Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas, Cards and Cookies (Just in Case)




Fa la la la la, la la la la...  ♪♫

(I know, I know, a month long absence but I hadn't planned it! I've been involved in a writing project, a collaborative effort, of which I may share a bit here at SS at a later date. Now, on to other current happenings...)

And just how was I supposed to get a respectable Christmas card from this photo session? It's nearly impossible with my two. That's because my two are what you might call, well, "non-directable." Which is why I only got to mailing semi-decent photo cards on Thursday night. 

Here is the thing about having card-age children: their shiny facsimile simply must appear on the annual Christmas cards. This is one of the unwritten rules of parenting. And as you know, I am not a professional photographer. It wouldn't make any difference if I were, either. The one and only time I brought my children to see a professional photographer (who took--it seemed--hundreds of pictures) for a photo shoot, I secured from him only two semi-decent photos. Of course, it didn't help that we were in a big, beautiful park on a bright and warm day, and the children were simply beguiled by the parks stunning landscape. They clawed and climbed every tree, chased every duck, jumped in the pond, and mauled the poor photographer for his camera.

Anyhow... those now teenaged children let me in on a little secret this year. It went something like this:

Oh, Ma, the girl said, You don't have to play that game anymore. Max and I know there's no Santa. And we've known for a while, really.

(I'd asked her only for a list. The usual Christmas list for Santa.)

Ok, well, you may not believe, I replied, but you should probably write something up for Santa anyway. You know, just in case.

(She may be over Santa, but I intended to perpetuate the charade.)

So the girl gave me not only a multi-paged list written on lined paper torn from a small notebook, but she also stuck raised bunny stickers to mark--like asterisks--the special items, and stapled applicable coupons at the top of her list (which, by the way, is no longer addressed: Dear Santa).


Every year Lulu's list looks the same. Boots, clothing and stocking stuffers like lip balm, nail polish, eye mask, body lotion, socks, duct tape and anything else that happens to cross her mind at the moment the list is suggested. Pages and pages. This year, she added a laptop to the manifest and then crossed it off when she realized that she had virtually no chance of getting one. (She tinkers on my old clunker--as if that's not good enough!)

Meanwhile, her brother can barely produce a single page. Oh, whatever Santa wants to bring is fine, he says. Listen kid, I want to tell him, need something! I can't go hunting without a list, I need to follow a scent, something to scratch and stalk! I suppose I could have said that to him this year--and probably the past several years--but then the poor kid wouldn't have been able to carry on the charade, himself. And he certainly doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Last night, as we put finishing touches on some of the festive  decorations, Lu announced that she'd still like to leave milk and cookies on a tray for Santa. Is that so, I said.

Well, Mom, she smiled, even though I know that Santa doesn't really exist, I'd like to leave the milk and cookies for him. And, you know, pretend. Just in case.

Just in case. I think no matter how old we get, we all want to preserve the magic of Christmas. Tonight, we'll put the milk and cookies out. And then the magic will begin...

Merry, merry, merry!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thank Hues

Newell Convers Wyeth
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see 'em bloom, for me and for you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred nights
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces, of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, sayin', "How do you do?"
They're really sayin', "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more, than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Oh yeah



Of course, all is not entirely well with the world. But these are the graces of today, this one designated day of the year in which we pause to consider and give thanks for our blessings, like (this morning's) pale blue skies, warm harvest moons, sweet potato pie, persimmon smiles, turkey-feathered giggles. And for family and for friends and for you.

To all of You: Thank you for being here
for reading, for contributing, for taking the time. For that I am forever grateful, I am.

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

[I'll be traveling this holiday. And more, I've taken on a short-term project that will demand a good chunk of my time, at least, through Christmas. You may notice fewer postings
including the usual Friday Night Frolic—during the next month, but I will, sporadically, be posting and saying hello to you, as time permits. Be well.]

Friday, November 18, 2011

Friday Night Frolic — Pointed Weights

Kandinsky











It would seem Friday has become the place where the Suburban Soliloquist goes for a third person point of
view and a stiff drink. She steps inside its faux finished walls, glazed with a red lacquer, grabs a canapé and a dirty martini at the bar where she thinks she can also swap her first person POV for a third person POV as easily as Tim O'Brien did in The Things They Carried.

Oh, those stories are haunting, says the bartender. And, well, O'Brien is a wizard. What do you want to trade for, anyway? Stick with what you got, kid.

