Drink Your Pudding!

in the flatlands

2012-02-22T22:51:00.001-05:00

We were scared, terrified, beyond the reach of any logic or reasoning, because there didn't seem to be any logic or reason behind what was happening. We had asked our experts, our doctors and scientists and ministers and elected leaders, and no one had an answer or a solution. We were susceptible to every suggestion from every source, every conspiracy theory, every crackpot. There were some families who were untouched; they began to hold themselves separately, to interact only with each other. There were rumors of bomb shelters or bunkers, and constant speculation about the unaffected gathering together and moving somewhere untouched and healthy, but no one knew for certain. Most of us had a family member, a brother or an uncle or a best friend or a baby sister who had changed, and we didn't trust those who were unaffected, we wondered if they were part of the conspiracy.

reading
"The Best American Essays 2009", editor, Mary Oliver

weather
final swimming lesson . . . before kayaking resumes?

below the surface

2012-02-15T22:05:00.001-05:00

We didn't know what was thickening the water and mutating our echoes, but eventually it began to prey upon us, individually. There was a slick giddiness about the surface of the water: smooth, sleek, like the most perfectly silvered antique mirror or polished obsidian. The water reflected back not who we were, but the seductive quality of who we wanted to be, who we believed ourselves capable of becoming in the deepest pockets of our souls. Staring, gazing deeply into the eyes of the not-us, of the us as we could be, it was but a gasp, a hesitation, to reaching out a hand to touch this ideal, other self. And then, then, in the moment of reaching when a hand just brushed the surface of the water, with a gloppy whoosh the surface broke, releasing the mirror image hand.

reading
listening to the archive of RadioLab
listen listen listen

weather
lacks of snow

the astrolabe and the compass

2012-02-10T17:32:00.000-05:00

Instead, allow me to tell you of the lands of cinnamon earth, dirt as red as fire and as fine as dust, and when we traveled through it the air was filled with the glitter of gold and the smell of the autumn harvest. Although it was in fact early spring, trees were just budding out, the smallest blossoms emboldened against the cold nights, somehow the air filled with the memory of red leaves, bonfires built large, fallen apples, ripened squash. I knew if we were to remain in that red land, the land of golden air, the land of autumn, during early spring, that we would go mad, each of us driven to insanity by the unsynchronous patter of our metabolisms against that of the earth.

reading
Cat's eye / Margaret Atwood

weather
warm warm clear clear skies

changes thereto

2012-02-05T15:56:00.001-05:00

Gentle reader,

As of today, the fifth of February, 2012, there have been just under 300[*] posts to the mostly weekly DYP!, begun in the autumn of 2007.

The vast majority of these are stories, the vast majority of which are magic realism numbers with a dash of Grimm's. (Plus the bonus filler of studio updates, photos of ampersands and travel postcards.) The stories-word-count-accumulation stands at 242,772; there are over a million characters, not including spaces. A lot of that is drivel. A lot is redundant. A lot needs heavy editing, possibly with a shredder. But some of it I'm quite fond of. Maybe you are, too.

I like sharing my writing with whoever decides to spend a coffee break reading it. But one of the weird things about taking my writing more seriously -- being more intentional -- is that many places won't consider anything that is previously published. And in the grey area of online publishing, many of them consider appearing on DYP! as previously published.

Going forward, thus, and back: stories will be edited down to excerpts, which will appear at DYP! per the standard Wednesday-ish typing schedule. Studio work and photographs will perhaps appear with greater frequency. If you miss reading my stories[^], send me a note, and you'll get a weekly email with the current story attached.

Very sincerely yours,

[*two hundred eighty two]
[^and I like you, and/or you aren't a stalker]

folds of memory

2012-02-02T08:58:00.003-05:00

I had just returned from the land of white foxes and red roofed houses and smoke smelling of peat fires and dried fish, and was immediately inoculated against whole kingdoms of micro-organisms and sent with a team and an ill-packed rucksack to determine the truth. The jungle was a child's picture book jungle, full of Rudyard Kipling animals chattering, slithering, camouflaged and caught in a moment of Riki Tiki Tavi clarity before disappearing again, becoming nothing more than the shadow of a tree. There were Tarzan's apes and chimpanzees and tiny little long-tailed monkeys who would hang upside down from branches, like children on a playground. There were all manner of flying birds and insects, the entire scale of the animal kingdom inverted, hummingbirds of bright tangerine orange no longer than a thumb, and wasps of yellow ferocity that were the size of kittens.

