… this article by Lucie Elven caught my attention… the basic premise is that most writers of fiction, and any writer of facts that deal with self (hello memoirists), are writing about what they experience/d in family… families don’t often like this so it’s a risk to do it…

… the problem is that if one is to write well and meaningfully, one needs to write out of their own experience…

… i often talk about family and friends in these notes on attention paid… a little more liberally now that one family member has passed away… i shield everyone behind their first initial and use gender neutral pronouns to refer to them so gender is not apparent… of course, anyone who reads these musings regularly will come to know that father, mother, brother, sister, wife and friends are all mentioned…

… i try not to write unflatteringly about anyone unless it is important to my understanding and processing what is going on in my life… even so, it happens… fortunately, nobody i am related to reads this blog so it all flies under the radar… in fact, nobody in general reads this blog, so it really flies under the radar… i am happy to keep it that way… i don’t need to be read, unless you are really interested, then, if you know me, be prepared for the occasional unflattering mention born of my frustration in dealing with you… most likely we will get beyond whatever it is, just remember that… and remember, only you, or someone close to us both will know who you are…

… about two op-eds by Republicans or former Republicans… all sensible Republicans should vote Democrat until the existential crisis is over… Bill Maher aired a monologue¹ in which he says bluntly, 45 will run and will be nominated by the Republican Party in 2024 which will lead to a constitutional crisis of epic proportions… it’s worth finding and watching… we, apparently, faced a similar threat leading up to the civil war… something happening here, what it is is pretty clear… to paraphrase a CSNY song…

… i went to bed typing out a few words about 45, who is all over the news… the alarm bells are ringing louder and louder… we have a problem… it’s been clear for a while that we have a problem… that 45 is a growing and festering threat to democracy in the country… i am not clear that democrats will be able to rise to the occasion… they don’t seem to be doing so right now…

… my final words effort is struggling… as i sit here i think that when i retire to bed, i should sit at my desktop computer and spend five, ten, fifteen minutes composing my thoughts… will keep trying…

… my hope (against hope) is that radical conservative republicans are so overreaching at the present moment, that 45 is such a significant threat, there will be a tidal wave against them at the polls and it will put them down for good… it would help to have some voting rights legislation…

… photography salon tonight… i need to put together some photos to share… i have them, just haven’t finished editing and cataloging and not sure what i want to share…

… no alcohol last night… and it wasn’t hard… will repeat tonight, but then there is tomorrow when there will be friends and dinner and wine and laughter and, quite likely, drinking too much… unless… unless i map out a strategy and stick to it…

… i slept in until 5 AM… i have been doing that more lately…

… crickets still chirping, windows still open– winter still coming

… the thing about existential threats… they have to be met…

… perfume and the perfume industry catches my attention this morning… it is one of the first few articles i come across in my Feedbin aggregator… part of my effort to leave Google behind…

… Mr. Malle is being rendered as the renegade from within the industry… one wonders if there can ever be a renegade from within an industrial complex… i suspect it has more to do with building an image…

… there is conversation about the difficulties of international distribution, countries with different objections to different ingredients… how does one make something satisfying in and of itself but legal in all the potential markets?…

… Synthetic Jungle, a new fragrance, is described this way:

A vibrant green juice brimming with leafy basil and the off-kilter metallic green tang of styrallyl acetate, its freshness is imperceptibly undercut by white flowers – “that horse shit type of smell” – via hyacinth and lily of the valley accords, Egyptian jasmine oil and ylang ylang, a synthetic blackcurrant brings a touch of kitsch, while resinous galbanum and smoky patchouli oil earth the scent, rooting it to the skin. All at once “stylized, hyper-real and fantastical”, as the accompanying mini brochure reads, it is also a wry middle-finger to traditional conceptions of perfumery. Malle is by all accounts an iconoclast.¹

… i look up iconoclast… i know the word but not the meaning… an attacker of cherished beliefs and institutions; a destroyer of religious artifacts… i wonder if 45 fits the definition of an iconoclast… in some regards, though something even more pernicious there…

… i learn that Halston Z14, Original Denim, L’air du Temps and Light Blue are all important perfumes in the history of perfumes…

… i reminisce about a period of time when i experimented with scents… when i was married to M…

… i reminisce about P, a friend of ours… troubled person… traumatized, somewhat agoraphobic… they told us they worked for a long time in the French perfume industry… very creative person, very sad person… they died a number of years ago… we think they took their own life, but there was never official confirmation of that…

