… Rodman’s Hollow…

… bird migration monitoring station…

… up with the birds… dogs walked, cat fed, meds taken, coffee made… i sit outside on the chez, thumb typing away… i am changing up the order of mornings, moving reading to later, walking earlier, allowing myself to sleep in a bit… i have felt the need to rest…

… i am getting tired of the news claiming legislators are afraid of 45, or that Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnel are shilling for 45… BS!… the individuals leading the Republican party are not interested in Democracy… they are interested in power in perpetuity… they are seizing the moment to try to bring that about…

… some shots from this morning’s walk…

… American Legion Post #36…

… first walk on BI… stop to rest my back…

… i discover the portable keyboard i bought is disruptive to necessary actions in Ulysses, making it impossible to get out of editing mode and back to index of pages… thumb typing it is then…

… her daily brief is depressing… one can decide whether to have a good or bad day based on reading her brief for the day… today, it is mostly about Republican refusal to compromise on anything, or, conduct an adequate investigation of the January 6 insurrection…

… frustrating morning… new environment, nothing terribly organized yet… stumbling around for routine… dog poops in living room, this after having been out already… no paper towels… not interested in cleaning up after dogs first thing in the morning… today, we organize get the routines going… but there is the fog, the sound of the birds, the sound of the ocean in the distance… there is the beauty and peacefulness of Block Island… there is my intention to rest and regenerate…

… we have arrived at Pt. Judith where we catch the ferry out to Block Island… some lunch at Champlin’s then we wait for the ferry…

03 My Photography:

Flattened Cans…

I have been collecting images of flattened cans for a number of years. They represent uniqueness out of homogeneity to me. They start as cohorts (particular brand, particular size) of perfectly shaped and, for all intents and purposes, identical industrial objects. When tossed into the environment (sadly, there is no end of subject material) they continue the entropic process of becoming unique and beautiful objects.

Every country’s past is contested to some extent. But there might be no country as extreme as Germany. To begin with, there is history that is largely uncontestable: World War 2 and especially the Holocaust. I added “largely” in that sentence because the contesting does happen, albeit at a different level (for example, members of the neo-fascist AfD party have been talking it down, claiming it doesn’t matter as much in the context of German history as a whole). But the basic facts stand, and denial of the Holocaust is a criminal offense.¹

… as i read this, it is not possible to avoid thoughts of all the denial of January 06, 2021 that is going on by right wingers… the idea of such denial being illegal is appealing… perhaps there ought to be laws that make lying to further fraudulent or destructive aims in public forums of any kind illegal… i don’t think speech should be free if it’s demonstrably false and destructive…

… JC is reviewing Ruckshaufehler by Eiko Grimberg… the book is dedicated to the symbology of the German State… it sounds like an effective critique of where things stand… nationalist/fascist sentiments are on the rise… attempts are being made to minimize the Holocaust… if it weren’t illegal to do so, there would of course be denial that it happened…

… human beings are an ugly species… the so-called rational mind has given us the capacity for duplicity and, i might argue, little more…

… JC gives the book a highly recommended thumb up…

… I look for a place to possibly purchase, i find this article by Brad Feuerhelm, who gives it his highest recommendation…

… the article attracts my attention, and this image is what pulls me in…

… it’s an image i would make, lots of people might make, and for that reason, becomes a touchstone of common experience between me and the photographer, who is queer and prefers they, them, their as pronoun…

… when i type the name Elle, i have a fleeting memory of an Alvin Ailey dance class on Time Square… i was trying to teach a young woman a dance movement we had learned in class… she was beautiful, her name was Elle… it wasn’t till later that i became aware of Elle, the model, and i was never quite sure if she were that Elle… it’s possible i taught Elle a modern dance move… we parted on the street outside the building where the dance class had taken place… i remember her fumbling to pull a cigarette out of her bag then out of a box… we parted… i never saw her again…

… there is something very attractive about this work… something honest, particular and universal both… deploying seascapes and landscapes to mediate between their experience and the experience of others… something brilliant about it…

… the more i read, the more i realize that Bell Jar is a feminist work, carefully outlining the options available to women in the day and setting the heroine up to choose among unappealing alternatives… we’ve had the fatherly doctor-to-be proposing marriage already… it seems to be a fantasy that Esther doesn’t want… now we are following her and Hilda to work… Hilda, who is busy being a store mannequin and looking at herself in every window that bounces back her reflection… Hilda seems to have settled on the fantasy she wants…

… a dramatic twist, a blind date, Marco, attempts to rape Esther… her last night in the city… it prepares to spit her out…

… ordered C a book and gift card for their birthday, happy birthday C!…

… we leave for Block Island today… i am looking forward to R&R… a glance at the weather indicates it will be much cooler when we get there… one would think that being semi-retired the R&R is redundant, but changing environment and having a different attitude about what needs doing during the day is significant…