She gets it. She's knows she's not writing a classic. But she reasons. She says her pencil's not so sharp. And if her pencil's not so sharp, it's going to make some mistakes. Sometimes the pencil has trouble deciphering fact from fiction, or deciding which it prefers. She can barely get it to draw a straight line, and it spends too much time in the margins.

In that way, she tells the bartender, she's very much like the pencil.

And it weighs on her. She's thinks about embellishment. She considers stripping down to her skivvies.

Hey, look lady, this ain't that kind of place! the bartender growls.

She wonders if she ought to trade in the manual sharpener for an electric one. She wonders. Acoustic or synthesized? Bamboo or floral? Hardwood or carpeting? Paint or wallpaper? Verbose or succinct? Pointed weights or weighted points?

How come you don't ever have any music in here? she asks the bartender.

Lady, these walls aren't real. You get a band in here and the walls will crumble, he says, shaking his head as he towel-dries a brandy snifter. You do know this ain't real, right?

Hmm, she sighs. Yup, I know. I think I'm going to refinish my hardwoods tonight. Or maybe I'll paint my walls. My real walls.

Ok, Lady, the bartender laughs. You have fun, now. That's right, keep it all real and don't be switching viewpoints! 

Actually, she brightens, I'm going to go write a poem. With a pen. Then she walks out the door and shuts it, maybe a little too hard, and the walls fall down.

And she grins.


Rusty Belle, hailing from Amherst, Massachusetts, was formed in 2006 by siblings Matt and Kate Lorenz, and friend Zak Tojano. From their About page: "...rusty belle swings easily from sweet, simple melodies, whiskey lullabies, blood ballads, busted bluegrass, and folk-punk anthems, to tongue-in-cheek sleaze-rock, glossy-mag candy-pop, and down-home porch-tunes.  the remarkable thing is that its all done with honesty and respect for the music..."  



I think I'm going to have that martini now...

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Brushing Up

From Max's Art Journal

Yesterday I saw the GI specialist in Boston. Months of pain has held me hostage from feeling well, and emotionally, it's taken its toll. My refusal to undergo the usual diagnostic course of action (you know, the 50+ poke and scope plan) has been unproductive, I know, and it's time to take a deep breath and say, Fuck it. Alright, already, I'll book it! Let's start with something light, though, shall we? Like the endoscopy? Can we start there, please?

I'm a terrible patient. Fortunately, my mother-in-law introduced me to a doctor who is remarkably patient. Still, I'm not a pretty sight in the doctor's office. When Doc told me blood had to be drawn I nearly cowered in the corner, and I was glad M-I-L had left the room by then. And when we talked procedures, I think the good doctor understood that he was going to have to hold my hand. I know this is a teaching hospital, but no fellows! I said. I am paying for him, after all.

Anyway, what I'm doing here today, on this little blog, is taking a break from the penciled notes and sketches I've been making in my lined notepad (where I'm making progress, my friends!). The flip side of the front durable-covered, college-ruled pad has two columns. One lists Parts of Speech, and the other, Punctuation. At the very bottom is a list of Figures of Speech. And why I hadn't noticed this until today I do not know. 

Except to say...

Punctuation: apostrophe ('), colon (:), comma (,), period (.), exclamation point (!). You see what caught my eye? No, not the period (.). I've no longer any use for them... No, it was one particular punctation: colon (:). Colon: COLON! 

I'm searching for the metaphor under Figures of Speech. (:) When perhaps, I should be looking for a simile? (:)

A brush is like a pen is like a pencil is like a scope: All tools of the trade. (:)


(Natchez Steam Colliope--Sugar Blues)

Friday, November 11, 2011

Friday Night Frolic — In Which Mr. Sawyer Forwards a Letter


Do to various commitments, and, to a lesser degree, technical glitches, the Suburban Soliloquist is unable to bring to you the regularly scheduled Friday Night Frolic. In lieu of this tragic turn of events, she offers you something, with relevance, found just this morning in a soggy box: proof positive the power of a teacher's charitable words to a then eleven-year-old wanna-be writer. Kindly note the second paragraph of the above letter, in which her fifth grade teacher, Mr. Walter Sawyer (of whom she's made past mention) replies to a letter and short story she sent to him the summer of 1972:

"I really did like Ban Rollon. I don't really have any stories, but a good way of getting ideas for stories is by listening to songs and making them into stories. Remember the song 'Drill Ye Tarriers Drill?' That would make a really funny story if you made the characters act like the Three Stooges."

