memorandum

I promise I'll tell you the whole thing.

I don't promise to tell the whole truth, and I don't promise not to combine and/or delete pertinent or impertinent characters, and I don't promise chronological accuracy, and I may obscure the essential storyline with so many expository comments and unnecessary details that the original concept and answer becomes hopelessly obscured, but I do promise I'll tell you the whole thing.

As much of it as I can remember, at any rate, and this is going back a ways, back before I really got good at remembering and mostly practiced forgetting, and as much of it as can be revealed without causing potential law suits to be given a mistrial and a de facto charge of perjury, and as much as is really necessary to answer your question, but not too much more, because over-sharing on an event like this could ruin our entire relationship, which is on pretty unsettled ground, anyway, with me not knowing you that well and you being rather eager to go off and follow, what?, your instincts or your ambitions or your vocation or the voices in your head, but besides these rather minor digressions and concerns and considerations, yes, of course I'll tell you the whole thing.

But I don't really remember the details all that well anymore; it may have been spring, since everything was filled with the bright sparkly promise of new adventures and new discoveries, but it could have just as easily been autumn, if I had just fallen in love, since infatuation can also cause that bright sparkly feeling of unlimited potential. But I don't think I was in love, I mean, it's possible, of course, but who really falls in love in the autumn, when there are so many other chores to get done and one's attention is drawn to the back to school hustle of sharpened pencils and the smell of new notebooks and remembering how bad traffic can be at 3.30 in the afternoon, it just really is hard to become infatuated while raking the leaves. And impossible to fall in love over the whirr and exhaust fumes of those gasoline powered leaf blowers that are everywhere these days.

So I probably wasn't in love, and it probably wasn't autumn, so let's just say it was spring, which has the same emotional net effect whether or not romance is in the air. Spring varies, doesn't it? There's the rush to change over the snow tires early in the month of April, followed by weeks of a tease -- will it or won't it freeze -- and the plants that are deemed hardy enough to play this game with the weather invariably get eaten by fledgling birds or baby squirrels, and then it's June, which we all call summer, white shoes and straw hats, although the solstice is pretty late in the month -- but somewhere amid all that was when this happened.

See? I promised I'd tell you the whole thing, and I really am trying to get it right, or at least conceptually correct if not actually confirmible in all the dreary details, but all I really remember is that when it happened the sky was cloudless. Really. Completely and totally devoid of cirrus, nimbus, or any other type of incipient precipitation. And it was weird there not being any clouds, nothing, not even a whisp to form a cloud of dragon breath or the shadow of a kitten or a top hat being doffed, much less a castle or a great dane or a pair of running shoes or the many faces of repressed anger.

Not a single cloud, so I had nothing to look at, except the sky, but I can't remember if it was the cool ice blue of slanted winter sunlight or the deep infused blue of summer, or if it was the promising blue of early dawn or the melancholy blue of late afternoon. It wasn't twilight, I know it wasn't twilight, I'm a connoisseur of twilights and a twilight I would remember, especially if there had been a whisp of cloud turned darkest grey by the setting sun and the sky turned the bruised blue of indigo and the moon hanging, the thinnest crescent, glowing in the reflected setting sun. I remember twilights, have vast memory banks all neatly cataloged and labeled and accessible by 3x5 typed index card according to season, company, type of drink, memory of dinner, presence of moon, echoes of sunset. The rest of the day? It's just sky.

And since there weren't any clouds to speak of, it was just vast, overwhelming, uninterrupted blue, the boundless blue of wide open plains viewed from the insulated capsule of a car, where all of the issues of the space/time continuum become totally secondary to the spacing of billboards and hasty calculations of miles per gallon and lingering unresolved issues of: Did I remember to take out the trash? Will the test results be benign? What should I give my sister for her birthday? Does god pay taxes, and, assuming he does, and files a schedule c for self employment, which of his duties does he choose to enumerate for his 6 digit employment sector identification code?

And just at that moment on the other side of the washed out field filled with unconvinced cows is the train, it must be the Santa Fe or the Union Pacific line, and according to experimental testing of the accelerator pedal and careful use of cruise control, it is traveling exactly 57 miles per hour, which would really do a number on any cow that wandered onto the rail lines, and I wonder if a cow could single-handedly derail a train moving at 57 miles per hour? If cows had hands. Somewhere a high school physics teacher can answer that question for me.

But this didn't happen in the West, or in a car, but the sky was that expressionless blue of too long western days, and it had that same suffocating overwhelming feeling without any clouds to break it. And a car was probably involved somewhere, since I don't think this happened during one of my periodic forays into cycling or enforced periods of reliance upon the vagaries of public transportation, but let's agree that the mode of transport was mostly irrelevant.

I'm trying so hard to tell you the whole thing, really, I am, but it's difficult to remember where the rest of my life ended, and that experience was inserted. The borders keeping other memories and metaphors away are too hazy and not really borders at all, just conceptual delineations where suddenly I realize that I've wandered into another memory altogether, which has no relationship whatsoever with what I'm trying to tell you, it's just there, suddenly, and I'm there, caught in a time and place that has nothing to do with this particular time or place.

I wish I could remember if it was a bus or a train, because upon consideration I really don't think it was a car after all, I would remember a car, remember checking the fuel level and watching the tower of coffee cups grow ever higher and remember stacking my very mismatched luggage in the back seat, wedging things to prevent spilled liquids or injuries during a car accident, and I don't recall any of those things, nor do I recall a sense of having unkempt hair and being vaguely coated in sweat and worried about running late, those feelings associated with my seasonal experiments bicycling, so there probably wasn't a car and there probably wasn't a bike.

As far as I can remember, it was spring, definitely spring, and the sky was cloudless, absolutely lacking even the thought of rain, and I had taken a train or a bus and then walked, since walking was just as fast as waiting for a connection and it was spring and the skies were clear.

There. All of that is almost definitely the way it happened, so we're getting somewhere, and I'm absolutely making sure to be as honest as possible under the circumstances, since I did promise to tell you the whole thing, but for all the tea in China I can't remember who all was there. Or who was supposed to be there.

If I could just remember one of the others, I'm sure the rest of them would come back to me, too, but now I'm thinking that I was alone, that it wasn't a group event or outing or meeting, but it was just me, in which case I may not have needed to take a train or a bus, because if it really was just me I could have and probably would have walked wherever it was I was going, since walking is just so much more efficient, and gives plenty of time to compose to-do lists and grocery lists and outline abstracts for papers to write or projects to begin or gardens to plant or letters to send, all of this gets done on a walk in a way that trains lead to naps and missing stops and buses lead to contemplations on the futility of the human condition and cars lead to worries about traffic and unmarked turns and inaccurate maps.

