hyperintensity of imagery, humor, and substance
sustained throughout, All Night Lingo Tango is a whirling
genius of a book."
—Susan Hahn
All-Night Lingo Tango
University of Pittsburgh Press
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

Surviving a cruise

2009-02-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

How do you survive a Cruise?

Learn to read.

Learning to Read
by Franz Wright January 19, 2009 New Yorker

If I had to look up every fifth or sixth word,
so what. I looked them up.
I had nowhere important to be.
My father was unavailable, and my mother
looked like she was about to break,
and not into blossom, every time I spoke.
My favorite was the Iliad. True,
I had trouble pronouncing the names,
but when was I going to pronounce them, and
to whom?
My stepfather maybe?
Number one, he could barely speak English;
two, he had sufficient intent
to smirk or knock me down
without any prompting from me.
Loneliness, boredom and terror
my motivation
fiercely fuelled.
I get down on my knees and thank God for them.
Du Fu, the Psalms, Whitman, Rilke.
Life has taught me
to understand books.

The Other - a book review

2009-01-16T19:54:00.000-08:00

David Guterson's new novel "The Other." Guterson, best-known for his richly evocative bestseller "Snow Falling on Cedars," once again sets his story in the Pacific Northwest. Neil Countryman, the narrator, comes from a blue-collar family and becomes a schoolteacher; his closest friend, John William Barry, is Seattle royalty—born into a fabulously wealthy dysfunctional family. Brilliant but increasingly eccentric, John goes beyond drugs, quasi-mysticism and so much else that was fashionable in the 1970s to dropping out of society altogether, living as a hermit in a cave in the woods. His co-conspirator is Neil, who initially believes this is only a passing phase but then can't summon the will to try to save him by breaking his vow of silence about his "disappearance."

from review by Andrew Nagorski Newsweek

This is my book review of sorts :
The Ohter by David Guterson
The book covernotes say this "...is a novel about youth and idealism, adulthood and its compromises, and two powerfully different visions of what it means to live a good life." I found this book profoundly affecting. Possibly because the two main characters are of my generation and and come of age in '70's which revives many reminisces of my own life. One character,the narrator adapts to the pressures of the times and life to become an English teacher, marry, have two children and be generally happy and adjusted. The other, with a Thoreau-like uncompromising contempt of American materialism and ecological blindness, withdraws from society by living a hermit's life in an Olympic mountain cave near the Hoh rain forest. The hermit has a $400 million trust fund.
The narrator notes the irony of his becoming a teacher: '..i made my living opening my mouth. And all the while I privately preferred silence.' The new year's first snow/how lucky to remain alone/at my hermitage is from Basho . He taught this haiku which bored his high school students but spoke for him. I identified with his sense that even though he succeeded in worldly terms he severely compromised his true values. Without revealing any of the plot I will quote from the narrator's lyrical meditation near the end of the book: "..the truth is that truth is too complicated. If I extrapolate from myself there is a lot of deceit in the world without a beginning, middle, or end. The way it really works, a lot of the time, is that you suffer from the weight of what happened, from what you said and did, so you lie as therapy. Now the story you make up starts to take up space other-wise reserved for reality. For phenomena you substitute epiphenomena. Skew becomes ascendant. The secondary becomes primary. When it comes to confess, you don't know what you're saying. Are you telling the truth, or do you confuse your lies with reality? The question is comical. The answer is lost in the maelstroms of consciousness. It's even possible to pretend, eventually that the question wasn't asked. You've been kidding yourself about yourself for so long, you're someone else. Your you is just a fragile fabrication. every morning, you have to wake up, assemble this busy, dissembling monster, and get him or her on his or her feet again for another round of fantasy. Is this what some sutras by Buddhists are about? ...

I don't know much about myself...but I'm glad to still be breathing, to still be here with people, to still be walking in the mountains, and to be still uncertain....I'm a hypocrite, of course, and I live with that, but I live."

2008 New Year's resolutions review

2008-12-31T06:15:00.000-08:00

in January 2008 I made 12 resolutions which were to summarize (for more detailed list see archive) :

1) read 10 non-fiction books
2) read 10 books on Buddhism and Mediation
3) resee 10 film classics
4) Attend 10 live concerts
5) see live theatre when possible
6) Travel - see friends, wildlife refuges and nat'l parks
7) See 10 bird species
8) write 10 bad poems
9) Make CD compilations
10) laugh as much as possible (with of course not at)
11) lie less (except to produce laughs - see #10)
12) lose 30 pounds

I am happy, even proud to report that i accomplished 11 of the 12. That's 91.666 per cent. My only failure though it was an utterly complete failure was #11 .

the history of forgetting

2008-12-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)
to paraphrase mark twain:
man is the only animal that forgets or needs to.

here is a good poem by lawrence raab:

The History of Forgetting

When Adam and Eve lived in the garden
they hadn't yet learned how to forget.
For them every day was the same day.
Flowers opened, then closed.
They went where the light told them to go.
They slept when it left, and did not dream.

What could they have remembered,
who had never been children? Sometimes
Adam felt a soreness in his side,
but if this was pain it didn't appear
to require a name, or suggest the idea
that anything else might be taken away.
The bright flowers unfolded,
swayed in the breeze.

It was the snake, of course, who knew
about the past—that such a place could exist.
He understood how people would yearn
for whatever they'd lost, and so to survive
they'd need to forget. Soon
the garden will be gone, the snake
thought, and in time God himself.

These were the last days—Adam and Eve
tending the luxurious plants, the snake
watching from above. He knew
what had to happen next, how persuasive
was the taste of that apple. And then
the history of forgetting would begin—
not at the moment of their leaving,
but the first time they looked back.

Lawrence Raab

New Ohio Review
Fall 2008

alternative medicine

2008-11-30T12:58:00.000-08:00

i've been trying some alternative remedies for some of my health issues: acupunture,
massage, chinese herbs and meditation. after reading this woody allen story i realize i need to be aware of the law of unintended consequences. i need to beware of getting too well.

Think Hard, It’Ll Come Back to You
by Woody Allen November 10, 2008

As health-food stores go, the Hardened Artery is as steady as any. Perusing its pricey nutrients last week in quest of some vitalizing herb or root to flush out a family of free radicals that had built their nest in my chassis, I came vis-à-vis a bottle of red fluid nestled like a krait between the ginseng and the echinacea and sporting the Ray Bradburyish title “Brainiac.” Plucked from its niche, it claimed to be a thirst quencher chockablock with gingko biloba and sundry antioxidants reputed to enhance memory. “Think quick,” the label copy spieled. “Where are your car keys? Cue television game-show music. The mind docs at Function developed Brainiac to help in these situations.” On the label, in letters clearly visible to anyone possessing an electron microscope, followed the sheepish admission that the claims of the miracle apéritif had not yet been examined by the Food and Drug Administration and “the product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” Whether it might be used to remove gravy stains or unclog a drain remains untested. Still, this notion of a neuron-recharging elixir brought to mind thoughts of my esteemed colleague Murray Cipher, as he prepared to go out for dinner.Mustn’t be late to the Wasserfiends’ party. Classy crowd. No lungfish caviar tonight. Upward mobility? Vice-presidency for old Murray? Imagine—twenty-four exterminators working under me. Mind-boggling. How do I look? Only great. New necktie should wow ’em, although the pattern of multiple G clefs may be too hip for the room. Searched for the perfect birthday present for Mr. Wasserfiend. Amazing, but Hammacher Schlemmer is the only place in town that carries a Jarvik Heart with a compartment for fish hooks. But, look at this, in my haste to be on time I almost bolted out the door without his gift. Let’s see, where did I put it? Hmm. Was it on the foyer table? Not here in the drawer. Did I leave it in the bedroom? Check my night table—so damn cluttered. Reading lamp, alarm clock, Kleenex, shoe horn, my copy of Hui-Neng’s “Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.” Glove compartment of the Saab? Better race out and see. Raining. Oh, brother, a scratch on the fender. Damn rabbi on his unicycle. Wait a minute, where are my car keys? Could have sworn I left them in this pocket. No, just some loose change and ticket stubs from the all-black version of Elaine Stritch’ s one-woman show. Did I check my desk? Better go back inside. What’s in the top drawer here? Hmm. Envelopes, my paper clips, a loaded revolver in case the tenant in 2A begins yodelling again. O.K., let’s reconstruct. This morning I drove to Smallbone’s to have my toupee steamed, stopped off at Stebbins’s home to return his arch supports, then to my bagpipe lesson.

Hey, wait a minute, that little starlet I shacked up with who always took melatonin to prevent jet lag when we had sex—she used to nosh some kind of Buck Rogers health snack. Yes, Cranial Pops. Supposed to zap the memory. Could she have even left some in the cupboard? Ah, here—what does it say on the bag? “Untested by Food and Drug Administration—May cause drowsiness in men named Seymour.” I’ll just try a few. Hmm, nice flavor. I love the taste of soy phosphatidylserine. Have some more?

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, of course, I left Mr. Wasserfiend’s gift at the office. My secretary, Miss Facework, to meet me with it at the party. Car keys in gray cashmere cardigan on second hanger in hall closet. Remember the day I bought that cardigan, sixteen years ago. A Tuesday. I was wearing beige slacks and a Sulka button-down oxford shirt. Gray socks. Shoes from Flagg Brothers. Had lunch with Sol Kashflow, the hedge-fund whiz. Sol ordered the halibut with buttered peas and julienne potatoes. His beverage white wine, a ’64 Bâtard-Montrachet, which I recall was a tad fruity. Finished off with lime sorbet and two after-dinner mints—or was it three? Funny thing, he hardly touched his meal. Too excited because Amalgamated Permafrost had just merged with a company that had developed a process to make steel into henbane. To celebrate I got the check. Fifty-six dollars and ninety-eight cents. Hardly worth it, since my langoustines were overcooked.

To the Wasserfiends’ party at last. Just on time. Everybody well dressed. Champagne flowing. Cocktail pianist. “Avalon.” Same song playing that night in Vineyard Haven with Lillian Waterfowl. Slipped out of her bathing suit. Naked goddess. Tore off my clothes with her long nails. Our two bodies straining with desire. Moved in on her like a panther. About to consummate passion, when suddenly my leg cramped. Left calf? No, right. Let out piercing shriek, leaped off her. Hopped around room, face contorted with pain. What struck her so damn funny? Christ, the woman was doubled up with laughter. Accused me of ruining the moment. Schlemiel, she called me, nudnik. Couldn’t run to the phone fast enough to share the story with our friends. Let her rot with her embezzler husband. The man tries to hide six million dollars in small denominations in his shoe.

Brings to mind Hornblow evening. Haven’t thought of it in fifteen years. Watched Effluvia Hornblow baking in her kitchen. Asa Hornblow in the other room bombinating his chums about the Red Sox. They split a doubleheader with the Tigers that day, taking the opener, 6–2, then dropping the nightcap, 4–0. Heard their voices, good old boys arguing balls and strikes. Bent her over the sink to lance my tongue between her smoldering lips. Suddenly necktie caught in the Mixmaster. Switch jammed, wouldn’t turn off. Plug inaccessible behind refrigerator. Kept snapping my head against the marble backsplash. Remember witnessing birth of the great Crab Nebula. Emergency Squad. Taken away in an ambulance. For two weeks could speak only in rhymed couplets, smiled often, plus every ten minutes greased my body for a Channel swim. Hermès tie it was. Sixty-nine ninety-five, and that was then.

