Pie Town, NM

Pie Town, Wise Acres, and Indigenous Peoples Day

 

I imagine you’re full up with November and December holidata, though some of it is kind of fun; the really REALLY bad schmaltz-TV romantic shows, and the attempts to “update” Christmas song classics. I heard (on a sports talk show, no less) while driving, a host ranting on just that.

 “Leave ‘em alone! You don’t put lettuce on a PB&J. It’s a classic!” That made me smile. But “Buy More, Save More!” doesn’t, even though it’s just a comment on The American Way, which, all in all, is a pretty good way, or struggling to be. Back to the classics; wonder how Mel, Bing, Frank, Nat et al would feel about their music being compared to the most pedestrian of sandwiches. Well, it’s the thought, and it took a sportscaster to vent it, to matriculate it down the field, as they were fond of saying for awhile. (Here’s a link to some classics, led off by Nat King Cole…)

 The Wise Acres lighting ceremony went off (on?) without a hitch and we gave thanks for perfectly prepared salmon, sweet potatoes and various fantastic pies, none of them from Pie Town, but here’s a link. Salmon was more like what the pilgrims had, that and cod and eel. No turkeys, maybe some grouse.

 The postlady is showing up later each day, a sign of her increased burden of boxes and Christmas cards and “Buy More, Save More” sales literature. The supply chain deficit seems remote; is it just another conspiracy? There may be an XBox shortage, but any gamers under 14 should be outside anyway. No hope for the rest of them.

 The postlady reminds me of all the various holidays when the mail doesn’t come and the banks close. Fed stuff. Like Columbus Day. Which they have now designated Indigenous Peoples Day. Columbus “discovered” San Salvador, not America, but he savaged a lot of natives along the way. What he had to do with America is doubtful. The El Nino, the Pinto and the Santa Fe, right? Anyway, Indigenous Peoples Day came out of Berkeley in 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival... somewhere, and was a sop to the forenamed groups to make up for the 400+ treaties that the feds made. And broke. Every single one. Let that sink in. I’m guessing it doesn’t come close, this naming of the day. 

Picture of F’s grandmother, sits in the dining room amid some heirlooms…

 Reparations would force a lot of moves. A huge reverse Mayflower deal, millions of us being returned somewhere. I’d be hustled off to Belgium. My wife would suddenly have lots of land, her grandmother, Pearl Bigfeather Osburn, having been 100% Cherokee. Pearl lived to 100, and her mother before her, a Sixkiller, was also longlived. Freddie loved visiting her grandmother as a child, remembers sitting on the porch and watching her quilt. I asked, the grandparents being a farm family, if they put her and her siblings to work. “Oh, no. She waited on us hand and foot, taught us to quilt and crochet, all kinds of things. It was great fun visiting there.” She had one of the colorful quilts for years but lost it in a move.

And here’s a picture I love; sunflowers and Freddie in Maui maybe three years ago, a trip she took with her good friend Gail. Not the usual beach/sunset/palm trees shot, this, but F likes exploring, checking out the windward side and roads less taken. Makes me smile. I hope you like it too. Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate it, good times to all, and a Happier, Healthier New Year! Imagine. Sunflowers in Maui. Maybe we’ll plant ‘em at Wise Acres. (Or hemp, not hay.)

(You’re on the free list for The View From Wise Acres.  For the full experience...wait, this is the full experience.)

 

Bedtime Reading...

…And Living To Be 100+.

A stack of recent reads. You might like ‘em…

Bedtime reading is one of the things recommended by a wellness list of things to do to live to be 100. More about that and a link to it in the next paragraph; and more about the books (and links) in paragraphs four to nine.

I just read an article about becoming a centenarian; 100 things to do to live to be 100. I’m happy to report that I do a bunch of them. So does Freddie*. Like not riding a motorcycle (anymore). Like not smoking (anymore). Not BASE jumping (never did). Well, they aren’t mostly negative, most are about doing things, not NOT doing things, like...well here’s the link. On that subject, I read somewhere that once you get into your 80’s you’re good for awhile; you’ve evaded most of the stuff that’ll kakk you right away, so it might be good to read the list and go for a hundred or more, whatever your age.

Can’t read it? Neither can I…have an Atomic Fireball.

