brothers, boxes, and just enough ladles: merry christmas!

oh, this blog entry is gonna be all over the darned place.

you'll love it!

well, you'll love it if you love me, if you know me.  if you've just wandered in, looking for CRPS research abstracts, or elogies to pain... oh, damn, here we go.  "elogies." excuse the heck out of me, but i am going to substitute the french "éloges" because i certainly am not referencing some down-in-the-mouth funeral oration or the light fiction of an obituary.  and see?  see?  see how my own darned self has killed any natural momentum to the act of writing by an obsession with words?

only one dictionary of the three consulted listed a definition having to do with praise, and that dictionary underscored the "archaic" nature of that meaning.  none would have appreciated, were dictionaries capable of appreciation, mine own irony.

i just finished mouthing off to some important people in my life, and my mouth did it -- again and again.  that these people love me back is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

to TW, the subject line might have been a canary sufficient to the coal mine:  "i have so much to say..." but he is far, far from timorous, and probably read on to the opening of the elucidating message text, even as the little bird fell like a ten pound rock to the bottom of her newspapered cage:

...and yet i can't.  damn that samuel beckett.  [i can never remember whether he ends his last name with one T or two Ts, so i look it up, and every time, google suggests "bucket."]
so i will stick to the stuff that matters.

it turns out that "the stuff that matters," judging by the relative subject-weighting as distributed in this morning's anemic oxygen-debted febrile communiqués (for which spell-checker demands "communism"), is dehydrated vegetables.  more specifically, how to use them in a stew.

a stew that is rich and deep, melded by something part gravy-with-sheen, part viscous broth.  all of which will be ruined by chicken.  (i have emergent need of protein.)

a missing detail:  TW has been intimate with these vegetables, having sown, overseen, harvested, and dried them -- before gifting us manor squatters with their dessicated, concentrated goodness in the traditional Celebratory Box.  the beautiful history of TW's Boxes can be found in some of this mass of earlier posts or more quickly captured at the first's box arrival, HERE.

it's a weighty issue, and by that i mean that i am talking about dehydrated vegetables again:

for instance... can i treat the dried maters like sun-dried maters -- as in DON'T dilute their intensity?  or should i rehydrate everything before using, in which case, what happens to cooking times?  if i wanted to make a stew... can dehydrated veggies stand up to crock pot treatment or does that just wipe out their beautifully preserved virtues?

you may be thinking something along the lines of "i wonder if anyone ever actually gets to EAT at Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé?" yes, smartass, when i cook, there is plenty of eating in the aftermath, usually with great praise.  born of starvation, perhaps, but great praise, nonetheless.

in any event -- a favorite phrasing -- this is kind of a belated christmas post.  or winter solstice party, quieted by a blanket of snow.

because as i cast my eyes about -- and sadly, i can -- i note that, once again, it is TW's gift, his plain brown boxes, that is the gift truly given, and -- finally, today, or any minute now -- truly received.

fred just inquired, all polite and all, "ummm, is there an ETA on that stew or should i go ahead and eat a little something now to tide me over?"

i love it when he whispers sweet nothings in these ears.

lest you think kindly of me, or even consider a revision in that direction, here's another epistolary extrait to a dear friend earlier this morning, mid-first cup of coffee, and after the dehydrated veggie soliloquy (she's a good cook), an extract having to do with me and my various bitchy attitudes at Christmas time:

bitter and fed up?  me? 

i kept thinking:  my stepmom, stepsister, and brother grader boob are all gathered at the beach, celebrating xmas the way i grew up celebrating it... i actually have a family that might welcome me... and here i am, doing THIS. 

yes, i about fell out of bed -- i got an email from my mom and stepsis, and one from the boob, separately.  they were nice, friendly, sweet.  it's like all anyone was waiting for was for dad to croak.  it reminds me of when he did his in-country service in vietnam -- that was the happiest year of our lives.

how ugly and crass is that comment, hmmm?  and yet i made it, and repeat it, here.  the feeling in my stomach the day he returned home had nothing to do with the joys of reunion, but the reignited fears of failure, and grief over the death of freedoms and lightness, the death, the agonal breaths, of lightness.

so, john lennon, yes, this is christmas... and what have i done?  nothing yet.  but i am getting ready to do the most ancient form of the freestyle crawl, not out of primordial slime, or even out of algae-flowered moat water, but out of this blasted bed, into the power chair, with a stop to freshen up, so as not to scare the genetically indentured domestic manor staff* on duty this fine afternoon -- finally heading out, smiling and humming, to one of my favorite kitchens in this wing of the place. (it has the cleanest spit and many shiny, copper-bottomed cookware, with just enough ladles hanging about, for ladling, and usually with sven and/or cabana boy hanging about, as well, for company.)

ETA on the stew?  ha! your guess is as good as mine.



* i've yet to publish the definitive documentation, nor have i made a clear explanation of how the genetically indentured domestic manor staff came into being, for i kinda fear for my life should i do so, but i did dip a toe in those waters, briefly, at the beginning of the infamous Looking Up the Garderobe Chute post.

LATE-BREAKING ADDENDUM:  We are proud to announce the successful creation and consumption of a delicious stew.  It had depth.  It had just enough heat for a first go-round with the beautiful peppers and chiles and tomatoes.  Two huge bowls, normally dedicated to pasta dishes, were consumed per diner, and more might have been eaten were it not for the necessity to finish off the remains of Fred's various birthday cakes.  For my brethren and sistren stewmeisters, I used a potato-onion-tomato-cream base and built from there.  Booze was involved, also chicken (Did I mention an emergent need for protein?  Fast and easy protein?  Think "protein whore, protein skank," and whaddaya think?  CHICKEN!), plus roasted, shredded, beautifully crunchy brussels sprouts, diced sweet, sweet carrots.  As for spices, I was a bit boring -- sage, rosemary... but mostly thyme.  No matter what flavor profiles were considered, my mind kept returning to thyme.
Next attempt -- probably next Wednesday, on behalf of the Militant Lesbian Existentialist Feminists (and darling Fred) for their Wednesday night supper, when I will be aiming for more heat.  I am training those women to have asbestos palates.  It's a necessity in this new millennium, this new world.

The Christmas Post: Glad Tidings, Good Yule

It's a Christmas tradition ("Holidays, we celebrate them all at Marlinspike Hall!") that some intimate and integral bit of The Manor shall fail right when we believe ourselves through the punishing gauntlet for the year.

Christmas 2011 will be remembered as the year we sent all the plumber's children to college.

Fred and I will be installing one final faucet and mopping up the standing water later today, then we are off to the Lone Alp Outlet Malls to partake of last-minute bargains.  If only people in our social circle would accept my invitation to revise their calendars and set back their clocks, but they don't want to be seen celebrating on December 27, despite the kickass bargains of the day before.

Wusses.  There would be plenty of time to normalize settings for the new year;  No one would have missed even one drop of celebratory champagne.

We are so awash, here, so bloated by an embarrassment of riches -- that I may cancel today's Lone Alp Outlet run.  If there is any need, at present, it is not for stuff.  Well, it's more that the stuff we need turns out to be things like washers-of-a-certain-size, replacement cement gargoyles and new copper gutters, an authentic supply of wattle-and-daub for the crumbling wall common to both the heavily ornamented Baroque Ballroom and the more austere Imperial Sauna -- that sort of "stuff."

Packages have come to us from across the wide world.  No one but me knows where they have been stashed, unopened and unacknowledged.  In my various foul moods, I've tucked a package here, a package there, unless my chocolate detection meter was set off, in which case, good luck ever finding even a trace of cocoa butter from those particular bundles.

The worst case scenario is that I'll have to organize something like an Easter Egg Hunt for our Christmas presents.

One of the packages, though, sits as a bit of ballast for my weird Office Rocking Chair -- the Bent Oak, painted green, that Fred says frightens him.  The weight of the package is perfect for keeping the steam-bent runners poised mid-way, mid-rock. My office, my Tao.

