Tuesday, June 18, 2013

ALL IT NEEDS IS A LITTLE ADJUSTMENT






More rain – pling, pling, pling. The bison roamed through camp early this morning. I had to wait on one to vacate my campsite after taking the dog for his morning walk. The little dog would have barked and jumped up and down on his leash. The bull would have turned and snorted. The contest would have been brief. Bison have a musky smell. Big mammals are returning. Mountain sheep and elk have been re-introduced. Moose have returned on their own. I encountered two prairie rattlesnake yesterday and a bull snake today. The bull snakes eat the rattlesnakes. Prairie rattlesnakes never get very big.

What happens when the plains begin is that all of a sudden there are not trees. ‘No trees!’  People started wearing big hats not simply because the brims were shady and wouldn’t catch on the branches, but to help break up the landscape – Edward Hoagland – Hoagland on Nature, 2003 p98

“Writing a book?” They always ask. I am trying to become a writer, yes, but I don’t see that that means a book. “What have you published?” They’re hoping that they’ve heard of me. That I might be a celebrity.  I’m not.  They’re disappointed. Would it hurt anyone, if you claimed to be some moderately obscure writer. You shouldn’t claim to be Hemingway or Fitzgerald. They might know that they’d dead, although with my beard I do look a little like Hemingway. A poet would be a safe bet. Not many know anything about Hart Crane. Yes I wrote a well known poem called The Bridge. Ever heard of it? But then they might Wiki him (and yes he’s dead too) and then they will be doubly disappointed: one (and most importantly) that you weren’t someone famous and two that you lied to them. Oh well, stick to someone contemporary and obscure. But then you wouldn’t be famous and they wouldn’t recognize your name and they wouldn’t get a thrill. Always trying to please ‘em, aren’t we? But they do feel better if you’re published and not just some bum (it’s one or the other). Nothing is worthwhile for which you don’t get paid, even if it ain’t much. Anyway,  it does make it easier for them to walk up and start talking to you. “What you doing?”. Now you wouldn’t say that to someone just sitting there minding they’re own business. Although you might, if you mistook them for someone famous walk up and say, “By any chance are you Ben Kingsley?” I’ve had that happen. A man is talking with a young woman in yellow shorts. He is talking about investments. He had been talking about medical diagnostics earlier. Now they (actually its just him who is talking) are onto the old standby, sports. It could be worse. It could be the weather.

And it takes three kicks
At the horse chestnut
            To get it to move

Meanwhile a flock of white pigeons
Have wheeled around the lamppost
            Three times
Turning counterclockwise in the
            Darkening sky

Prairie chicken could be caught by hand when they got drunk on fermented chinaberries; so could the geese when their wings froze together when the rain blew cold – Edward Hoagland – Hoagland on Nature, 2003 p103

“Oh, you went to Penn State,” she asks him. It is the lady in yellow shorts. Her name is Jenny and she is from Philly. He had been in earlier and had spotted her then. He had left to watch the Carnival parade. Now that he was back he immediately zeroed in on her. They are discussing summer festivals. They both live around here. They discuss their regular pub, about the pool tables, about the good people there and about the wine bar around the corner. It turns out that they share a common hang out, just that they hadn’t ever ran into each other there. What a coincidence! I am about to head home to watch the Simpsons. She says that the times go by fast because it is the seasons that define time. And there are no seasons here. And she asked if she could borrow my pen which I lent to her. And she wrote down his number. Ah baby, I’m on the edge of distraction. All I want is your disease. An older women walks by. I think I know her. She is meeting a friend. “We change the world by making more commodities available,” she argues but not in those exact words. Her friend says, “No you need to change your paradigm. It is not getting more. It is not what you hear, but what you think that is important.” For her the world is bi-polar – truth or ignorance; choice or non-choice; democratic or republican. “No, no, no”, he tells her “It’s the rules of war – you don’t show your own dead – it’s not a lack of exposure! It’s the rules of the system.” “No,” she insists, “It’s either control or lack of control.” I think I’m missing something. Oh, well that’s what you get when you ease drop. That is Alphonso behind the bar. To Alphonso, everyone is “my friend.” ”How are you, my friend?” “Good afternoon, my friend.” “How are you doing today, Alphonso?” “Great my friend. Have a seat my friend.”

Vandals understand affordness in their environment. Flat porous smooth surfaces are for writing on. Glass shatters giving an emotional kick. Knobs are for turning. Children understand this instinctively. Adults have had to unlearn this in order to become good consumers. That is what schools are for. The unteachers will unlearn ya’ in de school.

When you mix the Left and the Right you don’t get the  “Middle of the Road” but the individual

We assume that every time we do anything we know what the consequences will be, i.e., more or less what we intend them to be. This is not only not always correct, it is wildly, crazily, stupidly cross-eyed-blithering-insectly wrong - Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Philo Vance’s Hot Day

What?
            Simple, what!
He glanced at the clock
            What?
Y’know old bean, the
            Situation has been
            Most provokin’
Y’know I’ve some
            Most int’restin’
Ideas and he stood up
            And yawned
It’s a beastly hot day, but
            It must be done –eh,
            What?

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary – H L Mencken

In tragedy the hero loses due to his weaknesses; in a comedy he wins by overcoming his weaknesses

When simple things need pictures, labels, or instructions, the design has failed – Donald Norman – The Design of Everyday Things, 1988 p9

A puffy Navajo sky
Men descending
            Calmly under
            Black umbrellas
                        With machine pistols
It was both un-Flemish
            And it was un-Popish
A singularity
            One time, one
            Place, one man
                        And a canal

We encounter about 30,000 discernible objects in everyday life

Borrowing is only a good option when it is largely unnecessary – Mark Thornton – Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War, 2004 p67

Freedom is having a choice about who will be obeyed

FM From Rosebud

On the Reservation
It’s Saturday night
            Go bowlin’
Drink a few beers
Don’t get too hostile
            Stay alive
Call suicide prevention
            Pack the pews
The morning after
Drive cross country
            Tallgrass
Pow-wow in Montana
            It’s a living
Barely getting by
            Imaginary grace
Big Medicine

About 2 billion pounds of chicken litter (manure, feathers, spilled feed and bedding materials) are fed to cattle in the US each year. Among other things spilled feed contains meat and bone meal from dead cattle. I spite the fact that feeding cows other dead cows can lead to  ‘mad cow disease’ and assurances to the contrary it’s still being done. All official claims, assertions and testimonials come with small print that negate their factuality.

Aw, tight assed woman
On the blue wheeled bicycle
Hair streaming
High flying legs
Sun freckeled nose
Passing me by

When adjusting the air-conditioner, do you turn in ‘up’ or ‘down’ to make it cooler? Towards you is on. Away from you is off. Up is on. Down is off. As is clockwise and counterclockwise. Or it may mean hotter or colder,  or louder or softer for that matter. Or turn it right or left, except for a sailboat or when backing up ( and why not ‘down’?) a trailer. In is on. Out is off. But dials are apparently relics. Once everything had push-buttons. I hate machines that I have to talk to. A President with Tourette’s might accidentally blow up the world. Touch was a necessity for mechanical contraptions. You had a feel for how they worked. Now they want to know what you want, so goddamn arrogant. I hate machines, no I mean I hate devices. One knob, one meter, one bite of knowledge. Just keep it out of the red.

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