Look at Mrs. Wasserfiend sitting there, so elegant. Black Armani dress, simple pearls and those dramatic earrings—two Jivaro shrunken heads with their lips sewn together. Makes me think of Grandma. Always sitting there playing cards with Grandpa. Cheated him blind. Finally he went blind in one eye and she could only cheat half of him. Grandpa very brilliant, spent fifteen years translating “Anna Karenina” into pig Latin. Remember the day Grandpa collapsed, June 8th, 6:16 P.M. Misdiagnosed as dead and embalmed despite his clear ability to shimmy and sing “Rag Mop.” Grandma sold the house and devoted her life to serving God. Applied for sainthood but was turned down because she couldn’t parallel park.

Pianist is playing “You Made Me Love You.” Remember always hearing that song when Mom was pregnant with me. Dad used to sing it to himself in the mirror all day long. Recall Mom giving birth to me in a taxicab. Meter ran four-eighty. Cabbie was Israel Moscowitz. Talkative. Referred to his wife as a fat pot of kasha. Remember my parents expected twins. Crushed when there was only one of me. Couldn’t deal with it. First few years dressed me as twins. Two hats, four shoes. To this day they still inquire about Chester.

Thank you for a wonderful evening, Mrs. Wasserfiend. Oh, and the name you were trying to think of when we were discussing the life of Emily Dickinson before was Bronko Nagurski. Out of there just in time. Cranial Pops starting to wear off. Still, no question I was the hit of the party. Came up with Gouda cheese. Lava soap. Got Leo Gorcey and Julien Sorel. Managed to recite the Philippics verbatim. Recalled the Schrafft’s on Fifty-seventh and Third. Hummed Mousie Powell’s theme song. Got Menachem Schneerson, the Sons of the Pioneers. Gyp the Blood. Now, where the hell did I park my car? ♦

education

2008-11-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

i think this poem speaks more eloquently about education than i ever could.
note : Alexis Rotella is now a famous poet.

Purple by Alexis Rotella

In the first grade Mrs. Lohr
said my purple teepee
wasn't realistic enough,
that purple was no color
for a tent,
that purple was a color
for people who died,
that my drawing wasn't
good enough
to hang with the others.

I walked back to my seat
counting the swish swish swishes
of my baggy corduroy trousers.
With a black crayon
night fall came
to my purple tent
in the middle
of an afternoon.

In second grade Mr. Barta
said draw anything;
he didn't care what.

I left my paper blank
and when he came around
to my desk
my heart beat like a tom tom.
He touched my head
with his big hand
and in a soft voice said
the snowfall
how clean and white and beautiful.

Wabi Sabi

2008-11-16T20:35:00.000-08:00

Like Feng Shui, wabi sabi is an Eastern idea gaining popularity in the West. Unlike Feng Shui, wabi sabi is not a technique for increasing wealth, or tapping into some unseen mystical power. It is quite the opposite. It is an intuitive way of living that involves noticing the moments that make life rich and paying attention to the simple pleasures that can be over-shadowed by the bustle and excess of our consumer society.

It started with tea. In Japan, in the Middle Ages, nobles and military leaders strengthened political alliances by throwing elaborate tea parties in which expensive teapots and tea-making utensils were displayed and given as gifts. These ostentatious events focused on expensive Chinese art and tea objects and were the exclusive territory of the rich. Zen monks, who had brought tea to Japan in the first place, continued to develop a tea ceremony called wabi tea, which emphasized a different kind of wealth. Their ceremony used rustic Japanese pottery and focused on the natural elements used in making tea. It allowed participants to connect with the pleasure of drinking tea and provided a tranquil space in which to appreciate natural beauty.

The tea masters who preformed these ceremonies situated their tea huts in the middle of gardens and crafted their ceremonies to be rich in symbolic meaning. They practiced making tea until they could do it without thinking about it. Then, when they served tea to others, they were free to focus their attention entirely on their guests without being distracted by the preparation process. The most famous tea master was Sen no Rikyu who took wabi tea to a new level of subtlety thanks to the patronage of the Shogun Oda Nobunaga. Nobunaga used both forms of tea ceremony to unify Japan. Three of Rikyu's principle students were devout Christians: Furuta Oribe, Takayama Ukon, and Gamou Ujisato. They discovered that the way of tea enriched their own faith because it provided a concrete example of selfless attention to others. By learning to serve so well that you no longer need to think about what you are doing, you are free to focus on your guests.

Sabi is a word that originated in Japanese poetry. It expresses the feeling you get in the autumn when the geese are flying south and the leaves are falling. It is a sort of somber longing that is felt in the muted colors and earthy aroma of a forest preparing for winter. This melancholy ache is a sort of hopeful sadness that recognizes that nothing is perfect, nothing lasts, and nothing is finished, but that even so, life is full of meaning. The complete term 'wabi sabi' describes a way of life practiced by those who notice and appreciate the significant moments of each day, live fully in each change of season, and connect with nature and those around them in meaningful and gentle ways.(This article first appeared in the Nanaimo Daily News - Saturday, January 24, 2004.)

Here are some examples of wabi sabi in haiku :

the morning’s snow
I can chew dried salmon
alone

xxxxxxxxx- Basho

drifting snow
lambs inside the barn
inside the ewes

xxxxxxxxx-Harriot West

rumors of war
up into a darkening sky
— a child's newsprint kite

xxxx- Angelee Deodhar

the tom asleep
on the widow's porch
is losing his sun

xxxx- William Hart

lovesickness

2008-10-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

Evidently based on the spam i receive there is a rash of male love sickness going around ever since Sarah Palin came on the scene. However thanks to the
compassionate drug companies we do not have to suffer:

New study declares Love a disease; medication may be available

Doctors from the University of Allopath have announced that Love is a curable disease. It is characterized by abnormal heart rhythms, sweating, impaired brain function, incoherent speech patterns and loss of sleep, among other signs. Thanks to this pioneering work from researchers sponsored by the leading drug firm Pferck, researchers have learned that love is a common biochemical disorder affecting both men and women of all ages.

Fortunately, it is treatable with prescription drugs. A new drug, Miserexa, combines beta blockers and antidepressants to alleviate the symptoms of Love. This drug slows the heart and helps patients feel detached from reality, counteracting the unhealthy neediness of Love.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new drug this week. In a press conference, chief FDA drug approval scientist Dr. B. Fuddle said, "We are declaring war on Love, and doing everything in our power to eradicate Love from the world."

The market for Miserexa is expected to reach six billion dollars annually. "Love has reached epidemic proportions", explained a public relations representative of Pferk. "If we do not act immediately to thwart the spread of this disease, Love will run rampant, and we will be facing an epidemic of Love in the world."

Health researchers first became aware of the disease after being alerted to symptoms of Love by the psychiatry community, which has been instrumental in the detection and aggressive treatment of this dangerous condition with brain-altering drugs. "We were seeing it in an alarming number of patients", explained one psychiatrist, "and it was causing untold suffering in their lives. Fortunately, the condition can now be chemically corrected."

Further study revealed that Love is highly contagious. It can apparently spread from one person to another, although the mechanism of transmission is currently unknown. Love also spreads easily from mother to child, especially in newborns. Interestingly, Love has no effect on landlords and corporate CEOs, who seem to possess some unknown immunity to the disease.

Given the expanding threat of this disease, doctors stress it is important that all adults get screened for Love as soon as possible. Hospitals and clinics are now setting up Love screening programs in the hopes of catching the disease early and treating it aggressively with targeted pharmaceuticals. "Nearly half the population may now be suffering from Love", said Dr. Fuddle, "and we estimate more than 90% of the carriers are currently going without treatment. It is important that we provide screenings and treatment on a population-wide basis."

If Love is not detected and treated in its early stages, it can advance to the point where the only solution is surgery. In such severe cases of Love, skilled surgeons perform a cardiectomy (a surgical removal of the heart). The procedure is risky, and many patients have died on the operating table, but many more have been successfully saved from the ravages of Love by the skillful blade of a compassionate surgeon.

The American Misery Association (AMA), whose mission is to find the cure for Love, is working hard to help educate the general public to watch for early signs of Love. People are urged to conduct a Love self-examination in the privacy of their own homes, and to watch out for the classic symptoms of Love: racing pulse, sweaty palms, inability to speak in coherent sentences, or confusion around certain attractive individuals. People are also taught how to avoid giving Love to others - an important step in halting the spread of this disease.

If you suspect that you or someone you know might be suffering from Love, don't wait. Treatment is available. Don't let Loved ones suffer any longer.

This press release is brought to you by Pferck, where today's rip-off drug prices fund tomorrow's profit miracles.

napping

2008-09-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

I read a lot of poetry, mostly on the Writers Almanac and Poetry Daily. Once in awhile I find a poem that really hits home :

Afternoon Nap
for Stuart and Ali

The dishes washed, the plates stacked
Neatly in their cupboards, he scooped up a section
Of the Sunday paper and slipped into the lounge,
His belt stretched around a second slice of cake.

He dozed off over the picture of a scoring hero
And came to again at four, the house quiet,
And brightness gone from the sky. He felt weak,
Knowing that this day was done, or wasted,

And thought about his school, how they
Used to run for miles around a grass track
And never get tired. He thought of friends
Who had fallen into ambition, success

And failure. He should have written letters
But didn't. What was it that he had wanted,
Running around that circle? What would
He now say he had missed? Nothing. He felt

That day's paper slip from his hands,
His muscles loosen, and lids close over eyes
That still stared into the near-dark garden
Where small birds flitted about unnoticed.

James W. Wood

Southwest Review
Volume 93, Number 2 / 2008

James W. Wood

James W. Wood is the author of two short collections, Swingtime and The Theory of Everything. He reviews regularly for Scotland on Sunday and lives in Edinburgh. Poems, articles, and reviews have also appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Daily Telegraph, Poetry Review, The London Magazine, and many others. "Afternoon Nap" is included in a chapbook, Inextinguishable, published by Knucker Press.

