90,000 BIRDS ~
tap into:
Thursday, September 15, 2011
EARTH TO EARTH ~
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/13/2405003/60s-activist-carl-oglesby-dead.html
Carl Oglesby
w/Richard Davis,
Norman Grossman
Bob Fritz
Elmer Jared Gordon
George Edwards
Peter Psarianos
Tim Hauser
Seymour Barab
Mark Puleo
Vinnie Bell
Joe Mack
Bill LaVorgna
Vanguard Records
1969
Carl Oglesby
1935-2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/13/2405003/60s-activist-carl-oglesby-dead.html
Carl Oglesby
w/Richard Davis,
Norman Grossman
Bob Fritz
Elmer Jared Gordon
George Edwards
Peter Psarianos
Tim Hauser
Seymour Barab
Mark Puleo
Vinnie Bell
Joe Mack
Bill LaVorgna
Vanguard Records
1969
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
SHELTER ~
Shelter, edited by Lloyd Khan (Shelter Publications, 1973).
I first read this massive masterpiece on hand-built housing, building crafts, and networking tribes and people the year it was published. It looks as grand and attractive in any bookstore now as it did at its first appearance. Done right, the book is displayed front facing and on a mantel all its own. Yesterday, I was holding the 10th printing in both paws and easily remembering every page. It's thrilling to see how many photographs are in the book detailing earth homes and earth lovers from around the world. It's a compendium of both nuts 'n' bolts and dream-like splendor which can't be knocked.
Here's an address for you landlubbers: Shelter Publications, PO Box 279, Bolinas, CA. 94924.
Website for others: http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/shelter_book.html
I first read this massive masterpiece on hand-built housing, building crafts, and networking tribes and people the year it was published. It looks as grand and attractive in any bookstore now as it did at its first appearance. Done right, the book is displayed front facing and on a mantel all its own. Yesterday, I was holding the 10th printing in both paws and easily remembering every page. It's thrilling to see how many photographs are in the book detailing earth homes and earth lovers from around the world. It's a compendium of both nuts 'n' bolts and dream-like splendor which can't be knocked.
Here's an address for you landlubbers: Shelter Publications, PO Box 279, Bolinas, CA. 94924.
Website for others: http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/shelter_book.html
Monday, September 12, 2011
ROUGH ROAD ~
Sunday 9/11
We're just home from ten miles of rough road travel on bicycles along the river from our home in Vermont down into Massachusetts.
Our town road crew has stepped it up nicely at getting at least part of the Vermont road passable all this week. Every house down along the river now has access. A pretty darn good accomplishment since dear Irene was two weeks ago today. Everyone seems to have their vehicles now parked at their own homes, instead of a mile or half mile away, sidelined.
There's still one mile of road on the Vermont side hugging the river that is wiped out. We carried our bicycles over that part. Culverts shot, stones slabs thrown like styrofoam, culverts beached. It's primeval in there, relatively wild, it's always been one of my favorite locations on the river. The ledge is ledgier, the woods are soaked and thicker, the road just sidewinds and asks forgiveness to get a little further if you please, especially in the depth of winter. There are no houses in these parts.
If you think our Vermont part of the river is bad, take a look down in Massachusetts. We had to carry our bicycles for a good half of two miles before we hit the main road, which is still a back road spur as far as any road commission is concerned. For me it's where Dennison Lumber used to be, where I used to go for sawed hemlock and poplar and v-joint pine and spruce flooring and bags of mortar and 25 pounds of nails once upon a time in my work. The sawmill is over with long ago but I could see when we finally got down there that the river had kept away from making any serious damage.
Where we're headed to is the Ten Mile Bridge that is the go-between for the towns of Colrain and Leyden, Massachusetts. We heard the legendary Octagon House was about all gone with the flood and it's almost too sad for words to express anything more for what this must mean for that family. I had my camera and was taking films and photographs all the way down on this travel but I couldn't bring myself to take a photograph of where that house had once stood. It seemed cruel. We stood on the bridge awhile and just imagined what the river looked like cutting out a treacherous path. The scars are all fresh.
Up from the bridge and back on the Colrain side we figured now was as good a time as any to go visit my old friend Chuck Lynde way up high on the mountain of Avery Road. If I knew he was as high as he was, stuck fast on a dead end of a mountain, I might have come another day. But I've been saying we would visit one of these days and I've been saying it for almost 40 years, so we picked post-Irene to come and say hello. It's a hike-the-bike about a mile straight up hill to get to Chuck's fort, with houses along the way mainly lived in by his extended family of many brothers and an elder mother's homestead where Chuck harbors his two logging trucks, various pickups and dumpers, wood-splitters, conveyor belt, and I noticed when passing an old Coca-Cola icebox chest on the front porch. Exactly like the one we would pull our cold glass bottles of Coke out of as kids, once upon a time, anywhere in America. 10 cents. It's a tidy two storey house in need of painting is mom's place. A glory view from that perch straight ahead into Vermont.
Up at Chuck's we found him in Sunday morning attire — hefty blue gym shorts and nothing else. Brawn body tan from logging all summer. He lifted his grandson into his arms and welcomed us inside like all good country people always do and we took a tour of the fort he's been telling me about all these years. An old woodstove about in every room, except maybe the bathroom, some hooked up, some not. Of the three wild cats we met "Tom", the oldest. Chucky's woodshed is almost empty because he's been delivering wood for months on end to everyone else except himself. The typical backcountry m.o. for most workers. Afterwards, coming down off the mountain and seeing the backside of his mother's place, I spotted the open pole barn spilling full of good blond firewood. Take care of mom.
The road repair in Massachusetts along the river is going to be a mammoth project. There's a giant Volvo backhoe parked on safe land with a monolith storage of all size stone and large rock which has been hauled out this way for probably the past two weeks by the looks of things. It looks like great methodical plans are in the works.
When returning up river we met a jogger on a better part of the road during our three hour outing. As I glided past her, and she was running hard, our eyes met and I said what I believe was the same feeling for both of us at that moment, "Nothing like a beautiful day." She returned a beautiful smile.
photos © bob arnold
we've now bicycled or hiked on-foot from the Hinesburg section of Guilford, down through Green River, including around Pulpit Mountain, further into Colrain and Leyden, Massachusetts following the river and Irene's path all along the way — in some ways this has allowed being a witness and cleansed the spectacle of post hurricane.
We're just home from ten miles of rough road travel on bicycles along the river from our home in Vermont down into Massachusetts.
Our town road crew has stepped it up nicely at getting at least part of the Vermont road passable all this week. Every house down along the river now has access. A pretty darn good accomplishment since dear Irene was two weeks ago today. Everyone seems to have their vehicles now parked at their own homes, instead of a mile or half mile away, sidelined.
There's still one mile of road on the Vermont side hugging the river that is wiped out. We carried our bicycles over that part. Culverts shot, stones slabs thrown like styrofoam, culverts beached. It's primeval in there, relatively wild, it's always been one of my favorite locations on the river. The ledge is ledgier, the woods are soaked and thicker, the road just sidewinds and asks forgiveness to get a little further if you please, especially in the depth of winter. There are no houses in these parts.
If you think our Vermont part of the river is bad, take a look down in Massachusetts. We had to carry our bicycles for a good half of two miles before we hit the main road, which is still a back road spur as far as any road commission is concerned. For me it's where Dennison Lumber used to be, where I used to go for sawed hemlock and poplar and v-joint pine and spruce flooring and bags of mortar and 25 pounds of nails once upon a time in my work. The sawmill is over with long ago but I could see when we finally got down there that the river had kept away from making any serious damage.
Where we're headed to is the Ten Mile Bridge that is the go-between for the towns of Colrain and Leyden, Massachusetts. We heard the legendary Octagon House was about all gone with the flood and it's almost too sad for words to express anything more for what this must mean for that family. I had my camera and was taking films and photographs all the way down on this travel but I couldn't bring myself to take a photograph of where that house had once stood. It seemed cruel. We stood on the bridge awhile and just imagined what the river looked like cutting out a treacherous path. The scars are all fresh.
Up from the bridge and back on the Colrain side we figured now was as good a time as any to go visit my old friend Chuck Lynde way up high on the mountain of Avery Road. If I knew he was as high as he was, stuck fast on a dead end of a mountain, I might have come another day. But I've been saying we would visit one of these days and I've been saying it for almost 40 years, so we picked post-Irene to come and say hello. It's a hike-the-bike about a mile straight up hill to get to Chuck's fort, with houses along the way mainly lived in by his extended family of many brothers and an elder mother's homestead where Chuck harbors his two logging trucks, various pickups and dumpers, wood-splitters, conveyor belt, and I noticed when passing an old Coca-Cola icebox chest on the front porch. Exactly like the one we would pull our cold glass bottles of Coke out of as kids, once upon a time, anywhere in America. 10 cents. It's a tidy two storey house in need of painting is mom's place. A glory view from that perch straight ahead into Vermont.
Up at Chuck's we found him in Sunday morning attire — hefty blue gym shorts and nothing else. Brawn body tan from logging all summer. He lifted his grandson into his arms and welcomed us inside like all good country people always do and we took a tour of the fort he's been telling me about all these years. An old woodstove about in every room, except maybe the bathroom, some hooked up, some not. Of the three wild cats we met "Tom", the oldest. Chucky's woodshed is almost empty because he's been delivering wood for months on end to everyone else except himself. The typical backcountry m.o. for most workers. Afterwards, coming down off the mountain and seeing the backside of his mother's place, I spotted the open pole barn spilling full of good blond firewood. Take care of mom.