… a discussion of the impact of corporate consolidation of the perfume industry and selling to mass markets…

Even (the aromatic, woody perfume) French Lover has a lot of naturals in it, although I never say it because I don’t want to comfort people and make them think that natural is best. It’s one of the biggest fake news stories in our industry and it sort of feeds into this new paganism where nature is best and we have to save nature, hence everything that was man-made is to be trashed.²

… by the end, i realize the whole piece is an advert for Synthetic Jungle, Malle’s newest fragrance…

… DJ hospitalized with mysterious illness, not confirmed to be HIV, but he and we suspect that it is, though i think he hopes it is something exotic he picked up in Poland… exotic and treatable… fevers, sweats, no appetite… i am reminded years ago of Fleet… of working in an office where we were asked if it would be a concern if there were a co-worker with AIDS… i said no… what i knew of the disease at that point was that it was transmitted through sexual intercourse or blood transfusion, otherwise, not easy to catch…

… DJ’s descriptions of hospital life are deadpan and sometimes funny… he writes more than when not in the hospital… possibly because he has lots of time on his hands when symptoms are not washing through him… he describes himself as having the classic symptoms of HIV…

… i get to the place where the doctors say it isn’t HIV related… but nobody knows what it is… of course, i know how the story ends… he dies of HIV related causes eventually… his was in the early rounds of dealing with the virus, before they developed treatments that managed it… people live long and normal lives while carrying it now… there is not, to my knowledge, a cure, just management…

… not smoke, fire…

… about the debt ceiling fight, 45’s control of the Republican Party, the efforts of a hyper-radicalized minority to seize control of the country…

… we are heading towards a full bore constitutional crisis that will play out in the next two election cycles… 2022 will give us a good idea of where the country stands…

… Democrats have the power to reign it in, if they become willing to alter, limit or abolish the filibuster… so far they have not been willing to do that, but the debt ceiling will present itself as a continued battle in December that may require it… will Senators Sinema and Manchin get on board?… or will they go down in history as the two senators that could have stopped authoritarian rule but didn’t?…

… the country has been to this kind of precipice before… the last time a civil war broke out…

… it seems we come to the precipice periodically and manage to preserve democracy, albeit at great cost… will it be preserved now?… hard to know…

… an awkward moment yesterday on Zoom with M, J and R… discussion of tree planting for D… J talks about sending M money to help with expenses… we are all expected to… R says nothing, i say nothing… i am ambivalent about it… it’s more for M than D, i know… but i don’t have the money right now and memorializing D is not at the top of my list of priorities… complex and uncomfortable feelings…

… a solid day of work yesterday… writing, photowalk, farmer’s market, cooking… made a very nice dinner… whole red snapper baked in salt, oven roasted potatoes, salad of radicchio, arugula and leek with a mustard vinaigrette dressing… also made pumpkin soup for later in the week…

… could not resist the urge to have alcohol… it was in the house, i had it… opened a bottle of hard cider telling H that such a fabulous meal should not be without alcohol… that is, of course, ridiculous, it can be without alcohol, i just don’t want it to be…

… i sometimes wonder if one can think of themselves as alcoholic if their issue is not that they drink all day, but that they can’t let the sun go down without having a drink and tend to drink a little too much when they do… is this functional alcoholism?… what if i went to an AA meeting to help me stop it?… would i be laughed at?… the truth, i am pretty sure, is that i am not an alcoholic, i just drink a little more than is good for me and find it very hard to resist having alcohol in the evening… i write about it here in the hopes of making it a conscious choice by recognizing it and trying to understand my motivations… in this way i hope to begin saying not tonight…

… H barely did anything to help acknowledge our anniversary beyond a loving post on FB… to be fair, it’s in keeping with her family’s Calvinist approach to birthdays and anniversaries, which is not to do much… it’s a little disappointing for me… i am not Calvinist… the celebration, such as it was, was what i planned… we did go see the koi… H seemed to agree we should make it an annual thing… maybe twice a year… i will go visit on my birthday too… something about rituals with spiritual content for me…

… Fiona is supposed to have neutering surgery this week… i think… except, the vet has not reminded us of that and i did not get it onto the calendar… i need to call to verify… hoping they did not drop the ball as they did before…

… an afternoon of cooking… roasting sugar pie pumpkins for soup… roasting pumpkin seeds… for dinner i will make salt baked red snapper, fondant potatoes and a bitter greens salad… all with fresh ingredients procured in the last couple of days…

… toasted peppercorns, coriander seed, fennel seed, crushed in mortar and pestle, the most amazing smell… for the fish cavity… as the fish steams in the salt crust the toasted spices are infused in the flesh… the flavor is subtle and amazing… i made oven baked fries flavored with Old Bay in lieu of the fondant potatoes as it took less time and attention… dinner was terrific but i prefer the salt crust of the recipe i usually use… will combine the spicing of this recipe with the salt crust of the other next time…

All ten episodes – and still i don’t know your name.