It's not a Christmas gift.  It came in time for the celebration of Winter Solstice, and it is from Brother-Unit TW.  An ugly mix of guilt and regret has kept me from opening it, just as I had hoped to still the passage of time before the downhill side of the axis situation could maliciously make my days fly.

I'm going to go get it now, and we can open it together.

I'll be right back, then.

Whew.  It's heavy.

Okay, first:  TW, your handwriting is eerily similar to Brother-Unit Grader Boob's tiny écriture.  Also, can you hear me channeling the Nana Person:  "$14.95 for shipping? Are you meshugana? What’s this mishegas?"

Let me find some scissors -- or a sacrificial pen -- with which to attack the straps of tape.  All right, here we are, and I am already choking up, for the first thing I see... is TW.

Trim and healthy-looking, mustachioed and shaded (both with glasses and a hat), nattily dressed, standing beside a tent in what looks to be a field of sleeping Dead Heads, none of whom appear to be conscious, much less dressed and ready for anything.  Not like *my* brother!

This is an odd thing to notice... and I cannot defend it with even one descriptor... but TW looks calm, more than anything.  Calm.  The eye of a sleeping hurricane.  Maybe it's just that he is the only put-together human in view, but I get the sense that he is the Go-To-Guy;  He's Mr. Dependable.

Next, a handwritten note, in which he is faithful to the tradition we established a few years back, according to which I am the recipient of riches unimagined.  The tradition began in the winter of 2009, and started this way: "...thinking it would be a way to save money and be a marvelous gift, I asked my two brother-units for used copies of the two books that had been the most formative to the person they each have become."

From that silly request has come so much delight, delight gathered in heavy boxes, then shipped hundreds of miles, and so, to testify against the silliness of purchased presents. My brother Grader Boob never responded to the challenge; My brother TW has never stopped.  For the series of blog posts inspired by TW's gift boxes, enter "gifts" into the search thingy up above the blog title, in the left corner.

Guffaw.  Or just CLICK HERE.  I am so stupid this morning.

Another photo, a real snap shot, of someone mid-climb, somewhere in the Grand Canyon, TW's backyard playground.  I don't think it is him, though. But why would he send an unidentified picture of someone else? ["It's him," said Fred, "No doubt."  Well, okay then.]

A beautiful card -- he never, ever forgets Fred, though he insists on calling him "aitch," and we dare not correct him, Lord knows what all those years of brain-baking sun have done to the lad.  Anyway, he knows, as does anyone who knows me the least little bit, that Fred is, himself, an indescribable and under-appreciated gift.

Christmas is also Fred's birthday, making it a holy day, in deed.

Alfred Lansing's Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.  Honestly?  Fred will love it... and I appreciate that it is "a tale of survival."  [Yes, Fred did get the big eyes over it...]

More hand-beaded hippie-chic jewelry, necklaces, medallions:  Yay!  I love this stuff.  Talismans. No... amulets?  Handcrafted anything is lovely, the hint of southwestern indian art/artifact, also sweet.

Another woven placemat (this is fast becoming our first private joke), within which is a beautiful slice of stone -- geode -- of a beautiful translucent round brown.

Also: pearly.  Definitely pearly.

The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack, 5 CDs. Cool.

The Pogues: The Ultimate Collection.
A Grand Canyon patch.
Joni Mitchell:  hits.
Ensemble Alcatraz:  Danse Royale (songs and dances from the 13th century).
Tom Waits: nighthawks at the diner.

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

The Folger Consort: A Distant Mirror, Music of the Fourteenth Century and Shakespeare's Music.
Freddie King is a Blues Master.


E.E. Cummings:  Collected Poems 1922-1938 -- flipped open to the portentous poem on its page 225:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

The Original Soundtrack From the Movie Rockers.
The Seldom Scene: Old Train. Ah, I am precisely in the mood for this.


Seldom Scene on Tommy Hunter Show - "Wait a Minute"
Uploaded by BluegrassLibrary to YouTube on Jul 9, 2008

Wait a minute, did I hear you say
You're goin' far away again?
Try to change it, I can't take
The lonely nights without your love


Do you want the road
To get the music done and move along?
What good does it do
Play your songs for her and hear her say?


Wait a minute, did I hear you say
You're goin' far away again?
Try to change it, I can't take
The lonely nights without your love


Rollin' along and life's been
Good to you but even so
She comes to you, late at night's
The time you hear her say once again




Wait a minute, did I hear you say
You're goin' far away again?
Try to change it, I can't take
The lonely nights without your love


Waitin' for you thirty days
And nights without a rest
I got to hold on, twenty-five to go
And once again or I'll hear her say


Wait a minute, did I hear you say...

Itzhak Perlman: Saint-Saens, Sarasate, Chausson, Ravel
Janice Joplin with Big Brother and The Holding Co.: Live at Winterland '68.  Oh, wow.
The Chieftains: Celtic Wedding.  {unsightly fist-pumping}

"The concept for the album was to musically recreate a 14th century Breton wedding ceremony, and became the first in the musical voyages tracing the influences of Celtic music around the world."

One sealed packet of Lilly Miller Leaf Lettuce Seed, Prizehead.

One ceramic Trader Dicks' Easter Island Head-Thingy, closed with a rubber tub stopper, within which were wrapped:
one rubber magic lamp;
one Grand Canyon National Park 75th Anniversary pin;
more beaded hippy jewelry;
a crystal to hang at the embrasure;
a piece of crumbling sandstone upon which there may be the imprint of feathers -- no, fern fronds (much of which is now embedded in my keyboard, grrr.).

Here is the Christmas Brunch *salad* menu at Trader Dick's Restaurante Orozko, which I invite you to peruse while I get the vacuum. Just the salad part, mind you.  I'm hungry!

Jumbo Prawns Cocktail with Cognac Remoulade 

Seared Rare Ahi with Tobiko Aioli 

Smoked Salmon & Rainbow Trout 

with Condiments and Mini Bagels 

Antipasto Platter 

Marinated Mushroom & Artichoke Salad 

Imported & Domestic Cheese Board 

Nugget’s Caesar Salad 

Dungeness Crab and Fettuccine Salad 

Baby Spinach & Shiitake Salad 

with Warm Sesame Ginger Dressing 

Field Greens with Dressing Selection 

Tomato & Fresh Mozzarella with Balsamic Syrup 

Holiday Waldorf Salad 

Ambrosia Salad 

Crispy Duck Green Bean & Pasta Salad

Okay, all better!  My keys are now pristine and I swiped a burrito out of the fridge.

Next in the box of gifts:

Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver, A Novel (Volume One of the Baroque Cycle).  A Brother-Unit and his historical novels, never enough reality!
Oops, and here is Volume Two -- The Confusion.
Ah, and now I remember that there is a promise of Volume Three in TW's note.  That's good, as the frustration of ending a trilogy on its second part might be soul-crushing.

I'm thinking of starting the journey tonight, as I am struggling through a truly nasty novel at the moment.

Another snapshot, TW in front of a nuclear blast site sign.  He appears to be in the middle of nowhere.  Ummm, and as odd a remark as this is, coming from a sibling, he has gorgeously tanned legs.  This was the era of the short short.

One charred toothpick, perhaps a gift, perhaps not.

The Grateful Dead:  wake the dead.
Women of the World: Celtic II.  From the eighth cut, Pamela Morgan's It Ain't Funny:

His lullaby, the waves outside his window
His father and himself made a wonderful pair
Five hundred years of fishing in his family
Still the government wouldn't listen when he said
"trouble down there"
It ain't funny- it ain't funny no more


Fat cat smirking in the land of plenty
Making jokes about a people from a gentler time
Sanctioned and applauded the whole gang rape of the place
But like any rape they blame the victim for the crime
It ain't funny it ain't funny no more


Now the Newfs are becoming a strain on the Ottawa wallet
There's no need to be nice- what's left is up for sale
And the best small boatsmen in the world are on the dole
Stupid and lazy according to the Globe and Mail


It ain't funny
Nobody's laughing now
It ain't funny
Something has changed somehow
It ain't funny, it ain't funny no more

[From the Newfs in Ottawa Facebook Page:

Newfoundlanders live in houses not shacks.. we eat fish sometimes but are not all fishermen... hip rubbers are convienient but not a provincial fashion statement... we are smart.. we speak funny, loudly and do so with pride... we are friendly...we are free.. we are amazing .. and we are in Ottawa...still fighting the fight to FREE Newfoundland!]