Undoubtedly, I was walking, and I was alone. Really, that's it. That's the whole thing. It was spring, more or less, and it was either morning or afternoon on a cloudless day, and I was walking, and I was alone.

That's the whole thing. I don't think I was meeting anyone, because I don't think I was in love, and why go out alone on a walk with the intention of meeting someone, unless one is in love? In all other conditions, the potential companion is usually a part of the walk from the beginning. And I really don't remember where I was, I may have been a student or on vacation or gainfully employed and on my way to work. There have been so many days and occasions similar to that one, and the sands of memory mix them so thoroughly, and where I was really isn't the point.

Yes, I'm trying to tell you., that's the whole thing. That's it. Stop pushing. If I told you any more I'd be making it up, telling a story, and that isn't what you wanted. You wanted me to tell you the whole thing. And I did.

---

reading
Trying to read Mauve Desert, by Nicole Brossard, but the problem with reading meta-fiction, especially before bed, is that it doesn't make any sense. And even though I write a fair bit of it, I'm the first person to admit that meta-fiction is actually much more fun to write than to read.

weather
sundresses sandals straw hats

Recipe for Work

List the Jobs.

tinker tailor soldier sailor richman
poorman beggerman thief

train conductor fireman preacher
carpenter singer mayor doctor

fisherman lawyer astronaut teacher
veterinarian dancer chef farmer

undertaker gardener roofer painter
dog catcher plumber mechanic forester

deep sea diver zoologist umpire superhero
correspondent photographer writer bum

List the Tools.

wrench soldering iron small hammer needle nosed pliers vice screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver, flathead sewing machine scissors thread measuring tape rifle hand grenade compass binnacle star chart banker spreadsheet cardboard sign dog on string hat old fiddle night vision map set of lock picking blanks

striped hat ticket punch Dalmatian hose fire hydrant bell bible candle set square saw nails plumb line large hammer deep lungs deep pockets stethoscope white jacket thermometer encyclopedic knowledge

small boat lobster traps hundreds of miles of line live bait beer quick wits low ethics no fear of heights no fear of small children syringes a steady manner an exhibitionistic streak strong feet emotive eyes a sharp knife love of herbs love of cows a milking pail a slop bucket a tractor and thresher

a shovel a spade formaldehyde a placid slightly sinister air a black suit a rake galoshes a mulch pile leather gloves nerves of steel good balance a hammer a ladder brushes roller buckets color vision blue tape a large butterfly net a truck a taser dog biscuits a wrench low, ill fitting trousers electrical volt measurer a lift an aptitude for internal combustion many pairs of socket wrenches an axe a chainsaw a plaid shirt leather boots a walkie talkie

oxygen tanks wet suit watch rather waterproof not merely water resistant plenty of bananas and peanuts and no fear of the reptile house black and white uniform ambiguous hand gestures a keen eye a bad temper a cape superior eyesight a strong moral fiber a flexible day job a pen a notebook an eye for details a memory for names political connections a camera a flash film or not a typewriter onionskin paper carbon paper an editor a trust fund

List the Verbs.

to do but not finish to sew to kill to go to be
to grump to ask to take

to call aboard to extinguish to reprimand
to assemble to inspire to rule to heal

to catch to win to escape to explain
to vaccinate to entertain to nourish to feed

to dispose to fertilize to waterproof to beautify
to bring to heel to seal drips to align to curate

to explore to collect to determine to fight for truth and justice
to observe to document to tell stories to experience

Stir.

Alternate between a wooden spoon, a whisk, a food processor, a blender, and follow with a sieve, either metal or cheesecloth. While stirring, mix a martini in a shaker, and serve with a twist while listening to scratchy jazz music played on a phonograph.

During this step, it is not inappropriate to hum a half remembered tune, to dance a jog, either in the corner or on the table, to send a birthday card, to call your mother, to change the water in the cat’s dish, or to check the barometer and watch the sun set.

During this step be aware to not even consider paying bills, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, washing the car, filing for a restraining order, or drinking lukewarm coffee, as any of these may cause an irreversible and corrosive chemical action.

The mix contains equal parts of the dreams of the very young, the ambitions of the adolescent, the quirks of fate, acts of god, perspiration, inspiration, dumb luck, self control, and self aggrandizement. Small but not undetectable amounts of delusion, perseverance, ready sources of cash, true love, well timed exits, reliable transportation, and quick thinking are necessary, but not in prescribed doses. The facility where all of the above is processed also processes dairy, wheat, eggs, peanuts, misconceptions, mistranslations, crashed hard drives, stolen glances, squeaky shoes, flat tires, lost notebooks, broken windows, soggy newspapers, bad haircuts, and missing shoelaces. Please be aware that the Food and Drug Administration had not tested, approved, or verified any of the claims made herein, whose risk lies wholly with the consumer.

Write Down the Mix.

align, ambiguous hand gestures, aptitude for internal combustion, ask, assemble, astronaut, axe, bad temper, banker, be, beautify, beer, beggerman, bell, bible, binnacle, black and white uniform, black suit, blue tape, bring to heel, brushes, buckets, bum, call aboard, camera, candle, cape, carbon paper, cardboard sign, carpenter, catch, chainsaw, chef, collect, color vision, compass, correspondent, curate, Dalmatian, dancer, deep lungs, deep pockets, deep sea diver, determine, dispose, do but not finish, doctor, document, dog biscuits, dog catcher, dog on string, editor, electrical volt measurer, emotive eyes, encyclopedic knowledge, entertain, escape, exhibitionistic streak, experience, explain, explore, extinguish, eye for details, farmer, feed, fertilize, fight for truth and justice, film or not, fire hydrant, fireman, fisherman, flash, flexible day job, forester, formaldehyde, galoshes, gardener, go, good balance, grump, hammer, hand grenade, hat, heal, hose, hundreds of miles of line, inspire, keen eye, kill, ladder, large butterfly net, large hammer, lawyer, leather boots, leather gloves, lift, live bait, lobster traps, love of cows, love of herbs, low ethics, low, ill fitting trousers, many pairs of socket wrenches, map, mayor, measuring tape, mechanic, memory for names, milking pail, mulch pile, nails, needle nosed pliers, nerves of steel, night vision, no fear of heights, no fear of small children, notebook, nourish, observe, old fiddle, onionskin paper, oxygen tanks, painter, pen, photographer, placid slightly sinister air, plaid shirt, plenty of bananas and peanuts and no fear of the reptile house, plumb line, plumber, political connections, poorman, preacher, quick wits, rake, reprimand, richman, rifle, roller, roofer, rule, sailor, saw, scissors, screwdriver, flathead, screwdriver, Phillips, seal drips, set of lock picking blanks, set square, sew, sewing machine, sharp knife, shovel, singer, slop bucket, small boat, small hammer, soldering iron, soldier, spade, spreadsheet, star chart, steady manner, stethoscope, striped hat, strong feet, strong moral fiber, superhero, superior eyesight, syringes, tailor, take, taser, teacher, tell stories, thermometer, thief, thread, ticket punch, tinker, tractor and thresher, train conductor, truck, trust fund, typewriter, umpire, undertaker, vaccinate, veterinarian, vice, walkie talkie, watch rather waterproof not merely water resistant, waterproof, wet suit, white jacket, win, wrench, wrench, writer, zoologist

Read to Yourself as if Aloud.