And so you see, dear reader, Friday Night Frolics' seeds were apparently planted many, many moons ago. The Suburban Soliloquist doubts she has a copy of Ban Rollon, but she has a suspicion that it may have been sparked by this (remember In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?):


The letter's flip side offers a sweet sign off and a joke that no pre-teen would appreciate today:


(Ten hours a day of homework. Sheesh!)

So there it is: evidence from where the Frolic first took roots.

The Suburban Soliloquist remembers Mr. Sawyer as not only an inspiring teacher, but also as pretty darn cool (the Fox Hollow Folk Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festival in one month?).

Many thanks from the bottom of the Suburban Soliloquist's heart to Mr. Sawyer for taking the time to write and humor the skinny kid with big dreams. It took a long time for the seeds to germinate (maybe the soil was too heavy or dry or not well fertilized, or the seeds were slow growing and the farmer impatient), but they've sprouted, the crop's maturing and she's getting around to the harvest.


Every morning, seven o'clock
There's twenty Irishmen a pounding on a rock
The boss man says, "Shut up, keep still...
Come down heavy on your cast iron drill."

And Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill
And Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill
For it's work all day no sugar in you tay
Down beyond the railway
And Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill

The big boss man, he down to the ground
Married a lady 'bout six feet 'round
She bakes his bread, she bakes it well
She bakes it harder than the nobs of Hell.

The foreman, name of John McCann
Swear I never met a meaner man
A premature blast went off
And a mile in the air goes big Jim Goff.

The next payday she come around
A dollar light poor Jimmy found
"John, what for?" comes this reply
"You're docked for the hour you was up in the sky."

Tarriers live on work and sweat
There ain't no tarrier, got rich yet
Sleep and work, and work some more
And drill right down to the devil's door."

There I stand me hat in hand
With two trains kissing in the Utah sand
There's no one now, who knows my name
An Irish derby is me claim to fame

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Edge of Arnold Mills — A Photo Essay


An Indian summer brings two days of consistently warm and glorious sunlight in which to ramble the oak, pine and chestnut-lined streets of my neighborhood. Yesterday, I strolled along the roads at nearly two o'clock in the afternoon when the sun is ordinarily high in the blue, yet it seemed to list a bit too far to the west, a reminder that all the worlds' (save for a few renegade countries) time pieces were set back an hour this past weekend, so I was, in actuality, walking and photographing fall scenery in three p.m. sunlightif that makes sense at all.

Today, I set out earlier, at about noon-time, to capture more iPhone snapshots in one o'clock sunlight. (Is it too obvious that I'm wrestling with the one hour adjustment and that I'm smitten with the Hipstamatic application?)


The town in which I live was settled nearly four-hundred years ago by a bull-riding Englishman, William Blaxton (Blackstone), who was the the first farmer to cultivate Rhode Island apples. His Yellow Sweeting was the first American apple to be named. (Blaxton was also the first to plant an orchard in neighboring Massachusetts.) His orchard, like so much of the old farmland in this town, was later developed for non-agrarian use.

Braxton was known to journey into Providence on the back of his commuter-friendly white bull, tossing apples to children along his way. Imagine waiting for the Apple Man, his pockets stuffed with Yellow Sweetings, to breeze by on his snowy bull each Wednesday afternoon. Yet the gregarious man, supposedly, sought solitude in this once bucolic town.


The street on which I live, I've been told, is an old gravel pit, which is hard to imagine as abundant fern sprouts along the brook that passes through my backyard (that is not my back yard, above) and among the broad tracts of wetland in this northern pocket of land. The yard borders an area known as Arnold Mills, which many years ago was surely a mix of forest and farmland, dotted with ponds and streams. Though much of the town is rocky, and white quartz is easily found in its park. (Diamonds! the children shout.)

Years ago, good portions of the southern part of town were industrialized with mills and iron works, especially along the Blackstone River. Cannon balls were once forged here for the French and Indian War, as well as the American Revolution, and the first power looms for American woolens were made in a local machine shop. Here, was the original home of the Valley Falls Company, an old textile manufacturer and precursor to Berkshire Hathaway.


The mills (except for retail operations) and iron works have since closed, so when this old bridge was in need of refurbishment a few years back it was shipped to New Hampshire for proper restoration, and the road was closed for nearly a year. It's one of two beautiful wood and trussed bridges adorning the quiet country road on which I meander.