Dylan's Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The Royal Albert Hall Concert.
Clannad: Banba.
Kate Wolf, An Evening in Austin.
Cumbia Cumbia: A Selection of Colombian Cumbia Recordings
Orchestra Baobab: Specialist in All Styles.

Orchestra Baobab is a Senegalese Afro-Cuban, Son, Wolof and Pachanga band. Organized in 1970, as a multi-ethnic, multi-national club band, Orchestre Baobab adapted the then current craze for Cuban Music (growing out of the Congolese Soukous style) in West Africa to Wolof Griot culture and the Mandinga musical traditions of the Casamance. One of the dominant African bands of the 1970s, they were overshadowed in the 1980s and broke up, only to reform in 2001 after interest in their recordings grew in Europe.

Ella Fitzgerald, These are the blues.
Sarah Vaughn, This is jazz/20.
The Girl From Ipanema, The Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook.
The Time-Life Treasury of the Blues.
Les Négresses Vertes, Mlah.
Patrick Bell, Celtic Harp.
The John Renbourn Group:  Live in America.
Pietro Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana.

One audiocassette recording from 6/22/82, of The Clash at San Francisco Civic Auditorium.

One bit of broken plastic, now further broken, and gone, mostly, after the arrival sur scène of Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten.  I hope we won't be rushing him to the vet... He looks distinctly proud of himself, with that "mine, all mine" look of puissant pussy cat.

Two snapshots, poor quality, excellent subjects.  A bird in the hand in front of what looks to be the sea wall at the end of the world, backed by a beautiful rainbow -- and some bushy-headed guy in an Ireland tee shirt.

Okay, so Fred pointed out that it is a bit unusual to have electric wires strung in the middle of the ocean.  Another familial holiday gift, the grandfather's glaucoma.  I am blind as a bat.  Apparently, that snapshot is of the brother-unit and his girl feeling one another up in the desert.

Ha!  My world, made of things seen wrong!  Thus far in this blind journey, the corrections have all been amusing, if not always instructive.

Good Yule, all, and thank you, TW.  I hear rumblings out in the common area.  It might be time for me to hold a flashlight and mumble words of encouragement, for I think we've sprung another leak.

Geocentric (Ptolemaic) model of the universe from BibliOdyssey: Celestial Mechanics

The image above is "cropped and cleaned up somewhat from a newly digitised hand-written manuscript, online at Harvard University's Houghton Library: [MS Typ 57] 'La Sphere du Monde..', 1549, by Oronce Fine."

Brother-Units: Pro or Con?

What a silly title!

I am peeved at both of my full-blooded Brother-Units, something that's rare and usually built up over time.  When I had but seven or eight years under my belt, they used to do things like begin a rousing game of Hide-and-Seek, and then leave -- one off to play baseball, the other perhaps to steal a car.  I was good for at least an hour of unrequited hiding -- probably longer, in truth, because I loved and trusted my big brothers.

My first memory?  The two of them on the floor with me -- I'm not sure where, what country -- and me with saggy diapers.  I remember the saggy diapers clearly, as they distressed me, and troubled my sense of fashion decorum.  They had a paper cup-- I remember a pattern in orange and white, I remember its coat of wax -- and were calling me, urging me on, telling me to sniff the cup's contents.  I loved and trusted my big brothers, and dutifully took a deep whiff of the ammonia, which left them rolling around, hooting, guffawing, and -- probably -- farting.  The memory ends with my present-day eyes stinging and watering, as much the result of that long ago prank as the deleterious effects of my glaucoma drops.

My next memory -- well, it's short and they're not in it.  I was in Turkey, seated on the curb in front of our apartment building, and I was engaged in eating gravel from the gutter.  I looked to my left and saw the departing end of a donkey.  I looked to my right and saw a large tortoise -- well, maybe it wasn't so large, as a quick bit of research tells me it was probably a spur-thighed tortoise (Testudo graeca ibera), which is not one of your bigger tortoises.  There were people, too, I am sure, but I don't remember them -- just the flavorful crunch of gravel recently flavored by a passing turtle and an ass.

Okay... fast-forwarding... still in Turkey.  We'd been left by a Mother lacking the least bit of  maternal instinct.  It was something like the third day that the three of us had been on our own.  She wasn't so lame as to have left us unsupervised -- No, we had Ali, a neighborhood teenager who was serving as our babysitter.  We were out of food and about out of sorts, so Ali had appealed to a neighbor woman, who very much enjoyed feeding us and then contacting our clueless Father, letting him know where our family sedan was parked, and had been parked for several days.  (There is nothing like learning that your wife is cheating on you with her gynecologist and has abandoned her three children when you return early from a trip in order to surprise her -- and your daughter -- on their birthday!)

So... before the memory of being under the dining room table crying at the sound of raised angry voices and shattering dinner plates, there was the memory of Playing Chicken -- Ali and I against my Brother-Units.  I was way-y-y tall on top of Ali's shoulders.  Brother-Unit Grader Boob was years away from achieving 6' 4" and Brother-Unit Tumbleweed has always been, well, short.

I suppose those were our last moments of innocence -- me, with my eyes closed, giving them hell by swishing my arms around in the fashion of a girly windmill; they, just boys, somehow trying to give it to Ali without doing serious damage to the blinded whirligig on his shoulders.  It was noisy, we knocked stuff over, it was fun. 

Gold damask bolsters with tassels.  (Is that possible?)

Stupid gossip of a neighbor. 

Somewhere in all that is the origin of my ambivalence about birthdays and mothers.  I was her "29th birthday present," mostly due to a hit of pitocin.  And then, bam! our collective birthday also commemorated the discovery of her wanton whoring (What do you think?  Too strong?  Just right?  I live for le mot juste.)...

Other Brother-Unit memories?  Grader Boob telling me my pet miniature turtle looked a little pale and needed to be put out into the hot summer sun.  That's right, baked turtle.  But it allowed for the fun of a hot summer funeral.  I am told that I kept digging that turtle up to see what was happening to him.

Then there were the Various Teachings.  Like How To Ride A Bicycle Without Training Wheels.  The boys had been requested by the Father Unit to please take my bike riding training in hand.  He gave them permission to remove my training wheels when it seemed I no longer needed them.  They didn't hear the end of that sentence, apparently.  He left on yet another trip -- but, wise man that he was, now left no wanton whore of a wife behind.  He was barely out of sight when off came the training wheels and I was plopped onto my bike, walked out to the pavement, and then -- knees pumping, knees pumping -- pushed to top speed... and released!  I'd never even accomplished the length of our driveway alone, never built up enough speed to have to apply brakes.  I'd never used the brakes!  This fact didn't dawn on anyone in sufficient time to stop my close encounter with, first, the big blue official mailbox, and, second, the light pole, the trusty anchors and landmarks at the end of our block.

Brakes?  We don't need no stinking brakes...

It's apocryphal, and probably revisionary, too, but word is that I also lost a tooth in that training run -- and that the Brother-Units got to play Tooth Fairy after bandaging me up.

In other injurious episodes -- one of them threw a dart into my upper arm.  I caused the accident by coming around the end of a fence while they were having target practice.

Just as I caused the Louisville Slugger, a nice bit of ash, to connect with the back of my head as Grader Boob took a healthy psych-out warm-up swing.  I had a neurologist who thought that particular loss of consciousness might have been a factor in my subsequent development of epilepsy, but we've not shared that tidbit with GB -- who was mortified at the time and would be more than mortified now. 