But not really aloud, make not a peep, imagine but do not give voice to modulations, changes in pitch, areas to savor and areas to speed through, recognize but do not dawdle over alliteration or overwrought text or purple prose, imagine a steady whisk of drum beats and the tingle of cymbals and the hesitancy of a saxophone suffering from an existential crisis, but keep all of these noises from appearing in reality, for they would obscure the evening bird song, the hum of the refrigerator, the turning of a page, the type tip typing of a keyboard, the scratching of a pen, and with these disturbances the fabric of the universe would begin to unravel, the birdsong switch to twelve tone syncopation, the refrigerator drop a half note in pitch and begin vibrato, the kettle never come to a boil, the pen perennially run out of ink.

Say not a word aloud, just hum a bit and dance some of the jig and sip at the martini and look out the window and watch evening descend ever so slowly while the words gel and adhere and form a more perfect union of jobs, tools, verbs; possibilities, predictions, outcomes.

Write it Down Again.

On three by five lined index cards in purple ink, repeating all words with three vowels twice, and scatter the index cards across town, on bulletin boards, on telephone poles, under windshield wipers, in parking lots, in mailboxes which are property of the U.S. Postal Service so don’t forget a stamp, inserted into sale fliers at supermarkets and shuffled into piles of oranges in the produce aisle, interleaved with menus at the diner and mosaiced in the stonework of the walls that encircle the town. Each card, a job, a profession, a fortune, a self, a choice, a path, another person, always options.

Have you seen me?

tinker wrench soldering iron small hammer needle nosed pliers vice screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver, flathead to do but not finish
tailor sewing machine scissors thread measuring tape to sew
soldier rifle hand grenade to kill
sailor compass binnacle star chart to go
richman banker spreadsheet to be
poorman cardboard sign to grump
beggerman dog on string hat old fiddle to ask
thief night vision map set of lock picking blanks to take
train conductor striped hat ticket punch to call aboard
fireman Dalmatian hose fire hydrant bell to extinguish
preacher bible candle to reprimand
carpenter set square saw nails plumb line large hammer to assemble
singer deep lungs to inspire
mayor deep pockets to rule
doctor stethoscope white jacket thermometer encyclopedic knowledge to heal
fisherman small boat lobster traps hundreds of miles of line live bait beer to catch
lawyer quick wits low ethics to win
astronaut no fear of heights to escape
teacher no fear of small children to explain
veterinarian syringes a steady manner to vaccinate
dancer an exhibitionistic streak strong feet emotive eyes to entertain
chef a sharp knife love of herbs to nourish
farmer love of cows a milking pail a slop bucket a tractor and thresher to feed
undertaker a shovel a spade formaldehyde a placid slightly sinister air a black suit to dispose
gardener a rake galoshes a mulch pile leather gloves to fertilize
roofer nerves of steel good balance a hammer a ladder to waterproof
painter brushes roller buckets color vision blue tape to beautify
dog catcher a large butterfly net a truck a taser dog biscuits to bring to heel
plumber a wrench low, ill fitting trousers to seal drips
mechanic electrical volt measurer a lift an aptitude for internal combustion many pairs of socket wrenches to align
forester an axe a chainsaw a plaid shirt leather boots a walkie talkie to curate
deep sea diver oxygen tanks wet suit watch rather waterproof not merely water resistant to explore
zoologist plenty of bananas and peanuts and no fear of the reptile house to collect
umpire black and white uniform ambiguous hand gestures a keen eye a bad temper to determine
superhero a cape superior eyesight a strong moral fiber a flexible day job to fight for truth and justice
correspondent a pen a notebook an eye for details a memory for names political connections to observe
photographer a camera a flash film or not to document
writer a typewriter onionskin paper carbon paper an editor to tell stories
bum a trust fund to experience

---

reading
sleeping. sleep sleep sleep

weather
They promise spring. I hope they deliver.

calliope

The train stops, hesitates, doors open and close with almost enough time to release those gathered on either side, but not quite: one or two more slowly moving souls are either left in the station or remain in involuntary transport, pulled towards a destination beyond their intention. Glance up from the novel or the newspaper or the empty point of space upon which the gaze was fixated, check the station name a moment too late, and in that instant of belated recognition of arrival, meet the eyes of a busker, a scraggly brown haired guitarist with three days' worth of beard and tired eyes, then quickly glance to the right: the probable lawyer, pressed suit and harried air, but why is he on the subway and not in a taxi? He seems to be wondering the same question, doubting the decision to go underground. Twenty paces beyond him, just arriving out of breath from the escalator as the train begins to pull away, a young mother, far too young, messy blonde ponytail, three children in various states of runny noses, plaintive voices, rumbling stomachs. The train is sucked into the tunnel, leaving them behind.

Above, the taxi stand rotates cars and passengers through the interchanges with startling efficiency, the pace of the riders perfectly timed to the movements of the cabs. Buses arrive and depart on a schedule which may be choreographed or may be chaotic; a graduate student in urban planning has sat at this precise bus stop for the past three years, taking note of the day of the week, the precise time of day, the bus number, and the weather. All of this information has been neatly written in notebooks and transcribed into a spreadsheet and plotted on a variety of graphs, and summarily rejected by the advisory committee a month ago for not including passenger counts with footnotes on presumed socio-economic and ethnicity status.

The graduate student has resumed taking notes following this setback, but wonders -- why bother? -- and is considering if there are any career paths opened to a failed graduate student of urban planning. None come to mind, except perhaps drug dealing: with an intimate knowledge of the clockwork of the city, it is a real and lucrative possibility.