reading
Any human heart by William Boyd

weather
the warmest winter ever, all for the new boots and coat

across the skies

2012-01-25T22:35:00.001-05:00

There were stories of snow drifts so deep entire villages were buried, and stories of nights so cold no one who went to sleep ever woke up again. Yet there were also stories of ice palaces, entire kingdoms carved and fashioned from the white granite cliffs of the mountains, with huge bonfires always lit in the center courtyard, and deep hot springs warmed by the volcanoes slumbering under the mountains. These stories told of a race of tall, thin people, whose skin was as pale as the snow itself, whose hair was the color of the bonfire, and these people were the soul of the mountains. They played trumpets and flutes, they sang from deep in their chests, long, tuneless chants that reflected the sun breaking through the clouds and protected them from the dangers of avalanches and volcanoes.

weather
a dram for the lads, a dram for the lassies, and a dram for the haggis : happy birthday, Rabbie Burns

reading
underground restoration efforts in Paris!

faded maps

2012-01-19T09:35:00.001-05:00

We left when the moon was full and the littlest cousin had toddled her first steps from the kitchen table to the doorway, we left after spending the winter studying maps and star charts, learning how to use a compass and navigate by the heavens. We drew up plans and lists, we packed, sorted, compressed, repacked, we made our tents and sorted seeds, grains into containers to carry with us. So much I did not do, I did not learn to splint a broken bone or to use an ax on timbers larger than myself, I did not study botany or animal engravings to distinguish what was medicinal from what was poisonous, what was predator and what was prey. I did not learn to shoot a gun or how to set a trap.

reading
The gone-away world / Nick Harkaway.

weather
cold but not too cold (or maybe that's the coat)

gods/demons

2012-01-11T22:16:00.001-05:00

I knew that skeletons were not devoid or absent of life, but were merely something more than sleeping, for around the corpse of any animal recently died or at any cemetery the air was heavy with souls waiting to repossess their bodies. I knew that Leap Day was just hiding in the cusp of midnight on the years when it didn't happen, and I knew those missing days were waiting for me, making plans of their own. I knew the shadows of buildings could move, that walls were flexible and not solid, but I didn't know that I knew any of these things, until so very many years later, so many keys gathered and lost in the twilight of childhood.
reading
The other city : a novel / Michal Ajvaz

weather
walks through woods, the crunch of ice underfoot

moments of significance

2012-01-05T09:17:00.001-05:00

{this is from the same prompt as this essay from April, 2009}

When the mailroom clerk brought around that day's deliveries, in amongst the bills and magazines was an altogether different sort of envelope. It was a shiny, shiny emerald green, and when it was tilted this way and that in the light, it turned to silver and to deep blue. My name was scrawled across it, not the crabbed scrawl of a ball point pen nor the calligraphic scrawl of a wedding invitation, but something resembling the feather-nib scrawl of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It was ink, and it was both formally scripted and somehow imperfectly written. There was no return address.

reading
The toaster project : or A heroic attempt to build a simple electric appliance from scratch / Thomas Thwaites.
The night circus / Erin Morgenstern.

weather
those deep cold days of the young year

year of fog

2011-12-29T20:55:00.001-05:00

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

fog: Easthampton, MA to Grand Teton National Park, WY

testing materials: onion skin options, glue options

printing materials: traditional paper, or transparency mylar

folding template

testing the glues wasn't so helpful; secondary attachment (sewing) still required to attach onion skin covers to transparency text

all wrapped up and ready for post

silver stamped covers (onion skin)

(transparency text, accordion book format)

images against white background; when viewed aerially they resemble old film negatives

so brief, so fleeting

2011-12-21T22:55:00.002-05:00

(quote from Issa, Japanese poet)

The snows began early, far earlier than they had been wont to in recent years. We were caught unprepared, our summer windows and white linen suits no match for the blanket that surrounded and engulfed us. The end of summer, suddenly, desperately, upon us, barbecues canceled and baseball tournaments declared no winners at all. As the days passed, meteorologists made promises of respite, reassured us that the abrupt change in seasons would only be temporary, but we could each feel it, deep in our souls, the entrance of winter.

weather
will flights be delayed: that is the question

reading
an astounding assortment of the avant-garde:
Reader's block / by David Markson
The curfew / Jesse Ball

carpenter's rule

2011-12-15T08:43:00.004-05:00

The map had so many errors and ommissions, lines for routes that were dreamt of but previously untraveled, cities designed by rulers and builders and architects of great vision, but empty of bricks, stones, wells, cottages, railways, and settlers. We would plan our itineraries to arrive at an oasis, to discover the founders surveyed the location, looked to the horizon, took their compasses and rulers and spades elsewhere, although where elsewhere was, we never knew. We never found the promised moments of respite, the communities giving succour to the weary, for while they were implied by the map, they never materialized from intention and destination to reality. Still we clung to our Atlas, patched, faded, and misleading though it was, for there was no other path open before us, no other guiding hand shaping our destiny.

reading
Italo Calvino, Città invisibili

weather
Geminids showers meet sleet storms

up / away

2011-12-08T07:25:00.001-05:00

The leaves were the deepest green of late summer, not yet turned with the shortening of the days, but full of the imminent sense of loss that autumn would bring, the sap beginning to condense deep in the roots, allowing the leaves to suffer their fate, drying in the wind. Now, though, at this very moment of a late afternoon in the precious final hours of August, now the leaves are thick, glossy, an umbrella shielding the sun from the ground below, a curtain hiding those who seek refuge in the branches.
reading
There but for the / Ali Smith

weather
skis! down coat! fuzzy boots! let the sun keep shining as long as it will!