What I Learned in High School

2008-07-31T15:05:00.000-07:00

what i learned in high school

i was impelled to reminisce about my high school years upon hearing on NPR that todays high school curriculum's were so diverse across the nation
that it was difficult to devise a test to fairly measure the knowledge of potential college applicants. the story went on to say that until the counter culture flourished in the late 60's and early 70's what was taught was very similar across the nation. i guess the black power, women liberation, cultural relativism and the peace movements forever altered the landscape of high school studies.
consequently i came up with the idea of creating a cd compilation of music i listened to and excerpts of books that influenced me during my high school years(1962-1965).
included are cultural influences both inside and outside of school from church to tv and the movies.

the playlist:

1 charles dickens - it was the best of times(A Tale of Two Cities) : 58
2. The Beatles -- Yesterday (2 05)
3. mark twain -- jim bakers blue jay yarn (1.27}
4. Sha Na Na -- The Birds and the Bees (2:10)
5. john howard griffin - black like me (1:28)
6. Bob Dylan -- Blowin' in the Wind (2:49)
7. mark twain -- huck finn (:37)
8. harper lee -- to kill a mockingbird (3:10)
9. Paul Robeson -- Ol Man River (4:19)
10. robert frost - stopping by the woods (:58)
11 Gerry & The Pacemakers - Ferry Cross The Mersey (2:25)
12 shakesphere -- caesar eulogy (2:30)
13. The Mamas & the Papas -- California Dreamin' (2:40)
14. mary chase - harvey (3:31)
15 Petula Clark - Downtown (3:05)
16 Judy Collins - Amazing Grace (4:07)
17. st. matthew - sermon on the mount (2:09)
18. The Lettermen --1 Believe (2:11)
19. victor hugo --les miserables (2:17)
20. Shirley Jones -- You'll Never Walk Alone [From Carousel] (1:45)
21. edward fizgerald - rubaiyat of omar khayyam (1:44)
22. The Beatles -- Michelle (2:42)
23. The Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love (2:12)
24. george eliot -- silas marner (1:43)
25. Jackie DeShannon - What The World Needs Now Is Love 3:08
26. Barbara Lewis - Baby I'm Yours (2:33)
27. Barbara Cook - Till There Was You [From The Music Man] i2 4cigh
28. The Rolling Stones -- (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (3:44)
29. shakesphere -- hamlet soliloquy (2:14)
30. Peter & Gordon - A World Without Love (2.40)
31. leo tolstoy - war and peace (1:30)
32 Barry McGuire -- Eve of Destruction (3:36)

Several of the books were assigned readings and some were mentioned in classes but many were discovered by unfettered curiosity outside the confines of
the school. Most of the music was heard on top-forty radio or on albums. I was especially fond of a record by the Lettermen of show tunes. Though musically
inept I was sometimes allowed to sing in the church choir at Parkview Baptist Church where I learned many hymns. My favorite being Amazing Grace. My senior
year my class did a performance of The Music Man by which I was amazed. It made a lasting impression.
Though I entitled the compilation What I Learned in High school it's not so much what i learned but what i experienced and had a lasting educational effect.
Its what was thrown up against the blank canvas of my mind and stuck like the splashed hues of a jackson pollock painting. A fragmented abstraction of memories
in a quilted undecipherable pattern.
In the 9th grade I remember reading Hamlet in Mr. Hadley's English class and the challenge of struggling to make sense of the weird words and then
the feeling of satisfaction in understanding and enjoying the rich language. In the summer after my sophomore year i read To Kill a Mockingbird as i laid
in bed with bronchitis coughing my way thru the pages emotionally engrossed. It was in high school i developed a love of film. Largely due to TV and
Saturday Night at the Movies where I was exhilarated to watch War and Peace with Henry Fonda as Pierre. It inspired me to read thre book my senior year.
There was also The Vikings with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas, Spartacus, and the Mountain with Spencer Tracy. There was of course the Beatles. my younger
sisters played their music continually after they were on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. (which we watched every Sunday night).
There are many moments that I cringe to remember. It was four short years long ago, four years largely wasted during which I abandoned any dreams of
fame or fortune and all ambition to be anyone special. It was then I realized that I was just your average bloke. With a bit of torment i reluctantly accepted my
fate to be unique just like everybody else. That's just the way life is i learned. That's the way the snowflakes fall, that the way the cookies crumble.
I suspect that your compilation would be much different than mine even if you were my classmate but if you are so inclined and make one I'd love to see it.

If you would like a copy of my cd let me know- Normally its $99.99 but if you call now you can get the entire cd for only $9.99 (only 999 1 penny payments)
but wait... theres more....

reading

2008-05-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

The question i asked last month regarding "do you read fiction or non-fiction" didn't
seem to generate much response. Of the 4 responses i did get 2 said they try for a
balance and 2 said they prefer nonfiction. i seem to prefer fiction in that last year i read 21 fiction and 8 nonfiction books. i found a couple of interesting polls on the internet that reading is not dead. the following is from a Harris poll:
"For years, people have been crying about the death of the book. While reading books may be declining, Americans are reading. Just one in ten (9%) say they typically read no books in an average year. About one-quarter (23%) read between 1 and 3 books, while one in five (19%) read between 4 and 6 books and 13 percent typically read between 7 and 10 books. And, over one-third (37%) of Americans say they read more then ten books in an average year.
There are certain groups who are more likely to read more than ten books in an average year. Looking at the generations, almost half (47%) of Matures (those aged 63 and older) say they read more than ten books compared to just one-third (33%) of Baby Boomers (those aged 44-62). Women are also more likely to read more than men – 44 percent of women read more than ten books a year compared to three in ten (29%) men. Candidates may not want to try books to reach their partisans, but they may be a good way to reach out to Independents"

a zogby poll examines whether what you like to read predicts your politics :

* Conservatives and liberals are more likely than moderates to read books.
* Liberals are almost twice as likely as conservatives to read
literary fiction (20% to 11%) and they're also more likely to read
science fiction/fantasy than moderates (13% to 8%).
* Moderates and conservatives favor mysteries and thrillers while
liberals (22%) and conservatives (20%) prefer books about politics and
current events.
* Liberals like non-fiction and fiction equally. Moderates and
conservatives prefer non-fiction.
* Moderates are more likely to read self-help books (7%) –
liberals are the least likely to read them (3%).

of course everyone i know falls outside any polling parameters.

Here is a list of the books i read in the past year:
FICTION

Blood Lure Nevada Barr
Skeleton Man tony Hillerman
Mission Song John Le Carre
One Good Turn Kate Atkinson
Arthur and George Julian Barnes
the Road Cormac McCarthy
Brooklyn Follies Paul Auster
What is What Dave Eggers
Echomaker Richard Powers
American Outrage Tim Green
HouseKeeping Maryanne Robinson
No Country for Old Men Cormac McCarthy
Bridge of Sighs Richard Russo
The Book Thief Markus Zusak
A Thousand Slendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid
The Appeal John Grisham
A Soldier of the Great War Mark Helprin
A Free Life Ha Jin
The Yiddish Policeman's Union Michael Chabon
Everyman Philip Roth

NONFICTION

The God Delusion Richard Dawkins
Into the Wild Jon Krakauer
Clapton Eric Clapton
The Beatles Bob Spitz
MoneyBall Michael Lewis
Truth and Beauty Ann Pacthett
Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers

a question for readers

2008-04-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

i recently read a review of a book of poems by laura kamasischke whose poems are
described as confessionally autobiographical like sylvia plath and robert lowell's
poems were in the 60's. the reviewer asks what should we read? who do we turn to
to help us understand our life? is it the fiction or non-fiction writer (or the poet). one writer has said that its experience we learn most from and that the fiction writer can create a story of internal and external events we can vicariously experience. and because "experience resists explanation" fiction comes closer to
the truth than non-fiction. who do you trust? the novelist or the journalist.

we might of turned to the poets in th 60's and 70's but in recent years its the memoirs that are getting the readers. there have been a couple of blantant examples
of memoirs full of lies as this quote points out (both highly touted by oprah before they were exposed as lies) :

"When James Frey approached publishers marketing his manuscript of “A Million Little Pieces” as fiction, none were interested. When he labeled it “memoir” Random House jumped.

Margaret Seltzer's excuse was that she really wanted to tell the stories of the life her gang-member ffriends lived, and she believed that they had a greater chance of being heard if she wrote them as her own story.

Seltzer and Frey both sold memoirs because that's what the publishers wanted. And the publishers wanted memoirs because readers crave them. Non-fiction books sell. Readers want the intimacy of a memoir and the sense of being allowed into another person's world – especially if that person has had a dramatic and harrowing life.

The process of memoir writing is fraught with the possibility of factual inaccuracy, being dependent as it is on memory and recollection. It is nearly impossible to guarantee that every detail of a creative non-fiction story is unquestionably accurate.

Still, readers are right to assume that memoirs are true, or at least as true as memory will allow."

(In her supposed memoir “Love and Consequences” (Riverhead Books, 2008), Margaret A. Jones writes about her life as a half-Native American, half-white girl growing up in a foster home in South Central Los Angeles. She describes her experiences as a drug-dealing gang member in L.A. watching friends and family die in gang violence.)

so my question to you is : what do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?

Kitchen Song by Laura Kasischke

The white bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with nothing.

The sound
of applause in running water.
All those who've drowned in oceans, all
who've drowned in pools, in ponds, the small
family together in the car hit head on. The pantry

full of lilies, the lobsters scratching to get out of the pot, and God

being pulled across the heavens
in a burning car.

The recipes
like confessions.
The confessions like songs.
The sun. The bomb. The white

bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with blood. I wanted

something simple, and domestic. A kitchen song.

They were just driving along. Dad
turned the radio off, and Mom
turned it back on.

arcade fire

2008-04-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

recently i discovered a indie rock group from canada that i liked ( thanks to a friend who loaned me their newest cd Neon Bible). i found their lyrics to be magnetic (ie. they stuck rather than suck). than i remembered my favorite group during the 80's and
90's was Talking Heads a favorite song was Once in a Lifetime. i guess i haven't come so far. ...same as it ever was ...

Arcade Fire is an indie rock band based in Montreal, Quebec which is based around the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. In 2004, their first full-length album Funeral was recorded. The group uses of a large number of musical instruments in addition to mainstays rock instruments of guitar, drums, and bass guitar, such as bowed string instruments, accordion, various brass and harp.

THE ARCADE FIRE LYRICS

"Keep The Car Running"

Every night my dream's the same
Same old city with a different name
Men are coming to take me away
I don't know why, but I know I can't stay

There's a weight that's pressing down
Late at night you can hear the sound
Even the noise you make when you sleep
Can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where and they don't know
When it's coming, when it's coming

There's a fear I keep so deep
Knew its name since before I could speak
Aaaaah Aaaaah Aaaaah Aaaaah
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where and they don't know
When its coming, oh when but its coming

Keep the car running

If some night I don't come home
Please don't think I've left you alone
The same place animals go when they die
You can't climb across a mountain so high
The same city where I go when I sleep
You can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name cause I told it to them
But they don't know where
And they don't know
When it's coming, oh when is it coming?

Keep the car running
Keep the car running
Keep the car running

ONCE in a Lifetime lyrics :

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...

a little humour and a little irony

2008-03-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

1) irony
As i was driving around the backroads of nebraska last week i was turning thru the radio stations and i noticed russ limbaugh was on about four different channels. After listening a bit, the phrase "Nattering nabobs of negativism" came to mind. i
thought it ironic that a phrase popularized by spiro agnew as an insult to the press
would seem to fit russ so well who by all accounts would be a political bedfellow.?

Nattering nabobs of negativism" is one of the most popular turns of phrase associated with U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who served under Richard Nixon until resigning in October 1974, after pleading no contest to charges of tax fraud. Agnew, who had a particularly acrimonious relationship with the press, used this term to refer to the members of the media, whom he also deemed "an effete corps of impudent snobs."

According to the Congressional Record, this term was first used during Agnew's address to the California Republican state convention in San Diego on September 11, 1970. In context, it was used together with another well-known Agnew alliteration: "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club -- the "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."