A shame, because if ever there was ammunition for emotional blackmail, getting knocked out by your brother's macho swing of a baseball bat... and then developing a freaking disease -- well!  But no, we don't do that.  Our reticence probably can be traced to the shenanigans of our Mother, the Wanton Whore.

I have a great deal more stories about Grader Boob than about Tumbleweed, of course, because Tumbleweed departed our family for healthier social units, and for girls and marijuana, too, I suppose.  He was a frequent and determined runaway who didn't, of course, really want to run away. 

I've told that story before and don't feel like telling it again. 

I started this blog entry with the intent of digging these boys out of the holes they've dug themselves -- for they've reverted to the Bad Old Ways, it seems, of keeping quiet when they should be talking, of bottling up that which is corrosive and without value.  They're not talking to me.  Not as in... I did something and they're mad and therefore we don't speak.  No.  More like, communicating makes me nervous, makes me vulnerable (sorry -- vulnerable is about as bad as artisinal), so I'll just go to ground...

I started this blog entry with the additional intent of scoping out birthday present options for Tumbleweed's upcoming Big Day on April 20.  If you think that's kind of silly, it's just a birthday, just a stupid present, and so on, well, then, you need to read the first post in a series on "gifts."  It's cleverly called The Gift and dates from December 19, 2009.

Yeah, somehow Tumbleweed is at the heart of so much.  Not his doing and certainly, clearly, not his preference.  He's lived, I think -- and my information is minimal and minimalist -- a good life and is a good man.  It's been pure self-deception for me to have spent so much time in my less well-lived life convincing myself that Tumbleweed was a survivor. (Survivor is about as bad as artisinal and vulnerable.)  Tumbleweed, my friends, is and always was... just fine.

Arriving at "fine" is not a bad result for me here at the end of a Friday blogging segment -- but it's probably one more hell of a blur for you, Faithful Reader.  So I dug up Tumbleweed's first substantial entry into the lectionary here at elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle.  It was called Split Infinitives and was published January 25, 2009:

Yesterday was my mother's birthday, and mine. Once upon a time, I was her 29th birthday present, even if I was induced and hastened with pitocin. She has great stories about my birth and my brother Grader Boob's arrival -- but I've never heard a peep about my eldest brother's début, the child she so adored. He no longer uses his given names. He asks to be known as TW, for Tumbleweed.

I will have to find the cover to Dylan's Nashville Skyline, because there is a moment, truly frozen in time, when he adopted that same stance, guitar slung over his shoulder, hat tipped back, gunny sack at his feet. He stood next to a basketball goal we had at the end of our driveway and was looking out toward me and Grader Boob -- we were playing softball in the back yard.

I just happened to turn and look. I was too young and stupid to understand what I saw. But I did *see* him. He was old, so young, and sad, so sad. He had traveled cross country in one of his attempts to find our mother, to draw her to him in his need. He would go to her parents' home, hoping she would come back to the States for him. But she was busy with Litter Number Two and her new husband -- a lovely man that I wish TW had met. Necip would have been very kind to him, would have given him the world. Necip died a few years ago. He was a wonderful person. He would have wrapped TW in love and safety, as he tried to do for me. As he *did* for me!

The forever mystery is: What happened to all of her adoration? There are missing passages to the story that it seems I will never know. When I reunited with her, she was shocked to learn that TW was not with us, that he had been gone for many years. She broke at the news. It seemed to deepen her love for him -- he was all she could think about, all she would speak of. Yet, when I found out he was alive through a moment of indiscretion on the part of my half-sister, it was made clear to me that she wanted nothing to do with him. What happened?

You are probably rolling your eyes and thinking "Why not just ask?" I don't know the answer to that; I don't know why I cannot just ask.

As Nancy, the aunt, noted a few weeks back, what in the world does TW, the Elder, have to apologize for? His mother left him, his father never searched for him when he ran away from home -- in fact, his father took the family and left the country! He told me and Grader Boob that TW would be joining us in three months. Three months came, three months went.

I will never forget the confrontation -- Grader Boob, in the midst of the growth spurt that would eventually make him 6'4", in front of the Father, who sneeringly attested that he had no idea where TW was -- and the fist, rising, rising. It's imprinted in my brain, burned into the grey matter, dancing along neural pathways.

I cannot escape my own guilt. I searched for him -- for years -- but did not find him. Yet, when I was told where he was, he wasn't hiding. I don't understand why my efforts failed. I *did* make contact with someone who knew him -- my first semester of grad school at UC-B -- but it never went further than this person who responded to one of my ads. If TW was hiding, he hid out in the open.

[That was a long and nervous week, that week of fielding this woman's phone calls in response to one of my newspaper ads. She definitely knew him, said he was in Oregon "overseeing some property," and that she would have him call me in the next few days. I canceled all my classes, skipped my own seminars, took the phone off the hook whenever I had to run to the bathroom. I prayed and prayed, I was so sure that this was it -- that I had found him.]

TW had me tell Grader Boob that he was so sorry, that he wished things had turned out differently, that if ever he wanted to talk, he would be there, ready. Hear the echo of Nancy's rage -- what does he have to apologize for? We all owe him a debt that is impossible to quantify, a debt that should be recognized and paid down, crime by crime. I owe him. And if Grader Boob would get his head out of his ass, he would see that TW did what he had to do, and extend him the graciousness and understanding he deserves. Again, I just don't understand. Grader Boob is the sweetest person in the world -- but hard as a rock in these instances. Why? [I *have* asked! The answer is a terse "he could have found us anytime." Maybe, maybe not -- and might he not also have been somewhat deterred by past experiences with the family unit?]

TW was homeless and eating out of garbage cans when he was 15 years old. He sent a love letter to his mother, far away then, in Ankara, saying "come to me and I will make you beautiful with mine eyes." (Okay, so he was well read.) He lived in the drug culture, was shot, fathered a child with a porn actress, a child that he really doesn't know (but I heard his pride through the telephone line), living with her mother now in Bangkok. Somewhere in there, he found himself, fell in love with the Grand Canyon, knew it intimately, and became an expedition guide. "In order to feed the cats," he works as a bookie. When we found each other, late in 2007, he had broken his shoulder after falling on an icy sidewalk, and lost (or quit, I am not sure which) his job in Vegas. He painted houses in Lake Tahoe over the summer, and recently was part of a start up betting operation... but has been "replaced." He hints that he is ill but will not tell me anything specific. He is extraordinarily kind, dedicated to what he believes is right, and funny as hell. We were talking about the health history of the people to whom we are related, because his daughter had some questions about the prevalence of breast cancer and diabetes, and I asked him, "How are your eyes?" -- because our grandfather went blind from glaucoma, which I also have. Without missing a beat, TW answered: "My eyes? Small, dark, and suspiciously beady."

My brother Grader Boob was born in a London cab. TW, age 4, was in the back seat with her and when they arrived at the hospital, he attempted to commandeer the taxi, refusing to let anyone out until the new addition was adequately explained. "He was not here when we got in the car..." is how his spotless logic worked.

But nary a word about TW's birth. "I know he was born, because -- after all these years of studied neglect -- he is still here" is how my spotless logic goes.

Somehow the accretions of the past year or so made celebrating my birthday impossible. No, that is not true. Not impossible. More like obscene. I was in a great deal of pain, to the point where making it to the bathroom and washing up was almost too much. It hurt so bad that I couldn't find sleep until 4 am this morning, and then was up again at 6 am -- but happier, because my birth day had passed. My shoulder feels close to exploding, but I forced myself to clean the house -- a clean start to this new age of mine. I needed to do something nice for The Fredster, who was so understanding of my depression yesterday.

The mother had her daughter email me, belatedly, with the familiar message that she would get "something in the mail to me tomorrow." I so wanted to respond "don't bother."

But I want her to bother. I want her to very much bother.

I want to split her infinitives.

photo credit

Fiat lux

There is for sure a Christmas post in it.  Or maybe, more rightly, a Solstice... reflection.