A woman has been watching the graduate student all this time. She is in her late eighties, refuses to give up her urban apartment and personal choices for the assisted care facility in the suburbs her children have chosen for her, and watches, watches everything. She could have written the graduate student's dissertation on her own, the scattergraphs of bus schedules and the socioeconomic ethnic overlay, but the student never noticed her, being always sidetracked by the mechanical seduction of the bus system, and wouldn't have thought to ask a batty old lady, anyway. At first she was going to report him to the police as one of those terrorist types, but then she got close enough to read the titles of the books in his backpack, all Walter Benjamin and urban landscape studies, and saw the top of the line SLR camera, which were so at odds with the torn corduroys and uncombed hair that she recognized a doctoral student straight off.

None of her children had decided to become academics, or been so professionally indecisive as to remain a perennial student rather than bucking down and getting a job, for which she was grateful; but if they hadn't gone all accountant and dentist on her, they might not be pushing her into that damned god-forsaken assisted living center in the absolute middle of nowhere. Didn't they know how unhygienic those places were, with their barely sanitized gloss over filthy linens and communal bathrooms, not to mention the bed hopping of those widowers with their little blue pills? The crosstown bus arrived, and she alighted, off to the public library or her water aerobics class or a hair appointment or to see her orthopedist.

A man exited the station, dashed towards a taxi at just exactly the wrong pace, declaring himself an out of town business man without saying a word. His briefcase had been buffed and shined, but couldn't hide the wear that was happening at the seams and edges, and his shoes emulated Italian leather without quite succeeding. His suit jacket was slightly too boxy, tight in the shoulders and baggy along the torso, and the wool emitted enough of a sheen to be a blend and not pure.

He was in the city for an interview, up from the suburbs his company had relocated to as a cost saving measure, before deciding that staff elimination was an even more efficient means of cost cutting than cheaper real estate forty miles away. So here he was, a middle manager without a middle to manage, trying to dredge up some of the catchwords of the industry that wouldn't date him as a fifteen year MBA alumni who had failed to rise through the ranks. He hadn't told his wife about the interview; hell, he hadn't told his wife about the layoff, but knew he couldn't keep pretending to go to work indefinitely, and that their savings were dwindling away further than he could have foreseen. Shoulders back, head high he reminded himself, breathed deeply, and put his faith in the cabbie. Today, please, today.

The cab driver couldn't care less about the misplaced faith of his passenger, pulled away from the curb. His daughter was getting married next month, the full affair, big church, big country club, big dress, big guest list. He had heard rumors of the extortionate cost of modern weddings, all of the one time only paraphernalia required for even the simplest brides, but hadn't believed it, until the bills started coming in. Catering, flowers, space rental, place settings, shoes, decorations, photographers, filmographers, he had stopped reading all of the itemized expenses and sighed in exasperation. But she was so happy, and he remembered bringing her home from the hospital and how sick his wife had been and how confused and overwhelmed they were those first few years, remembered her first day of kindergarten and accompanying the sixth grade class field trip to the natural history museum, remembered teaching her how to drive on the night shift, and seeing how grown up she looked at prom.

Her childhood sweetheart, that's who she had chosen, and he knew the family and couldn't complain, not when there were so many con artists and unreliable men out there, who drank and beat their wives and kept mistresses and never saw their children, so he was satisfied with her choice and her happiness, but terrified about where the money would come from to pay for all of this. His own wife knew he worried, but she was busy with the wedding and looking after their other children, so all he could do was drive drive drive men in suits across town and back again and think think think.

The cab reached the office tower, settled with the falsely optimistic once upon a middle manager, slid into the stream of cars heading north. The vendor on the corner didn't notice the middle aged man in a suit, a shadowy duplication of millions of middle aged men in suits, nor did he notice the cab, one of an army of cabs that patrolled the city. He served hot dogs and made change, and it was his first week as a hot dog vendor after years of selling pretzels, and he doubted the wisdom of his move. Hot dog customers were a finicky lot, wanting their mustard relish onion cheese just so, asking difficult questions about the meat: was it all beef? was it kosher? How the hell was he supposed to know? It was HOT DOG. What was kosher, any way, and if they cared so much, maybe they should start their own stand. And the pricing system he kept forgetting.

Pretzels? No one asked about the pretzels, except the tourists, loud pants and obvious money belts at their waist, sunglasses and cameras and reeking of sunscreen and confusion and disorientation and belligerence. They wanted to know: how fresh were the pretzels? And he knew to reply: just brought from the bakery this morning, which was true enough, in a way, and there was always a large enough crowd around pushing business forward that they didn't ask follow up questions, just went back to sweating profusely and taking millions of photographs of things that didn't really matter.

He didn't know how long he'd give hot dogs a try; it had been a big investment, the cart, the basic subscription, the union dues, the back alley discussions about corner ownership, and had taken up all his savings and a good year of time. The guy who sold him on it promised a better crowd, easier money, but maybe he was too old to be making these changes. He thought of his brother, moved out of the city to start a diner on his own dime, wondered if he should ask to go in on the family business, and served his customers. Of course it's kosher. Only the best.

The crosstown bus finally arrived, a stream of commuters suddenly thrust into the already crowded sidewalk, and the old woman exits a stop too early, but she's happy for a block or two of walking: it's spring in the city, and she's in no particular hurry.

---

reading
dipping into Aliens in the Prime of their Lives
weather
bittersweet sunlight of departure

a freshly washed day

{May 15, 10}

Start with a blade of grass. Three inches long, slender, the deep green of maturity from plentiful sunlight and rainfall, bending with the wind which rustles along the meadow, causing the full complements of innumerable blades of grass to shift from their roots and follow the urging of the wind: west, west, go west.

The leaves spin and toss and rise aloft on the breeze, rustling against each other and the grass and the sunlight, and somewhere an assortment of birds produces and assortment of noises which signal mating feeding fledging contentment and abandon, depending on the bird and the details of its own life story just then as the wind urges all things to follow west, west, west.

On a corner of the meadow is a worn track, a shortcut taken for generations unnumbered of children, gypsies, horses, carts, bicycles, deer, dogs, and donkeys. At this moment the worn track through the meadow appears unoccupied, although there, just by the edge of the track, is a small brown rabbit, engaged in washing its whiskers. Becoming aware of being observed, it pauses, one foot raised, ears cocked, listening. Nothing, or nothing except for the movement of the grass and the rustling of the leaves and the wind blowing blowing and the rabbit listens intently, considers, and decides that west is as good a direction as any, and thereafter follows a network of worn tracks and scent marked trails and burrows in a haphazard mostly westward direction that eventually leads, quite by happenstance, to a kitchen garden on the banks of the river.