One of the things TO do is to keep a journal. I do. Here’s a picture of it and an Atomic Fireball, which didn’t make the list; I use Atomic Fireballs sporadically. They’re hot, cinnamony, and sort of like the old Jawbreakers, hard as a rock, so you have to wait until they dematerialize. You don’t want to chew on them. Another thing I do that’s good is walk. Over 10,000 steps a day, about five miles, usually more, but always at least 10k. (An Atomic Fireball lasts about 1200 steps.) And I keep a record  of it in the journal. I can hardly read my writing (or printing) so it's not for posterity. If I can’t read it nobody else can either. Who would want to. But I do it and it’s a good thing, apparently.

The book stack. I’ve been reading (and writing) a lot of nonfiction. Poetry, too. Starting at the top, Zadie Smith’s Intimations, essays about the early days of the New York-emptying pandemic and related thoughts. I’ll be reading more of her; this is my first. Great writer. Garrison Keillor’s compilation of Good Poems, American Places is a masterful collection and I wrung it dry, reading the bios at the end, each poem more than once. It’s about 500 pages. I read this slowly, about two poems a day. Thank you, GK, for putting this together. Country Dark by Chris Offut was one of two fiction books I’ve read lately and it was well-named, set in rural Kentucky in the years following the Korean War. Cormac McCarthy meets Raymond Carver. What a writer.

Just Before Dark, by Jim Harrison, one of my favorite writers, was a revealing book of essays about true Zen-masters, poetry, coming of several ages, various appetites and unimaginable feasts to satisfy them. Mile Marker Zero, The Moveable Feast Of Key West by William McKeen, is, as Tom Wolfe puts it: “A tall but telescopic-sight-true tale of Hunter Thompson, Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and a large cavorting cast running around with sand in their shoes at ‘ground zero’ for lust and greed and most of the other deadly sins’: Key West.” Entertaining.

Walker Percy’s The Message in the Bottle, was, for me, a slooowww read, as his gargantuan intellect and deep philosophical meanderings were not at all like his fiction which I enjoyed immensely, all of it. I will have to read it again to see if I “get it.” Maybe you will. I did “get” the Helen Keller treatise and found it view-changing. No pun.

Steve Erickson’s fiction novel Shadowbahn is vintage Erickson slipstream—if you read Rubicon Beach, Zeroville or Arc d’X you know the context. I first read his Days Between Stations and I was hooked. Beautiful.

 I wanted to read some of Jo Ann Beard’s nonfiction and chose The Boys of My Youth. I will read more of Beard. Her voice is, at once, comic, sad, wise and hugely entertaining.

And, at stack’s bottom, National Bestseller, Up In The Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell, an oft-times New Yorker contributor whose book makes the case for journalism-as-literature. A friend gave me this book years ago and it has remained in one dusty, towering stack or another for all that time until it finally caught my eye, and I’m glad it did. So that’s the stack. Good reading.

 *Now for Freddie’s asterisk. Just wanted to say, she is beautiful. And will be at 100 plus. Nobody’s surprised at my age. But Freddie, she is flat gorgeous. I look at her when she’s cooking something or getting ready to head out the door, and think, man, what a chick. Sorry feministas, but there it is. That old guy thing. Hey, stay well. (I just got back from Louisburg and a J&J booster shot—I’d like to see 100+)

  

 

 

 

 

 

The ides...

The ides of October—Our Time.

Mercury is in retrograde until October 18th. This retro thing of planets meant nothing to me until this year—I don’t read horoscopes or any of that stuff, but Mercury has my attention, sort of like “earthquake weather” in California did. Santa Anas. An uptick in freeway shootings.

Raymond Chandler said, in Red Wind, “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

That’s how I feel lately. Except with the added Kansas negative of humidity. It reminded me of an article I clipped years ago heralding October as a dangerous month in California. I went to my voluminous files and looked it up. While I was searching for it I got lost in files titled “Neat Stuff” and the year. This article came from “Neat Stuff,1982 on.” The files hold stacks of great ads, wonderful copy, outstanding articles—but I’ll get back to that in another blog some day. I’ll just say the stuff kicks copy and writing ass over what’s being churned out these days, my recent natterings included. Note to self: get back to work and rework. Start trying again.

My journal last week—that guy yowling, sharks circling, is how I felt that day…

This is about my summer of discontent. What a godawful time to prepare for a sculpture show. (It opened October 1st in KC’s Hilliard Gallery.) Sweat streamed into the eyes under the hot, baking welding helmet. I cussed a lot. Hydrated.