Fred and I were discussing the lunar eclipse coming tonight, and tomorrow's Winter Solstice, a holy night.  I was in bed, wrapped in quilts, because I'm cold. 

Don't laugh, because the doings of CRPS are mysterious, but ever since sustaining a fairly deep puncture wound to my right big toe yesterday, I have been unable to get warm!  I cannot figure it out and even with fleece on, and a hoody, under two quilts topped by a thick blanket?  I am chilled to the bone.  The ultimate proof is that I upped the thermostat two degrees -- something that I am loathe to do under most any circumstances because that's a bill that always bites...

So we are talking dark, and light, and cold, and night, and I am shivering.

"Ring-a-ling-a-ling" from the delivery door -- the one just *under* the drawbridge, hardly noticeable to most visitors but a real boon to UPS and mail carriers, as it cuts their time spent dealing with Manor deliveries way down.  It's actually a smallish dutch-doored entryway into a former winesap cellar that has been converted into a mailroom that Captain Haddock insists be fully staffed (even on weekends and holidays). I guess that privilege has its reasons, or vice-versa, and no obligation to explain itself to me, but I have recently decided to divert the staff dedicated to sitting in receipt of the odd package or two, and installed a chime to notify us of arrivals.  This has freed up an extra pair of hands for use in wassail-making, fire-tending, nog-spiking, and so on.

But it also means that Fred has to set off at a fast-paced jog in answer to any broadcasted ring-a-ling-ling or risk incurring the wrath of various men and women in uniform, all in an incredible rush at this time of year.

We get very little personal mail and even fewer unexpected boxes.

So it was kind of neat to see Fred so laden down, to tell the truth!  He unceremoniously dumped the surprising armful on the bed -- ignoring the red and white FRAGILE labels.

Three huge, overstuffed manilla envelopes, two medium-sized boxes, all with return addresses like Davidson Lighting, Crystal Clear Images, Lucca...

I was perplexed, not able to match up these names and addresses, wanting to master them even in this season where the sudden and unexpected are most likely to be joys.  Fred watched my frustration with a growing version of his own and wordlessly handed me a pair of scissors, urging me to get on with it.  He hasn't had his coffee yet. 

Do you remember The Boxes that my brother TW and I agreed to send each other?  He sent me several and you can read about them here, and also here.  Oh, and here as well!  It all began a year ago:

A few weeks back, thinking it would be a way to save money and be a marvelous gift, I asked my two brother-units for used copies of the two books that had been the most formative to the person they each have become.

Grader Boob declined.

Tumbleweed, a stranger to me, took on the task with more compassion, generosity, and insight than I could ever deserve.  Three such Gifts he sent me, each box laden with small things imbued with larger meaning from his life.  Three occasions of grace.

This year, I changed the rules... I reverted.  I failed to grow.  I went backward.  Down with The Crud and using it as an excuse, I sent him a gift card.  I knew he would be disappointed in me, despite my honoring his atheism with a card celebrating the more natural, the more believable, the equally magical solstice.  I almost hoped he would forget about me this year.

Instead, he's put the light back in my eyes.

Prisms.  He sent me prisms, and prisms, and more prisms.  Small ones, medium, large ones.  Simple ones and endlessly facetted ones.  Seventeen of them.  (Seventeen as of now, anyway!)

The last time a total lunar eclipse fell on the winter solstice was in 1638 but there has never been a brother so in tune with a sister's dark nights, so confident in the power of the simple and the true.  It makes me happy to know, and I do know it, that my obsidian hours do not trouble his heart.

I am continually humbled by TW, a wonderful thing.  I have several deals ongoing with the Lord  of the Universe, all pertaining to humility.  In general, I am to be richly rewarded once I achieve Total Humility (and yes, I do find myself laughable!).  Who knew that all I needed was the return of this long lost boy and the complete submergence of my confidence that he was the one who needed finding?

TW, I love you.

fiat lux

Image from crystalinks: Pairs of Crystal Prisms of Consciousness Create Harmonic Grids

Sandwiched in Cottonwood: Box 3

cottonwood tree, american idyll, by ruuscal

This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed... 'That art Thou!' say the Upanishads, and the Vedantists add: 'Not a part, not a mode of that, but identically Th at, that Absolute Spirit of the World.'
--William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

During the night, I came *this* close to killing myself. Don't worry, the flirtation is over. The only reason to grant any status whatsoever to last night's peril is that it was not born of collapse, nor was it a yielding or concession. There was no surrender; There was no giving up. I felt no worse before than I did after.

So why even bring it up?

Because I came away with the realization that I want to cease my dedication to the cultivation and maintenance of the "barriers between [myself] and the Absolute."

Don't worry. That doesn't mean an end to my dedication to verbal foolishness. [Witness the proof before you.]

A box from TW arrived yesterday, out of the blue. If you have been keeping count of these troves from my once-lost, now-found older brother, this is the third such gift.

This is the first gift box, however, to arrive without the contextual benefit of an occasion. The first box came in the guise of a Christmas present, even though he does not celebrate Christmas, himself. The second box was a boisterous January birthday celebration.

It was only after the second gift box that I reciprocated, sending him one in April in honor of his own trip around the sun. The experience of choosing what to pack, and what incantations to chant over the gathered mess, turned out to be an occasion of great angst and small personal growth.

"What is the big deal?" you may be thinking. "So you baked a dozen chocolate chip cookies and tossed in some cup-o'noodle soups, and voilà, an instant care package..."

Actually, that sort of care package is also dear to my heart -- but that is not the type of boxes my brother and I are exchanging.

In the beginning, the beginning being November 2009, it went like this: A few weeks back, thinking it would be a way to save money and be a marvelous gift, I asked my two brother-units for used copies of the two books that had been the most formative to the person they each have become.

Yes, I thought up that Grand Idea and was very proud of myself. Then, Brother-Unit Grader Boob declined by sending a loud and poignant gift certificate, with which I promptly purchased a Wii system with appropriate accompanying loot. Oh well, it was just a thought, I thought.

My pride morphed into sincere doubt and a sense of familiar foolishness. Until, that is, the arrival of Brother-Unit Tumbleweed's first box. It took my breath away, made me weep, and I remain, to this day, a gasping woman drenched in tears.

It's not a simple matter of grabbing a few items you think you might love or like, and packaging them as clear explanations of the person you want everyone to think you are.

Even though it wasn't stated in the rules, the urge to explain the inclusion of an item must be carefully stifled. For instance, in my box to him there was a weaving made by a women's collective in Nicaragua. I could not tell Tumbleweed of its history, about how it formed the basis of a short story that traced the narrative of its hieroglyphic threads. There's no way to divulge, either, how much I hate its color scheme or how I miss the friendship of the woman who gifted it to me.

It tells the story of a farmer defending his corn against crows.

That I am having a hard time is such tired and tiresome news. In some ways, I am managing my sucky health in a healthier fashion, especially in how it impacts the people I love. By keeping their welfare foremost in mind, I am able to speak, in real life, almost none of the pain, discomfort, and hardship with which I live. But this death of pretension has not significantly changed my experience. Not yet, at least. I intend to keep trying.

What scares me is my matter-of-factness.

It makes strange, true things come out of my mouth. I was telling Fred, for instance, of a recent email from a dear friend, an email that was brimming over with affection.

Matter of factly, I turned from the sapling we were admiring to say, "It came at an excellent time, for I have been feeling particularly unloved."

Particularly. Passive aggression. I am angry with myself for claiming it, here, as a matter of fact. But, it is said, done.

Still, it can be shocking, the words that remain in the wake of hyperbole and pity. Thank goodness for the wealth of humor at hand, for ballast's sake -- and to complement my complete grasp of, and dedication to, the truth.

Thank goodness I have such a brother as Tumbleweed.