On the river are small boys in neatly pressed sailor suits, their folded boats grasped proudly in one hand and their mother's aunts governess's, sometimes father's, grasped tightly in the other. The fathers stand, erect, uncomfortable, all too aware of their own childhood expeditions with nannies and paper boats that inevitably ended with running too close to the shore and slipping on a patch of mud and falling into the river, the shock of cold wet water and the surge of fear followed by the scolding of the nanny and the quick harsh look of disappointment in their father's eyes when they returned home, crisp sailor suit now covered in mud and disgraced beyond civil recognition, outward faults obliterated by hot baths and laundry soap, but the momentary scorn of failed expectations branded into memory.

The mothers and aunts have no such memories, for on those childhood outings they wore their prettiest dresses and neatly braided hair and stayed near the picnic blanket until given permission to ride the pony or be taken out in a rowboat, and even though they inevitably tripped while playing horseshoes and tore the ribbon edging the skirt of their dress, what they remember is how grown up it felt to be in a rowboat, to be rowed by an uncle or an older brother to the island in the center of the pond, the waving to school friends in adjacent boats, the giddy delight of being handed ashore to return to the picnic, and the game of horseshoes or statues.

The governesses have none of these memories, their minds fill of timetables for the day's outing: finding sandwiches, chilling lemonade, making sure none of the charges somehow leave with the wrong party or are injured in an impromptu fist fight, gathering their flock together in time for a bath, an early dinner, a story just the right length. As children, the governesses may or may not have been on picnics, have received their first kiss just there, behind the tree which still holds the last of its spring blossoms, from a lover who went off to seek his fortune and was waylaid by mischief or adventures of all sorts or got into trouble with the law or found another sweetheart in another country who whispers to him in an accent tinged with the foreign winds and waters. The governesses have resigned themselves to duty, but still smile at the joy in the small boys' grasps of the paper boats, coddle infants grown restless with a regatta they can not participate in, take pleasure in serving sandwiches and tending to scratches and knowing at the end of the day there will be a fire and a long chat with a friend.

Further down the road, the market in full swing, sellers of fruits jams pies pheasants shoes furniture silverware lamps linens, none of whom notice the small boy in the sailor suit tightly clutching his boat and looking, wide eyed, at the towering stacks of turnips and onions and loaves of bread. He is eight years old, and has decided to run away. He researched his journey on the atlas in the library, silently tracing the paths which were to lead him on his adventures with a finger, pointed, follow this road to the river, turn left, walk, walk, walk, walk, to the meadow, the forest, the hills beyond. He is unsure where he is going, or why; he has not been abused, he has not been neglected, he has not been shamed, he has not been forgotten. But he looks at the Atlas and he hears the wind rustle and he watches the rabbits in the meadow and he knows that out there, past the path and the woods and the hills, are adventures that are perfectly suited to his mission.

He isn't exactly certain of his mission, and wishes, perhaps, that he had set off on this journey after lunch rather than before, and realizes that his crisp white sailor suit may not be the best traveling attire, and would like to trade his sailboat for an apple or a cookie, but he has the wisdom of his youth and know that there is no ideal time for an adventure to begin, and when he saw the boats sailing down the river he knew that now, exactly, precisely now, was the beginning of his journey into the future, and that when and if he returned, he would no longer be afraid of his big sister and her temper or in awe of the towering height of his father or wracked by nervous wordlessness in the stoic calm of his mother, once he had been into and beyond the world and seen what there was to see and conquered what there was to conquer and found out secrets that no one else had ever even dreamt of.

The man selling the turnips and the onions recognized the eight year old boy, knew his tow headed slightly unkempt appearance in spite of the crisp white sailor suit, and chuckled, remembering his own dreams of lands beyond before his father had brought him into the market to run the stall and cajole the townsfolk into buying these turnips and onions. These days not much of the family money was still tied up in the farm, since developing some of the land and investing that money in aluminum mines in South America that had, against all expectations, actually existed and turned a tidy profit was all much more lucrative than tending fields of roots that were easier and cheaper to but at the grocery just outside town, but there was a joy in tending the market stall and ploughing five or ten acres every year and remembering the men he had been a boy with when he now saw them with their own children, the expected and the surprise marriages that kept the community populated, and learning bits and pieces of the stories of newcomers who found the town charming and quaint and the market worth the bother of a Saturday morning expedition.

He never knew whether to laugh or walk away in exasperation when a newcomer would rhapsodize over a turnip, but his father had been a farmer first and foremost, and he watched these extravagant joys with an air of forbearance. His own children would be, what, twelve, sixteen now, absconded with by their flighty mother who decided she couldn't stand the perfection and charm of the town for one moment longer ten years ago, and took off, leaving an incoherent note about gypsies and fortunes and healthier climates to the south waiting for him after he returned from inspecting a mine in South America. He hadn't believed any of that nonsense about the gypsies or fortunes or warmer climates, since the rector had disappeared at about the same time, and this was undoubtedly not coincidental, but women were unpredictable creatures and he knew that one day he would see his children again, they would appear with their own children and paper boats and picnics and it would be enough, watching them on the banks of the river.

The small boy, meanwhile, was having second thoughts about this pending adventure, since his new shoes were chafing at the tops of his big toe and he didn't even have a pony to ride, but then he saw a cart filled with hay for hayrides about the meadow, and worked up his courage to ask the man driving it for a ride at the end of the day. There was a moment of speculative weighing, the boy and who he might belong to, what his return might be worth, against the hopeful eyes and the shoulders set stubbornly to see this adventure through. The driver had been a boy once, remembered his own escape from a drafty house and soggy bread and lumpy oatmeal and a shared bedroom with two older brothers who had no patience with the less well developed abilities of a small brother, and relented, throwing the boy up to the top of the hay bales, and then, as an afterthought, so not as to embarrass him, an apple and a chunk of bread.

They set out, westward, following the wind, the man, knowing of the trouble he could be causing and knowing of the hopes and expectations of the boy and knowing the chores of feeding, chopping, cleaning, cooking that awaited his attention that evening; the boy, smelling the promise of the wind and rejoicing in the sunlight and crunching enthusiastically on the apple, core and all, and saving the bread in his pocket because his adventure was just beginning and there would be untold difficulties ahead, although now he was safely perched on top of a haystack in the early afternoon sun, and he slept.

The driver came to the crossroads and paused. Still the wind urged west, west, west, the grass bent in the breeze and the trees rustled. He wondered if the boy had a map in his mind of where he needed to go, and how best to arrive, and he wondered how long his journey would be and what lands he would see. The wind picked up the paper boat from the sleeping boy's grasp, and sailed the boat further west as they turned and headed into the forest. That night the boy helped fetch firewood and harvest eggs and was grateful for a bowl of soup and to sleep in the hayloft, and in the morning he waved confidently farewell to his courier of the day before, and set off to continue to follow the path.