From the now near barren woods below, which border the country road, you can almost see my home.


I want to run through the old pines and deadwood. But I don't. I'm still thinking about the empty Adirondack chairs placed in the side yard of a pretty colonial, wondering about the father and son that might have been sitting in them, freeing chestnut's from their spiky pods. I wonder if they made weapons of them, or roasted them in a prematurely-lit Sunday afternoon fire.

I'd better haul some wood inside. Indian summers are sublime, but fleeting.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Relax. Concentrate. Dispel Every Other Thought. Let the World Around You Fade.*


In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:  
the Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages, the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success, the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment, the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case, the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer, the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves, the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.
Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them. 

*    *    *

Between required school reading, books gifted to her, YA novels downloaded to her Kindle, and compilations collected from various booksellers, Lulu read roughly seventy-six books last year. That's at least twice more than I've read during any year.

I'm the main character in Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. You are, too, by the way. You and I, we've peered through the shop window and sauntered among its aisles, following the book-lined trails. Books have mocked and scolded us, and literally, fallen on us in vicious acts of defiance, especially the books (the lonely ones back at home sulking on their shelves) that we, at one time, jump started with great enthusiasm, only to sputter out of gas midway along the track. We'd thought we had more fuel in the reserve.

But we can't read them all. We simply can't. Frustrating, I know. So we choose what fits best and we try to steal time and quiet space with our reads, hoping to lose ourselves in their thin leaves. And often we do. Unfortunately, time is not on our side. We've a myriad of other things to accomplish and daily minutiae with which to keep up (not to mention holding onto jobs to pay for our meals). Even if we read every minute of every day of all the remaining days left in our lives, we wouldn't get to read all the books we'd like to. 

So they mock us.

And that's OK. We've got a life to live after all. We have things we want to do, and learn and share. Lu comes out of hiding every now and then (well, often, actuallyshe's a magician of a reader: relaxes, concentrates, dispels all thought, world fades out entirely), as she did yesterday morning when she appeared in the kitchen announcing that she'd make the family's Sunday dinner, because: 

1) Surprise, surprise! Sunday's 6:00pm dance class had been cancelled; and, 
2) She had read another bookThe Silver Spoon for Childrenand was ready to cook her very first meal.


List in her hand, I took her to the market to collect the items she'd need for baked cod with vegetables. She, with her characteristic twelve-year-old vigor, shagged through the produce, deli and seafood areas, fetched the cod and pancetta and tomatoes and carrots and leeks and lemon, sailed toward check-out (briefly hitting the brakes to grab a warm baguette from the bakery), tossed everything onto the cash-wrap, grabbed my wallet, swiped my debit card and punched in my PIN. 

Back at home she did everything just like the book said. (And I do think it said.) She gathered all equipment and utensils, slid tools of the trade into the pockets of her apron, laid out cutting boards and commenced with the prep work. She pre-heated, washed and peeled, cut and drizzled, wrapped and squeezed, assembled and, finally, popped the overflowing casserole into the oventhe world around her completely faded.

Lu wore a particular glow at dinner last evening. The I-did-it-all-by-myself glow. I know that glow. I bathed in it when I bought and set up the new router last Friday, it was a sparkly I-switched-from-G-to-N-all-by-myself glow. The glow is born of a certain zone known as, you  know it, the let-the-world-around-you-fade zone. (A zone, or focus, that the remarkable Marylinn Kelly wrote of just this Saturday.) In it, you read all the books you've been planning to read for ages (so it seems), finish what you're working on at the moment, and shatter the barricades that keep you from performing a multitude of seemingly impossible tasks

One glow leads to another, too. The I-did-it-all-by-myself glow leads to the wow-I-can-do-this! glow, which is followed by the I-want-to-keep-doing-this glow, which inevitably flows into the I-am-the-master-of-this glow. Tu comprends?

Look at Lu. She's glowing. She read a cookbook and got inspired. In our finite lifetime, you and me, we may never get to read, do, listen or see everything we'd hoped to, but whatever our accomplishment(s), it's worthy in its own right. And if we've done it in that certain and all-to-hard-to-find zone, if we've sat down and really read the book, if we've relaxed, concentrated, dispelled every other thought, and let the world around us fade, we ought to be especially pleased by it. Doubly pleased if it opens us up to new worlds.