The third gift box, sent on the occasion of no-occasion, contained:

1. Everyone's favorite: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson. (Almost as important, to me, are the illustrations by Ralph Steadman.) That was surely a creepy time. I remember being forced into a baby blue Cadillac, driving from Miami to creepy Homestead A.F.B., where I was forced from the baby blue Cadillac onto the runway tarmac to await Air Force One and a limp-wristed, sweaty-palmed, newly-reelected Richard Milhouse Nixon. Pat was with him, but she was quickly subsumed under the dry-like-stale-baby-powder category. I remember thinking that she could barely support one hyphen, much less four, in the search for complex adjectives.

ralph steadman, i shot the sherrif

That's not true. Of course, it also was not a true Tar Macadam runway, those now being exceedingly rare. The ramp/apron area of airports are made of concrete.

I'll reread the book, I guess, and those old names of McGovern, Humphrey, Muskie, Hart, Kennedy. Even though I wrote "everyone's favorite," up above, Hunter S. Thompson isn't really one of mine. A drug-addled smartass, author of Gonzo journalism, a favorite of mine? Sure, it may sound like a match made in heaven, but I cannot rid myself of the fatigue reading him generates (and I don't need help in the fatigue department, thankyouverymuch).

I love the way Thompson went out, though. No, not the bullet to the brain, no -- I mean the ashes shot out of the cannon. I am pretty sure, though, that the creative energy and money necessary to produce a send off of equal quality will be lacking, once I am a stiff. I mean, Johnny Depp is reputed to have bankrolled the affair for Hunter... I've no attendant rich friends gifted in funerial highjinks.

2. passions of a man: Charles Mingus, the complete atlantic recordings 1956-1961. Part of Rhino Records jazz reissue series. I am excited! Another man of... temperament! [I begin to suspect a trend, as I reflect on the totality of TW's boxes. A trend, if he is cognizant. A tell, if he is not. Always remember, and never forget, he supports himself, his friends, and his menagerie with monies from his work in the betting industry.]

I've always appreciated Mingus' firm stance against the romanticization of Charlie Parker and his penchant for self-destruction which figured prominently among the cultivated traits of his pretendants -- If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats, was the entire working title to Gunslinging Bird. It's been described as a blistering "jazz waltz."

I so love form and organization. Together with raucous insanity? It's Eden as it was meant to be, with The Asp held over.

4th track from Mingus "Mingus Dynasty" album. Recorded in New York on November 1 and 13, 1959. Charles Mingus (bass); Booker Ervin, John Handy, Benny Golson (saxophones); Jerome Richardson (saxophone, flute); Donald Ellis, Dick Williams (trumpets); James Knepper (trombone); Maurice Brown, Seymour Barab (cello); Theodore Cohen (vibraphone); Roland Hanna (piano); Dannie Richmond (drums).

--from rogerjazzfan

I am somewhat ashamed at my excitement, as I don't react with such exuberance over all of the music my big brother gifts to me. I am no Deadhead, f]r instance, though I have amassed Big Knowledge around their songs, and seek to understand TW's place in the culture.

[Please note that Gunslinging Bird does not figure among the Atlantic recordings.]

3. Coltrane: The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings

4. Handel, Water Musick, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan

5. Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Lest I be accused of recently being bereft of satire, or parody, even:

"A little nightmare music" is a opera in "one irrevocable act" by the eponymous P.D.Q. Bach in which the man behind the alias, Peter Schickele, effectively plunders (or to quote a more politically correct term, "readopts") Mozart's music, most obviously "A little night music", to retell "a dream P.D.Q. Bach had December 4, 1791-- the night that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died and Antonio Salieri didn't."

The narrative is very simple (considering the opera, composed of four musical numbers, runs no more than twenty minutes): Salieri (bass), a successful composer, comments on the beauty of Mozart's music (violin; marked as a "unsuccessful composer") and prophets him world renown; he is quickly brought down to reality by Peter Schläfer (tenor), a mysterious writer, who quickly claims that it is actually Mozart who is the better composer; this point and a quarrel that develops from it makes Salieri so mad that he ponders poisoning the writer but a good kick from P.D.Q. (silent part) leads to the death of Mozart, as Schlafer laments the loss of his best coat. The witty libretto in combination with the varied music of Mozart makes for quite an enjoyable recording (which also presents two of the most hilarious orchestral pieces that one could hope to hear).

Presented here is the setting of the second movement of Mozart's concerto, the Romanza, which in this version becomes a delightful cavatina for the tenor (giving the orchestral piece a logical vocal twist). The basic sonata structure and the delightful music of the Austrian composer are preserved and given a perfectly whimsical text by P.D.Q., as the writer comments on how it is obvious, to him at least, that it is Mozart, and not Salieri, who will be the more famous composer.

A young Bruce Ford sings this adaptation, and, despite the obvious comical element of the whole piece, his handsome delivery of the music is an added bonus.

-- courtesy of LindoroRossini

6. Gregorian Chant:Gregorianischer Choral
Choralschola der wiener Hofburgkapelle, Vienne
Pater Hubert Dopf, S.J.

7. Mozart, The Flute Quartets. Jean-Pierre Rampal, Flute. Isaac Stern, Violin. Salvatore Accardo, Viola/Alto. Mstislav Rostropovich, Cello.

8. Anonymous 4 -- A Lammas Ladymass: 13th and 14th Century English Chant and Polyphony "...a Ladymass for the summer portion of the church year, as it might have been sung around the feast of Mary's Assumption in August."


Bodleian Library, fragment of agnus dei for three voices
Amazon's music sampler

The vocal group Anonymous 4 formed in 1986, originally comprising Johanna Maria Rose, Susan Hellauer, Ruth Cunningham and Marsha Genensky. So named in honor of the designation given by musicologists to the unknown 13th-century Parisian student whose writings detailed the vocal polyphony he heard at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the ensemble's performances also explored medieval chanting and polyphony, combined with elements of poetry and narrative; debuting in 1992 with An English Ladymass, the Anonymous 4 immediately topped Billboard's classical music charts, a feat repeated by their 1993 follow-up On Yoolis Night. Subsequent efforts include 1995's The Lily and the Lamb and Miracles of Sant'iago, 1996's A Star in the East and 1997's 11,000 Virgins. After completing A Lammas Ladymass, Cunningham left the group in 1998 and was replaced by Jaqueline Horner. Legends of St Nicholas followed a year later.

-- Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

I dare to believe that my brother comes to know me, although my preference is for gruff and tired men, and less perfection. I like the creak of real wood, the sound of something dropped, a cough in the background.

This was immediately added to the bedtime playlist. Thank you, TW.

Uh-oh. In what might be some sort of Perverted Pyramid Ponzi Ploy of a Stockholm Syndrome Plan... I fell prey to lax thinking and forgot what informs the choices for the box. The point is not to please me, the point is to share what has been formative.

Now *that* boggles the mind.

9. Audio tapes: Doc Watson, Vanguard Years I & II; John Renbourn Traveller's Prayer; Grateful Dead, Winterland, SF 3/18/77 * 10/22/78; Grateful Dead, Springfield, Mass 6/30/74.

10. A wrinkled, tattered, and slightly smelly red Grand Canyon National Park bandana, within which are nestled one beaded necklace, a small quartz rock formation, one sea shell, one piece of sandstone, two miniature rubber dinosaurs, and seven rocks.

11. A beautifully stitched, tightly woven, colorful undersea scene -- a placemat? It feels like something I am supposed to know, to recognize, but I do not. It also smells.

12. Bawdy Verse: A Pleasant Collection (The Penguin Poets series) edited by E. J. Burford.

The volume falls open, of its own accord, to page 145:

Have Y'Any Crackt Maidenheads? (c. 1672)
[A broadside ballad]

Have y'any crackt Maidenheads to new leach or mend?
Have y'any old Maidenheads to sell or to change?
Bring 'em to me; with a little pretty gin
I'll clout 'em, I'll mend 'em, I'll knock 'em in a pin
Shall make 'em as good Maids agen,
As ever they have been.