Although this phrase is often credited to Agnew himself, it was actually written by William Safire, the legendary columnist for The New York Times, who was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Some of Agnew's other pearls were actually written by Patrick Buchanan, another White House speechwriter at the time.

na·bob n.
1. A governor in India under the Mogul Empire. Also called nawab.
2. A person of wealth and prominence.

2) humour
when i was in highschool one might say after making a dumb joke: ' a little humour'
(which was stolen from johnny carson). a reply might be: ' yes, very little'.
consider the following "a little humour' :

How I Want To Be Remembered
by Jack Handey
March 31, 2008 Text Size:
We are gathered here, way far in the future, for the funeral of Jack Handey, the world’s oldest man. He died suddenly in bed, according to his wife, Miss France.

No one is really sure how old Jack was, but some think he may have been born as long ago as the twentieth century. He passed away after a long, courageous battle with honky-tonkin’ and alley-cattin’.

Even though Jack was incredibly old, he was amazingly healthy right up to the end. He attributed this to performing his funny cowboy dance for friends, relatives, and people waiting for buses. All agreed it was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen, and not at all stupid or annoying.

Jack’s death has thrown the whole world into mourning, and not in a fakey, sarcastic way. He was admired by people of all ages and stripes, and by all animals, including zebras. Even monsters liked him. He had his playful side and his serious side, but ninety-nine per cent of the time he had his “normal” side.

He started out life as a baby but worked his way up to an adult. But even when he was a full-grown adult he never forgot that he was a baby. His philosophy of life was a simple one. “I’m-a no look-a for trouble, because-a trouble, she’s-a no good,” he would often say, in his beloved fake Italian accent. He was quick with a laugh, but just as quick to point at what he was laughing at. Children loved him, but not in the way his teen-age niece claimed. He was always thinking of ways of helping people, and was wondering how he might do some of those things when he died.

Jack was an expert in so many fields, it’s hard to say what he was best at: the arts, the sciences, or the businesses. If you talked to him at a party, you couldn’t tell; he seemed to know it all. He has been compared to Captain James Cook, and not just because he was severely beaten by some Hawaiians, and to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and not just because he liked to be driven around in a jeep.

As hard as it is to believe, he never sold a single painting during his lifetime, or even painted one. Some of the greatest advances in architecture, medicine, and theatre were not opposed by him, and he did little to sabotage them.

Although he lived in Paris, in a mansion famous for its many trapdoors, he was always proud to be an American. However, he was ashamed to be an earthling.

He was fabulously wealthy, but he would pretend to be broke, and often tried to borrow cigarettes and money from people. Little did they know that those who gave him stuff would later be rewarded in his will, with jewels and antigravity helmets. Women who refused to have sex with him are probably wishing that they could turn back the clock and say yes.
Generous even with his organs, he has asked that his eyes be donated to a blind person. Also his glasses. His skeleton, equipped with a spring that will suddenly propel it to a full standing position, will be used to educate kindergartners.

He has asked that no shrines be built to him. But he pointed out that this did not mean he didn’t like Shriners. According to our scientists, with their electronic soul trackers, Jack is in Heaven now. And not just regular Heaven, which any jerk can get into, but special secret Heaven, which even some angels don’t know about.

So let us celebrate his death, and not mourn. However, those who appear to be a little too happy will be asked to leave.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that a lot of the things Jack said and did seemed wrong at the time, but now we realize it wasn’t him; it was we who were wrong. Let us hope we don’t make the same mistake with his clones.

In closing, it is unfortunate that Jack’s friend Don could not be here. However, Don died many years ago, from a horrible fungus.

And now robot Elton John will sing “Candle in the Wind.”?

looking forward

2008-03-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

in a 1996 film A Family Thing (written by billy bob thorton) a character played by robert duvall says "..the secret of happiness is always having something to look forward to" . i strongly suspect there is some truth to that.
now that my 6 month driving prohibition is up i can look forward to hitting the road
again this spring. my first trip will be to the platte river near grand island,nebraska
to see the sand hill crane migration. maybe i will reread the echo-maker to get me primed. being able to drive again is a real psychological boost. things tend to even
out as jack handy points out in the following new yorker story:

How Things Even Out
by Jack Handey March 3, 2008

Things tend to even out. Religion, some people say, has caused wars and fighting. Yes, but it’s also boring to sit through a church service, so it evens out. One moment you’re depressed because your doctor tells you that you have alcoholism. But then you cheer up when you go home and find a hidden bottle of vodka you had forgotten about.

Things are evening out all the time, if you take time to notice, like I do. Let’s say you want a big cupcake, with lots of icing, so you go buy one and eat it. But then you realize, I don’t have the cupcake anymore. Or maybe you take a bite of salsa that’s labelled “HOT,” and it doesn’t seem that hot, but then about a second later it seems really hot.

You might hear that some guy you know is having a party, so you call him up, but he says there’s no party. But then you call back, using a different voice, and suddenly there is a party.

One day, you ask people to take a look at a skin rash you have. Then, a few days later, you’re looking at their rashes. You send someone a death threat and then, mysteriously, the police come to your house and threaten you.

Maybe you find a nice flat pebble on a riverbank, and when you pick it up and throw it it skips across the water several times. But then the next pebble you can’t even pry loose because, what is this, glue mud? You notice an ant drifting away on a leaf in the water. Then you look up to see your aunt drifting away in a rowboat.

Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago, an asteroid hit our planet and killed our dinosaurs. But, in the future, maybe we’ll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs.

Even in the afterlife things probably even out, although I can’t imagine how.

Still don’t believe that things even out? Try this simple test: flip a coin, over and over again, calling out “Heads!” or “Tails!” after each flip. Half the time people will ask you to please stop.

Once you realize that things even out, it’s like a light being turned on in your head, then being turned off, then being turned to “dim.”

Probably the perfect example of things evening out happened to me just last month. I was walking to the post office to mail a death threat. It was a beautiful day. I was happily singing away in my super-loud singing voice. I didn’t step on any chewing gum, like I usually do, and when I threw my gum down it didn’t stick to my fingertips. As I rounded the corner, there was a bum begging for change. I was feeling pretty good, so I gave him a five-dollar bill. At first I tried to make him do a little dance for the five dollars, but he wouldn’t do it, so I gave him the five dollars anyway.

Not long after that, I was reading the paper, and there was a picture of the bum. He had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry! He had a little bigger nose and straighter teeth, but I’m pretty sure it was him. So, my five dollars had made him change his ways and become a chemistry guy.

A few days later, I was walking by the corner again, and there was the bum, back begging. So, things had evened out. He had gotten the Nobel Prize, but now he was a bum again. I asked him for the five dollars back, but he started saying weird stuff that I guess was chemistry formulas or something.

I told my friend Don the story, but he said it wasn’t an example of things evening out so much as just a stupid story. That’s interesting, Don, because you saying that evens out what I said to your mother that time.

I have a lot of stories about things evening out, but I think the one about the Nobel Prize-winning bum is the best. I’d say it would take about three of my other stories to even out that one.

Mavis Gallant

2008-01-17T11:00:00.000-08:00

Its always a great pleasure to discover a new writer that you like,
or an old writer that you hadn't paid attention to before. Such is the
case with Mavis Gallant. I was on the New Yorker web site where I found an audible short story selected and read by Antonya Nelson (whose father was a college professor of mine).
Online it was entitled Waiting but the real title is "When we were almost young". It was originally published in 1960. It stuck me as such a great story I had to rush to the library to
check out the complete Collected Stories.
Here is the abstract summary of the story:
Mavis Gallant, Fiction, "When We Were Nearly Young," The New Yorker,
October 15, 1960, p. 38 October 15, 1960 Issue

In Madrid, 9 years ago, the writer & her companions lived on the
thought of money. The re were four of them: two men & two girls. The
men, Pablo & Carlos, were cousins. Pilar was a relation of theirs. The
writer was not Spanish & not a relation, just an accidental friend.
The thing they had in common was waiting for money. Carlos & Pablo
shared a room in a flat; writer lived in another room in the same
house. Pilar had her own small flat. They were all in their 20's &
worried about approaching their thirties. Getting along on their
meagre funds was a constant challenge. The Spaniards' characteristic
trait was a certain passiveness. One day the writer received some
money, but it aroused bitterness. Carlos remarked that the difference
between them was that something would always come for the writer but
not for them.

(That doesn't do the story justice.) There are a couple of quotes I remember:
"Poverty is not a goad but a paralysis."
..."we were not afraid because after all, what was the worse that could happen. No one seemed to know."

Thats when I thought, that would be a good question for the Buddha.
Me: What is the worse that can happen?
Buddha: Life is suffering.

Biography

An only child, Gallant was born in Montreal, Quebec. Her father died when she was young, and her mother remarried. Gallant received her education at seventeen different public, convent, and French-language boarding schools. In her twenties, she worked as a reporter for the Montreal Standard (1944-1950). She married John Gallant, a Winnipeg musician in 1942. The couple divorced five years later in 1947. Gallant left journalism in 1950 to pursue fiction writing.

Gallant has been forthright about the protectiveness she feels towards her autonomy and privacy. In an interview with Geoff Hancock in Canadian Fiction magazine in 1978, she discussed her “life project” and her deliberate move to France to write by saying, “I have arranged matters so that I would be free to write. It's what I like doing.” In the preface to her collection of stories, Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981), she uses the words of Boris Pasternak as her epigraph: “Only personal independence matters.”

In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature; that year, she received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada to be the writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto. Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. in 1991. She was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1993.

In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her.

With Alice Munro, Gallant is one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appear in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories have debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.

[edit] Critical assessment

Grazia Merler observes in her book, Mavis Gallant: Narrative Patterns and Devices, that “Psychological character development is not the heart of Mavis Gallant’s stories, nor is plot. Specific situation development and reconstruction of the state of mind or of heart is, however, the main objective.” Frequently, Gallant’s stories focus on expatriate men and women who have come to feel lost or isolated; marriages that have grown flimsy or shabby; lives that have faltered and now hover in the shadowy area between illusion, self-delusion, and reality. As well, because of her heritage and understanding of Acadian history, she is often compared to Antonine Maillet, considered to be spokesperson for Acadian culture in Canada.

In a critical book, Reading Mavis Gallant, Janice Kulyk Keefer says, “Gallant is a writer who dazzles us with her command of the language, her innovative use of narrative forms, the acuity of her intelligence, and the incisiveness of her wit. Yet she also disconcerts us with her insistence on the constrictions and limitations that dominate human experience.”

In a review of her work in Books in Canada in 1978, Geoff Hancock asserts that “Mavis Gallant's fiction is among the finest ever written by a Canadian. But, like buried treasure, both the author and her writing are to discover.” In the Canadian Reader, Robert Fulford has said, “One begins comparing her best moments to those of major figures in literary history. Names like Henry James, Chekhov, and George Eliot dance across the mind.”

[edit] Major works

Gallant has written two novels, Green Water, Green Sky (1969) and A Fairly Good Time (1970); a play, What is to be Done? (1984); numerous celebrated collections of stories, The Other Paris (1953), My Heart is Broken (1964), The Pegnitz Junction (1973), The End of the World and Other Stories (1974), From the Fifteenth District (1978), Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981), Overhead in a Balloon: Stories of Paris (1985), and In Transit (1988); and a non-fiction work, Paris Journals: Selected Essays and Reviews (1986).