The road repair in Massachusetts along the river is going to be a mammoth project. There's a giant Volvo backhoe parked on safe land with a monolith storage of all size stone and large rock which has been hauled out this way for probably the past two weeks by the looks of things. It looks like great methodical plans are in the works.
When returning up river we met a jogger on a better part of the road during our three hour outing. As I glided past her, and she was running hard, our eyes met and I said what I believe was the same feeling for both of us at that moment, "Nothing like a beautiful day." She returned a beautiful smile.
photos © bob arnold
we've now bicycled or hiked on-foot from the Hinesburg section of Guilford, down through Green River, including around Pulpit Mountain, further into Colrain and Leyden, Massachusetts following the river and Irene's path all along the way — in some ways this has allowed being a witness and cleansed the spectacle of post hurricane.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
FETCHING ~
with Hurricane Irene
Twelve days, post-Irene, we received back our phone service and returned to our home life of fetching mail and bookshop orders the old-fashioned way — wait & see.
This ended twelve days of road travel and finding curious ways of getting out of this river valley clobbered about by the Irene flood. The road is looking better — we now have two miles down river from the covered bridge that is part normal and part one-lane and be courteous to your neighbor also on the road. But UPS still won't come down.
I can remember this vivid portrait the day after the storm when we came back from searching on bicycles what had happened to this region, only to find half the valley neighbors caught on a river bed ragged left road, all-a-tangle and gossip, cars, trucks, ATVs, those on-foot and now we join on bicycles, trying to get through a bottle neck.
Service trucks to repair things couldn't even begin to get down, so first the neighbors had to rebuild parts of this road and pack it down with their determination at either having a town habit of getting-to-town, or simply needing supplies or some relief right after the flood. But the road got remade in pieces and lumps.
Next came the power company to restore broken lines in at least a temporary relief kit (piggybacking electric lines), then the town road crew made a long bumpy ride inspection, some dumptrucks of gravel followed, and after that we saw a pole setter crew out in the hard rain standing up new poles for the telephone repair to get underway. It took awhile. It had to take awhile.
We visited town and college libraries everywhere and everyone on the staff was accommodating and friendly. Stay positive cynics!
One day we found ourselves in the deep bowels of a basement reference library pretty with two or three brand new wide screen Apple Macs at our whimsy. After struggling and learning the ropes with Dells and whatnot's, on the final days of searching we got behind the controls of old and familiar friends. This only inspired us to climb throughout the library multilevel floors, dark and catacomb-like, monkish immediately in feeling, and tremendous thousands upon thousands upon many more thousands of books in all languages and subjects at our fingertips. Too overwhelming to even begin to want to concentrate. We were enthralled by the spectacle of so much tenderness to books. Our climbing brought us to a tower that was closed. Students have this paradise at their daily disposal.
Back to earth we were making mailing labels, by hand, going from small town Texas to big place Australia and elsewhere. From a country that Gallup now estimates is in a "disengagement crisis" costing America in the order of $300 billion in lost productivity annually. I don't see this happening in the library we are playing somewhat mischief in, nor the town. It seems to be on a progressive cycle with an in-grain network of wealth. This wealth has been usurped, stolen, taken, misplaced, earned, manipulated, inherited, maintained with a fluency from a vast resource much too complicated to point any one finger at, but I'm getting closer and closer to pointing. I only see terrific losses in the majority of other small town New England and forgotten hamlets. Places easily washed away. Places that once were the charm and mother lode.
What is haunting is the massive library of books — all lit by the big windows with the lights shut off — that appear in unison, untouched. Clean, upright, deliriously rich title after title and not one book pushed or jiggled out of place; with a lone student burrowed into a study carol in one corner, ears plugged in, face eating a computer screen. Oblivious to our book phantom frolic. Does this matter where it is? It's in America.
During all these travel days I've had just the companion with us — Roberto Bolaño's Between Parentheses (New Directions). Great title for all of us! A volume collecting most of the brash and stellar newspaper columns and articles published between 1998 and 2003. The more I read of Bolaño, and I've read everything translated into English, the more I miss him. He's the Gombrowicz of our time and every time needs a Gombrowicz. There's nastiness and tenderness to the Bolaño touch, just as there is in the best of the natural world. He's so fine at celebrating and dismissing. He can't help but be everlasting with these qualities. He happens to think humor and curiosity are the two most important components of intelligence.
I've also had Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music, book and CD, and this has provided a wood nutty taste to the travels.
Last night our son Carson gave us a lift in from town where we had gathered up from a day of travel four satchels of books and things. Precious notebooks stashed away with precious notes in jacket pockets and inner sleeves. We'd all talk nonstop on the ten mile drive catching up on where we've all been and how things are.
Roberto Bolaño
top photo © bob arnold
with Hurricane IreneTwelve days, post-Irene, we received back our phone service and returned to our home life of fetching mail and bookshop orders the old-fashioned way — wait & see.
This ended twelve days of road travel and finding curious ways of getting out of this river valley clobbered about by the Irene flood. The road is looking better — we now have two miles down river from the covered bridge that is part normal and part one-lane and be courteous to your neighbor also on the road. But UPS still won't come down.
I can remember this vivid portrait the day after the storm when we came back from searching on bicycles what had happened to this region, only to find half the valley neighbors caught on a river bed ragged left road, all-a-tangle and gossip, cars, trucks, ATVs, those on-foot and now we join on bicycles, trying to get through a bottle neck.
Service trucks to repair things couldn't even begin to get down, so first the neighbors had to rebuild parts of this road and pack it down with their determination at either having a town habit of getting-to-town, or simply needing supplies or some relief right after the flood. But the road got remade in pieces and lumps.
Next came the power company to restore broken lines in at least a temporary relief kit (piggybacking electric lines), then the town road crew made a long bumpy ride inspection, some dumptrucks of gravel followed, and after that we saw a pole setter crew out in the hard rain standing up new poles for the telephone repair to get underway. It took awhile. It had to take awhile.
We visited town and college libraries everywhere and everyone on the staff was accommodating and friendly. Stay positive cynics!
One day we found ourselves in the deep bowels of a basement reference library pretty with two or three brand new wide screen Apple Macs at our whimsy. After struggling and learning the ropes with Dells and whatnot's, on the final days of searching we got behind the controls of old and familiar friends. This only inspired us to climb throughout the library multilevel floors, dark and catacomb-like, monkish immediately in feeling, and tremendous thousands upon thousands upon many more thousands of books in all languages and subjects at our fingertips. Too overwhelming to even begin to want to concentrate. We were enthralled by the spectacle of so much tenderness to books. Our climbing brought us to a tower that was closed. Students have this paradise at their daily disposal.
Back to earth we were making mailing labels, by hand, going from small town Texas to big place Australia and elsewhere. From a country that Gallup now estimates is in a "disengagement crisis" costing America in the order of $300 billion in lost productivity annually. I don't see this happening in the library we are playing somewhat mischief in, nor the town. It seems to be on a progressive cycle with an in-grain network of wealth. This wealth has been usurped, stolen, taken, misplaced, earned, manipulated, inherited, maintained with a fluency from a vast resource much too complicated to point any one finger at, but I'm getting closer and closer to pointing. I only see terrific losses in the majority of other small town New England and forgotten hamlets. Places easily washed away. Places that once were the charm and mother lode.
What is haunting is the massive library of books — all lit by the big windows with the lights shut off — that appear in unison, untouched. Clean, upright, deliriously rich title after title and not one book pushed or jiggled out of place; with a lone student burrowed into a study carol in one corner, ears plugged in, face eating a computer screen. Oblivious to our book phantom frolic. Does this matter where it is? It's in America.
During all these travel days I've had just the companion with us — Roberto Bolaño's Between Parentheses (New Directions). Great title for all of us! A volume collecting most of the brash and stellar newspaper columns and articles published between 1998 and 2003. The more I read of Bolaño, and I've read everything translated into English, the more I miss him. He's the Gombrowicz of our time and every time needs a Gombrowicz. There's nastiness and tenderness to the Bolaño touch, just as there is in the best of the natural world. He's so fine at celebrating and dismissing. He can't help but be everlasting with these qualities. He happens to think humor and curiosity are the two most important components of intelligence.
I've also had Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music, book and CD, and this has provided a wood nutty taste to the travels.
Last night our son Carson gave us a lift in from town where we had gathered up from a day of travel four satchels of books and things. Precious notebooks stashed away with precious notes in jacket pockets and inner sleeves. We'd all talk nonstop on the ten mile drive catching up on where we've all been and how things are.
Roberto Bolañotop photo © bob arnold
Saturday, September 10, 2011
A.R. AMMONS ~
OLD GEEZER
The quickest
way
to change
the
world is
to
like it
the
way it
is.
Archie Randolph Ammons grew up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. Before he turned 40, he was on the English department faculty (this biology major) at Cornell University where he would later hold down the fort with fellow North Carolinian Robert Morgan. Years before Cornell, Ammons served in WW2, and later taught and was the principal of Hattaras Elementary School. It's been said that he had a school in Miami named after him. If this true, he is one of the few contemporary American poets, I believe, who holds such a distinction. Ammons was born in February 1926 and died the same month in 2001. His many books of poetry show a verve between the very long and very short poem. Emerson would have probably enjoyed his company.