(Incidentally, dinner was fabulous.)

* From Chapter One, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Friday Night Frolic — To Hadestown and Back

“We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.”
~Louise GlĂĽck



She'd been there twice. Once, in her early twenties, on a cocaine and booze fueled road trip to Florida. Later, as a mature mother with children in strollers. South of the Border is as grey and wonky as it looks on the thirty-year-old postcard whether one is stone-cold sober or stardust-spangled high, and she tries in vain to remember the man who sent it to her that briny-breezed May of 1982. 

She was in her senior year of collegethe year she lost her bearing and went astray. Her housemates worried. Up 'til then, she had merely flirted with drugs and alcohol. Or so she thought. Evenings were often equal part studies and getting stoned. She'd close the books and walk down to the beach with a pitcher of kamikaze mix, sit on the seawall and dreamy-stare at the curly waves frothing at the shore. Or she'd slip into a happy hour, which was as easy to find as the steepled churches that hugged nearly every street corner of her Franco-American hometown. There, in those sticky, beer-crusted shrines, or on the beach with her pitcher, she found hollow comfort from the demons that haunted her. 

But this guy, where had she met this guy? Why had he sent her a post card? She'd hardly known him. And he was sure to have been as much trouble as the man for whom she'd left the nice guy. She must have known this, somehow, in those hazy days of painful insecurities and indecisiveness, she must have sensed a danger. Even then, a doubtful girl, she was determined in her ways.

Blond hair, on the longish side was all she could evoke. Maybe a house party, dancing to Human League's throbbing, synthesized  musicDon't you want me baby, don't you want me, ooohhhoooblack lights, cigarette-smoke and stale-beer infused furnishings... 

He went to Key West. She knew this only by the Sloppy Joe's postcard he'd sent previous to his South of the Border note. It's all she remembers. Does any of it really matter? Back then, she'd settled into a long, bleary underworld siesta from which she feared she wouldn't wake.


But she did. She woke in time to keep herself from dialing the number.


*    *    *



In her fifth and latest release, HadestownAnaĂŻs Mitchell, with her sweet Goldie Hawn-like persona and distinctive voice (an Eartha Kittiness quality to it) sings, with her Hadestown Orchestra, about love, sorrow, regret and displacement in a refreshing rock-opera based on the popular Greek myth of Orpheus, Eurydice and Persephone, only set in a post-apocalyptic American depression. (Sounds scary-familiar?)

Along with Mitchell as Eurydice, the cast in this opera includes an impressive list of voices and musicians: Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) in the role of Orpheus, Greg Brown as Hades, Ben Knox Miller (The Low Anthem) as Hermes and Ani DiFranco as Persephone.


Find out more about the Vermont-born and based Mitchell at her official website

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Hallo It Be Thy Ween

Goodbye October. Goodbye. The nor'easter took you out in fiery-lion fashion, and ushered in a little lamb of November. Oh, she's sweet and lemony today except for the shaded corner of the deck where, on the edge of the rooftop, the storm's evaporating snowy surplus hits the wood planks in a fury. We were powerless at the endhad, even, to temporarily move to Mother's place when temperatures dropped suddenly during the weekend's electrical outage. Monday morning I returned home to a chugging furnace and well lit kitchen. We were lucky, others still remain powerless.

Mother's is always a treat. She has Enrico Caruso 33 1/3 rpm vinyls stored in their original accordion case. But the children... well the children had to plug laptops and printers into real live sizzling outlets and crank out end-of-quarter schoolwork. Kids don't write longhand any longer, you know. Teachers prefer the typed word, which is an impossible endeavor in a candlelit house.  So we clanked the night away at Mother's. 

(I'll be back to Mother's for Caruso.)

I imagined that the kids would be too old for trick-or-treating this year, but there's the candy. There's the neighborhood where Tedy Bruschi lives (with real candy bars!), there's peer pressure and teen-All-Hallows-Eve worshippers who are in no way ready or willing to give up the quest. There's being on the streets, in the dark, void of parental oversight. 

Doors will be slammed in your faces! I said.

Ha, Mom, they love us!, the monsters replied.

Who loves you? I don't want to see six-foot tall teens at my door. Don't come to my door!

Besides, they hadn't costumesI refused to buy them, refused to give in to the high commercialism of holidays and hallow days. Refused to believe that my little Lulu was too old for handmade costumes!