… a micro poem i wrote this morning as i was walking and thinking about Maid, the Netflix limited series… we watched the last episode last night…

… the female protagonist character, center of every episode… i couldn’t remember her name…

… hmmm…

… i had thoughts that i might do the walk-of-sorrows loop this morning but i can feel the planter fasciitis in my left foot getting irritated so i restrict the walk to a Main Street loop… snapping photos of shop windows as i go:

… i also identified common mugwort:

… folk traditions associate it with strength, cleansing, visions, protection and healing… it is also known as sailor’s tobacco because they would smoke it when tobacco supplies ran out on long voyages… this is all according to the Plant Snap app…

… plant snap also helps me identify blue wood aster:

… now that i know what asters are i see them everwhere… this aster is symbolic of love… i pick a sprig to bring home to H… in this way my relationship to her and nature deepens in spiritual content…

… there is a photo exhibition going on in the Beacon storefronts… _Beacon During Covid _… i recognize so many of the subjects and wonder why we were never asked… my ego sprouting… it is fleeting…

… i started to read MN which quickly reminded me that i have mountains of herbs in the garden that i need to harvest and dry… sage, thyme, mint, tarragon… i look up drying methods which are pretty straight forward though avoiding dust seems to be the biggest problem for me… the recommendation is to encase them in paper bags with holes punched in the bags to allow air circulation… i wonder if there are bags made for herb drying… and it turns out there are hanging mesh drying racks… the mesh doesn’t look fine enough to keep out dust, but perhaps that can be dealt with using paper towels over the top of the herbs?… will slow down the drying time but otherwise ok?…

… slept till 5:15 AM… that is sleeping in for me… only two beers last night… beer seems to be the way to go for alcohol in the house… don’t usually over consume beer… feel pretty good this AM…

… we finished Maid last night which had a pretty satisfying ending… our heroine overcame all her trials and wound up in a writers program in Montana with sole custody of her daughter… cue the credits and tears of relief at the end… H talks about the abuse so many women have to endure… my immediate thought was that H never had to endure abuse but i have… not to the point of needing to seek shelter, but decades of emotional abuse from D… men can be abused too… i eventually got to a place where i knew it wasn’t me, but D, and could put it at arm’s length most of the time… D has passed away and my world is better without their presence in it…

… the anniversary celebration fizzled a little last evening… H tired… she hasn’t been sleeping well…

… i bought some cooking pumpkin yesterday and am planning on making roast pumpkin soup… today maybe…

… Fiona has spay surgery this week… it’s hard to think of her being cut into and parts removed, but it is better for her health in the long run if she will never have puppies… there can be complications in female dogs with unused reproductive capability… S had that happen with his dog Charlotte…

… my plans for the day are to do some work in the garden, sort out the wrong car rack crossbars (they turned out to be too short)… take the beach rose jam over to S and S… maybe see PB’s show at Hudson Beach Glass… family zoom meeting…

… i do some internet searching on the roof rack system and am beginning to realize that we may have gone down the wrong path altogether in an effort to keep the basket we already have useable… it’s a path that works, but not the most straight forward one… in any case, all that is needed is longer cross bars and then the system should work…

… a pleasant 22nd anniversary day… breakfast at Cafe Mutton in Hudson, farm stand shopping, koi pond and seeing a friend in Red Hook, home with the goodies…

… we decided to order in pizza for dinner and watch some Netflix…

… the end of Maid… she escapes… we knew she would…

… this is a weak end of day offering but i am determined to keep doing them… they will get better… or they won’t… i am just trying to be present…

I’m a professor of American history. This is a chronicle of today’s political landscape, but because you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, and laws, and the economy, and social customs, this newsletter explores what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American.¹