NOTE: From even before the time of James I there had been Quacks who specialized in renewing maidenheads. Midwives were particularly esteemed for this service. The main chemical used was alum, or othere astringents designed to tauten up the vaginal walls to give the impression of virginity. In many cases, however, serious damage was caused and the enraged pimps frequently assaulted the Quacks, who usually fled to the Netherlands or France whence they had come. Dutch Quacks were attacked in the famous petition of the Whores to the Prentices in 1668 after the Shrove Tuesday riots which so upset Charles II and "vex'd my Lady Castlemaine."

13. The River That Flows Uphill:A Journey from the Big Bang
to the Big Brain by William H. Calvin

You can read it along with me, here! Hmm, a good many of the links are now defective, though the text itself shows up fine.

This Sierra Club Book of 1987 is Calvin's "river diary of a two-week whitewater trip through the bottom of the Grand Canyon, discussing everything from the Big Bang to the Big Brain." Calvin is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, most recently with the University of Washington School of Medicine.

14. Secrets of the Great Pyramid by Peter Tompkins, with an appendix by Livio Catullo Stecchini [Recounts the fascinating discoveries made by explorers, adventurers, and scientists about the Great Pyramid of Cheops, including the stunning recent assertions that the ancient structure was used as a geometric tool to measure the outside world.]

15. Rodale's Successful Organic Gardening: Vegetables

16. Three issues of National Geographic: May 1955, May 1969, July 1978 -- All featuring wonderful articles on the Grand Canyon.

17. Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon (abridged), by François Leydet

18. The Hidden Canyon: A River Journey, by John Blausten, including A Journal by Edward Abbey and an introduction by Martin Litton

*** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * ***

I am not sure exactly why, except that I like them, of course, but this post opens and closes with photos taken/snatched/borrowed from TW's blog, American Idyll. Ah, but these were taken, not by Tumbleweed, but by ruuscal, who now shares authorship of that wonderland. TW recently explained in an email replete with references to dirt, manure, and zucchini:

the canyon blog will soon have new shots from exotic locales as some chums are stomping about all last week and the next upcoming. i am rather bluesy at not being able to tag along due to grinding slave obligations, no cat-sitter, and all the tiresome inconveniences of a cumbersome, improbable dead end life. yet, one takes a sliver of solace from having shown them the way and having set up a forum where big views of wilderness are always welcome when they return. but day-yum, i would loved to have joined the expedition. sigh.

More venture forth to walk, and witness, because of him -- than he will ever know.




Twilight songbird, in the Deer Creek Canyon cottonwoods
american idyll, by ruuscal

For TW on the Occasion of His Birthday

Thanks, Fresca, for encouraging me to pursue giving to TW in the rich spirit of his own recent gifts.

I put it all in action, anyway, by asking my Brother-Units last year to consider packing boxes of Important Stuff From Their Lives in lieu of shrink-wrapped, brand-spanking new orders from Amazon.

Send only used items, I said. Send things that have mattered to you, at different times, over the years, I urged.

Grader Boob, ever difficult, sent me a $300 gift certificate to Amazon.com -- 'nuff said.

TW took me at my word and sent me a box of music, books, videos, prayer flags -- I held my breath, I am still holding my breath.

I understood the enormity of the gift, and my appreciation knows no bounds (He sent me another box for my birthday in January.).

But I did not understand the risk; I did not understand the fear. (TW subsequently joked that he was sure he would never hear from me again.)

Both need to be transcended, of course, for the gift to be given. Hell, for the gift to make it to the car for the trip to the Post Office, one has to be at a kind of peace.

I know this because the contents of my box for TW -- he shares Hitler's birthday, the one piece of trivia I always remembered about my lost older brother -- how he lamented that coincidence! I know this because the contents of my box for TW lie before me on a faded patchwork quilt. I cannot find a box big enough to hide everything in, so it is all there, mocking me.

But I am at a kind of peace.

I have resisted the urge to enclose a "blank sheet of paper... by way of explanation."

Do you remember that line? From Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters? I always felt (pretty much like every Perpetually Misunderstood Perpetual Adolescent when left alone with Salinger) that my brothers and I were Franny, Zooey, Buddy, and Seymour, that we were capable of every fey bit of wit, and might have authored each slight, or unwieldy, whimsy.

That line figures among the choice few to which my mind clings with relative accuracy. Funny, but while there's nothing of Holden Caulfield in my memory, there are a dozen or so references from the Glass Family series, and Nine Stories. (Haven't you chuckled to yourself, then hummed, just before crowing to your love, busy pulling a tee shirt over his wet-haired, curly head: "It's a fine day for banana fish, darling!"? Of course, if you were as sharp as you like to think you are, you would have chirped "This is a perfect day for bananafish." But who would say such a thing?)

An old man, compact, tiny, an old deaf-mute man, affixed with a cigar and mute eloquence, this old man gloms onto Buddy as he dashes around town the day of Seymour's wedding. It's hot to the point of melting good will, notes are being left in lipstick on mirrors, ice is melting in gin, lightly clinking, and the Matron of Honor brays like a donkey, she is that mad. The old and tiny deaf-mute, impeccable in his wedding duds -- Muriel's uncle, if it matters -- nods and smiles at whatever he imagines is going on, and, clearly, the goings-on have morphed into something downright congenial and civilized for the dear man.

It's a lot to load on the shoulders of a fictive game piece (He's always figured in my head as one of the Monopoly game piece do-dads -- but now that I have seen them, I see that he is not all there, not at all.

He is adequately depicted by the Top Hat, I suppose. Or is that a Bowler?

No, it's always been: dog, top hat, wheel barrow, race car, boot, iron, ship, and thimble. Not Lincoln's stern stovepipe, but not a squat close-fitting bowler either.


Well, obviously, I have the whole thing confused in my extra-leaky sieve-of-a-noodle -- confused, maybe, with the Monopoly Man?



It's hard, dealing with resounding meanings, seeking to rely on memory, cultural memories and personal ones, too. It's confusing. [A remembered image of GW Bush springs up, unbidden, unwanted, and there he is, shaking his large head and cartoon face above some podium, somewhere, lamenting "It's hard work..." over and over and over again.



Anyway, I've resisted the urge to explain to Tumbleweed the rationale driving the choice of items in his birthday box. How to say that seven times, already, in the course of my years, I have gotten rid of what mattered the most to me, materially. A few times, it was after heartbreak. A few more times, the culling harvest came on the heels of deep depression (once this involved a good Beaujolais and burning things in a crackling fire). A couple of instances simply reflected the need for money, and so my treasures were sold off, piece by piece. Several years ago, I realized that Fred had hoarding tendencies. I always knew this, I guess, but it reached a crisis point when my pain and disability began to dictate some real physical limitations. I was his defense against chaos -- not just my harpy's tongue, but my inbred need for cleanliness and order. I had always at least set the boundaries for his mess -- his office, his workroom, and so on.


But one day, his books were piled on my shelves. His collection of fine backscratchers were piled on top of my sundries, things much more genteel, Gregorian Chant and seashells.



Somewhere along the way, through the many moves, the incessant cleaning and sorting, stuff had lost its importance. I was filled with an urgency, a growing need to get rid of things. And so, I did. The difference between this latter instance and the times before? I did not reacquire. After I sent my favorite novel to the thrift store, along with a fine assemblage of American fiction, I did not reorder it six months later, desperate to reread what had once been so important.



Believe it or not, I did not finger meaningfully each besotten Memory Charm. I didn't sit with it, second-guessing, sighing. I remember tearing up one of two pictures I had of my paternal grandfather, disposing of several chapters from my thesis, preparing some fine Irish linens for donation -- all without a hint of a muscle twitch in my face.



It was, simply, time. I had enough, more than enough, and my gathering of things no longer represented me.



In other words, I was sure that there was nothing here for me to send to Tumbleweed, nothing that meant anything to me, nothing that met the requirements I had set last year for The Gifting. Any music I might choose was already music he would have, for I was instructed in things musical by our brother Grader Boob, who had been schooled, early on and most lastingly, by TW, himself.