OLD GEEZER
The quickest
way
to change
the
world is
to
like it
the
way it
is.
Archie Randolph Ammons grew up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. Before he turned 40, he was on the English department faculty (this biology major) at Cornell University where he would later hold down the fort with fellow North Carolinian Robert Morgan. Years before Cornell, Ammons served in WW2, and later taught and was the principal of Hattaras Elementary School. It's been said that he had a school in Miami named after him. If this true, he is one of the few contemporary American poets, I believe, who holds such a distinction. Ammons was born in February 1926 and died the same month in 2001. His many books of poetry show a verve between the very long and very short poem. Emerson would have probably enjoyed his company.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
CRIK ~
I can't remember what day it was when I last saw someone on our back road. Somehow it is already the 8th of September and my body clock is still at around August 28th, wanting one more swim in the river, time to cut more basil and make pesto and think about canning all the garden tomatoes. The woodchuck got the broccoli and one garden cabbage plot, but so far hasn't found the more hidden front yard cabbage plot.
Then Irene came and turned the calendar and the body inside out. Swamped the garden. Just because I've learned the hard way over too many years is why all the firewood is stacked high & dry.
It's been raining the last five days. I mean raining.
The covered bridge in the village is safe. I knew it would be. Look at the way the stone slabs are cribbed and how high the bridge is. I have a feeling the work boss on that job a few generations ago said: "Yeah, it all looks good, but let's put the timber sills just a foot higher. One more foot, boys!" The crew thought he was nuts or a crank or a hardass, but that's just how much the river torrent of Ms. Irene missed the bridge by. I've an old friend up in the village, the oldest resident of the village in fact (been there since WW2) and her eyes still widen when we talk about Irene and how close things got for the village and the covered bridge.
At night, with all the rain, the river roars. If you love darkness and night powers and mother nature being in control, you need to be with me late at night when I stand beneath our front yard hemlock trees and just listen. The mud aroma from the river absorbs all parts. This river sidewinds down from South Pond in Marlboro, Vermont and picks up these days every stream, brook, weep, snot, sniffle and trickle off the messy woodlands along the way. This river has hurt people, wrecked homes, removed property (including our own) and right now it's teaching a lesson to many who took it for granted. Called it nothing but a "crik". It's the maker of this valley, always was.
It's a proud sight to see up river how our neighbor Lyle Howe kept his foot bridge intact. I remember years ago how he lost the first one he built, because a lot of it landed down river on our land, worthless. I didn't ask but watched how Lyle and some helpers planned carefully for the next bridge, and maybe this second one has been compromised a bit at the cribbing and staircase, but from the road it looks like a bonafide survivor. Three cheers for a well-planned second effort.
A few more miles up river someone who owns a fishing pole enterprise kept his building on its feet. We all thought that one would be a goner. The river had to go right under and possibly right through it. We bicycled up the hobbled region right after Irene wasted through and there was the building pinned to its piers, looking good. I'm sure soaked inside and washed out all around it, but another survivor.
Our road's still closed. Dumptrucks are working late. The road's gone to mud, more than three miles of it. We are hiking out at 5AM and picking up our ride and looking for where we can do our work through the day on drier ground. With no visual focus before dawn and in all that dark water roar of the river as our only bearing (the road used to be a bearing, a star) we wait to climb back down onto the river shore where we can work cutting trees, gathering good flat stone, sit by the river as it subsides and wait for someone to come by and call it "a crik".
I can't remember what day it was when I last saw someone on our back road. Somehow it is already the 8th of September and my body clock is still at around August 28th, wanting one more swim in the river, time to cut more basil and make pesto and think about canning all the garden tomatoes. The woodchuck got the broccoli and one garden cabbage plot, but so far hasn't found the more hidden front yard cabbage plot.
Then Irene came and turned the calendar and the body inside out. Swamped the garden. Just because I've learned the hard way over too many years is why all the firewood is stacked high & dry.
It's been raining the last five days. I mean raining.
The covered bridge in the village is safe. I knew it would be. Look at the way the stone slabs are cribbed and how high the bridge is. I have a feeling the work boss on that job a few generations ago said: "Yeah, it all looks good, but let's put the timber sills just a foot higher. One more foot, boys!" The crew thought he was nuts or a crank or a hardass, but that's just how much the river torrent of Ms. Irene missed the bridge by. I've an old friend up in the village, the oldest resident of the village in fact (been there since WW2) and her eyes still widen when we talk about Irene and how close things got for the village and the covered bridge.
At night, with all the rain, the river roars. If you love darkness and night powers and mother nature being in control, you need to be with me late at night when I stand beneath our front yard hemlock trees and just listen. The mud aroma from the river absorbs all parts. This river sidewinds down from South Pond in Marlboro, Vermont and picks up these days every stream, brook, weep, snot, sniffle and trickle off the messy woodlands along the way. This river has hurt people, wrecked homes, removed property (including our own) and right now it's teaching a lesson to many who took it for granted. Called it nothing but a "crik". It's the maker of this valley, always was.
It's a proud sight to see up river how our neighbor Lyle Howe kept his foot bridge intact. I remember years ago how he lost the first one he built, because a lot of it landed down river on our land, worthless. I didn't ask but watched how Lyle and some helpers planned carefully for the next bridge, and maybe this second one has been compromised a bit at the cribbing and staircase, but from the road it looks like a bonafide survivor. Three cheers for a well-planned second effort.
A few more miles up river someone who owns a fishing pole enterprise kept his building on its feet. We all thought that one would be a goner. The river had to go right under and possibly right through it. We bicycled up the hobbled region right after Irene wasted through and there was the building pinned to its piers, looking good. I'm sure soaked inside and washed out all around it, but another survivor.
Our road's still closed. Dumptrucks are working late. The road's gone to mud, more than three miles of it. We are hiking out at 5AM and picking up our ride and looking for where we can do our work through the day on drier ground. With no visual focus before dawn and in all that dark water roar of the river as our only bearing (the road used to be a bearing, a star) we wait to climb back down onto the river shore where we can work cutting trees, gathering good flat stone, sit by the river as it subsides and wait for someone to come by and call it "a crik".
the friendly sign at the top just tells it like it is for now
the bottom photograph is how our road looks coming from Massachusetts
photos:
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
"ADVENTURE - NOT PREDICAMENT" ~
( James Broughton )
Dilley (Texas):
In the final passage of On the Road, Jack Kerouac writes about finding himself standing alone on the hot summer road under a street light in Dilley, Texas. He heard footsteps in the dark and a tall white-haired old man clomped past him with a backpack. He uttered the phrase, " Go moan for man." Its exact meaning was a mystery to Jack, but he thought about it philosophically and used the phrase in the book as if it were a command from another world.
the above quote is the epitaph on James Broughton's tombstone in Port Townsend, WA
this all taken from Bill Morgan's primo road galaxy of Beat travel
Beat Atlas (City Lights), with excellent by-line state by state
character by character, terrific photographs throughout
and dirt under the fingernails when done reading.
ONWARD! ~
What a surprise, it's raining again.
Vermont Governor Shumlin is asking second home owners in the state to give over their homes for many folks lost with nothing after Hurricane Irene. I can hear a pin drop.
Where we are today, just over the border in New Hampshire (crossing the new big muddy Connecticut River) you can hear the flood talk flowing constantly from passersby.
Back home, in Guilford, our road is now the only road officially closed in town. Many have worked on the road over the past week to get it into a one lane path hobbled over river bed stones, but there is nothing "through" about the road. You come and you arrive. It once traveled down along the river to Massachusetts but that once scenic drive took a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde turn for the hairy beast during Irene. You can get there by bicycle if you like to carry your bicycle. By vehicle is out. On-foot is blessed as ever. I haven't heard when the two towns plan to put their work crews together to meet at the new promontory point (the border) to rebuild the road, but it may not be before winter.
Selfishly, I adore the quiet. But that's just me.
Yesterday, a flotilla of dumptrucks were working the road north of us, up river, and beefing up the neighborhood-made one lane. A hard rain has been falling ever since. It was mudpie and bare rocks showing when we juggled out this morning in the dark at 5AM. The river roaring is making for bad dreams for man and animal alike.
Like everyone else, we might just scream with delight when the sun returns and stays out for maybe a pair of days. Wouldn't that be nice.
Still no phone. I can point to you in the river where our phone line is a half mile up river from our house. If I pick up a stone and throw it, then pick it up and throw it again, same direction, and heading toward that downed phone line, the house where that stone has landed closest to has phone service. Meaning between our house and the phone line in the river, that house has phone service. We don't. Don't try to figure it out. It's quite typical Vermont-we'll-get-it-to-you-service. That house is being fed from another backhill direction, ours is coming along the river. I remember when the phone line, such such as it was (I didn't have a phone), was stapled to trees. We've come a long way, we now have poles. Until Irene took them.
Try to laugh. It beats feeling sick.
During all of this rabble, Matthew Fluharty was kind enough to send to me a link to his wonderful site on all things rural & curious. Here it is:
http://theruralsite.blogspot.com/2011/08/rural-poetry-series-bob-arnold-and.html
He has fashioned a piece on Longhouse et al., and I just heard there is a second piece about my Back Road Chalkies. Thank you, Matthew, and I hope all enjoy.