(And this is no way to depreciate the value of my two-year-old sewing machine.)

Mama, observed Lu, this isn't about store-bought costumes or me growing up. It's about you wanting to make another oversized ugly doll or an ice cream cone, isn't it?

The Ice Cream Cone 2010

The Ugly Doll 2009
Actually, my favorite was the floppy-eared hound dog with her litter. Come on, it's tradition, Lu.

All right, well maybe it is more about me and the machine and wizardry. But look, I do have to make my Singer Confidence pay for itself.

Last night, the monsters managed to piece together suitable outfits for the spooky occasion. Both came home with giant sacks of goodies. No one slammed doors in faces.

After school today, Lu announced that she'd reached her maximum fill of chocolate for the day (she'd snuck handfuls into her backpack), so I promised that I'd remind her of the same throughout the evening, that perhaps we should take the bonbon trough out of her room. Don't worry, Mom, she responded. It's NOT a temptation! It's under my bed and it's not like I'm going to get up in the middle of the night to eat a candy bar.

... Not a temptation.

... Not eating candy bars in the middle of the night.

Of course not. Mama shouldn't worry in the least.

I'm packing up the glow pumpkins, Draculas and rubber bats. Halloween has closed for another year, but its remnant confections shall remind us of the night for some time to come. At least they'd better.

Maybe it's time to start sewing up something for Christmas. (Poor, poor forgotten Thanksgiving.)

Lu & Max -- Halloween 2008

Friday, October 28, 2011

Friday Night Frolic — Moments of Ambiguous Limpidity

A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day's unity.
~Charles Ives

Internet source unknown

Much of this week has been spent living in my headspending the better part of the week cavorting with a new laptop, nursing my sick son, formulating few words, but thinking, thinking quite a bit I might add, about all my little daily delusions (triggered, in part, by seeing Laurie Anderson's brilliant and disturbing Delusion in Providence last weekend) like, per se, a new piece of technology improving my lifeoffering me not only the luxury of computing at greater speed, but also, peace and happiness. No?

I had another thought about my delusions. And then I lost it. I assumed: if I write and write and write, dammit, I will find it. But I haven't.

In its absence, I've come up with a new mantra for decision making and weedingas in purging unnecessary anything from home and heart: How will this enhance my life?

An old, faded blouse that I no longer wear but can't part with because it's a designer pluck from Filene's Basement. How will this enhance my life?
Kid 1 asks if I'll help with a project. How will this enhance my life?
Kid 2 asks if I can drive him to a friend's house. How will this enhance my life?
Kid 1 asks if I would make some cookies for the bake sale. How will this enhance my life?

Ah! You see how deluded I am? I think my mantra will actually enhance my life. I think my mantra is something that can be realistically applied to everyday situations like it's the final word. Perhaps what I need to do is consider substitutes for the word enhancelike change, or stress, or screw-up or prolong or abbreviateand then deal with the answer, wherever it falls. But of course, this means that I  manipulate the answer by sculpting the question in furtherance of my fantasy.

Today I am deluded. Yesterday I was too. And tomorrow, I shall be again.

I wonder, if I spend enough time drooling over this laptop, with no thought other than my sudden awareness of being overly deluded, will I write something shrewd and comprehensible? (Oh yes! and my children will sit straight in their chairs and behave like perfect little adults in restaurants, and my car will run endlessly without an oil change, and the real estate market will bounce back soon, and the ceramic pots on the deck will not crack if left out all winter longwhich began, prematurely, overnight.)

It's like I've been humming a thin, discordant tune... its tinny truth aches. And more, it comforts.



Laurie Anderson is an American musician, artist, composer, poet, photographer and filmmaker. And something you may not know about her: she's NASA's first (and likely last) artist-in-residence, and is married to Lou Reed. Her work is at once provocative, humorous, jarring, thoughtful, creepy, intelligent and inspiring. Lately, she's been peeling away the layers of our collective misconceptions and scraping fatuous seeds from its core.

From her most recent album, Homeland:



And from her Big Science album:



You can read more about Anderson's multi-media show Delusion, here. And here, a short video about the show.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Mac and the Learning Curve


The Suburban Soliloquist a/k/a Mom (or Mother or, as Daughter likes to say now and then, Jayne) is on her own roller coaster of a ridefiguring out how to maneuver about a new piece of technology. And while she does that, she's sent the kids off to school or the park or the ice arena or the corner deli or wherever their little hearts desireshe almost doesn't careas long as they do not return until late afternoon because she has a lot of work ahead of her.