… trying to make inroads into community on micro.blog, slow going, but signs i might be gaining traction… replies to posts would be the true sign, haven’t had any of those yet…

… Heather Cox Richardson trying to hold on to hope that Senator Joe Manchin will agree to something that moves voting rights legislation forward, even if a less ambitious reform… he apparently believes that the For The People Act is too partisan… the obvious elephant in the room is the Republican elephant which is busy enacting partisan voting rights legislation across the country… i am beginning to wonder if we are in that pivotal moment when democracy gets lost and it is authoritarian oligarchs from here on out… at present, the only firewall will be the determination of voters to overcome the barriers… while things feel so much better under the Biden/Harris administration, there is plenty of reason to be alarmed and concerned… hopefully, HCR is right about Manchin…

… dining out indoors for the first time in 18 months…

… on this last day before BI it’s the sultry waterfront for my walk… i haven’t done this one in a while… not sure i have done it since the new iPhone… an older man exercising, a young woman with a baby in a stroller, two young women having breakfast together, assorted birds chattering and whistling, traffic over the Hamilton Fish bridge distantly… i contemplate the book Superintelligent, Sam Harris book recommendation… should i get it, read it?… it is about AI getting smarter than we are, will they be kind to us when they do?… i was obsessed about this topic a few years back… H got tired of it so i let go of it, would reading this book bring the obsession back?…

… Sam Harris provides this list, Maria Popova shares it after asking if he would add some works by women to the list to correct for it’s initial exclusive focus on works by Men…

… i have read one book on the list, so perhaps my summer project will be to read the other eleven…

People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.¹

… the idea of saying yes to life immediately takes my mind to Camu’s Myth of Sisyphus, in which the opening salvo is a meditation on the most fundamental philosophical question of them all, To Be, Or Not To Be… that being the question… most of us say yes to life, but i read Sylvia Plath, who did not, and look at the photos of Francesca Woodman, who did not… i look poised to stay with life to the end, bitter or otherwise… my bigger question at the moment is whether i am happy, and if i am not, what i will do to be happier…

… Maria Popova sends me down this RH this morning… a post on James Baldwin quickly links to another post on Sam Harris talking about free will… she quotes this from his book on the subject…

The question of free will touches nearly everything we care about. Morality, law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, feelings of guilt and personal accomplishment — most of what is distinctly human about our lives seems to depend upon our viewing one another as autonomous persons, capable of free choice. If the scientific community were to declare free will an illusion, it would precipitate a culture war far more belligerent than the one that has been waged on the subject of evolution. Without free will, sinners and criminals would be nothing more than poorly calibrated clockwork, and any conception of justice that emphasized punishing them (rather than deterring, rehabilitating, or merely containing them) would appear utterly incongruous. And those of us who work hard and follow the rules would not “deserve” our success in any deep sense. It is not an accident that most people find these conclusions abhorrent. The stakes are high.¹

… the thought leaps through my mind, i wonder if the troubles we cause ourselves are all because so many of us believe we are free agents in the cosmos?…

… last night H told me L might come out while we are on BI, something about seeing M, a friend, who will be on the island too… H told me about an evening out with the two of them and feeling like a third wheel… it got me to thinking that we need to find ways to have adventures, do some actual planning and execution… i don’t mind my and our daily routines, but one needs to break out of them now and again, do something non routine, confirm you are alive… the reason we don’t is that they always seem to require planning that neither H nor I can overcome inertia to do, except in certain circumstances, like picking up a new dog… that was our last adventure, Fiona at the start of the pandemic…

… Buddy Willard proposes, Esther demurs… well, so far, the chapter jumps oddly to skiing and a broken leg, Buddy plays the part of fatherly ski instructor then doctor… does this mean she will un-demure?… i find the scene descriptions a little forced, overwrought… H said it is depressing, i am wondering when i will get to the depressing bits, unless you count hurtling towards a life of wifely banality depressing, which it could be… if that is what we are heading for, it is uncertain at present…

… last night we watched a newish series, The Underground… it depicted in the most horrific way, the brutality of slave owners towards slaves, including the whipping and burning of one slave while the slave owners partied and danced… i did not watch the first episode to the end and it is doubtful i will watch another one… i just don’t want that sort of brutality seared on my brain, though i am sure that was the intent of the creators, that we know what the experience of slaves was, that we experience the appropriate amount of guilt and shame… i believe black and brown people were horrifically mistreated then and continue to be mistreated today… i believe it is wrong to treat black and brown people as anything less than equals… i am on board with reparations… i have little interest in being bludgeoned with a truth that changes little in the way i think, because i am already mostly there… and those who might need to shift their thinking on race in big ways are unlikely to watch it or change if they do… what is the point?…

…seen along the way…