[edit] Current life

Although she maintains her Canadian citizenship, Gallant has lived in Paris, France since the 1950s.

Ask the Buddha

2008-01-17T10:53:00.000-08:00

For Christmas I received a "Ask the Buddha" plastic statue which
works like the "Magic 8 Ball" which was popular a few years ago.
To ask the Buddha a question you shake the statue then turn it over and read one of twenty possible Zen like responses. For example : Seek Enlightenment, or Live with Joy, or Where is my monkey, or Seek the truth etc. There is a little 20 sided geometric
figure that floats in some kind of liquid. A 20-sided flat figure (polygon) is called an icosagon. If it is a solid figure--three-dimensional--it is an icosahedron. You can have very in depth conversations with the Buddha or shallow if you prefer:
Me: What should I do today, Buddha?
Buddha: Live with Joy
Me: Should I go to the all you can eat buffet?
Buddha: You are not ready.
Me: Should i vote for a Democrat or Republican?
Buddha: You know the answer.
Me: But which one?
Buddha: Seek the truth
Me: maybe i should just go back to bed?
Buddha: Meditate on it
Me: Seriously, what should I do today?
Buddha: Rub my belly
... Such is the life of the retiree.

New Year Resoution - 7 months later

2008-01-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

Realizing the folly of the previous post i'll copy this article by Andy Borowitz:

New Year’s Resolutions, Seven Months Later
by Andy Borowitz August 9, 2004
Resolution No. 1: I Will Quit Smoking
On New Year’s Day, I started using nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and nicotine lozenges but stopped when I began to hallucinate that I was a Lucky Strike. January 2nd brought a new, less arrogant resolution: “I will smoke only cigarettes I did not pay for.” Unfortunately, I hadn’t anticipated how easy it would be to steal them at the 7-Eleven, especially when the girl behind the counter was on her cell phone trying to cast a vote for “American Idol.” Seven months later, I’m actually smoking slightly more than I did last year, but that may be because I’m more focussed on trying to quit stealing.
Resolution No. 2: I Will Lose Thirty Pounds
Successful dieters say it’s not what you eat but how much you eat that counts, which is why, back in January, I resolved to eat only while driving. After all, there’s only so much you can shove into your mouth when one hand is on the wheel and the other is holding a cigarette. I guess we’ll never know whether my diet would have worked, since on January 3rd I drove my Sentra into the display window of a roofing-supply store in Long Island City. Since then, I’ve actually gained about five pounds, most of which I chalk up to the nervous eating I’ve been doing while awaiting my trial. On the positive side, now that I have to walk everywhere it’s only a matter of time before my unsightly love handles are ancient history.
Resolution No. 3: I Will Be Nicer to My Co-Workers
I’ve never exactly been Mr. Popularity at work, but I’ve never been Mr. Unpopularity, either. (That would be Dale, especially since I spread the rumor that he, and not I, was the one who had been stealing everyone’s yogurt out of the refrigerator.) Still, I resolved to be a little nicer around the office, as this January 4th exchange with my co-worker Barry demonstrates:

Me: Hey, Barry, how’s it going?
Barry: Real busy—got a big presentation tomorrow and I’m nowhere near ready.
Me: Oh, well, let’s have a pity party.
Barry: What did you say?
Me: See ya—wouldn’t want to be ya!
O.K., so maybe I could’ve been nicer than that, but if being nice means sucking up to self-important shits like Barry I’d just as soon ditch this dopey resolution altogether.
Resolution No. 4: I Will Stop Sneaking Up Behind People and Poking Them with a Sharp Wooden Stick
I did this only three times last year, so it’s a reach to call it a “habit.” And yet, those three incidents, plus the time I spent online shopping for just the right stick, constitute a troubling pattern of behavior. Here’s the good news: so far this year, I have sneaked up behind only one person and poked him (Barry, on January 5th), so, at that rate, I will do it only twice this year—well off last year’s pace. The bad news is that these incidents could pick up in frequency during the cold-weather months, when it’s easier to conceal a sharp wooden stick under a heavy overcoat. But even if I wind up poking, say, four or five people, total, this year, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. What with all the other resolutions I’ve made, this is one of the few simple pleasures I have left. ♦

New Years Resolutions

2008-01-01T09:21:00.000-08:00

I heard this morning on NPR that one out of ten people actually
accomplish their new year resolutions. I think about one out of
ten years i actually achieve mine. With that in mind and realizing
their likely failure here are my 2008 resolutions:
New Years Resolutions 2008
1) read 10 non-fiction books - biographies and history)
possiblities : The Beatles by Spitz, Einstein, Will in the World ,
Truman, Battle Cry of Freedom, Peoples History of U.S., Biographies
of Kant, Whitman, Edison, World is not my Home by Michener
2) read 10 books on Buddhism and Mediation
possibilities : Best Buddhist wrintings of 2007, Buddhist Bible,
Wheel of Life and Death, Seeking Heart of Wisdom, One Dharma,
Enlightened Mind , Zen Keys
3) resee 10 film classics,
possibilities: Amacord,Wild Strawberries, Fanny and Alexander, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Dr Strangelove, Citizen Kane,
To Kill a Mockingbird, Apocalypse Now, Everyone says I love,you,
Annie Hall
4) Attend 10 live concerts:
eg.: Wilco,DM Symphony, Bues Festivals in Davenport and Wintrop Wa., SXSW in Austin, any String Quartets, NiteFall on River
5) see live theatre when possible
6) Travel - see friends, wildlife refuges and nat'l parks:
Arizona,Texas, Minneapplosis,Omaha,KC, Ohio -rock and roll museum in Clevland,Kentucky, Vermont, Georgia, Carolinas
7) See 10 bird species i have never seen before
8) write 10 bad poems - including haiku
9) Make CD compilations : eg. favorite songs and poems of 2007,
compilation of songs and excerpts from books that i was exposed to in high school(62-65)
10) laugh as much as possible (with of course not at)
11) lie less (except to produce laughs - see #10)
12) lose 30 pounds

caffeine and the night owlies

2007-12-04T03:48:00.000-08:00

Last week i did some waiting room duty for my sister who was having surgery. another sister was there with me. Mercy Hospital now has a new coffee shop right
next to the waiting room area. My sister remarked about the high cost of the coffee. I said thats why they call it starBUCKS (is that *$'s in TM?). Since i didn't have any caffeine in the previous 3 weeks and having had 2 cups
of the "Bold" Xmas blend, I found myself awake in the wee hours that night with the night owlies ( which if i made it up is a condition in which one wakes up and is unable to go back to sleep).
My thoughts restlessly came in and out of focus when i realized the Clapton song Cocaine (1st track on the Slowhand album) was wormlooping thru my brain, only "cocaine" was replaced by "caffeine":
Cocaine Lyrics
Artist(Band):Eric Clapton
by J. J. Cale

If you wanna hang out you've got to take her out; caffeine.
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; caffeine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; caffeine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; caffeine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; caffeine.
Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back; caffeine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.

(Did Weird Al Yankovich already do that parody?)

Besides giving you an opportunity to worry about your health the night owlies provide you time to think of things to put on your blog. Remembering having read "One day in the life of Ivan Densonivich" in college it occurred to me to blog "one day in the life of art dunbar". Coming Soon to a Blog near you!
(One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, originally published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir. It is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day for an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Its appearance was an
extraordinary event in Soviet literary history—never before had such an account of "Stalinist repression" been openly distributed. ).

Only i thought i would use the format of one of my favorite Galway Kinnell poems .
MIDDLE OF THE WAY

1. I wake in the night,
An old ache in the shoulder blades.
I lie amazed under the trees
That creak a little in the dark,
The giant trees of the world.
I lie on earth the way
Flames lie in the woodpile,
Or as an imprint, in sperm, of what is to be.
I love the earth, and always
In its darknesses I am a stranger.
2. 6 A.M. Water frozen again. Melted it and made tea. Ate a
raw egg and the last orange. Refreshed by a long sleep. The
trail practically indistinguishable under 8' of snow. 9:30 A.M.
Snow up to my knees in places. Sweat begins freezing under
my shirt when I stop to rest. The woods are filled, anyway,
with the windy noise of the first streams. 10:30 A.M. The sun
at last. The snow starts to melt off the boughs at once,
falling with little ticking sounds. Mist clouds are lying in
the valleys. 11:45 A.M. Slow, glittering breakers roll in on the
beaches ten miles away, very blue and calm. Odd to see it
while sitting in snow. 12 noon. An inexplicable sense of joy,
as if some happy news had been transmitted to me directly,
bypassing the brain. 2 P.M. From the top of Gauldy I looked
back into Hebo valley. Castle Rock sticks into a cloud. A cool
breeze comes up from the valley, it is a fresh, earthly wind
and tastes of snow and trees. It is not like those transcendental
breezes that make the heart ache. It brings happiness. 2:30 P.M.
Lost the trail. A woodpecker watches me wade through the
snow trying to locate it. The sun has gone back of the trees.
3:10 P.M. Still hunting for the trail. Getting cold. From an
elevation I have an open view of the SE, a world of timberless,
white hills, rolling, weirdly wrinkled. Above them a pale
half moon. 3:45 P.M. Going on by map and compass. I saw
a deer a minute ago, he fled touching down every fifteen feet
Or so. 7:30 P.M. Made camp near the head of Alder Creek.
Trampled a bed into the snow and filled it with boughs.
Concocted a little fire in the darkness. Ate pork and beans.
A slug or two of whisky burnt my throat. The night very
clear. Very cold. That half moon is up there and a lot of stars
have come out among the treetops. The fire has fallen to coals.
3. The coals go out,
The last smoke weaves up
Losing itself in the stars.
This is my first night to lie
In the uncreating dark.

In the heart of a man
There sleeps a green worm
That has spun the heart about itself,
And that shall dream itself black wings
One day to break free into the beautiful black sky.

I leave my eyes open,
I lie here and forget our life,
All I see is we float out
Into the emptiness, among the great stars,
On this little vessel without lights.

I know that I love the day,
The sun on the mountain, the Pacific
Shiny and accomplishing itself in breakers,
But I know I live half alive in the world,
I know half my life belongs to the wild darkness.

GALWAY KINNELL

Sicko

2007-12-01T06:03:00.000-08:00

i'm sick of going to the doctors.( I wonder if there is a medicine for that). Everytime I think I have my last appointment and begin to think i can resume a "normal" life for awhile a Doctor suggests another test to "rule out" some remote disease or another which entails a lab test (with fasting of course) and 3 or 4 more appointments.

i've learned that i have a moderately servere case of peripheral neuropathy from an undetermined cause. my neurologist predicted i would be disabled within 10 years. there appears to be no cure though there are drugs with ugly side effects can mask the pain.
the doctor suggests getting as healthy as possible to delay the inevitable which i guess is what we all try anyway. i intend to try harder.

What is peripheral neuropathy?