His family had been concerned about his disappearance the previous day, but the seller of turnips and onions visited, and spoke with them about the west wind and the paper boats and atlases and adventures that rattle about in the minds of eight year old boys, and they let the adventure happen, come what may, distracted by the duties of the family and remembering their own escapades when they were young and the wind blew and the clouds formed castles and ships and dragons, and cows and sheep and dogs could talk as plainly as anyone, and they slept soundly, knowing that when he chose to return he would be the man he needed to become.

His schoolteacher, being a recent transplant to the town, was less accommodating of this turn of events, spoke of child abandonment and the need for protective services and the police to intervene, but the principal was a man of sense who had felt the wind arrive and shift and sing out its temptations, and he gave the too vocal teacher some problem students to occupy her mind away from a boy in a sailor suit on an expedition.

As the boy walked through the forest, he grew taller, and tanner, and his once crisp white sailor suit grew browner, and shabbier, but still always seemed to fit and to be clean enough after a dunking in a river. He learned how to listen to chipmunks, the secret of ignoring the third and fifth chirps of their vocalizations, which were just trills, and listening intently to the first, second, and fourth notes to find out about bears, the weather, the ripest berries. Before he had quite become fluent with the chipmunks a faulty translation had led him directly to a bear and her two cubs, and he shook with fear; but the she-bear remembered her own long ago youth, and threw him a fish, and lumbered, with her cubs, away from the stream and deeper into the woods.

Summer deepened into autumn, through winter and then to spring, and he passed through mountains and families keeping goats and entire villages of weavers and paper makers and iron mongers, until the following summer when he arrived at the sea, aged much more than his nine years, and grown nearly into a man, still fair haired, skin darkened by the sun.

There were ships put in at harbor, trading vessels arriving, departing, loading, unloading, pubs full of stories of far away lands and indecipherable languages and cities built of gold and emeralds or entire countries where everyone lives in grass huts and the rivers are as sweet as sugar; monsters of the deep vanquished and mermaids captured and turned into wives. His atlas at home in the library had been a land atlas, told no tales of seas or ships, and he listened to the stories and watched the boats dance upon the waves and saw boys swinging from the rigging and tasted fish alive just moments before, and the wind rustled his hair and he clambered aboard, prepared to explore lands and oceans beyond counting.

The captain had doubts about the age and lineage of a not-quite-grown man in the port, with an obvious lack of knowledge about the sea, but the boy still had hopeful eyes and shoulders set stubbornly in pursuit of adventure, and the winds remained favorable, and the captain relented, quietly amused, not quite the salty curmudgeon he preferred his sailors to imagine him to be.

They voyaged north, north to the summer skies lit by the aurora borealis, north to the snow white bears, north to the salmon as large as dogs, and then east, and around and through capes and channels barely wide enough for passage and through storms of unimaginable ferocity and to lands of fruits in reds, golds, greens, where the languages sounded more like the clicking and chirping of chipmunks than the melodic inflections of his own speech, and he learned to hear the voice of the waves and the beauty of the calls of the whale and the ungainly landing of the albatross and the many moods of the wind, and when they landed, upside down, in a world of red tiles and bamboo forests and men whose faces betrayed nothing, he shook hands with the captain and the crew, and set out into the bamboo, stories of cities of jade and promises of unknown worlds fillings his ears.

---

reading
"Human character ever more publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the mere air of doing a thing, the intimated purpose, expresses character. If you act you show character; if you sit still, if you sleep, you show it."
Emerson -- Spiritual Laws
weather
sun --> food --> sauna --> sleep --> sun --> yoga --> food --> sleep

habits of being

{May 14, 10}

The weekend began with six shoes, none of them pairs, lying underneath a pile of newspapers from thirty years ago bought en mass from a library book sale and intended to be turned into an entire flotilla of origami boats which would be filled with fortunes written in green crayon on slips of paper and then set alight with a kitchen match, the strike anywhere kind, and floated down the river as a pageant welcoming the arrival and promise of spring, and beside this unkempt stack of mismatched shoes and brittle yellow newspapers full of out of date stories of local interest was a paperback novel of no overwhelming interest cracked open upside down to the first page of chapter twelve, at which point the author had either had a drink too many or his wife had walked out of his life leaving behind nothing more than a half gallon of quietly souring milk and many pairs of socks which had once been black and all had holes in the toes, for here at the brink of chapter twelve suddenly what had been a charming if slightly vacuous story began to go horribly awry with the implosion of a bus station due to unknown causes and a mysterious Tower of Babel situation where the television and radio and newspaper broadcasts were in no language known to any of the citizens on the streets or at the universities, so pictograms and face to face interaction became the only methods of communication and the populace started looting and pillaging and burning and it was all so badly written that the book might as well have the spine cracked and be abandoned by the newspapers and unpaired shoes, since the only thing that could potentially improve a third rate paperback would be the introduction of zombies, and this author obviously wasn't frivolous enough to attempt a plot twist that could only be construed as a joke, the way waiting for the daily mail delivery is a joke since what one wants is a letter or a check or a package but mostly a letter, and the envelopes that actually arrive bear no relationship to the letters which preferably should have arrived, and then it is gin and tonic time again and the laundry still hasn't been folded and the living room still hasn't been vacuumed and the dishes still haven't been washed and the grocery shopping still hasn't been done and the bills still haven't been paid and oh, damn, the mother still hasn't been called and the bid proposal hasn't been compiled and those preposterous little boats with green crayon fortunes still haven't been folded out of brittle yellow newspapers, to say nothing of the uncomposed fortunes and the shoes which should at least be moved slightly closer to the closet door so that the living room bears some semblance of bourgeois respectability in order to invite a neighbor or two or three up for drinks and desserts and a thorough gossip of town happenings, since the smaller the town the more quickly the goings ons tend to suddenly and unexpectedly shift from the expected to the absurd and soon the old town hall is being torn down to build condominiums and the commons are developed into a strip mall and the mayor suddenly resigns and disappears to California or Florida or somewhere with the teller from the bank and no one even knew that they were seeing each other, much less their respective spouses, who, bereft aren't at all certain of their roles in town politics, but everyone pretends that there is nothing amiss in an emergency town mayoral election since there was no delineation line of succession for someone to be mayor given an interim vacancy and there's a spring parade and fair to launch but first it's cocktail hour and could you please squeeze a bit of this lime into the tonic while I go find the gin, and don't mind about the newspapers, just push them to one side and make yourself comfortable. Oh, the crickets!

reading
Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes

weather
a rainbow and its shadow over the hills!

marmoset!