There is a poet in Chicago, I forget her name right now out here on the lam, but she has a poem about hummingbirds where she writes (a very short poem) that those with the smallest hearts, like a hummingbird (like flood victims, I say), beat with the mightiest of wings.
What a surprise, it's raining again.
Vermont Governor Shumlin is asking second home owners in the state to give over their homes for many folks lost with nothing after Hurricane Irene. I can hear a pin drop.
Where we are today, just over the border in New Hampshire (crossing the new big muddy Connecticut River) you can hear the flood talk flowing constantly from passersby.
Back home, in Guilford, our road is now the only road officially closed in town. Many have worked on the road over the past week to get it into a one lane path hobbled over river bed stones, but there is nothing "through" about the road. You come and you arrive. It once traveled down along the river to Massachusetts but that once scenic drive took a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde turn for the hairy beast during Irene. You can get there by bicycle if you like to carry your bicycle. By vehicle is out. On-foot is blessed as ever. I haven't heard when the two towns plan to put their work crews together to meet at the new promontory point (the border) to rebuild the road, but it may not be before winter.
Selfishly, I adore the quiet. But that's just me.
Yesterday, a flotilla of dumptrucks were working the road north of us, up river, and beefing up the neighborhood-made one lane. A hard rain has been falling ever since. It was mudpie and bare rocks showing when we juggled out this morning in the dark at 5AM. The river roaring is making for bad dreams for man and animal alike.
Like everyone else, we might just scream with delight when the sun returns and stays out for maybe a pair of days. Wouldn't that be nice.
Still no phone. I can point to you in the river where our phone line is a half mile up river from our house. If I pick up a stone and throw it, then pick it up and throw it again, same direction, and heading toward that downed phone line, the house where that stone has landed closest to has phone service. Meaning between our house and the phone line in the river, that house has phone service. We don't. Don't try to figure it out. It's quite typical Vermont-we'll-get-it-to-you-service. That house is being fed from another backhill direction, ours is coming along the river. I remember when the phone line, such such as it was (I didn't have a phone), was stapled to trees. We've come a long way, we now have poles. Until Irene took them.
Try to laugh. It beats feeling sick.
During all of this rabble, Matthew Fluharty was kind enough to send to me a link to his wonderful site on all things rural & curious. Here it is:
http://theruralsite.blogspot.com/2011/08/rural-poetry-series-bob-arnold-and.html
He has fashioned a piece on Longhouse et al., and I just heard there is a second piece about my Back Road Chalkies. Thank you, Matthew, and I hope all enjoy.
There is a poet in Chicago, I forget her name right now out here on the lam, but she has a poem about hummingbirds where she writes (a very short poem) that those with the smallest hearts, like a hummingbird (like flood victims, I say), beat with the mightiest of wings.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
MORE HIGH WATER ~
{ Many of the photographs below are of the road I write about along the Green River. That's not dry river bed you're looking at -- that's the road. I have films and still photographs I took the hour when the flood was at its zenith and made this damage, but I still have no way to post these without a phone line to the house. Soon enough. }
writ in VT.
There is no one center of the universe
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
By Labor Day evening we had three inches of rain, five inches by midnight. This is approximately a week after Hurricane Irene, earth soaked, so the five inches is pretty much running freely through cornfields and jumping all streams and rivers quickly. Our river is fed in a watershed of only more and more other rivers and woods streams which fly off down the rocky hillslopes like nobody's business. I can hear them working, flashing, while standing out in the rain right now in the pitch dark. This could get bad all over again. But I'm typing this on a typewriter and who knows when I'll be near a town to re-type and post it onto the Birdhouse. We may be in for another flood. I know we're in for a road already ruined going more ruined. What's after ruined?
Lights flickering. Phone out all week, so far.
This morning in a college town where we went to access a computer before everyone woke up and we were successful, we later walked a posh neighborhood of each and every elegant home. The lawns unmowed because of all the wet weather and the long grass moved in the breeze like a small green sea. The hardwoods were top-of-the-line vintage maples and oaks, and the spruce trees were scalloped as if personally manicured, which I wouldn't put past the neighborhood. The last time I walked in a neighborhood so well-looked after, and not a gated community (yet), was Beverly Hills. Maybe you wouldn't believe, right along with me, how this very street ended up at a Shangri-la of its own private golf course. It was lightly drizzling rain now and out on the rolling manicure and deep forest backdrop we found some stoic players not about to give up. This whole place wasn't built by slouches. It's maybe come to that in these times, but at one time the refinement and class and crafted detail of the immaculate homes' woodwork was measured and etched into place by craftsmen. Mainly men, who way back when, arrived on the job in station wagons with toolboxes in the back. I worked as a boy with these guys -- Germans and Irish and Scandinavians. They worked in clean overalls and their hair was cut short. Every single job started, was a job finished.
I miss these workers now when it's come time to rebuild towns, roads, and think about old bridges. And covered bridges -- and we have one in our village (see photos below). Floods are part of mother nature and these craftsmen came from the same nature. They flowed with the same fluency. It's why their carpentry practice moves so well to this day to the moving eye.
When I moved into this river valley as a boy there were only two families on the road, and one was tucked up on a side road from this road where the river hugs. I became used to two families and to this day it's about all I recognize on this same road. Any two given families. From the old days, only one of the families is gone, and parts of the other one is still around, and some parts of that family has been responsible at helping rebuild our ragged road. They aren't part of any paid town work crew; they're just doing it. Good Samaritans.
Yesterday when I cut cord-length logs on the river from flood damaged trees and got them across and out of the bowl before this next potential flood, I waved to one ATV going by carrying two (man & woman). Then a pair of joggers, bare to the waist, went by and I could hear them moan when they saw what tree work was ahead of me and one gave a sympathy wave. A couple I've never seen walked by and probably returned when I was ducked away at work in the trees. Then a white pickup truck rode by slowly and slowly returned, followed sometime later by a car with Massachusetts plates that I knew would be returning because there was no longer road access to any Massachusetts. Where I was piling my logs on the other side of a shallow section of the river is now five feet in rushing water and all my logs could be long gone. Finish what you start.
I just picked up the phone, 10PM, dead as doornails. I hear the same sound in the receiver that I used to hear holding a large seashell to my ear. It was my mother's brought from her homeland in Ireland; she said the sound I heard in there was the sea. I was seven years old and fully impressed. A mile up river driving home today through mudholes we saw FairPoint workers and a pole-setter crew in dayglo t-shirts head down, getting another new pole in from where another old pole vanished in the flood. It's muck and mud and a backhoe groaning away at it.
One day I'll lift the receiver and it won't be the sea. You think?
Lights flickering. Phone out all week, so far.
This morning in a college town where we went to access a computer before everyone woke up and we were successful, we later walked a posh neighborhood of each and every elegant home. The lawns unmowed because of all the wet weather and the long grass moved in the breeze like a small green sea. The hardwoods were top-of-the-line vintage maples and oaks, and the spruce trees were scalloped as if personally manicured, which I wouldn't put past the neighborhood. The last time I walked in a neighborhood so well-looked after, and not a gated community (yet), was Beverly Hills. Maybe you wouldn't believe, right along with me, how this very street ended up at a Shangri-la of its own private golf course. It was lightly drizzling rain now and out on the rolling manicure and deep forest backdrop we found some stoic players not about to give up. This whole place wasn't built by slouches. It's maybe come to that in these times, but at one time the refinement and class and crafted detail of the immaculate homes' woodwork was measured and etched into place by craftsmen. Mainly men, who way back when, arrived on the job in station wagons with toolboxes in the back. I worked as a boy with these guys -- Germans and Irish and Scandinavians. They worked in clean overalls and their hair was cut short. Every single job started, was a job finished.
I miss these workers now when it's come time to rebuild towns, roads, and think about old bridges. And covered bridges -- and we have one in our village (see photos below). Floods are part of mother nature and these craftsmen came from the same nature. They flowed with the same fluency. It's why their carpentry practice moves so well to this day to the moving eye.
When I moved into this river valley as a boy there were only two families on the road, and one was tucked up on a side road from this road where the river hugs. I became used to two families and to this day it's about all I recognize on this same road. Any two given families. From the old days, only one of the families is gone, and parts of the other one is still around, and some parts of that family has been responsible at helping rebuild our ragged road. They aren't part of any paid town work crew; they're just doing it. Good Samaritans.
Yesterday when I cut cord-length logs on the river from flood damaged trees and got them across and out of the bowl before this next potential flood, I waved to one ATV going by carrying two (man & woman). Then a pair of joggers, bare to the waist, went by and I could hear them moan when they saw what tree work was ahead of me and one gave a sympathy wave. A couple I've never seen walked by and probably returned when I was ducked away at work in the trees. Then a white pickup truck rode by slowly and slowly returned, followed sometime later by a car with Massachusetts plates that I knew would be returning because there was no longer road access to any Massachusetts. Where I was piling my logs on the other side of a shallow section of the river is now five feet in rushing water and all my logs could be long gone. Finish what you start.
I just picked up the phone, 10PM, dead as doornails. I hear the same sound in the receiver that I used to hear holding a large seashell to my ear. It was my mother's brought from her homeland in Ireland; she said the sound I heard in there was the sea. I was seven years old and fully impressed. A mile up river driving home today through mudholes we saw FairPoint workers and a pole-setter crew in dayglo t-shirts head down, getting another new pole in from where another old pole vanished in the flood. It's muck and mud and a backhoe groaning away at it.