30 Poems! chapbook

2011-12-04T18:02:00.001-05:00

Now available: 30 Poems!, the chapbook, with any and all proceeds going to literacy education, through the work of the Center for New Americans. Lots of pretty pictures and a how-to description after the text.

There was a challenge in the month of November to write a poem-a-day -- which, with certain misgivings, I did. At the end of the month, the resulting [*] poems were formatted for a two-signature pamphlet, and digitally printed onto Bugra paper, with British Kraft paper covers. (My twin obsessions are onion skin and the lovely British Kraft paper. Both are crackly and shiny and splendid to work with.)

The poems were formatted to fit onto 2 sheets of 11"x17" paper, which were printed double sided, folded and sewn. The final size is 5.5" high by 4.25" wide.

Other details: really, send money to the Center for New Americans, or the literacy organization of your choice, and I'll send you a chapbook. Postage, materials and labor donated to the cause. Some exceptions apply[‡].

[*maudlin and sentimental]
[‡ exes are not eligible to participate]

repetition + silence

2011-11-30T21:45:00.001-05:00

Here there was a field of endless wildflowers, the clover with its white blooms, the bluebells in spring, dandelions with their wishes in the heart of summer. The field was everything: the site of excavations for dinosaur bones and buried treasure, the savannah where lions and zebras were hunted with rifles made from fallen tree branches, the wide wide sea where the Spanish Armada was conquered and pirates walked the plank.
reading
the completion of 30 Poems in 30 Days!

weather
so long November!

memory of

2011-11-23T11:18:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving: all of that, and then much more.

This week is an memoriam to a mentor: the gifts of compassion and calm beauty; the smoke of Hu-Kwa Tea; the perfect soufflé.

Soufflé

melt 6 T butter, whisk in 6 T flour
cook until thickened (~10 seconds)

whisk in 2 c milk, salt & pepper
stir until thickened (~2 minutes)
remove from heat, let cool

beat well 5 whole eggs (unseparated)
add to eggs 2.5 c (6 oz) grated Swiss cheese, chives

bake at 400 F for 30-40 minutes in a buttered 6 c gratin dish

the little dog laughed

2011-11-16T22:21:00.001-05:00

Watch, watch closely and carefully, and I will show you magic. Not a magic trick, those cheap flashes of smoke and mirrors propagated by the men who prey on society's gullibility and desire to be deceived. No, this is real, the coercion of matter into substance of a radically different type, the bending of the laws of physics into new shapes and dimensions. This is not alchemy, it is neither chemistry nor biology, those fields beloved by technicians in pristine lab coats with official clipboards for tabulations and recordings of precision and hypothesis. Nor is this the gypsy trickery, the carnival games of fortunes, crystals, messages from the dead. You have grown cynical and disbelieving after watching the dazzle and color of the Houdini's of the world, but the magic I produce and promise is richer, deeper, than any of these sleights of hand.

reading
The sense of an ending / Julian Barnes

weather
this rain rain rain could be snow snow snow: tires in place! shovel in place! ice scraper in places!

one potato, two potato

2011-11-09T22:47:00.002-05:00

We were to go to the fair that day, as we went to the fair every autumn, the corn as big as watermelon, the pumpkins orange and just coming in for harvest. The previous year -- last year -- I had been too short for the midway rides, not allowed on the roller coaster with a loop de loop or on the giant spider machine with little airborne cars that spun and swooped. I wasn't allowed on the Ferris wheel, the biggest in the nation, or the merry-go-round, with its fancy tigers chasing beautiful horses and sparkling zebras to ride, even though I'm sure that I wasn't too little for a trip on the Ferris wheel so high that the moon is bigger than the earth or to sit upon the gorgeous rearing black stallion under the calliope organ pipes.

reading
Transgressions : stories / Sallie Bingham

weather
late-summer-sneaks-into-November

knights of malta

2011-11-02T22:21:00.003-04:00

The first day was spent getting beyond the city center, a scramble between bus lines and trains whose routes and schedules had been altered by the new regime and no longer followed any published maps or timetables. There were rumors of where buses could be caught, of when trains might appear, but the rumors were only as accurate as the intentions of the speaker. The system could change from day to day, depending on the particular favorites chosen by the transport operators. By dusk on the first day, I was approximately three miles from where I had begun, having taken a series of increasingly contorted buses and trams down streets which had previously been little more than unmarked alleyways.
reading
Mr Fox / Helen Oyeyemi

weather
how nice, how nice, to have light and heat after extended dark and cold

30 Poems in November

2011-11-01T18:49:00.001-04:00

There's a benefit going on this month for the Center for New Americans, in Northampton, MA: write a poem a day. Get people to underwrite your poem a day. Donate to help literacy.