"Peripheral neuropathy describes damage to the peripheral nervous
system, the vast communications network that transmits information
from the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system) to every
other part of the body. Peripheral nerves also send sensory
information back to the brain and spinal cord, such as a message that
the feet are cold or a finger is burned. Damage to the peripheral
nervous system interferes with these vital connections. Like static on
a telephone line, peripheral neuropathy distorts and sometimes
interrupts messages between the brain and the rest of the body."

or put it another way, basically the nerves die and then the muscles atrophy.
it usually starts with the feet and ascends up the legs.
the hands are also often affected. in my case my feet have lost feeling
and the muscles in my ankles are atrophied. i often stumble already.

in short my feet hurt.

I think i will turn to poetry for healing vibrations- medicine has failed . it isn't
universal enough.

one of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver :
"An intense and joyful observer of the natural world, Oliver is often compared to Whitman and Thoreau.
Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon and humpback whales. Maxine Kumin calls Oliver "a patroller of wetlands in the same way that Thoreau was an inspector of snowstorms" and "an indefatigable guide to the natural world." "
and one of my favorite poems is Wild Geese :
Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

gobsmacked

2007-11-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

one cold and drizzly afternoon last week I decided to
spend the afternoon reading. I was sitting in the lazyboy
listening to music and perusing CLAPTON ( eric clapton's autobiography) when he really grabbed my attention by using the term "gobsmacked". the
dictionary states it is British slang meaning flabbergasted or being struck dumb with awe or amazement. The book is mostly the story of clapton's
recovery from drug and alcohol addiction with his love of music providing the staying power to pull him thru from
sucidial despair to a peacefull and happy family life. Besides being a successfull musician he founded a
drug and alcohol rehabilation center called Crossroads
in Antigua. After finishing that i read Into the Wild. I had
recently seen the movie which i was gobsmacked by.
It may be my favorite film of the year.

Robert Hass won the National Book Award for poetry .

Happiness
Because yesterday morning from the steamy window
we saw a pair of red foxes across the creek
eating the last windfall apples in the rain—
they looked up at us with their green eyes
long enough to symbolize the wakefulness of living things
and then went back to eating—

and because this morning
when she went into the gazebo with her black pen and yellow pad
to coax an inquisitive soul
from what she thinks of as the reluctance of matter,
I drove into town to drink tea in the café
and write notes in a journal—mist rose from the bay
like the luminous and indefinite aspect of intention,
and a small flock of tundra swans
for the second winter in a row was feeding on new grass
in the soaked fields; they symbolize mystery, I suppose,
they are also called whistling swans, are very white,
and their eyes are black—

and because the tea steamed in front of me,
and the notebook, turned to a new page,
was blank except for the faint idea of order,
I wrote: happiness! It is December, very cold,
we woke early this morning,
and lay in bed kissing,
our eyes squinched up like bats.

On a more personal note my neurologist's tests showed nothing conclusive but
ruled out brain problems. he believes the seizure was caused by pacemaker failure
but he said he could not prove it. He said I can quit the anti-seizure drugs and apply
for exception to the 6 months legal limitation of no driving. However he said the application
would probably take several months to process. So I probably won't be driving till march.

my neurologist said....

2007-11-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

my neurologist said seizure was most probably heart related.
If caused by pace-maker we will probably
never know. He cut back anti-seizure med dosage
and thinks it will lessen some side effects.
He suggests two more tests
and if they show brain normal then he would
take me off anti-seizure med and send me back
to heart doctors ( from whom i'm still awaiting
results of tests ).
Iowa law says if you have seizure and pass out
you must go 6 months without another before you can drive again.
If cause is determined then you can apply for
exception. However the application process takes
several months so bottom line is i probably won't be
able to drive until March.

News so discouraging that it gave me a bad cold and
put me out of commision for a few days.

not that it has anything to do with anything but i 've
always liked the Mad Gardener's Song by Lewis Carroll

...
He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
'Extinguishes all hope!'

-- Lewis Carroll

the subject of this post "my neurologist said..." reminds me
of a Hal Sirowitz poem. Here are some samples:
Hal Sirowitz

Don't Talk Back
(from My Therapist Said)

There are two sides to every story,
Mother said, but since I'm the adult
& you're the child, only my side counts.
Yours will count, too, one of these days,
but right now your job is to listen,
so when it's your turn to be a parent
& your child tries to interrupt youwhile you're speaking, you'll know what to say.

Psychology Books
(from My Therapist Said)

Some therapists don't let their patients read Freud, my therapist said. But you can read as many of his books as you like. You can read Horney, Adler, & Jung, too. I read some of their books. I'm not afraid of the competition. They can never be as good as I am at telling you what you need to do. They never knew you.

Girlfriend Over for Dinner
(from Mother Said)

She's very pretty, Mother said, but she's going to leave you.
She was talking about her future, & you weren't in it, so I asked her to tell it to me again, just in case she made a mistake & left you out, but you weren't in the second version either.
She talked about going away to school, & when I asked her what she was planning to bring with her, she talked about her coat, her boots, but she never mentioned you.She says she's fond of you, but people say that about puppies they're about to give away.

retirement is great

2007-10-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

retirement is great: you can worry obsessively about all your health issues without
distraction. nothing new to report. still awaiting results of tests and waiting to see neurologist.
i may be becoming a bit of a pain but so far i haven't got tired of replying to anyone who says " gotta run, i've gotta go to work" . "oh, i don't have to go today" .
I finished an excellent book last week. I enjoyed it alot and i may not have been the only one who liked it since it won the Nat'l Book award last year:

by Richard Powers
The Echo Maker
Farrar, Straus & Giroux

About the Book
Set in Nebraska during the Platte River’s massive spring migrations, this novel explores the power and limits of human intelligence.

About the Author
Richard Powers is the author of eight previous novels, including Operation Wandering Soul, which was a nominated for a National Book Award in 1993. He has received numerous honors including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction. He lives in Illinois.

Not everyone liked it i guess. here is an excerpt from a not so glowing review in the NATION:
Richard Powers has a lot of ideas: complex, articulate, deeply informed ideas about artificial intelligence, virtual reality, relativity, genetics, music and much more. But poems, as Mallarmé told Degas, are not made of ideas, and neither are novels. The Echo Maker will tell you a great deal about neuroscience, environmental degradation and the migratory patterns of the sandhill crane, but like Powers's other novels, it won't tell you much about what its laboriously accumulated information and elaborately constructed concepts have to do with what it means to be alive at a particular time and place, or what it feels like. And that, crudely put, is what novels are for. .....

Thoughts on turning 60

2007-10-16T04:19:00.000-07:00

i don't consider it a great accomplishment. millions do it.
It just reminds me of the old days which seem to keep getting better.
When asked when my birthday was I once thought it clever to reply
that it was the day before Friedrich Nietzsche's so every October 15th
I would remember my birthday was the day before. Thus employing the
logic of one of my favorite grooks on Timing Toast by Piet Hein:
TIMING TOAST
Grook on how to char for yourself

There's an art to knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less.

(A grook ("gruk" in Danish) is a form of short aphoristic poem. It was invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein. He wrote over 7,000 of them, most in Danish or
English, published in 20 volumes. Some say that the name is short for "GRin & sUK" ("laugh & sigh" in Danish), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin
air. His gruks first started to appear in the daily newspaper "Politiken" shortly after the Nazi Occupation in April 1940 under the signature Kumbel Kumbell. The poems were
meant as a spirit-building, yet slightly coded form of passive resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II. The grook are characterized by irony, paradox, brevity,
precise use of language, sophisticated rhythms and rhymes and often satiric nature.)

Speaking of the 60's on my birthday we saw the nostalgic musical film "Across the Universe".
Sort of like HAIR only with all Beatles music. I really enjoyed it though it brought back some
painful memories of when it seemed "events were in the saddle and ride mankind" (Emerson)
and Yeats "Second Coming" was truer than ever :
...
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand...

doing ok

2007-10-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

new pacemaker seems to be working ok. i'll go over to fitness center today and give it a test drive around the block.

the National Book Award nominations were announced yesterday. David Kirby was nominated in Poetry. He is a poet i think is noteworthy. The other nominees were:
Poetry
Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin Company)
Robert Hass, Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins)
David Kirby, The House on Boulevard St. (Louisiana State University Press)
Stanley Plumly, Old Heart (W.W. Norton & Company)
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 (W.W. Norton & Company)

here is a sample :
Broken Promises

By David Kirby

I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;
I have seem them playing cards under a single light-bulb
and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,
knowing I would only let them win.
I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,
coming back late from the interval

long after the others have taken their seats,
and in deserted shopping malls late at night,
peering at things they can never buy,
and I have found them wandering
in a wood where I too have wandered.

This morning I caught one;
small and stupid, too slow to get away,
it was only a promise I had made to myself once
and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me
and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach
in their long, sad faces.
When I drew near them, they scurried away,
even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.
I hate them for their ingratitude,
I who have kept countless promises,
as dead now as Shakespeare's children.
"You bastards," I scream,
"you have to love me—I gave you life!"

David Kirby, "Broken Promises" from Big-Leg Music (Washington, DC: Orchises Press, 1995).

smooth as a sow's ear

2007-10-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

The pace maker change out went smoothly (or as the iowa heart referred to it the "generator change out"). I had to ask because they kept saying generator and not pacemaker so they explained the terminology to me. The pacemaker is the generator aka
battery plus the wire leads that connect the "battery" to the heart's electrical nodes.
Since they did not have to replace the wires they call it a generator change out.
I have to take it easy for a couple of days to let the incision heal but i plan on
excercising tomorrow. I had been feeling extremely lethargic for awhile so i'm anxious to see if the new "battery" helps. i think it includes a new computer too.
I was unsure if the tiredness was due the battery being low or the anti-seizure meds or both.

I just heard Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Litature :

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.

Doris Lessing

pace maker

2007-10-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

my pace maker check today showed that my battery is low so they will replace it October 10th at 12:30 pm. I shouldn't have to stay overnight. So i guess i'm getting a new pacemaker for my birthday.
the staff at Iowa Heart couldn't tell if that had anything to do with my seizure but
they did not think so at least there was no information that indicated it did. I will have to see what the neurologist says October 31st.
My sister pointed out to me that my neurologist name is not Dr. Feelgood as i first optimistically thought but Dr Freedgood.

shine

2007-10-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

Joni Mitchell's answer to "what to make of a diminished thing?" was to create a new album called SHINE.
Solomon said "There is nothing new under the sun". Gerswin said "It ain't necessarily so".
Here are the lyrics to the song SHINE on Joni's new cd:
Shine
by Joni Mitchell

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

Oh let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on Wall Street and Vegas
Place your bets
Shine on the fishermen
With nothing in their nets
Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas
Shine on our Frankenstein technologies
Shine on science
With its tunnel vision
Shine on fertile farmland
Buried under subdivisions

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on the dazzling darkness
That restores us in deep sleep
Shine on what we throw away
And what we keep

Shine on Reverend Pearson
Who threw away
The vain old God
kept Dickens and Rembrandt and Beethoven
And fresh plowed sod
Shine on good earth, good air, good water
And a safe place
For kids to play
Shine on bombs exploding
Half a mile away

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on world-wide traffic jams
Honking day and night
Shine on another asshole
Passing on the right!
Shine on the red light runners
Busy talking on their cell phones
Shine on the Catholic Church
And the prisons that it owns
Shine on all the Churches
They all love less and less
Shine on a hopeful girl
In a dreamy dress

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on good humor
Shine on good will
Shine on lousy leadership
Licensed to kill
Shine on dying soldiers
In patriotic pain
Shine on mass destruction
In some God's name!
Shine on the pioneers
Those seekers of mental health
Craving simplicity
They traveled inward
Past themselves...
May all their little lights shine

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

Copyright © 2007; Crazy Crow Music
Printed from the official Joni Mitchell website: JoniMitchell.com

random thoughts - lemonaid

2007-10-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

there are a couple of Robert Frost poems I encountered
in college that keep rambling around in my memory:
A two line couplet :

The Span Of Life
The old dog barks backwards without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.

and
The Oven Bird

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

when hopes falter, expectations fail and dreams
suddenly realizing the lack of wings
feel their weight and fall
when metaphors grow old and bite
what do you make of a diminished thing ?