One day I'll lift the receiver and it won't be the sea. You think?
{ Many of the photographs below are of the road I write about along the Green River. That's not dry river bed you're looking at -- that's the road. I have films and still photographs I took the hour when the flood was at its zenith and made this damage, but I still have no way to post these without a phone line to the house. Soon enough. }
writ in VT.
posted in MA.
photos: CNN
photos: CNN
from THE NEW REVELATIONS OF BEING ~
THE HEAVENS HAVE INVOKED THE FORGOTTEN FEMINITY OF WOMEN. THEY HAVE USED A POWER THAT WOMAN HAD NEGLECTED.
THEY HAVE FORCED NATURE TO DREAM OF PROCESSES OF WHICH WOMEN CAN NO LONGER DREAM.
THEY HAVE FORCED NATURE TO BECOME WOMAN'S proxy IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE AN OPERATION PREPARED BY THE MALE.
What does this mean?
It means nature is about to revolt.
Earth. Water. Fire. Air.
The transmutation will be made by the four Elements in concert.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
translated by Alastair Hamilton & Victor Corti
writ in Vermont
THE HEAVENS HAVE INVOKED THE FORGOTTEN FEMINITY OF WOMEN. THEY HAVE USED A POWER THAT WOMAN HAD NEGLECTED.
THEY HAVE FORCED NATURE TO DREAM OF PROCESSES OF WHICH WOMEN CAN NO LONGER DREAM.
THEY HAVE FORCED NATURE TO BECOME WOMAN'S proxy IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE AN OPERATION PREPARED BY THE MALE.
What does this mean?
It means nature is about to revolt.
Earth. Water. Fire. Air.
The transmutation will be made by the four Elements in concert.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
translated by Alastair Hamilton & Victor Corti
writ in Vermont
posted in Mass.
Monday, September 5, 2011
THE WEEK THAT WAS ~
A week ago today we had bicycled up to the village to see an elder friend and how she was post-Irene. All was fine. While up there we came upon three FairPoint phone service trucks and maintenance workers. They looked as bewildered as anyone at the moment, so with mystery swirling in the air as to how the world was (we were soaked)we told them that our phone was out, par for the course.
Well, it's still out a week later, while we have neighbors who have never lost their phones. Sweetheart hiked up river a few days ago to see if someone/anyone had a phone and she found a nice clutch of folks all in phone heaven. She called our son. We told the FairPoint crew the lines were down in the river and a utility pole or two had gone with the flood. To their credit all three guys hoofed it down the road for a look and when they returned and we ran into them again they said what we had said: the wires are down in the river and some poles are gone. That's how the week's been since Irene.
Who knows when we'll hear the phone is on. All week we have traveled between three states to grab access so we can respond to book orders coming into our bookshop from around the globe. The mail must go through! We nab the addresses, titles, make careful notes, fill out addresses and then get back home sometime late the same day and find the books and pack them out for the next morning. It used to be difficult: when we lost power we were coming home and finding the books in three buildings with a flashlight. Now the power has been restored.
We mentioned to a CVPS engineer friend how maybe-what-do-you-think they restring wires down for power and tie into other lines coming from other directions. Lickety-split he was down the next day with two other workers and a tree crew to blaze a new trail. Power was on by day's end. We wish the phone line crew had come along for the ride.
We have films made during the flood and still photographs but no way to set them to sail on the Birdhouse. One of these days. Right now we're working in a busy student union that has a pair of computers and kids galore talking, flip-flopping, coughing, screaming, music noise music, moving around at good kid speed. I have no idea how I'm concentrating.
Yesterday, back on the river, we climbed down to the new shore of a million new rocks and a train wreck of full trees twisted and pulverized onto what was once an island of woods on our land. Sweetheart doesn't recognize it. I see it as a wealth of new stones and mucho firewood. We've already started at cleaning it up and we'll stick to it until snow flies. Plenty of time. After cutting almost 100 four foot length small logs and shouldering them over the shallows to a dry spot along the river, I threw them up to Sweetheart who loaded them into two truck loads. We got all of this back home to the woodyard before the next threat of flood-warning was just coming in. After supper I went back down and hunted up in the new rock pile eight ideal size stone steps I'll begin to lay into a new staircase up from the river and to the road. It's about a 14 foot bank from the river to the road and the staircase will make the shouldering of firewood up from the river all the more accessible by the stone stairs. The river looks mighty wonderful now locked into place by all the stone. From the road it looks like it's just gliding by.
But we aren't fooled.
A week ago today we had bicycled up to the village to see an elder friend and how she was post-Irene. All was fine. While up there we came upon three FairPoint phone service trucks and maintenance workers. They looked as bewildered as anyone at the moment, so with mystery swirling in the air as to how the world was (we were soaked)we told them that our phone was out, par for the course.
Well, it's still out a week later, while we have neighbors who have never lost their phones. Sweetheart hiked up river a few days ago to see if someone/anyone had a phone and she found a nice clutch of folks all in phone heaven. She called our son. We told the FairPoint crew the lines were down in the river and a utility pole or two had gone with the flood. To their credit all three guys hoofed it down the road for a look and when they returned and we ran into them again they said what we had said: the wires are down in the river and some poles are gone. That's how the week's been since Irene.
Who knows when we'll hear the phone is on. All week we have traveled between three states to grab access so we can respond to book orders coming into our bookshop from around the globe. The mail must go through! We nab the addresses, titles, make careful notes, fill out addresses and then get back home sometime late the same day and find the books and pack them out for the next morning. It used to be difficult: when we lost power we were coming home and finding the books in three buildings with a flashlight. Now the power has been restored.
We mentioned to a CVPS engineer friend how maybe-what-do-you-think they restring wires down for power and tie into other lines coming from other directions. Lickety-split he was down the next day with two other workers and a tree crew to blaze a new trail. Power was on by day's end. We wish the phone line crew had come along for the ride.
We have films made during the flood and still photographs but no way to set them to sail on the Birdhouse. One of these days. Right now we're working in a busy student union that has a pair of computers and kids galore talking, flip-flopping, coughing, screaming, music noise music, moving around at good kid speed. I have no idea how I'm concentrating.
Yesterday, back on the river, we climbed down to the new shore of a million new rocks and a train wreck of full trees twisted and pulverized onto what was once an island of woods on our land. Sweetheart doesn't recognize it. I see it as a wealth of new stones and mucho firewood. We've already started at cleaning it up and we'll stick to it until snow flies. Plenty of time. After cutting almost 100 four foot length small logs and shouldering them over the shallows to a dry spot along the river, I threw them up to Sweetheart who loaded them into two truck loads. We got all of this back home to the woodyard before the next threat of flood-warning was just coming in. After supper I went back down and hunted up in the new rock pile eight ideal size stone steps I'll begin to lay into a new staircase up from the river and to the road. It's about a 14 foot bank from the river to the road and the staircase will make the shouldering of firewood up from the river all the more accessible by the stone stairs. The river looks mighty wonderful now locked into place by all the stone. From the road it looks like it's just gliding by.
But we aren't fooled.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
VICE SQUAD ~
Remind me to tell you about the two Federal Agents who shook us down yesterday in a wildlife preserve where we were hiking in Massachusetts. Mutt & Jeff, and one was a rookie with a fire in his pants, which is always a treat. His 'teaching' partner was right out of Robocop. I was in a tee shirt and jeans, barefoot, supposedly having to listen to them. They asked me for I.D. I answered, politely, "You're looking at it." Me.
Me and Sweetheart then hightailed it north into New Hampshire where we can at least have Internet access to catch all the good mail coming in from friends. Believe me, each of you, it's been nothing but pleasure having friends asking how we are. How our house is. The books. Neighbors. Friends.
Last count: everyone was there. Books dry. House still 220 years old up on its tiny knoll.
At 7AM this morning I borrowed a New York Times off a bookstore shelf to read how things were going for our friends Mary & Greg Joly up in Jamaica, Vermont. The last I knew Greg had phone, but we didn't, and then again he'd lost one or two or all bridges from his house into town and then either way to larger towns. A real mess.
In the library where I'm working one of the pleasant librarians just notified us that the Appalachian Trail has been shut down all through this section. One reason why the town has had an influx of bearded hikers for the past week. They all might be turning around, or catching a bus to the next dry spot to continue on the long leg of their journey.
Down river from us where Alex and I lifted that motorcyclist over the jagged hump of once-road, a temporary passage has been filled in with pine logs, what-rock, gravel, and the kitchen sink for neighbors further south to at least get their vehicles over and parked. We sailed down through that part on bicycles a day or two ago and then got to the Massachusetts border where all road has vanished and moon surface is left. Getting a bicycle over 500 feet of this stuff is a workout. Hiking it is billy goat stuff. This could take months to rebuild with everything else there is to rebuild. The road has shutdown as quiet as I remember it as a boy. Hear a leaf fall.
They say our phone will be on tonight. We've been out late traveling and working and have seen FairPoint trucks out and about way past normal working hours. Everyone's tired, but somehow spunked and vital and energized with a purpose to make~do; the everlasting make~do.
A moment ago we heard a storm from Louisiana and a hurricane barreling up the coast just might converge and make life interesting and very wet all next week. The rivers and streams will again change.
Our covered bridge in the village just escaped with the river at a torrent missing the wood chassis by inches. In a normal situation you'd need a very tall ladder to reach from the river bed up to this wood structure. The square stone cribbing looks water bleached, confused and clean. The waterfall has just started to unmuddy; whereas driving north along the Connecticut River early this morning is nothing but a big muddy.