{There are images which accompany this story. The cat chewed through the USB cable. They will be uploaded eventually.}

caption: The notorious thief, "Sonka of the Golden Hand," being put into irons on Sakhalin Island, 1915.

Blessed at birth by a mischievous great aunt: May your hair be of ringlets and your hands of gold. She had grown up under the curse of Midas, where everything she touched became filled with the promise of possibility, reflected the light in a more kaleidoscopic and illuminating way, caught the eye and attention of passersby who would have strolled past, unseeing, a moment before.

At school bake sales her pies, cookies, cakes could be sold for twice the going rate; her partners in science classes always had the most perfect experiments and neatly dissected frogs; she could form shadow puppets of every animal on the area farms and each character from the commedia dell'arte, so precisely defined that a Jersey cow could be distinguished from a Holstein. Her knitting projects were the envy of the other students in her class, and the year she took up piano, the spring recital was attended by music critics from cities up and down the coast, all filled with rapturous praise for this new prodigy.

By the age of fifteen, she had excelled equally in lace making, surgery, archaeological exploration, enameling, watercolor painting, race car driving; held the world record in error free words per minute typing and had performed at Carnegie Hall; was in therapy for addiction to video games and an artist of great renowned in extreme origami, and could make ice sculptures resemble any animal described or depicted. She drew illuminated manuscripts that were commissioned by the Vatican, and a rumor of her attendance of any event was sufficient to double fundraising levels.

Her skills were solicited by couturiers, recording studios, animation companies, hospitals, and governments; her endorsements of everything from nail polish to gloves were scattered across billboards; her success had bought houses on three continents; her hands were insured by Lloyds of London in the specially created category of Irreplaceable National Treasure.

Her hair did grow in ringlets, wild, uncontrollable ringlets which had turned snow white well before her twentieth birthday, and which escaped from every braid, bun, hair pin, and rubber band used to bring order to the masses. Once, she had merely shaved all of it off, in a fit of juvenile rebellion, but by the end of the month it had grown in again, surrounding her with the inescapable clouds of hair by which she was always recognized.

But she rarely spoke, rarely smiled, rarely interacted with the world beyond the immediate material reality of her hands. She undoubtedly would have been a masterful card player, able to outwit the most talented sharks and the most stacked houses, but card games were games of interaction, and interaction she had no interest in or use for. Likewise jumping rope, playing on the jungle gym, or swinging on the trapeze: these each placed her in greater proximity to groups than she cared to experience, and so she demurred when opportunities were presented and spent more and more time in solitude in her villa in Morocco, playing the piano and covering the walls with intricately designed and executed frescoes.

Journalists and agents would seek her out, begging for just a few words, the briefest of collaborations; doctors would courier descriptions of new surgical techniques, asking for her opinion, and yet she demurred each time, without even glancing at the proposed project.

When her self-inflicted solitude became overwhelming, she placed her too-identifiable hair under a kerchief, and went out into the labyrinth of streets after dark, watching, wandering, listening, breathing, and clicking her rosary beads quietly, constantly. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, grant these hands peace, she pleaded as she paced the alleyways whose meanderings she had memorized through years of restless insomnia.

At first she was unaware of the actions her hands were undertaking under the cover of the night; she would arrive home as the earliest tinges of dawn streaked across the sky, and, fumbling in her pockets for the key to the side gate of the garden, find small, insignificant objects that she had no recollection of seeing, much less purchasing. A perfectly smooth stone, a child's bracelet, a wooden spoon, an embroidered napkin, a porcelain thimble, a shoelace, a crumpled rose, a geode, a terracotta statue three inches high. These things she gradually accumulated without being aware of her actions, and each night's find she tucked into a woven basket under her bed.

Slowly, as she became aware of the volition of her hands, so beyond her conscious thought, she tried to stay away from places where they may do harm: museums displaying ancient Greek pottery, jewelry stores glittering with emeralds, silversmiths with intricately formed vases and pitchers, art galleries with exquisitely wrought metalwork, even stationers and watchmakers and toyshops. Once she found a small bird peering up at her from her pocket, a young parakeet with inquiring eyes and a gently fluttering heart, and she set the bird in her courtyard, to feed and play by the fountain.

These items her hands found bore no relationship to one another, formed no particular set or unified whole, and over time her initial shock and disgust turned to acceptance and then curiosity. She realized without surprise that the shopkeepers never noticed the purloined merchandise, and wondered, idly, what the limits of her hands' capabilities were. She slowly began accepting public appearances again, but now as cover for her more active, covert area of study.

She absconded with intricately decorated Books of Hours, rings encrusted with medleys of diamonds, pieces of coral and famous fountain pens. Her watch collection was expansive enough to cover each time zone in the world, and each watch had been detached while in the process of shaking hands with the rightful owner. Out of curiosity, she hotwired a car, and loosened a painting from a wall of a museum before deciding on a manuscript from several rooms over. She collected early Meissen porcelain and carved Chinese jade, Japanese knives and Roman vases, uncanceled stamps and rare currency, scientific instruments and children's toys.

Eventually, she realized that she would, indeed, never be caught, and began to despair of ever escaping the curse of her un-idle hands. She took to the sea in a rowboat, began to raise llamas on the slopes of the Andes, spun and wove their fur into hats, scarves, and tapestries. She took up gardening and then winemaking, and then began leaving her objects, one by one, in unexpected places around the world, until finally, she placed the last stolen terracotta doll on the endtable at Versailles after a concert, and then she returned home, to her mountain, to weave and spin and knit her way into the future, piano gathering dust as the grapes grew heavy and ripe on the vines.

---

reading
still ploughing through Kafka on the Shore, every so often referencing the front flap copy that reads "this book has a happy ending."

weather
well, it was spring; really, it was!

scales and arpeggios

The epitome of grace, agility, and beauty: the skiing Adagio Trio performs daily at Florida's Cypress Gardens.

They weren't always the Adagio Trio; they had started as the Largo Quartet, performing dances of grave gracefulness on the still waters, synchronized swimmers in the deep. They had trained with French mimes and with American dance companies and with the Canadian circus and at a musical academy in Austria, and each member of the Largo Quartet brought a sense of deep grounding and meaning to their performances, their interpretations of classical forms of movement hailed as nothing short of revolutionary, ground breaking, genre shattering, inspired, and challenging.

