Daily Archives: September 30, 2013

Art and Culture, MOOCS, Poetry

A Stein Is Not A Tankard

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Fall                                                                          Harvest Moon

Working with the poetry of Gertrude Stein.  Tough stuff.  She does break.  Through the usual patterns.  And forces a new way viewing seeing connecting word thing thing to word or not.  Word to word.  Forcing nouns to squiggle out of their links, forcing them to talk to each other like, well, like California girls talking to each other, like.

[Karel van Mander III man drinking beer from a tankard   1630-1670 (work pd.)]

Close to impenetrable, at least for the lone reader.  In collective reading with a guide like Al Fireis her work can jump, come alive though whether it makes sense.  Not supposed to make sense, I guess.  To make word. Yes. Words to words.  A world of words, a languaged world still or as always unreachable by sense so that world is nonsense.  Only words adhere to words within which we find ourselves worded and sentenced to life without sense.  Amen.

 

Politics, Weather +Climate

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” -Bob Dylan

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Fall                                                                                   Harvest Moon

“Earth in warmest period in 1,400 years, global climate panel says.”  NPR Updraft blog

“President Obama spoke in the White House briefing room on Monday evening, and castigated House Republicans for failing to perform one of the most basic functions by not providing money for the government.”   NYT

“Markets Slide Worldwide Amid U.S. Budget Battle”  NYT

 

Dogs

Yawn.

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Fall                                                                   Harvest Moon

We’ve had at least two break-ins here over the last week or so.  Both during the day.

So when the dogs began barking this morning at 5:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m.!), we both wondered.  Then we listened.  No.  Gertie had her excited bark, not her stay away or I will lacerate you bark/growl.

All three went out.  All three came back in.  And started up again at 5:30 a.m. (5:30 a.m.!)  The two big dogs, Vega and Rigel, stayed out and Gertie came into our room.  This happens rarely and it’s never clear what stimulates them.  Presumably some animal noise. One we can’t hear.

This meant both of us have been a bit draggy today, sleep deprived even after naps.

Art and Culture, Friends

Threads

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Fall                                                                          Harvest Moon

Breakfast at Keys.  In Spring Lake Park.  Mark (soon t0 be Mario again) Odegard and I discussed the Hack Factory, which sounds very cool.  The Twin Cities manifestation of the Geekworld maker movement.  We also talked about Bruce Dayton and his astonishing collection of art–in his home.  Plus the Matisse prints hung at the Marsh.  Ode saw both on Saturday.  He and Elizabeth are getting cranked up for four months in California, house sitting in the mountains and tending 10 chickens.

Casual time with friends is not so easy to accomplish when living in the ex-burbs and I look forward each opportunity.  I’ll see Tom Byfield this Thursday for lunch before the lecture for Audacious Eye, Japanese material part of an entire collection recently donated to the MIA.   Next week Allison Thiel at the Walker.

These threads of connection constitute a significant part of the living matter out of which the weave of our lives forms its fabric.

General

dictionary of obscure sorrows

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dictionaryofobscuresorrows:

liberosis

n. the desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life before you reach the end zone, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

midsummer

n. a feast celebrated on the day of your 26th birthday, which marks the point at which your youth finally expires as a valid excuse—when you must begin harvesting your crops, even if they’ve barely taken root—and the point at which the days will begin to feel shorter as they pass, until even the pollen in the air reminds you of the coming snow.

 

nighthawk

n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night—an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future—that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.