Learning curves. At fifty. At least there are still some curves.

While she manages new hardware and software (and shaky internet connections), she'd like to offer one of those letters she mentioned in her Meet the SS page. Here, a look backnearly four decades earlierto sixth grade:


Note, in particular, the limited answer choices for how she felt at the time.  Was she, in sixth grade, always either very good or very bad or just plain mad? (One might argue that she's always been just plain mad.) It appears she did not care to answer any of Keith's questions, nor comment on the color of Jackie's fanny. In fact, she does not even remember Keith (triple underscore), but is pretty sure of which Jackie he speaks. Every class has its own Jackie.

She wonders if her little sprite and knight pass around their own notes in class. Perhaps not. Perhaps they fear detention and the consequential black fanny for note-passing. Corporal punishment is not still employed in Catholic schools, now is it?

Come to think of it, the Suburban Soliloquist does not remember hanging out with Jeff either. Oh, but Jackie. One never forgets a Jackie...

Friday, October 21, 2011

Friday Night Frolic — Fifty is Nifty?

                                                             
Fifty is nifty when you're twelve years old and in pressing need of rhyme for Mother's birthday card. But when you're fiftywhen you're actually fifty, well, somehow it doesn't feel so nifty. Nor peachy, nor swell, nor cool. Nor... you get the picture. I mean, you get the picturejust look at it! Filled with squiggly lines and creases and greenish-brown age-like marks. It's a bit crumpled and uncertain of whether it's an upper or lowercase condition! Clearly, it wants to be uppercase, but the t and y informs us that its appearance is dwindling.

Say what? You don't see age marks and wrinkles on that card? You mean it's confetti and streamers? Ooooh! You see how twisted one's perception becomes at the ripe old age of fifty? Fifty is shifty is what is fifty.

For my birthday, Hubby gave me poetry 180A Turning Back to Poetry, which is an anthology of contemporary poems carefully selected and introduced (said introduction can be read here) by Billy Collins. In it is one I loveprobably the shortestby Carol Snow:

                            Tour

Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path
and then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or—we had no way of knowing—he'd swept the path
between fallen camellias.

Without touching upon the poem's symbolism (camellias, shrines, Japan, paths!) which might reveal much about its meaning, but I have no way of knowing—just as I have no way of knowing if the flowers have drifted to the ground, or have been trampled upon the ground, or are untouched in full bloom on the ground, or who he is or when or how precisely he may have swept the pathwhat Tour speaks of to me (and that is what a poem is all about, after all, right?—what it says to you) is perception. 

In Tour, there are possibilities. There are lovely fallen camellias on a path that has been swept near a shrine in Japan. Does it matter if we do or don't know when or how the camellias came to be placed upon the path?

That's what fifty is like. I'm on a tour. Paths have been swept. Camellias have fallen. There are other bits and buds with which I've littered the path, and some I've gladly cleared it of. I can't know everything about the path, or the fallen camellias—other than they have, indubitably, fallenbut there are possibilities. Still.

Hmm... 

Maybe fifty is nifty. 




If I had to pull together a soundtrack covering the paths I've traveled these past fifty years, there would likely be a trail sprinkled with Neil Young song crumbs. It would lead one from his early days with Buffalo Springfield, Crazy Horse, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young up to his live album A Treasure, released in June 2011, which includes a half dozen previously unreleased songs.


Some of the many paths I've followed over this half century remain constant, reliable courses lined with pretty flowers, while others became worn and treacherous and had to be abandoned. Still, paths await to be swept. Or littered with confetti and streamers.

Here, Neil Young returns to his native country in 2005 to perform with his wife, Pegi.


The Bridge School Concerts—25th Anniversary Edition—will be available on DVD and CD this Monday, October 24, 2011. You can preview the official trailer here.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Flash(card) Fiction #002 — RAVENARK

[Source]

(Ă€ la 1960s) 
Because I am still having too darn much fun with these...


And in the event you've forgotten how it all worked
in this post, I'll gladly reprint the
Instructions:

Read between the lines.
(Or between the words, as the case may be.)


Ah! You've got it! Now let's begin the story:


RAVENARK


But,

Even so, he walked determinedly, but with little feelingaside from the ache 
for homeas if in a trance, as if, perhaps, one might feel on an opioid.