Whole towns and pockets of neighborhoods in Vermont are now about to be readjusted and rebuilt with rivers, streams, brooks forcefully in mind.
I saw a handmade sign on a post this morning someone was selling firewood, green and split, delivered, at $160. That's cheap. Now, if he can get it out of the woods?
Remind me to tell you about the two Federal Agents who shook us down yesterday in a wildlife preserve where we were hiking in Massachusetts. Mutt & Jeff, and one was a rookie with a fire in his pants, which is always a treat. His 'teaching' partner was right out of Robocop. I was in a tee shirt and jeans, barefoot, supposedly having to listen to them. They asked me for I.D. I answered, politely, "You're looking at it." Me.
Me and Sweetheart then hightailed it north into New Hampshire where we can at least have Internet access to catch all the good mail coming in from friends. Believe me, each of you, it's been nothing but pleasure having friends asking how we are. How our house is. The books. Neighbors. Friends.
Last count: everyone was there. Books dry. House still 220 years old up on its tiny knoll.
At 7AM this morning I borrowed a New York Times off a bookstore shelf to read how things were going for our friends Mary & Greg Joly up in Jamaica, Vermont. The last I knew Greg had phone, but we didn't, and then again he'd lost one or two or all bridges from his house into town and then either way to larger towns. A real mess.
In the library where I'm working one of the pleasant librarians just notified us that the Appalachian Trail has been shut down all through this section. One reason why the town has had an influx of bearded hikers for the past week. They all might be turning around, or catching a bus to the next dry spot to continue on the long leg of their journey.
Down river from us where Alex and I lifted that motorcyclist over the jagged hump of once-road, a temporary passage has been filled in with pine logs, what-rock, gravel, and the kitchen sink for neighbors further south to at least get their vehicles over and parked. We sailed down through that part on bicycles a day or two ago and then got to the Massachusetts border where all road has vanished and moon surface is left. Getting a bicycle over 500 feet of this stuff is a workout. Hiking it is billy goat stuff. This could take months to rebuild with everything else there is to rebuild. The road has shutdown as quiet as I remember it as a boy. Hear a leaf fall.
They say our phone will be on tonight. We've been out late traveling and working and have seen FairPoint trucks out and about way past normal working hours. Everyone's tired, but somehow spunked and vital and energized with a purpose to make~do; the everlasting make~do.
A moment ago we heard a storm from Louisiana and a hurricane barreling up the coast just might converge and make life interesting and very wet all next week. The rivers and streams will again change.
Our covered bridge in the village just escaped with the river at a torrent missing the wood chassis by inches. In a normal situation you'd need a very tall ladder to reach from the river bed up to this wood structure. The square stone cribbing looks water bleached, confused and clean. The waterfall has just started to unmuddy; whereas driving north along the Connecticut River early this morning is nothing but a big muddy.
Whole towns and pockets of neighborhoods in Vermont are now about to be readjusted and rebuilt with rivers, streams, brooks forcefully in mind.
I saw a handmade sign on a post this morning someone was selling firewood, green and split, delivered, at $160. That's cheap. Now, if he can get it out of the woods?
writ in N.H.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
TIMBUKTU ~
While the American government is building roads in Afghanistan and Iraq, here in Vermont or is it Timbuktu? folks are taking matters into their own hands and rebuilding their own roads the old fashioned way ~ hardscrabble, old tractors, rakes, shovels, neighbor to neighbor, lifting river bed rocks out of the road in the millions all over the state and throwing them into a flood crevice 5 or 10 feet deep and getting their roads back.
There have been three beautiful days in a row since Irene ~ that was the least she could do for us. Otherwise she reminded the state how rivers move and live. This is something folks had to learn the hard way: you got too close. Or the bridge in 1990 wasn't built with the eye and skill of those who remember the floods in the '30s. Yesterday, after a lift into town (Brattleboro) we got a peek up Flat Street where the majority of businesses were many feet under water and are now digging out of mud. Few have flood insurance. In the sun, spread out along the street, people were together like they maybe haven't been ever in their business lives side by side washing off material of mud and grime and sharing a similar story. If you made a passing glance going by, the gathering looked like any farmer's market ~ the colorful, the many, the unity of spirit. Many of these small businesses could be ruined if there isn't common sense relief given by whomever gives money or even has money in these times. Right now people are giving to one another. It's a Hurrah moment.
At home everything is high and dry but we're without phone or electricity. The river has dropped a million tons of water since the flood thundered through on Sunday, so by Tuesday evening we could stand along the water's edge and look easily across to a small island of our land where all next year's firewood has come forth in full tree lengths swept in with the Irene tide. Powerful maple trees grabbed out of the ground by its roots and brought to our catching spot. In twilight, along the shore, I found a flood sculpture plastered with the force of water engines made of sticks and grasses and roots and debris eight feet tall and 3 feet wide and it's about all I had to see in the wake of the flood. Mother's nature.
Down river, neighbors were working on that jagged rock ledge where the road once had been and where Alex and I lifted the motorcyclist lost on Monday night up and over. No one will ever know where he came from or where he was going. He never took his fishbowl helmet off. I believe that region got itself filled in by hand and small poor man tractors and the road gained itself a full two miles now from the covered bridge and the village. All without our taxpayer's wages to town workers, and all neighbors hard at work. A second Hurrah.
We've been on bicycles, everywhere. Miles.
We also refused to obey Amazon's and other book engine services orders by asking us to shutdown our bookshop and go "on vacation". Yes, we were going to get cut off the grid and wouldn't have book orders coming in as easy as pie, so it meant we spent the last two days traveling far and wide on foot, bicycle or borrowed ride, packing book orders out on our bikes and on our backs and fetching more orders when we got to any computer terminal we could borrow. I'm tapping this out to you from there. I'm even in another state. But the sun is coming in through the broad windows.
By tonight when we return home, maybe the lights will be on. There are towns and regions far worse than we are. There isn't a speck of river mud in our house. Count ourselves lucky. I don't need to drive anywhere, my bike is fine. I love my river friend of forty years, we've done a lot together. And she's allowed to show her stuff.
Tomorrow you'll come hiking down and ask me how a river that gentle and soft looking could do the damage that is seen. I'll point eastward to the high water mark, fourteen feet up and burnished into the hillside like a long time scar it will be. No words. But Hurrah.
While the American government is building roads in Afghanistan and Iraq, here in Vermont or is it Timbuktu? folks are taking matters into their own hands and rebuilding their own roads the old fashioned way ~ hardscrabble, old tractors, rakes, shovels, neighbor to neighbor, lifting river bed rocks out of the road in the millions all over the state and throwing them into a flood crevice 5 or 10 feet deep and getting their roads back.
There have been three beautiful days in a row since Irene ~ that was the least she could do for us. Otherwise she reminded the state how rivers move and live. This is something folks had to learn the hard way: you got too close. Or the bridge in 1990 wasn't built with the eye and skill of those who remember the floods in the '30s. Yesterday, after a lift into town (Brattleboro) we got a peek up Flat Street where the majority of businesses were many feet under water and are now digging out of mud. Few have flood insurance. In the sun, spread out along the street, people were together like they maybe haven't been ever in their business lives side by side washing off material of mud and grime and sharing a similar story. If you made a passing glance going by, the gathering looked like any farmer's market ~ the colorful, the many, the unity of spirit. Many of these small businesses could be ruined if there isn't common sense relief given by whomever gives money or even has money in these times. Right now people are giving to one another. It's a Hurrah moment.
At home everything is high and dry but we're without phone or electricity. The river has dropped a million tons of water since the flood thundered through on Sunday, so by Tuesday evening we could stand along the water's edge and look easily across to a small island of our land where all next year's firewood has come forth in full tree lengths swept in with the Irene tide. Powerful maple trees grabbed out of the ground by its roots and brought to our catching spot. In twilight, along the shore, I found a flood sculpture plastered with the force of water engines made of sticks and grasses and roots and debris eight feet tall and 3 feet wide and it's about all I had to see in the wake of the flood. Mother's nature.
Down river, neighbors were working on that jagged rock ledge where the road once had been and where Alex and I lifted the motorcyclist lost on Monday night up and over. No one will ever know where he came from or where he was going. He never took his fishbowl helmet off. I believe that region got itself filled in by hand and small poor man tractors and the road gained itself a full two miles now from the covered bridge and the village. All without our taxpayer's wages to town workers, and all neighbors hard at work. A second Hurrah.
We've been on bicycles, everywhere. Miles.
We also refused to obey Amazon's and other book engine services orders by asking us to shutdown our bookshop and go "on vacation". Yes, we were going to get cut off the grid and wouldn't have book orders coming in as easy as pie, so it meant we spent the last two days traveling far and wide on foot, bicycle or borrowed ride, packing book orders out on our bikes and on our backs and fetching more orders when we got to any computer terminal we could borrow. I'm tapping this out to you from there. I'm even in another state. But the sun is coming in through the broad windows.
By tonight when we return home, maybe the lights will be on. There are towns and regions far worse than we are. There isn't a speck of river mud in our house. Count ourselves lucky. I don't need to drive anywhere, my bike is fine. I love my river friend of forty years, we've done a lot together. And she's allowed to show her stuff.