Besides, he had given me the gift of his DeadHead days -- I had not tramped around the country making recordings, living large. No, I had it easy. And maybe I am a bit of what TW most derides -- maybe I am of the bourgeoisie, maybe I am a bit "pop" instead of "cool." His bookcases are full of resplendent nonfiction works of revolutionary ideology. I have all the Harry Potter, and I like Maeve Benchy.



He photographs, religiously, the Grand Canyon. I snap pictures of pink azaleas.



Yes, I almost defeated myself before beginning. He's my big brother and I want him to think well of me.



So I took the me out of it, in order to represent me, truly. I began to play a question game and let the answers commandeer the choices. Then I employed some common sense and returned those items beyond the pale of personal to their proper places in my home. TW does not have the right to everything meaningful, particularly when -- without that "blank sheet of paper... by way of explanation" -- the defining context for the thing is left out, left aside, or best left unsaid.





Beyond the pale. Yes, that's it, richly.



From Gary Martin's website, The Phrasefinder, the origins of beyond the pale:

Meaning: Unacceptable; outside agreed standards of decency.

Origin: Firstly, let's get get clear what word we are talking about here. It's pale, and certainly not pail, - the phrase has nothing to do with buckets. The everyday use of the word pale is as the adjective meaning whitish and light in colour (and used to that effect by Procol Harum and countless paint adverts). This pale is the noun meaning 'a stake or pointed piece of wood'. It is virtually obsolete now except in this phrase, but is still in use in the associated words paling (as in paling fence) and impale (as in Dracula movies).

The paling fence is significant as the term pale became to mean the area enclosed by such a fence and later just the figurative meaning of 'the area that is enclosed and safe'. So, to be 'beyond the pale' was to be outside the area accepted as 'home'.

Catherine the Great created a 'Pale of Settlement' in Russia in 1791. This was a western border region of the country in which Jews were allowed to live. The motivation behind this was to restrict trade between Jews and native Russians. Some Jews were allowed to live, as a concession, beyond the pale.

Pales were enforced in various other European countries for similar political reasons, notably in Ireland (the Pale of Dublin) and France (the Pale of Calais, which was formed as early as 1360).

The phrase itself comes later than that. The first printed reference comes from 1657 in John Harington's lyric poem The History of Polindor and Flostella.

In that work, the character Ortheris withdraws with his beloved to a country lodge for 'quiet, calm and ease', but later venture further - 'Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale to planted Myrtle-walk'. Such recklessness rarely meets with a good end in 17th century verse and before long they are attacked by armed men with 'many a dire killing thrust'. The message is clearly, 'if there is a pale, you should stay inside it', which conveys exactly the meaning of the phrase as it is used today.

(Besides, I have to save some things for Future Boxes.)

This is what I am sending TW:

A hand-loomed weaving from Nicaragua, the details of which tell the story of a farmer, a scarecrow, haystacks, and the crows, themselves. I wrote a short story based on this weaving. Maybe next box, I'll send the story along, to complete the gesture. It was a mystery, a real who-done-it, and took place in Texas. The background color is a deep purple. Somehow, the bright primary colors on top of that manage to be pretty instead of garish.

A Mercedes Sosa CD, just because of Gracias A La Vida:



A CD/DVD combo of Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris: Real Live RoadRunning. Okay, so this is not important to me... but it's something from Grader Boob to me, and I would like TW to have it. The same goes for the Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection. Yes, I re-gifted.

A cassette of people (Gabriel Byrne, Minnie Driver, Colm Meaney...) reading The Poetry of William Butler Yeats.

The Definitive Collection: Nina Simone. 1959-74.

Neil Young: Live at Massey Hall, 1971.

A documentary on Townes Van Zandt -- Be here to love me. (I don't think I've ever before mentioned my total, total, total love of Townes Van Zandt on this blog before. I kind of liked the guy.)

Old Friends Live On Stage: Simon and Garfunkel. From the Old Friends tour -- "Their first and quite possibly last Second Coming for the Twenty-First Century..."
I very much appreciate how Simon chose to explain the thorny relationship between himself and Garfunkel -- "I don't think of Art Garfunkel as my friend. I think of him as family."

One worn copy of Thomas Savage's The Power of the Dog, with an afterword by Annie Proulx. The inside front cover, unfortunately, bears my scribbles about various mutual funds that I apparently was considering as investments. Trust me, if any of them were great picks, I'd pass them on.

T. H. White's The Book of Merlyn. A talisman, that book. Improbably, it is the book I have discarded and then replaced maintes fois. My folksy bible? I dunno. But I actually remember the very moment I first read the passage about Arthur's final meeting with Mordred, when he had almost brokered, hammered, hobbled together, and achieved -- a bit of truce, a peace -- when one of Mordred's officers saw a snake in the grass -- real, not proverbial -- and drew his "bright sword" to slay it:

The waiting armies, taking it for treachery, raised their shout of rage. The lances on both sides bowed to rest. And, as King Arthur ran towards his own array, an old man with white hair trying to stem the endless tide, holding out the knuckled hands in a gesture of pressing them back, struggling to the last against the flood of Might which had burst out all his life at a new place whenever he had dammed it, so the tumult rose, the war-yell sounded, and the meeting waters closed above his head.

Lancelot arrived too late.

Vasari's Lives of the Artists. I am having a hard time letting it go... but it will go.

The Thurber Carnival -- I am having a hard time letting it go, too, but only because it is a superb help when I am sick. It will go, too, but I am not sure that is the height of wisdom.

Despite TW's deep and abiding atheism, Thomas Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander -- because this is about what has been meaningful and important to me, and something must represent the considerable amount of time I have spent forcing myself on various fine monks at various fine monasteries -- my ideal vacation for many years! Odd that the dozen or so passages I marked up (at least I used a pencil) now leave me cold. But Merton stole my heart when I discovered he also read Oppen. [There is no need to send TW any copies of Oppen's poetry, as that is something I did within weeks of first finding him two years ago. If you are dear to me? You will, in short order, possess two books: George Oppen's Selected Poems and Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. The latter is pure self-indulgence but I have tired of pretending to care. I like it, that's all. If you are especially beloved, there is much more to the Reading List, but also a greater likelihood that I will make you listen to Important Book Passages during Extended Late Night Readings. It's part of my secret plan to keep that group very, very small.]

A slim volume, also something I have discarded and repurchased a few times, but out of need and not want: A Tomb for Anatole by Stéphane Mallarmé, with daring translations by Paul Auster. [Uh-oh! In looking up that link to Amazon, I happened to see that there is a new version out, For Anatole's Tomb, Patrick McGuinness (Translator). I do not DARE scratch that itch in the face of my declarations about divestment, above!] I have little love for Mallarmé, in general, but abiding love of this project of his, to which I have returned each time the death of a child has joltingly brought the world to an end.

Except for a small clay figurine of a bonsai master, a malleable brooch in the shape and color of an autumn leaf, and a sample of my astounding collection of islamic prayer beads (I use them as Worry Beads), there remains only one more item for TW's box, this go-round:

The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh Volumes I-III bound by the New York Graphic Society. These are my most prized of tomes, and I am happy to be sending them to my big brother, for I know that he will read and treasure them, in his turn. ["This collection requires, and rewards, a devoted reader."] These are the entire texts of every extant letter Vincent wrote to his brother Theo, with beautifully reproduced facsimiles interspersed throughout. Bought from an English professor at the University of Virginia who auctioned them on eBay, I opened his heavy box to find he had enclosed what amounts to a formal Letter of Introduction:

I am so pleased that these books have found an appreciative home.
I know that I enjoyed them and I am sure you will. I trust that you and
Vincent will have many enjoyable hours together.

If I can manage to find it, I plan to include a picture of Sleepy John Estes' hands. It is beautiful, a gift from many years back. It was an image from a CD liner that a photographer friend enlarged for Fred, who then had it framed for me. My best recollection is that I broke the frame, Fred was gonna repair it... and at that point, Sleepy John's hands are lost.

Maybe I will take on the search in time for Christmas. Someone should have those beautiful, bowed hands to look at.