But despite its obvious beauty and verdant surroundings, its Romanesque 
features felt bleak, and he sensed a certain doom.  Yet it was to there he was 
headedfor he had somehow known, though had not been toldwhere 
a gathering of literati were to exchange similes and metaphors and sip 
from grand glasses filled with champagne.

Upon entering the domain (was it the House of Usher?) he eyed
what appeared to be a vision(was it real? he could not discerna
 petite, flaxen-haired, alabaster-faced woman, and he was 
instantly buoyed by her beauty.
The dazzling woman noticed the stranger, toohis wide shoulders, his 
dark hair and serious countenancewho was now approaching her carefully. 
She adjusted the silky ribbon around her tiny waist and stepped backwards a few feet, 
her skirt brushing against the hardwoods, whisk,whisk.

As he advanced within steps of her, she recognizing what she thought to be 
a familiar face. "You are William, the Anthropologist, are you not?" she asked.
And
he replied, "but I am a poet, immersed in the origin of words. 
And, please, call me Bill." He took her hand gently in his, and his heart 
felt heavy as his lips grazed the soft posterior of her hand. 

"Ah!" she chirped. "I'm Samantha, and I see
 
Like so many others here," she smiled.

"Yes, you could say that," he replied. "Come sit with me, we'll dine, and 
I'll tell you more." He took her by his hand and lead her to the banquet. 
Was it possible the feeling of gloom was beginning to lift from his shoulders?

They sat together at the expansive mahogany table and he filled
their glasses with wine.
He looked earnestly at Samantha, and spoke, as if 
reciting something he long ago heard: "
They can be found in the lurid tarn and gray sedge," he said
in a monotone voice, as though he were spellbound. 

Samantha shifted back in her chair, bewildered. 
She felt that the

He sensed her puzzlement, and after a long, awkward silence 
(as if it could have been more awkward than his hypnotic blather)
"It is as if I am like the Raven and you, the Skylark," he explained.
"Forgive me, I've had little sleep. I've been working on a poem 
for some time.  I know I must appear an enigma (he was, in fact, 
perplexed himself). Please permit me to read my poem to you." 
He pulled a piece of paper from his trouser pocket and read:

"The raven cawed
The skylark awed
Her bracken cover
exposed
terrified
now less blithe
she flied
across the heath
away from Raven
so dark
but the shaggy corvid
Bill so thick
gained quickly
on the little stick
of a bird
who scattered beholden
of her bids
Raven panted forth
a flood of rapture so divine
harmonious madness
in his mind
and seized the skylark
for his kind.
Nevermore, nevermore."

Samantha sat still, eyes fixed on his. "Yes, well," she said, "
I'm feeling the need for fresh air."

Bill took her hand and held it tight. "Please, I implore you. I'm sane.
Don't you think?"

"I don't know what to think!" she squawked. "To be honest, I'm a bit frightened."

Bill, himself afraid he'd lost her affection, pulled Samantha from 
her chair and cried, "I'll take you outside at once!" 

He led her beyond the heavy, arched doors, beyond the patio, through the 
dense field. He moved as if he were sleepwalking, transfixed by the 
luminous moon. But he was quickly roused by a flock of geese 
overhead, and stumbling for words, said,

They came to a pause at the top of the slope, and looked beyond the river. 
Lights sparkled from the tall buildings, stars fell from the sky, and Bill, 
again, felt overcome with trepidation.

 His legs grew spongy and he sensed himself losing equilibrium just 
before he tumbled down the hill to the edge of the river.

Samantha shrieked with great 
and ran to him. 

Bill rose from the damp sod unaware of where he was or how he 
had come to be there, but keenly cognizant that he had, once again, 
left his lonely bed while still asleep. 
He was mortified.

He was afraid of what his somnambulate-somniloquist self
 might have done, for he knew that

Samantha understood immediatelythough his discordant tune hurt 
her earssweet, empathetic soul she was. "Don't fret, dear William. 
I had a feeling it was you, the Anthropologist, all along." 
She continued, "Its all right, 
"

They held each other tightly. This was a relationship 
he'd long want to study.
And a passionate embrace ensued.

"By the way, my sweet Samantha," William smiled,
his heart heavy no more, 
""

And then he kissed her.

[Source]
 Together they flew awayWilliam's
 tail quivering with joyhe'd never again somnambulate
He was home.

THE END