… a friend wrote on FB that his day gets off to a good or bad start depending on what Heather Cox Richardson has to say… the above is from her about page… you can subscribe to her six, sometimes seven days a week posts here… she says, in her one paragraph personal statement, that she believes in Democracy “despite its frequent failures”²… at the present time, this makes her liberal… in fact, i would argue that believing in democracy is becoming a radical act… would be authoritarian rulers are gaming the democratic system at home in an effort to overturn it, all the while claiming they are protecting the “American way of life”… authoritarian regimes around the planet are betting that it isn’t facile enough to keep up with the rapid pace of technological and social change…

… following my FB friend’s lead, reading HCR has become a daily habit… i started including daily HCR meter statements with some commentary a while back… i have decide to separate them out into their own daily post…

… this morning HCR discusses the noose that is trying to close around 45 and high level figures in his administration… is accountability coming?… i don’t know… i would like to think so, but the inability of congress to impeach 45 and the failure of the Muller report to lead to any repercussions for 45 and his cronies has made me skeptical that our systems of accountability is up to the challenge of wealthy and well connected individuals… at this point i see the main purpose of our justice system as keeping the “little people” in line while the rich and powerful do whatever they want… this is not a particularly new observation, it’s just that it has only recently become apparent to me… my blindness results from my white middle class maleness… i want to be proven wrong… i hope i am proven wrong…

Modern Nature, Derek Jarman

… the first thing i read:

Jubilee was a great success: ‘It was a tragedy that socialism and freedom were incompatible’ drew cheers and the ’50 million copies of Paranoia Paradise sold in Moscow’ had the cinema in the aisles.¹

… i look up Paranoia Paradise and discover it is a song first released by Wayne (now Jayne) County… and was part of the soundtrack of Jubilee…

… it is so interesting to slowly make your way through a book, diving deeper (made easy by the fab internet)… i begin to realize that a world of context can be invoked by the simplest of references… i suppose i should not be surprised by this, having just finished reading a lot of haiku and having several books of haiku lined up in my reading list… it is interesting that Wayne became Jayne… it fits the story being told by the book…

… as i finish February 1990, DJ has returned to his London flat from the Polish film festival and the editing of Garden is coming to conclusion…

First Thoughts

… in the end we all fail… we fail because we all die and staying alive has been the point all along…

… last night i found myself wishing i had the energy to write an end of day journal entry… it seems days should begin and end with some thoughts about how things are, how things went and how i hope they might go tomorrow… or perhaps some commentary on the political shit show… or perhaps i will have read or accomplished something significant…

… which i did in the sense that whenever you keep life in order something significant has happened…

… yesterday i got up, wrote in my journal, read and wrote in my journal some more, went for my photowalk, made breakfast, sorted out some bill paying issues, edited some photographs, did the laundry, did some more photo editing, made a lovely and very tasty dinner… then we watched a couple of episodes of Maid, a Netflix series we like… except, i get really frustrated with the young woman protagonist who’s life continuously falls apart as soon as it’s put together… she makes bad choices (as much as i know free will is a questionable proposition, it seems i continue to believe there are choices to be consciously made)… almost everyone in her life is a disaster and their disasters constantly overtake her too… last night i had to turn it off i got so angry with her… when i like a program series i get emotionally invested in the characters… i especially get invested in characters struggling against the odds, the underdog characters — i know, me and the rest of humanity — who triumph in spite of all the beatings they take from the cosmos because, never-the-less, they persist and something does come of it…

… i suppose human mythology contains plenty of warnings that in life we don’t prevail… Job or Sisyphus, or just plain every man or woman as represented by Willie Loman in death of a salesman and Blanche DuBois in streetcar named desire…

… this hero’s journey thing is pretty engrained in our psyches… i expect it has a survival of the species purpose… we all need to see ourselves as heroes prevailing against the cosmic headwinds of life… except, so many of us get to the end and we are disappointed with the results of our efforts… we ask ourselves what it all meant and the answer to that question is not satisfying… i wonder if it is any more satisfying for an individual who can say their lives truly made a difference to humanity, Einstein, Jonas Salk, Newton, Simone De Beauvoir… maybe not… in the end we all fail… we fail because we all die and staying alive has been the point all along…

… when i review my life i realize i have generally had it good… i have never been destitute… i didn’t and don’t live in a war torn or third world country (yet)… i have made choices that didn’t go well, but always struggled with the results and turned them out as well as i could which was generally in a positive direction…