Poetry isn't something I write. Not even in the deepest darkest recesses of an unlit New England night by flashlight under the duvet. How does one know when a poem is done? A story finishes (even if others don't like the ending). But a poem . . . every comma matters. Every verb matters. Is that the definite article where the indefinite article would be more appropriate? How does one avoid the maudlin, the confessional? What's up with the line breaks?

How could I subject a reading public to a poem a day -- given its unfinished and maudlin appearance -- in the deep dark recesses of November? Even to benefit something so lovely as literacy? It's like exposing a marsupial mammal to the ravages of the environment when it should be warm and snug in a pouch.

Here's the compromise. I'll write a check to the Center. You can write a check to the Center. Mail it to them. I'll write poems, given the above caveats and disclaimers. They'll be compiled and uploaded here to a pdf or something at the end of the month. Maybe. Probably.

ampersands in the air

2011-10-26T17:58:00.001-04:00

from the aviation museum in Ottawa:

onset / continue

2011-10-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

Our travels had not progressed badly, in that none of our number had become ill, or left us; we had not been attacked by any wild creature, although the questioning suspicion in the eyes of fellow men made us hesitate. Was it always the lot of the pilgrim to be feared, almost despised, by those non-pilgrims encountered upon the way? We had no way of knowing; we had never before been in these lands, we had never undertaken such a journey. We wondered if they feared we brought plague, or war, or coveted their lands for ourselves, and in their eyes we saw the desperate hold of the hopeless upon that which they have been given. None offered us apples from their orchard or lodging in their barns; but we could see their fear and their poverty, and we did not begrudge them this inhospitality.
reading
The Big Roads : the untold story of the engineers, visionaries, and trailblazers who created the American superhighways / Earl Swift

weather
yet more and more and more and more and more rain

matter / antimatter

2011-10-13T09:34:00.003-04:00

The bag contained no more than was absolutely necessary.

There was a map, which was unfortunately later determined to be a map of the wrong place and from the wrong time, but it was nice to have the map for reference, regardless.

There was a pen, and the pen almost always wrote, although sometimes to get it to start it had to be scratched quickly back and forth on some rough paper, even though I never really understood why that was.

There was a little notebook with a flexible spine and a nifty elastic band holding it closed, and I had bought the little notebook in a fit of inspirational passion -- here was a place for all of my ideas to go, jotted together at odd moments, jumbled elegantly for future access. The little notebook with its nifty elastic remained stubbornly blank, my name on the flyleaf the only mark, pages cannibalized from it to write out notes to give to strangers, but it was never a repository, only a source for sending things away. My moments of universal insight and truth continued to be recorded at random on the backs of envelopes, electric bills, and documents that I had intended to shred, and then inevitably lost, the universe claiming its truths back to itself.

weather
Indian summer followed by storms

reading
great article on gender expectations and norms in the Atlantic

Valley News

2011-10-06T10:25:00.003-04:00

(1) Currently in debate in the Senate, the casino bill that just won't die. The area senators support it, but perhaps you could let them know their opinions are misguided.

http://gazettenet.com/2011/10/05/casino-in-valley-could-prove-039a-local-disaster039
"It is inconceivable that the short-term tax benefits of making a change on this scale, which would provide a minimum of three destination casinos throughout Massachusetts, can possibly be justified in terms of their much greater social, economic, and environmental costs. That such a creation could happen, quite literally, in our backyard, with no community feedback or input, can only be described as horrifying."
http://www.malegislature.gov/People/CityList

(2) In happier news, I'm in an upcoming group show at Paper City:

all things in time

2011-10-06T10:10:00.001-04:00

The last place I saw him, things weren't going so well. He had had one or five too many and had found an old banjo behind the bar, and next thing you know he's standing on that bar, strumming that banjo with a wail that could skin a cat. You've never seen anything like it, him so obviously out of his mind with drink and at a total separation from every last one of his inhibitions, but there on that bar he's totally unaware that one slip in a puddle of beer and his head could open clean as a ripe cantaloupe.

reading
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children / Ransom Riggs

weather
first frost