The answer? take a bus, take a train, make lemonaid?

unpacking

2007-09-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

still working on unpacking. Bob made it home on Friday and had a successfull openhouse on Saturday. I forget how many retirement condos he had built there in Bellingham but i was very impressed with that town which unlike seattle operated at
a calmer pace. Bob got to visit the family while he was here. I still feel bad for disrupting his schedule but he claims he was getting an escape from the grind.
They put me on some anti-seizure medicine which is making me feel very tired most
of the time not to mention foggy- it seems to affect my short term memory...
what did i just say??
I have a heart doctor appointment for Wednesday to check the possibility that the seizure may have been caused by my pacemaker battery wearing out. Because of a shortage of neurologists in DM i couldn't get an appointment until october 31st
so i will have to stay on med at least until then.

On the drive home we stayed overnight at my brothers cabin in beautiful Wintrop WA.
Then while here we drove over to Iowa City for some much needed Thai food with
my other brother and two of our three sisters.

back in DM

2007-09-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

Arrived home after exhausting drive- left washington friday afternoon and got in des Moines at 5 pm monday. Bob is a real champ for doing the long drive- he has to head back friday to be there for a Open house on a construction project he just finished-
he built some condos in Bellingham.
its going be a real pain to avoid driving for 6 months. i have dr appt today and i suspect i will have some follow up tests sometime soon.

heading home

2007-09-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

my brother Bob will be driving me home to DM starting this afternoon. We will driving across the North Cascade highway to Wintrop WA today. we probably won't get to DM until Monday? he will stay and visit for a week. i have to schedule some Dr appt. to try to determine what caused my seizure. This will probably be last blog entry for a while.

my brain visits the neurolgist

2007-09-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

Dr Venema the neurologist concurred with the ER doctor and concluded that I had a seizure. He wants me to do some additional tests to try to determine the cause. I opted to have the other tests done in Iowa because he said they might take 2 or 3 weeks to schedule and perform here. The catscan showed a dark patch on my brain which he said looked like an old injury rather than a tumour (but further tests would give a better look. He wondered if i knew what caused it. The only thing I can
recall was a concussion i received playing sandlot football when i was a freshman in
college. I was briefly knocked out and had several hours of distorted consciousness
but seemed fine the next day. It may not turn out to be the cause but it boggles the
the mind(in more ways than one) that a bump on the head could cause a seizure 40 years later. The dr gave me some anti-seizure medication and advised me not to drive for 6 months. In Washington and Iowa it is deemed legal and medical advisement but in California they actually take your drivers license away. Not driving puts a real
crimp in my travel plans for the next few months. I feel really bummed out and feel very badly that i have to disrupt my brother and his family life so much. He has been a great sport about it and claims he is looking forward to an iowa visit. Aimee has been a wonderful support.( note there is something wrong with this keyboard and though i am a bad typist this keyboard is exaggerating my flaws).

travel travail , or bad news for this blogger !

2007-09-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

The word “travel” comes from the old French word “travail” which means to work. That word, is thought to have come from “tripullare”, which is the three sectioned whip that Roman soldiers used to strongly encourage productivity out of the laborers in their expanded empire. They associated the act of moving from one place to another with hellish torture. ok so far i had a wonderful visit in washington, visiting relatives nd seeing the sights, eating great food especially the fish and chips and clam crowder. i got we also went to a musical in downtown seattle Lone Star Love with Randy Quaid that will open on BROADWAY in NOVEMBER - Itwas exciting and and amusing. NANCY got to visit some exeptional flower stores and nurseys. by the way she arrived home safely as scheduled on SEPT 15 . Unfortunately she missed the Etta James and BB King concert Aimee and i saw sept 16 th - quite the show it was outside but the rain was barely noticeable - they gsve us ponchos! we were on the 2nd row - not soon to be forgoten. Now the bad news: It seems i fainted in the bathroom sunday morning getting ready to go to church with Aimee. evidently i blocked the door when i fell and she had to call 911 to come take me to the emergency room. The ER doctor thought i hsd a seizure and insisted that i see a neurologist before i try driving. i have an appointment tommorrow . there is a possibility it could hsve been a stroke or it just could have been a fainting spell - anyway my brother is going to try to drive home with me and visit the rest of the family . so we may not be starting back until friday. Bob will probably stay until the 26th or 27th. in short i may be at that dreaded slope.

washington state fair at the end of summer

2007-09-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

we went to the state fair in Puyallup Wa. yesterday. It was remarkably like the iowa state fair yet completely different...
AND now for something completely different:
Poem: "Three Songs at the End of Summer" by Jane Kenyon, from Collected Poems. © Graywolf Press, 2005.

Three Songs at the End of Summer

A second crop of hay lies cut
and turned. Five gleaming crows
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,
and like midwives and undertakers
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,
parting before me like the Red Sea.
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned
to water ski. They have, or they haven't.
Sounds of the instructor's megaphone
suffuse the hazy air. "Relax! Relax!"

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada's dry monotony breaks
over me. The days are bright
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today
for an hour, with my whole
body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,
and a crow, hectoring from its nest
high in the hemlock, a nest as big
as a laundry basket...
In my childhood
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new bookswords, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehendand crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.

bellingham

2007-09-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

spent a nice day exploring beautiful bellingham. it has about 70,000 odd people (so not nearly as many odd people as DM). It was being marketed as a great place to retire until they had a string of bad winters - rain, snow and no sun. it is near the ocean and the mountains has great parks and great weather - at least while we were there. next we will go to Everett to help niece Aimee celebrate her birthday and get washingtonized.

from the evergreen state

2007-09-10T11:50:00.001-07:00

nancy arrived as scheduled on friday 9-7 and we immediately embarked for Olympic Nat'l
we found scenic camping spot at the staircase on the elk river. much more fun traveling with nancy then alone- better company i guess. saturday we drove to the ocean and found campsite at Kalaloch near the beach. we hung out on beach then had a nice dinner at lodge- the best clam chowder ever. we sit on the beach and watched the stars- the dark sky was great for gazing. our campsite was near road but surf drowned out any traffic noise. warning the following is an attempt at haiku and may not be suitable for all viewers:
Towering hemlocks, ocean beaches
Nature beckons-
go away! Campground Full

sunday drove to bellingham to visit brother Bob

this land is my land...

2007-09-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

greetings from Washington:
this land is your land from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters...
After driving thru Redwood natl park i took a detour over to Medford oregon to get
a maintenance check on ol Blue- then back to the oregon coastal scenic 101 highway.
then i drove on to washington. need i mention besides the scenery the oregon coast has great seafood opportunities- i couldn't resist the halibut and chips with clam crowder.

from sea to shining sea

2007-09-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

in oregon now- been chalking up the nat'l parks: Arches, Canyonlands, Great Basin and
Lassen Volcanic. drove highway 299 across N. California- that was some tightfisted two-handed driving. then went down coastal 101. pictures are ocean from 101, wheeler peak in Great Basin and Lassen Peak. (no wi-fi or cell signal at Nat'l parks)

heading west

2007-08-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

battery running low got to rush . travel and travail are derived from same root.

picture taken by couple from boston that i saw on hiking trail

warning

2007-08-30T07:36:00.001-07:00

Warning: taking pictures while driving may not yield the results you hope for:

warning

2007-08-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

canyonlands

2007-08-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

from Moab Utah

2007-08-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

staying at a KOA campground in Moab with WI-FI. unbelieveable! weather was great yesterday. its suppose to be a dry 93 today. toured Colorado Nat'l monument yesterday.
here are a couple pics.

the old marmot

2007-08-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

i've been called an old marmot.

update

2007-08-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

i've discovered WI-FI is not always easy to come by- also i could not find any cell phone signal within rocky Mtn nat'l park. i never had a cell phone or a laptop until this year so i can't complain - oh i guess i can but it shouldn't count. anyway i will
to do a summary update since this is the end of first week of trip.
August 22nd: re-visited Wichita where i grew up and attended school thru college at WSU and then moved to DM in 1974. a driving tour by my friend (and school mate from 4th grade thru college) Clark Ensz revealed that Wichita has really been revamped and is now a very attractive city. We ate at a very nice Indian resturant called Passage to India.
After spending the night i headed west stopping at the Lincoln Perk coffee shop in Hesston KS. I told the woman working there i had heard it was the best coffee shop in the Kansas. She said she had just returned from Seattle and they didn't have any better there. i told her i would check that out for myself.
August 24th:
castle rock colorado.
We (thats the Royal We , me and ol Blue- the prius is now named Blue by default)
made to friend Vladimirs arriving in thunderstorm with hail. I had to
pull off road because i could not see anything. The pea size hail
didn't seem to do any damage to ol Blue contrary to the evidence of
the terrible pounding I heard.
My friends have been treating me Royally- I hesitate to point out that
i'm not The King Arthur as they seem to think. Oh well maybe i can
tolerate just a little more guilt in that respect.

visited the very impressive Denver Art Museum(DAM) . Its newly completed extenstion
is totally futuristic. We ate at an excellent Indian restaurant called the Clay Oven-
(do i detect a theme emerging on this trip?)
August 25th:
drove to Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park on a beautiful colorado day. drive thru Big Thompson Canyon evoked memories of first travels to the rockies in 70's and 80's.
had a pleasant day seeing the sites and doing a couple short hikes though the altitude did not show me much respect. it was a very crowded day in the park so
vladimir and i dodged tourists in estes park until we found place to eat. he headed
home to castle rock and i settled in at aspenglen campground. it was very quiet and
the clear sky made for some good star gazing.
August 26th:
Hung out all day at the park. found a quiet pinic area with a mountain stream running
thru it, read and lazed about. typical afternoon rainstorm moved in and out suddenly.

August 27th:
decided to go to Moab and see Arches and Canyonlands Nat'l parks- add 2 more to the list- i bought an annual pass for $80 - its a $20 entrance fee for each park so i will soon get my money's worth. it was cloudy and overcast as i packed up and
remained so as i drove over Trail Ridge road. It started to rain as i left the park
and rained almost all the way to grand junction where more rain was forecast for the night so i got a hotel with WI-FI so that concludes the 1st week of the blog.