… at this place in my life my only big complaint is that it should have meant more in the grand scheme of things… my minor complaint is that i was saddled with a very inadequate human being for a father… the repercussions of that were extensive though M and siblings put the better face on it… M observed to me recently that we were “such polar opposites”… we were… how’s that for bad Karma?… to be saddled with a child who’s every choice in life seems to be a repudiation of the way you lived yours?… i suppose it’s something of an accomplishment to get to a place where i accepted there would never be a decent relationship between us, and there never was…

… the HCR meter today was in positive territory i suppose… the debt ceiling got raised, the stock market rebounded, there continue to be revelations about January 06, 2021 and 45’s administration… i would like to believe there will be accountability in the end, but 45’s impeachment trials put an end to my belief in our republic’s ability to enforce consequences on the rich and/or powerful… the system is rigged in their favor and exists principally to keep the common folk in order…

Modern Nature, Derek Jarman

… we seem to be in the throws of the memoir writing decades… the memoir format is much more literary, much more composed… memoirists conjure up memories of things that happened long ago, which allows them to create a well rendered and, most of the time, more flattering, if quasi-fictional, account of their past… moreover, it seems to me that everyone has decided they live in interesting times and should tell the world about it…

… as i open the book to read, the sound of garbage trucks in the DMV parking lot which reminds me the garbage needs to be put out… back in the studio, i am re-reading a section which mentions the journals of Denton Welch which describes his writing as “crystalline”… i have looked him up on Wikipedia where he is described as “an English writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions”… i purchase a previously owned copy of his Journals… Maurice Cranston’s description of Welch is quoted in Wikipedia:

He had no trust. This in turn connects with his greatest limitation as an artist. He built too many barricades and enclosed the range of his understanding. If he could have seen the wider human comedy with his miraculously penetrating eye, and described the world as he described his own, he would surely have been among the greater writers in our language. As it is he will survive as a minor genius, one of very few from an uncreative age.¹

… DJ wishes he could write in as crystalline a way as Welch…

… names dropped, Annie Lennox, Keith Herring… the later reported as dead, the former ringing up to discuss whether to do an AID’s charity gig…

… a trip to Poland for a film festival featuring his films… the descriptions of a country in which everything is state owned… mercantile competition doesn’t seem to exist…

… then this brief paragraph:

Meetings like this, with an exchange of ideas, have quite disappeared in London. Music there is so loud no-one can hear a conversation any longer.²

… this causes me to pause, quote, it occurs to me that loud music in social settings was/is a plot to keep young people from exchanging any meaningful ideas… in this way they can’t coordinate their misery into rebellion and the capitalist machine can profit off of them… i wonder how much in our world has been constructed to keep the young from coming together and rebelling… just keep them dancing, drunk, drugged and by the time they come out the other end they have lost their will to fight…

… i am finding it interesting to read a journal, which is written as one goes… i expect it has been tidied up for publication, but the Derek Jarman i perceive in the pages would not have been one to do that much tidying… mostly editing aimed at making it more readable… by contrast, in my time, people don’t publish journals… we seem to be in the throws of the memoir writing decades… the memoir format is much more literary, much more composed… memoirists conjure up memories of things that happened long ago, which allows them to create a well rendered and, most of the time, more flattering, if quasi-fictional, account of their past… moreover, it seems to me that everyone has decided they live in interesting times and should tell the world about it… i have this thought that i shouldn’t be too critical here, as i am writing and posting things that are of little interest to anyone but me, and are hardly consequential… i am just another human making their way in the world, wishing i was consequential, writing and publishing like they i am consequential, when, in fact, i know i am not… but it’s wrong to put it that way… i am not broadly consequential… i have been consequential to a small circle of lives…

First Thoughts

we should make what we make and let the cosmos decide what will come of it…

… i have began to reorganize my photography web presence… i pointed studiombk.com away from my current Wordpress site and back to my old Adobe Portfolio site… the reason i had moved to a Wordpress site was to be able to keep a live journal (called “Daybook”) in an easier way… then i started using Ulysses as a writing tool, which led me to micro.blog which quickly became my journaling outlet, now called Notes On Attention Paid… once that was done, i went to set up Plausible Analytics with it and discovered a rub… i couldn’t track activity on the Adobe Portfolio site without using Google Analytics, which has become part of the evil big tech empire in my opinion… moreover, the use of Google Analytics required a banner saying so with a button that forced a visitor to opt in to being tracked… i found a lot of people wouldn’t do that and the bounce rate on the site was higher because of it… i will fly with no tracking… it caused me irritation when there wasn’t much traffic (there never has been to any of the various sites i have maintained over the years)… it also had a tendency to influence content, if they liked that i will do more of that… this is not what art production should be grounded in… we should make what we make and let the cosmos decide what will come of it…