For a time the art world was abuzz with the output of this talented and intense foursome, and they became the darlings of a media desperate for sexy young things pushing boundaries in performance art. Each member of the Largo Quartet rotated through each of the character roles in each of the pieces, but as performances were improvisational events bearing the individualistic stamp of the intellect and the body and the passion of the specific performers, it was not so much that each member of the Quartet played the assigned role: more that they filtered through their core of being an impression of the suggested character, and let loose this entirely new presentation.

That the performances occurred primarily underwater, in a cool, clear spring, with costumes of black swimsuits in the style of the 1920s and close-fitting, white swimming caps merely stoked the fascination of their admirers, stunned to see such a calcified, passé art form brought not only to cultural relevance, but to high art.

Performances were always accompanied by live music, from a solo cello playing a requiem to a choreographed piece based on Chekhov, to a trombone and piccolo duet of re-imagined jazz standards for a memorial event held on the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb. Once, the music was the sound of an ax cutting down a tree, just off stage; for a repeat performance, the thump thump thump of the ax was changed to the constant whirring metallic hum of a chainsaw.

Night shows would light up pools of water, the performers gliding through the illuminated sections like shadow puppets; and once, long before environmental restrictions became so stringent, five thousand goldfish were added to the water as part of the artistic dénouement.

Slowly, as news of the Largo Quartet's gifts and talents and visions filtered down from the artistic elites to the seasonal Nutcracker matinee attendees, shows began to be slightly tilted to this mass audience. The trained mime took classes in vaudeville pacing and movements; the New York dancer studied burlesque techniques; the Canadian circus performer spent more time with the archives of Barnum & Bailey; the Austrian conservatory musician spent a three month sabbatical in Nashville learning the ropes. Trombone and piccolo duets were replaced by wistful, soaring strings, and performances which once ran to six hours without intermission were compacted and hurried along, to fit into the 90 minute attention span of the critics at local papers and regional tourist offices.

The transition wasn't immediate, but as the days lengthened into years, the performers of the Largo Quartet grew accustomed to the steady income and the sold out shows, put on Christmas performances under the justifiable rubric of wanting to invest the extra money into upgrading the performance space, and, as the physical rigors of ten hour days spent in the water began to be felt by middle aged bodies, shorter, flashier shows took precedence over avant garde feats of technique.

The mime/vaudevillian came back from a tour of Hollywood and Disney World, inspired by the accomplishments of installed, pre-programmed music systems and controlled arcs of waterfalls streaming across the stage; the ballerina/burlesque dancer attended a showgirl conference and costume convention, and returned feeling the dated quality of the black 1920s style swimsuits and white swim caps. The conservatory/country musician released an album of ballads for a broken heart, which went platinum, and felt that the entire auditory experience could be amped up to better tap into the emotions of the audience. Only the circus performer threw a fit at the direction of the changes, and as the circus performer was always throwing fits for one artistic or romantic reason or another, none of the other members paid the slightest heed, until they arrived at the natural springs site for their Spring Gala May Day Performance, and discovered the waters had been dyed an ink black, and across the stands and walls of the amphitheater was scrawled, in red spray paint,
--- You have broken my heart. You are not the Largo Quartet, you are the Adagio Trio, and I will have nothing more to do with you!
The body of the circus performer floated, black 1920s bathing suit, white swim cap, face down in the center of the ink black pool, both wrists slit.

The other performers were momentarily stunned, but their operations manager, imported at significant cost from Los Angeles, took in the situation at a glance, and immediately issued a press release: The Largo Quartet was being expanded and modernized, moving its dated, still water performances to the lagoon, and incorporating a laser light show, water skiing, and an entirely new, modern aesthetic: The Adagio Trio!

The great swathes of middle America loved the colorful, child friendly extravaganza, and the three remaining founders took on honorary roles as Artistic Directors, and hired young and supple cheerleaders and athletes to perform feats to dazzle the eyes of the audience, feats that owed more to the rough and tumble world of gymnastics than the rarefied world of the conservatory, and the public loved it.

A prime time television show was produced, showing the feats of the performers in their aqua and fuchsia costumes, interweaving flipping dolphins and daredevil JetSki riders with the acrobatics of the water ski team. In place of not only trombone and piccolo but also of soaring strings, were pre-recorded Broadway favorites and top ten pop hits; if anyone had even mentioned an after dark shadow puppet show, it would have turned into a fireworks extravaganza. A summer camp was started, for hopeful performers, and this eventually expanded to a full time trainee and apprentice program for fine arts college students who wanted the lure of the crowd.

Occasionally, snide references to the "Adagio Trio, formerly the Largo Quartet" appeared in academic journals and high-brow critical essays, but mostly the exploits and achievements of the Largo Quartet were lost to the public relations machine of the Adagio Trio, who followed up on licensing and expansion plans with a vengeance, and who knew that dated performance art was neither the way to win audiences or influence tour group operators.

They flourished; they more than flourished, they expanded beyond their wildest dreams, into media and cultural fame beyond imagining, until, as these things do, even in Florida, the cultural appetite shifted, away from water sports and dancing dolphins and laser light shows. Without sell out crowds, the maintenance and overhead costs of the site could not be met, and the Adagio Trio went flaming into bankruptcy, to be left a cement husk on the shores of a lagoon, vacant and abandoned.

---

reading
Kafka on the shore, Haruki Murakami

weather
oh! warmth!

May Day! May Day!

After waking up on May Day with a champagne hangover (always the best sort to have), the calendar began to click along, declaring spring, socialism, and book arts!

(Don't forget the upcoming afternoon of mustaches, martinis, bocce, & lilacs | Sunday : May 9, 2010 : 2 p.m.)

This month's artist's book group will take our percolating ideas, and serve them out in coffee cups!

This month's announcement (thanks, Meredith!)
Is it possible that it's May already? And today even felt like August! Time has flown right up to the next meeting for our Artists' Book group.
I look forward to seeing you this Thursday evening! Come at 6:30 for an easy potluck (last time we had plenty of food, so don't worry if you don't have time to make/buy anything--come anyway), or at 7:00 to turn the conversation to books. Bring whatever you've got, whether a vague notion or a project in process.

In my studio the projects are all based on words, words, words, quite literally, as everything that is in for both repair and for alteration is a dictionary, or a book about a dictionary. The Johnson's Project is finally nearing something resembling completion, and the set book for the upcoming GBW competition is that of my friend and mentor: so I'll be doing a test binding on a printing of the first edition, then the final binding on the GBW copies. Words indeed!

---

reading
Rapt : attention and the focused life / Winifred Gallagher
weather
up to a six mile jog! now to get the miles up to ten and the time under seven. and to no longer be terrified of the bicycle.