The only insight(and certainly not a great one) that i recall is when i broke a finger nail and wondered "what did Lewis and Clark do about fingernails?" but then i
bit off the broken piece with my teeth and said "Ah Ha!

did i make this up?

2007-08-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

How many retired people does it take to change a lightbulb?

Nevermind, i'll do it tomorrow.

So far so good i'm in Kansas City at the downtown public library using thier free WI-FI
its 95 degrees fortunately i'll be staying at my friends Galen and Maries and they have
air-conditioning.
picture of parking garage across the street from KC public libray :

Rocinante, Ghost Dancing and the Prius

2007-08-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

it occurred to me this morning before i hit the road that there is a tradition of naming the vehicle that you take on any extended road trip. Steinbeck named his pickup camper Rocinate after Don Quixote's loyal horse and least Heat-Moon named his van Ghost Dancing to reflect his native American heritage. What should i name my blue prius?
Toyota choose the name prius from the Latin meaning "to come before" or "precede" to
indicate i guess that the hybrid technology would precede the next generation of new
energy resource innovation. maybe something like fusion ( i heard a story about that on NPR yesterday- the joke is Fusion is the energy resource of the future and always will be) . Maybe i should call the blue prius BLUE with a nod to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell who have great songs Tangled up in Blue and Blue ( a favorite album of mine).
or how about Maggie from "I'm not gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more" hinting at a true embracing of retirement. Not to forget the Beatles how about LIBby from (Let It Be -a stretch?) a suggestion of the "winging it" nature of this trip with an implied acceptance of things as they are. or leaving music i kinda of like WALDO after Where in the world is Waldo and the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson because i like his worldview or the great pantheist SPINOZA. I won't name it Arthur after Schopenhauer though i like his Eastern influenced philosophy where he references the Brahman phrase Tat Tvam Asi meaning Thou art that or You are that too suggesting the unity of all things. It reminds me of the Buddhist phrase "where ever you go there you are". Calling the car Arthur may cause me an identity crisis. Or i could call it Walt after Song of the Open Road Whitman.
The pruis is what they call a smart car. It has key less entry, shuts the gas engine off when stopped and (if you name it) will come when you call. So being that i could call it Edison or Einstein (famous smart guys). Is there a joke with the punchline "any more bright ideas, Edison?"? Hopefully not.
Maybe I should follow the native American way of waiting and watching then let the prius choose its own name or perhaps i should follow the contemporary fashion and decide by Internet polling.
OK! Here are the choices :
1) Blue
2) Maggie
3) Libby
4) Waldo
5) Walt
6) Einstein
7) Spinoza
8) open for suggestions.
note: i immediately dismissed Roy Rodgers side-kick Pat Brady's car name because i can still hear his annoying voice cry " don't fail me now Nellie Belle".

PeeWee's Big Adventure

2007-08-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

the day of PeeWee's Big Adventure is rapidly approaching. I will be leaving DM Tuesday August 21st. We got the famous Iowa State Fair under our belts(literally). I ate enough porkchop on-a-stick,funnel cake, rootbeer float and drank beer enough for anyone who might read this. i ate my very first porkchop on a stick
ever and it was so good that i had to have a second one (a few hours later of course). the 2nd one was not as good. i wondered if that was pyschological or if there is some existenial condition that prevents us from recapturing the moment( law of diminishing returns- maybe its economical). The ancient greek philosopher Heraclitus said it best " you can't eat the same porkchop twice". (he may not of said that exactly -college was a long time ago- but i'm sure that is what he meant).

more influences

2007-08-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind — filled with a strong desire to wander. . . .

Basho(1644-1694) Translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa
(The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

Among my many probably ephemeral ambitions as i travel through retirement is to learn how to compose haiku hence i quote from one of the japanese masters Basho.

My first trip is now taking form. It looks like i will leave DM on August 21st
and pass thru Denver on 23rd then spend a couple of days in Rocky Mtn Natl Park
before continuing west thru Utah and Nevada. I hope to stop in Great Basin Nat'l
Park, Lassen Volcanic Nat'l PArk and Redwood Nat'l Park before driving up the oregon coast into Washington and then stopping at MT Ranier. Nancy will be flying to Seattle on September 7th so I just need to be there to pick her up then. Otherwise
i'm pretty much "winging it". By the way I learned from CarTalk that the term "winging it" was derived from the theatre. Actors on stage who didn't have all thier lines memorized would rely on queues from prompters behind the curtains in the wings.
The unplanned aspect of this trip leads one to expect many errors and wrong turns. Error I learnt from Least-Heat Moon comes from the middle english word erren which means "to wander about" such as a knight errant. It came to mean "going astray" and then evovled into mistake which is derived from the old Norse and once meant "to take wrongly".

The annals of scientific discovery are full of errors that opened new worlds . . . If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring.
~ William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982).

influences and inspirations

2007-08-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

while imagining what retirement would be like i spent much time dreaming of road trips to National Parks and of waking up in a tent in the open air amidst scenic vistas. I believe that three of the greatest attributes of America are the National Parks system, national public radio(NPR) and Public television. my wife nancy and i made a goal of visiting as many of the Nat'l parks as we could when we went on our honeymoon to Rocky mnt Nat'l Park in 1980. While she was an art teacher for 21 years summer vacations were the highlights of our year. We planned so as to visit different parks every year. In the process we visited every state and nearly 50 parks not to mention many Nat'l monuments. Now I want to relive some of those memorable visits.
So i'm taking to the open road like John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley and William Least-Heat Moon in Blue Highways.
(The sub-titles of which are In Search of America and Journey into America.) i plan to reference both these classics as i go.
What is the goal of these trips? is it just to check off a place from a list? been there done that? is it to discover , find or learn something about nature? about self? is it for adventure, to satisfy the urge for going? is it a spiritual quest? a journey to find the source or to learn to accept our existenial condition? or is it to go away and return to better appreciate home? I don't know i'm just asking.

Whitman's Song of the Open Road has inspired many travelers . For years every trip of mine has been initiated by rereading from that great poem:

AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, 5
Strong and content, I travel the open road.

The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them. 10
...
I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all great poems also;
I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles;
(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the road;) 50
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me;
I think whoever I see must be happy.

From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute, 55
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

Biography notes for 40th high school reunion 2005

2007-07-31T10:57:00.000-07:00

Bio for 40th High School reunion

I daydreamed my way through Jr. High with game winning homeruns and last second
jump shots. Then in high school Sergeant Streetwise of Worldly Wisdom fame
handed me paper route bags and yelled that if I didn't haul ass and go to
college I'd end up sipping wine from paper-bags in downtown alleyways. Even
though Jesus whispered not to fear that there are things more important than
money and fame.
In college rock music caused my hair to grow long as I dodged bullets while
Saintly Philosophers convinced me that the world was hostile and life was doomed unless
Justice and Equality were elected. I voted for both but they lost in a
landslide. I vowed never to give in to middle class apathy and to run free with the wind in my face
like the lion in the songs. Then someone told me the lion had been shot. So I impostered at some
jobs for awhile until I was captured. I've spent 25 years in a cubicle computerizing the
logical arrangement of numbers that justify the status quo. Soon I'm suppose to be
released into retirement, which is allegedly a good thing. But I no longer have any hair for
the wind to blow through so it won't be the same as freedom. The world I hear is still a
hostile place but my wife of 23 years helps me not to dwell on that and meanwhile life
outside goes on all around me.

retirement announcement july 12

2007-07-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

After several false starts I'm finally retiring July 26th 2007.

I cannot remember all the dates I may have told various people.

I think the earliest I considered was July 2005. Then I changed it

To December 2005, then April 2006 and again to July 2006. I got involved

With some interesting work projects and decided to postpone till December 2006

But then was persuaded to work on another project so I finally drew a line in

The sand and July 26th is my last day. It turns out there is no end

To new projects and like my mother used to tell me a day's work is never

Done.

I'm winding down now, trying to clean up my office files. I went thru my email

And found there are several people I had not communicated with in some time.

So you may be one of those people.

I've been told the best thing about retirement is waking up and not having to go

To work so I plan on doing that several times a day.

I hope to do some traveling so if you are unable to be here and help me celebrate
Maybe I will show up in your town and we can celebrate there.

Hope to see you , Art Dunbar

My retirement speech

2007-07-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

My Retirement Speech - given at a reception at the Hoover Building in my honor July 26, 2007

Contrary to what some may think I have not always thought about Retirement. I remember well the day it seriously occurred to me. It was in 2002. After a six month remodeling project to fix the flood damage caused by burst frozen pipes on the Hoover building south side was completed, our software support team was moved into spiffy new cubicles. The only negative was that the new air-handlers were so quiet I could hear voices from several aisles away which I found somewhat distracting. After a few days I was learning to block out the sounds and one morning as I was typing I was vaguely aware of a conversation off in the distance between a man and a woman which I wasn't really paying attention to until I heard the guy say ...” do you know Art Dunbar?” then I heard this young woman's voice answer "you mean? the old guy?". At that moment two things occurred to me: 1) retirement and 2) earplugs.
Retirement is bitter/sweet , happy/sad affair but in the IT business you have to learn to bounce between the positive and the negative. It’s sometimes a roller coaster ride between optimism and pessimism. First the glass is full, then it’s half full then its empty, then it’s full , now it’s empty. Full, empty... I saw that happen a quite a few times the other night.
I’ve often been asked "What will you do in retirement?". To be consistent I try to give everyone a different answer. One of my favorites is "they say the best thing about retirement is waking up and not having to go to work so I plan on doing that several times a day". But I have been warned that if you don't have anything planned for it, retirement can be a slow death. My response to that is "hey, I’m not in a hurry!" .
How to answer the question "what are you going do in retirement?" brings to mind the story about a Buddhist Monk in Chinese occupied Tibet who every morning on his way to the dharma house to meditate walked by a Chinese guard. One day the guard asked him "where are you going?' . The monk quietly replied "I do not know." The guard angrily arrested the monk and took him to jail for interrogation. He asked the monk "why did you lie, you know you were going to meditate like you do every morning?"
The monk answered " it was not a lie, I really did not know I would be going to jail.". So I guess the truthful answer to "what will I be doing in retirement is " I don't know". But if I do end up in jail, please come visit and try to bring a file.
Actually I do have some plans which include traveling . My favorite trips are car camping visits to the National Parks and en route I hope to visit friends and ex-coworkers who have moved out of state. There are also many hobbies I want to try. Everything from bird-watching and Frisbee golf to bike riding and yoga. I also have a very long reading list. You gotta have dreams. Speaking of which I did have a dream the other night in which I was returning to the Hoover building to meet some friends for lunch but I could not find the Hoover building I seemed to forgotten where it was. So I had to find a telephone and call for directions but no matter what number I dialed I could only get vital statistics.

(note: for probably the last 10 years my work phone number was 281-4949. Vital Statistics is 281-4944. Sometimes as many as 3 or 4 times a week I have gotten calls from people mostly wanting birth certificates who somehow dialed the wrong number.)

Working for the State has been a great job for me. It has been rewarding in many ways. I have worked for and with some wonderful people. I have made some good friends who I hope to keep in touch
with into the distant future.