… HCR meter, a step back from the precipice, for the time being anyway… Mitch McConnel will allow the Dems to raise the debt ceiling until December… which will clear the way for them to pass the infrastructure bills they have been hammering out… good news, i suppose, though i had been hoping the situation would get so dire they would do away with the filibuster… the time is long gone when a minority party should be able to stop legislation that is popular but which some don’t like… i am willing to fly with no filibuster for anything… if we use the freedom to pass some voting rights legislation, democracy will be in control for a long time…

… yesterday felt a little more disjointed in the things accomplished… still, a steady list of things to be done is being worked through and i feel good about it… i only wish that H did more to help… they spend much of the day communicating with friends and acquaintances on FB and Instagram, with the news playing in the background… i move on with the variety of things i want to see done… maybe someday they will realize they need to help…

… been feeling a vague malaise… not lacking in energy, just not feeling physically happy… not sure what its about… possibly connected to alcohol consumption… the only day in the past month i have felt great was the day after a day i had no alcohol… i caved last night and bought a bottle of blended scotch and had a couple before dinner… kombucha with dinner… i didn’t overdo it, but still feel physically unhappy today…

Patti Smith & Jefferson Hack

Michelangelo’s David, Florence, Photography by Patti Smith

… characters of the late fifties, sixties and seventies cropping up with regularity… i suppose Modern Nature, by Derek Jarman is part of the reason… DJ mentioned Robert Mapplethorpe in my readings of a few days ago… Patti Smith on another magazine ties into that thread, Mapplethorpe and Smith were good buds back in the day… i look the article over because it contains Smith’s photography… i have a book of her photographs… my general reaction is that they are good photographs, but they don’t take my breath away… this article opens with Never Still, a poem being published for the first time by Smith…

… it seems appropriate to the milieu in which my readings and discoveries are unfolding… Derek Jarman would have connected to the physique of David i suspect… who doesn’t, but most of us don’t in a queer way, he would have… perhaps stating the obvious here, but i am thinking about the statue and it’s frank sexuality… do i recall that Michelangelo is thought (known?) to have been gay?… i do an internet search and the answer seems to be maybe… would it be possible to make such a sculpture without being in love with the subject?… it reminds me of MK, designer, artist, mentor… when he died it was discovered that he had a bunch of crocheted penises hidden away in his apartment…

Myriam Gendron

… Canadian songwriter… review of Ma délire — Songs of love, lost & found… gets an 8.0 on Pitchfork…

_ The ambitious new album from the Canadian songwriter features thoughtful and transformative interpretations of traditional music. It is both a meditation on the past and a novel step forward._¹

… as i read the review i note that this recording features Chris Corsanon on drums, whom i have heard live when Quinn’s Monday night jazz was up and running… the reviewer invokes Daniel Johnston…

_ According to Gendron, what unites the crossbred pieces across this 15-track, 76-minute album are the eternal themes of love and longing. But just as important is Gendron’s own voice, a distinct, clear tool that works on multiple levels. With patient deliberation and gut-level resonance, she often sounds like she’s simultaneously intoning a children’s song and painting a portrait of complex emotion. Some singers approach similar territory—think of how David Berman talked and sang at the same time, how Daniel Johnston treated serious subjects with childlike wonder, or how Haley Fohr uses low tones to vibrate her music—but Gendron’s mesmerizing intonation has no exact parallels. Her voice is often both frank and enigmatic, grounded and limitless._²

… so, it becomes a must listen… i crank it up on Spotify…

First Thoughts

… woke at 5 AM… that is sleeping late for me… busy day yesterday… lots got done… another busy day today…

… made beach rose hip jam yesterday… actually more of a marmalade…

… my first successful BR jam… tried last year but managed to burn the sugar…

… HCR meter, country approaching the precipice… Mitch McConnel has lost control of his caucus?… are there those who would really see the country crash and burn because they could rebuild it as an oligarchy or with authoritarian control?… i believe the conditions are being set for Manchin and Synema to blow away the filibuster… if this happens, a floodgate of legislation that should drown radical Republicans and wash them out to the sea… one can only hope… in the meantime, our retirement life hangs in the balance…