Tomorrow you'll come hiking down and ask me how a river that gentle and soft looking could do the damage that is seen. I'll point eastward to the high water mark, fourteen feet up and burnished into the hillside like a long time scar it will be. No words. But Hurrah.
no access yet to post my own photographs
but it's coming
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
IRENE IRENE OH IRENE ~
Well, we got smashed by dear Hurricane Irene ~ she wasn't wind so much but all a wall of water. Power & phone went out like a snap of the finger at 10AM on Sunday morning and then the river by our road rose & rose. At least twelve feet. I've never seen it that high. Neither has an old timer friend up in the village and she's lived here 70 years. Same place. The flood took a better portion of our dirt road and made it a river bed. Just left bedrock and stone rubble in the flood's wake. Neighbors a half-mile down river have no road at all showing ~ just jagged ledge. Last night we about lifted a lost motorcyclist over that tiny Matterhorn and on his way. How he appeared and got himself into such a fix, nobody knows. A little Scot terrier dog with him too, riding right behind the handlebars. We were all busy fixing a road not there. The river subsiding and remaining loud. Muddy, like the color of cement. Myriad miles of roads in there. Hereabouts, vehicles are parked and isolated. We have three. One is a brand new rental that as luck would have it we just happened to have for a few days. Stuck with us. We're hiking the two miles to the village with packs & bicycles taking all book customers packages with us to mail in town. We can catch rides from the village with friends. They say days & days & maybe even a month more of this before we see any sign of the town road crew. So many are taking matters into their own hands, which is always a good sign. Yesterday, in the most beautiful sunny day that could possibly occur after a flood ~ a vivid blue sky I tell you ~ we washed our laundry in a wood's stream running nicely up behind the house. Clear water. Like it came from the sky.
borrowing a computer
no access at home
itinerants !
all be well
Sunday, August 28, 2011
POETRY ~
Hurricane Irene is lightly raining out there, through the open living room screen door, 3AM.
The experts call this the calm before the storm. Who can sleep?
We in Vermont wouldn't really know ~ the last great hurricane that any old timer liked to tell me about barreled through in the 30s or 40s. We still drive over many creek bridges that were rebuilt after that storm. A whale of a rainfall.
It could grow to be 12 inches of rain, or better, with Irene. Sweetheart and I easily remember 18 inches not too long ago. Closed our road. Lifted and took the green out of the river.
I don't like to talk too much, or too loudly, certainly not too boldly with Mother Nature. She does what she does, and even sometimes has to do. It's up to us to collect jugs of clean drinking water before hand. We went to the grocer's and bought our first head of lettuce since early May. The garden season for lettuce is almost up and now this drowning rain.
There really isn't all that much to buy. We saw people buy gasoline for generators. All men. We bought batteries.
If the power goes out for days and days we'll be eating a lot right out of the fridge before we lose it. We might invite you over.
I don't like to talk too much, or too loudly, certainly not boldly about poetry. It also does what it does. I watched the new film Poetry the other night, and hard to believe I watched Secret Sunshine the night before that. Two Korean powerhouse films. Brilliantly acted and lived within by two women actors.
There is a scene in Poetry, amongst many, where I believe the essence of a nasty poet is well portrayed. It comes late in the film, with next to no fanfare. You might be so used to seeing and experiencing this in your own life that you'll miss it. You'll want to hope it doesn't portray you. Even speaking to it makes me feel uneasy. But there is the poetry teacher in the film, not a bad guy at all, he tries hard, seems quite sincere with his students, is patient and likewise candid and real with each one. But now we have him outside the classroom and meeting a few of his students at a public seating and the teacher, himself a poet, brings along a close friend that he describes in so many words as a "real poet". The guy miserably lives up to the description; in fact when the teacher speaks to his students (all adults) in a tone of fellowship and kindness it about splits the head apart of the real poet's cult and intelligence. At one point he leans toward the teacher and asks him with a killer grin if he is acting for real with what must be a sickening nonsense. Probably none of the students will ever carry the water to write many poems like this real poet. It appears writing one poem is daily haunting many of the students, but oh do they show determination and belief. Plus a collective kindness. I've been in these classrooms. I've seen that hopelessness time and again try to climb that grease rope of hope. I've quietly told the cynics to get the fuck out of the room.
There is a scene in Poetry where her hat blows off on the bridge. Telling.
Nothing I've read by Pound, Bloom, Mistral, Keats, Neruda, Brooks, Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare, Saigyo, Transtromer, Stein, and stacks and stacks and stacks of books in my room does any better than this film.
How do we write poetry in a world that has lost interest? How do we write poetry when we can barely get through the day? How do we write poetry when we can't even see poetry but someone insist it is in all of us?
Go out and tell the dog to bark. If you've trained the animal it will be a trained bark. Sound like a trained bark. Otherwise, it barks when it is ready to bark. Poetry barks.
It takes toughness and kindness but don't say those words. Just know and earn those words.
The film Poetry opens with what we believe is the floating body of a very young woman in a river. Children discover this body as they play.
So many contrasts. Like sprinkles of rain preceding the hurricane, then to bed, and later in the morning rise to a harrowing mess. Such poetry!
Today I knelt down to the bottom shelf in a bookshop, and I'm always by myself in this section, the poetry section. I was drawn to a new large collection of poems by Tim Dlugos. I remember his work well years ago and read his many slim volumes. Young and long hair, off in the shadows. As a dead man his first book in years is large and handsome and he's been well taken care of by David Trinidad as editor and tender. A kind tender, I might add. The poet is now older with his hair cut and sitting out on the steps like Joe Brainard. Another poet compares Dlugos to Frank O'Hara, but no one yet has shown to be Frank O'Hara and I doubt it will ever happen. Bark. Bark. I decided to leave the book behind, knowing I would regret it, and I do. Too many silly short poems which really aren't silly at all. They each add to the whole of this revolutionary poet who was revolutionary because he fought for love. There are no greater fighters than lovers.
Imagine fighting Irene.
Tim Dlugos, A Fast Life (Nightboat Books)
Director of both films: Lee Chang-dong
Secret Sunhine (2007): actress Jeon Do-yeon
Poetry (2010): actress Yoon Jeong-hee
Hurricane Irene is lightly raining out there, through the open living room screen door, 3AM.
The experts call this the calm before the storm. Who can sleep?
We in Vermont wouldn't really know ~ the last great hurricane that any old timer liked to tell me about barreled through in the 30s or 40s. We still drive over many creek bridges that were rebuilt after that storm. A whale of a rainfall.
It could grow to be 12 inches of rain, or better, with Irene. Sweetheart and I easily remember 18 inches not too long ago. Closed our road. Lifted and took the green out of the river.
I don't like to talk too much, or too loudly, certainly not too boldly with Mother Nature. She does what she does, and even sometimes has to do. It's up to us to collect jugs of clean drinking water before hand. We went to the grocer's and bought our first head of lettuce since early May. The garden season for lettuce is almost up and now this drowning rain.
There really isn't all that much to buy. We saw people buy gasoline for generators. All men. We bought batteries.
If the power goes out for days and days we'll be eating a lot right out of the fridge before we lose it. We might invite you over.
I don't like to talk too much, or too loudly, certainly not boldly about poetry. It also does what it does. I watched the new film Poetry the other night, and hard to believe I watched Secret Sunshine the night before that. Two Korean powerhouse films. Brilliantly acted and lived within by two women actors.
There is a scene in Poetry, amongst many, where I believe the essence of a nasty poet is well portrayed. It comes late in the film, with next to no fanfare. You might be so used to seeing and experiencing this in your own life that you'll miss it. You'll want to hope it doesn't portray you. Even speaking to it makes me feel uneasy. But there is the poetry teacher in the film, not a bad guy at all, he tries hard, seems quite sincere with his students, is patient and likewise candid and real with each one. But now we have him outside the classroom and meeting a few of his students at a public seating and the teacher, himself a poet, brings along a close friend that he describes in so many words as a "real poet". The guy miserably lives up to the description; in fact when the teacher speaks to his students (all adults) in a tone of fellowship and kindness it about splits the head apart of the real poet's cult and intelligence. At one point he leans toward the teacher and asks him with a killer grin if he is acting for real with what must be a sickening nonsense. Probably none of the students will ever carry the water to write many poems like this real poet. It appears writing one poem is daily haunting many of the students, but oh do they show determination and belief. Plus a collective kindness. I've been in these classrooms. I've seen that hopelessness time and again try to climb that grease rope of hope. I've quietly told the cynics to get the fuck out of the room.
There is a scene in Poetry where her hat blows off on the bridge. Telling.
Nothing I've read by Pound, Bloom, Mistral, Keats, Neruda, Brooks, Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare, Saigyo, Transtromer, Stein, and stacks and stacks and stacks of books in my room does any better than this film.
How do we write poetry in a world that has lost interest? How do we write poetry when we can barely get through the day? How do we write poetry when we can't even see poetry but someone insist it is in all of us?
Go out and tell the dog to bark. If you've trained the animal it will be a trained bark. Sound like a trained bark. Otherwise, it barks when it is ready to bark. Poetry barks.
It takes toughness and kindness but don't say those words. Just know and earn those words.
The film Poetry opens with what we believe is the floating body of a very young woman in a river. Children discover this body as they play.
So many contrasts. Like sprinkles of rain preceding the hurricane, then to bed, and later in the morning rise to a harrowing mess. Such poetry!