… i had the thought this morning, its actually been hanging out in the recesses of my consciousness for a while, that 45 will return as a Hitleresque leader and Tucker Carlson will be his henchman, the one who sets up the concentration camps… this might seem outlandish, but i see a host of characters on the far right that would readily fill the roles of Nazi German government… Steve Bannon would be head of the SS… it doesn’t take me to any kind of happy place to be having these thoughts…

… sirens in the distance… many sirens… police, fire trucks, i am wondering what is going on… if it’s big, i will find out later…

Walking

… not the first name that would come to my mind when opening an ice cream and waffle shop… perhaps there’s an interesting story behind it…

… probably safer than it looks but i would be very nervous charging my car in these conditions…

… haven’t seen an eagle perching on this post before… there is a big tree nearby in which they are usually found…

… decided on a walk by the river this AM… gradually plugging myself into Beacon life…

… irritation arrives in the form of a payment declined notice and a query by HM about the HVWW debit card …

… i have started to use Picture This to identify plants on my walks… this is common mullein:

… Derek Jarman mentions it frequently as a component of the landscape around the cottage he lived in…

… as i am walking i notice everything is really overgrown… a lush September…this kind of overhanging growth wasn’t here a few weeks ago:

… a woman jogs by with a dog that barks at me rather loudly before i know it is there… i am startled… she tells Jojo to stop it… sounded more like Cujo to me…

Evening Primrose

Japanese Knotweed

Black Walnut

… D, when they were a kid, had a Black Walnut tree in their yard… they collected the walnuts and cookies would be made… in the year’s before they died, J would make cookies with BW’s and send them for Christmas…

Helen Frankenthaler

© 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / ARS, NY and DACS , London / Crown Point Press, Oakland, CA

Frankenthaler’s woodcutting is the subject of a new exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery… The show, titled Radical Beauty, comes ten years after the artist’s death, and is her first major print retrospective to be shown in the UK.¹

… hmmm… beautiful… they seem safe… not provocative, not “radical”… easy to hang in the living rooms of the one percent… we live in radical times, so i have this feeling that art should be provocative, even if i am unlikely to be provocative with my own photographic work… maybe that is a self challenge…

_Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty runs at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery from 15 September 2021 – 18 April 2022.

Vivienne Westwood

… i am far from being a fashionista, except on rare occasions, like my niece’s wedding this past September at which i was declared, by my nephew’s girlfriend, the best dressed person at the wedding after the bride… but I just love this fashion collection of which this may be the most fun example:

Charley is wearing GARETH WRIGHTON, ATSUKO KUDO and ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD

Photography by Casper Sejersen, Styling by Ellie Grace Cumming

… on the other hand, a t-shirt featuring the command to “buy less,” seems a bit disingenuous for high end fashion… reminds me of Melania Trump’s fashion statement while visiting an immigrant camp at the border:

Sakeema is wearing VIVIENNE WESTWOOD WORLDS END, ALINA ISPAS and ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD

Photography by Casper Sejersen, Styling by Ellie Grace Cumming

… overall, the collection is wonderful fun and amazingly wacky… one more example:

Charley is wearing SINÉAD O’DWYER and CHOPOVA LOWENA

Vivienne Westwood for AnOther Magazine Autumn/Winter 2021

Wiki, Half God

… i am not generally a fan of rap music, it doesn’t connect much with any of my life experiences… it has to be pretty highly regarded for me to take note of it, thus, when a new release by a rap artist i have never heard (not because they are obscure, almost all rap artists are obscure to me) of gets an 8.5 rating i add it to my list of music to listen to and decide if i like it…

_ His latest album, Half God, is a record about what it’s like to come of age in New York: the way it shapes, hardens, prematurely ages you. Produced in its entirety by Navy Blue—the skateboarder/model turned prolific producer/MC born Sage Elsesser—the record captures the varied tempos of city life in colorful vignettes. A warbling guitar loop soundtracks a contemplative smoke session on “Roof”; the stuttering soul samples on “Can’t Do This Alone” stroll with Wiki and Navy Blue through city streets; hi-hats crunch and snares snap on “The Business,” as Wiki spews vitriol at the gentrifiers changing his home into something unrecognizable._¹