Today I knelt down to the bottom shelf in a bookshop, and I'm always by myself in this section, the poetry section. I was drawn to a new large collection of poems by Tim Dlugos. I remember his work well years ago and read his many slim volumes. Young and long hair, off in the shadows. As a dead man his first book in years is large and handsome and he's been well taken care of by David Trinidad as editor and tender. A kind tender, I might add. The poet is now older with his hair cut and sitting out on the steps like Joe Brainard. Another poet compares Dlugos to Frank O'Hara, but no one yet has shown to be Frank O'Hara and I doubt it will ever happen. Bark. Bark. I decided to leave the book behind, knowing I would regret it, and I do. Too many silly short poems which really aren't silly at all. They each add to the whole of this revolutionary poet who was revolutionary because he fought for love. There are no greater fighters than lovers.
Imagine fighting Irene.
Tim Dlugos, A Fast Life (Nightboat Books)
Director of both films: Lee Chang-dong
Secret Sunhine (2007): actress Jeon Do-yeon
Poetry (2010): actress Yoon Jeong-hee
IRENE ~
Tex Ritter
We're just in the door after 4 days traveling, which put us somewhere in the mountains north for breakfast, westward another day at dawn, back north today with the sunshine up there still family friendly and no care in the world amongst parties about anyone called Irene. But she's coming. We just rode from town without any other vehicle or sight of man on the road for a half hour. In truck headlights after dark we moved 6 cement blocks and covered over all the woodpile tarps. We'll lose power for sure. As long as we don't lose our 50 pounds of berries put~up and frozen. The great Tex Ritter's song came up on the play list as we drove the rain, just about perfectly timed. We'll let it play in our heads as everything goes wet and wild.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
EARTH ~
( open your eyes )
Cream
To hear the masters light into this song, of all their songs, in elder age, at the Royal Albert Hall May 2005 is something to behold with eyes open or closed (your choice), or find the film of the concert and await for this moment. There's something to be said about age and achieved wisdom behind the words and the playing.
Friday, August 26, 2011
BHAKTI ~
Man is the greatest Truth of all. There is nothing beyond.
— Chandidas
"For over five centuries songs have circulated in Bengal with the name Chandidas attached."
I've been reading it. In the laundromat. In the truck as passenger. Waiting for my sidekick as she ships the mail when I'm in the cab under the tree and the tree is a maple. For an hour waiting for a book sale to percolate behind a locked door. On a bench in the sun. Outside a classical music festival rehearsal hall and the Brahms was lovely but now Sweetheart needs a nap and we pull off into the shade, her side window open, bare feet stuck out, lightly smudged, music playing (Gene Clark) and I read more & more of this fine book. I knew the poems would all be sturdy, and the commentary by its editor would be more than sound; I just waited to see if the poems and the commentary invited a reader, many readers, visitors, as a good book that can take care of itself guides and welcomes and teaches and shows the way — and this one does. Don't hesitate.
the oxford anthology of bhakti literature
edited by andrew schelling
oxford university press
2011
— Chandidas
"For over five centuries songs have circulated in Bengal with the name Chandidas attached."
I've been reading it. In the laundromat. In the truck as passenger. Waiting for my sidekick as she ships the mail when I'm in the cab under the tree and the tree is a maple. For an hour waiting for a book sale to percolate behind a locked door. On a bench in the sun. Outside a classical music festival rehearsal hall and the Brahms was lovely but now Sweetheart needs a nap and we pull off into the shade, her side window open, bare feet stuck out, lightly smudged, music playing (Gene Clark) and I read more & more of this fine book. I knew the poems would all be sturdy, and the commentary by its editor would be more than sound; I just waited to see if the poems and the commentary invited a reader, many readers, visitors, as a good book that can take care of itself guides and welcomes and teaches and shows the way — and this one does. Don't hesitate.
the oxford anthology of bhakti literature
edited by andrew schelling
oxford university press
2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
EARTH ~
Gennady Aygi
It's a New Morning, at least for me, on each new book publication in English by the Chuvashia born poet Gennady Aygi. Aygi wasn't published in the Soviet Union until the 1980s, and since then he has been widely translated by Peter France and others. . .the most recent gift through the skilled eyes of Sarah Valentine which shows an immediate freshness and Aygi's connection to the outdoors — of both landscape and language. I also much like Valentine's direct speak and thought around modern poetry:
"I think many poets in the United States today struggle with a feeling of irrelevance, of impotence in the face of global-scale crises. Sidelined in a mass-media, technology-driven culture, the American poet seems to have a slim chance of connecting with an audience, and even less of a chance to effect large-scale change through poetry. But elsewhere in the world many poets, like Aygi in the Soviet Union, wrote and continue to write poetry at the risk of losing their lives and livelihoods. For them poetry is an ethical act, an act of humanity, regardless of the cost. Many of Aygi's poems confront the political and social crises of his age, but many others are small poems about the beauty of fields and flowers, the birth of a child. Some consist of only a few lines, a few words, or a single word, or a single letter.
Why bother? What difference could jotting down a few lines about flowers possibly make? The answer, I think, for Aygi was that each word of each poems was part of a grander project, an exploration of the nature of existence, of our place in this universe — whatever that is — of what lies beyond the limits of our knowing, and of how, through a humane art, we can maintain our connection with all of it. Also, and perhaps most importantly, each poem is a celebration of mystery, of the fact that, though we pursue these questions, life in all its forms is a mysterious gift. That, if we can find it, there is always enough light — sometimes even on the petal of a flower — to dispel the darkness."
GENNADY AYGI (1934-2006)
ONCE AGAIN — INTO THE SNOW
and you begin to sing — and I am disappearing
slowly into the snow (like before : a figure
darkening in the dusk
somewhere far away) and the broken board appears
there — among the ruins
in the abandoned shack (they sang whispered
then
cried long ago — it seems
from great joy) and in the distance the forest
as if
in a dream
opens — and you are singing
(though — you needn't
for it's already over)
you go on
(though even without us eternity
is already ripening
shimmering
like gold)
you go on
though you're becoming too muffled
to sing
GIRL IN CHILDHOOD
she goes out
like a bright breath into the field
like board-white buckwheat
cuts through the woods
birds like straw
take the forest sounds on their backs
her pigtails on her back without a plan
as in a dream begin a village
looking over the fire tower's edge
and there in the clearing in the wind
beyond the far heart of the golden rain
a birch plays with out a birch
into u without u
SILENCE
1
in the invisible glow
of pulverized melancholy
I know uselessness like the poor know their last piece of clothing
and old utensils
and I know that this uselessness
is what the country needs from me
reliable like a secret pact:
muteness as life
indeed for my whole life
2
Muteness is a tribute — but silence is for myself
3
to grow accustomed to silence
like the beating of one's heart
like life
as if a well-known place there
and in this I am — as Poetry is
and I know
that my work is both hard and for itself alone
like the sleeplessness of the night watchman
at the city graveyard
LITTLE TATAR SONG
I took a pail and went for water
because we had no water.
I sat next to my pail and cried
because we had no joy.
Back in those days
I was no taller than the pail.
"Mother" I whispered — the meadow hushed,
"Brother" I said — and sleep fell silent.
What was I trying to name was silence:
sun, oak forest, wormwood.
Only to my song,
beyond the aul,
I silently cried — "Sister."
and you begin to sing — and I am disappearing
slowly into the snow (like before : a figure
darkening in the dusk
somewhere far away) and the broken board appears
there — among the ruins
in the abandoned shack (they sang whispered
then
cried long ago — it seems
from great joy) and in the distance the forest
as if
in a dream
opens — and you are singing
(though — you needn't
for it's already over)
you go on
(though even without us eternity
is already ripening
shimmering
like gold)
you go on
though you're becoming too muffled
to sing
GIRL IN CHILDHOOD
she goes out
like a bright breath into the field
like board-white buckwheat
cuts through the woods
birds like straw
take the forest sounds on their backs
her pigtails on her back without a plan
as in a dream begin a village
looking over the fire tower's edge
and there in the clearing in the wind
beyond the far heart of the golden rain
a birch plays with out a birch
into u without u
SILENCE
1
in the invisible glow
of pulverized melancholy
I know uselessness like the poor know their last piece of clothing
and old utensils
and I know that this uselessness
is what the country needs from me
reliable like a secret pact:
muteness as life
indeed for my whole life
2
Muteness is a tribute — but silence is for myself
3
to grow accustomed to silence
like the beating of one's heart
like life
as if a well-known place there
and in this I am — as Poetry is
and I know
that my work is both hard and for itself alone
like the sleeplessness of the night watchman
at the city graveyard
LITTLE TATAR SONG
I took a pail and went for water
because we had no water.
I sat next to my pail and cried
because we had no joy.
Back in those days
I was no taller than the pail.
"Mother" I whispered — the meadow hushed,
"Brother" I said — and sleep fell silent.
What was I trying to name was silence:
sun, oak forest, wormwood.
Only to my song,
beyond the aul,
I silently cried — "Sister."
~
my cap goes off to
Wave Books
www.wavepoetry.com
for making such a gift
see an earlier Birdhouse for Gennady Aygi :
http://longhousepoetryandpublishers.blogspot.com/search/label/Gennady%20Aygi
Wave Books
www.wavepoetry.com
for making such a gift
see an earlier Birdhouse for Gennady Aygi :
http://longhousepoetryandpublishers.blogspot.com/search/label/Gennady%20Aygi
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