That article goes on about how the tourists disappear, the Santa Anas start and October is a hot electric disruption in a blur of splendid months. The good old days before firestorms ate half the state. Before...well, everything as we all know it now. Still, a dangerous time.

I was out walking and it’s hot and humid.  My journal is full of complaints about The Weather. I looked up the hottest year in KC—turns out it was a record in 1936, unbroken since, with temperatures as high as 113. No AC back then, not even in department stores. I told myself waahh waahh, quit yer damn snivelling. Those folks put block ice in tubs in front of fans. If they had them. It was The Depression.

So what’s this Mercury thing? Planets move from east to west around the sun—during the retrophase, Mercury appears to move backwards and that brings out Murphy’s Law of astrology. If you believe in that sort of stuff. All I know is our rural internet went to hell, and is sloooowww. I’ve signed up for Starlink but Elon is fresh out of semiconductors right now and no telling when that situation will improve. It affects everything made with electronics; pickups, computers, games, appliances. Meanwhile, Hughes, Dish Network, Viasat, Gotw3, and the rest of the Covid profiteers have us by the rurales. I wish them only ill. I will drop Gotw3 like a dirty shirt when the chips come in (when the whip comes down) and Starlink delivers.

Like I said, I don’t read horoscopes. But one weird night many years ago an ouija board told me a Belgian parfumeur who claimed to be a relative was talking to me. Well, my forebearers on one side are from Belgium but nobody at the table knew that. I still haven’t found the fortitude to see if any perfume makers are among the ancestors. And I don’t mess with ouija boards.

Well, shoot. Enough whining for now. As the French Belgian parfumeurs and cops say, bonne journee. XO, G.

 PS: To end this on a much higher note (you’ll see what I did there) here’s a video of my favorite graffiti artist, Futura, laid back, way, way back, (link here) on The Bowery in NYC.

Rattlecan Alley

I love the smell of spray paint in the morning.

The WiseAcres welding shack is no stranger to rattlecans, but I’m beefing up on colors and acrylic plastic squirt bottles since I took a MasterClass with Futura, (link) the godfather of graffiti. What an engaging, informative guy. Freddie gave me MasterClass this Christmas and last, and I have enjoyed some very fine in-depth classes with the likes of Billy Collins and Dan Brown, and will soon be diving into a Roxane Gay course. But I happened upon the Futura class while cruising the new stuff, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve already mixed the hard-edged metal of welding with the fresh action feel of subwaylike graffiti writing and I’m liking some of the results. Not all, but some.

Futura is kinetic; lots of Jackson Pollock-like moves while he’s painting, and he’s always experimenting. For instance in this video, he paints small, light clouds of color on the walls, then covers the walls completely with a long handled roller drenched in the same color; he gives himself latitude for change. The light clouds weren’t sparking anything but the color was. Bold moves characterize his work, and he’s taken graffiti art into an abstract expressionist feel, without losing the street aspect.

 His moves are fluid, unhesitating. My first tries reveal a tremor of intent; later attempts are stronger. I picked up something I call “squeeching” from Futura--you plop a blob of pure color on the surface and “squeeche” it, fast, with the edge of a flat surface; plastic, cardboard, a wide brush. You’d better do it quickly, in a straight line or an arc, for it to accomplish that Futura/Franz Kline strength.  

 Not all graffiti writing relies on paint; Bob Swearengin alerted me to this piece that popped up on the corner of a building at 19th and McGee in Kansas City, just down the street from The Hilliard Gallery. It hearkens back to Adam Cost’s message posters, but incorporates ceramic tiles in the background and the word, “LOVE.” It’s about 4” X 10” and looks to be affixed to the building with Liquid Nails or a similar adhesive. To me this is rather charming guerrilla art. Bob says there are several with different (positive) messaging around The Crossroads.

 Anyway, for the October First Friday show at The Hilliard Gallery, I’ll have a few pieces that attempt to incorporate Futura’s aesthetic, and that of street art.  

It’s been called the happiest photo ever taken. What price happiness? An Eisenstadt print: $38,000.

 Change of subject. Back in the 50’s and 60’s BC (before computers and we actually had to draw for comp layouts) art directors kept reference files; “tear sheets” from magazines. I still have some of those old files. Two pieces, a magical, unposed Eisenstadt photo of a full-dress drum major practicing on an empty football field, and his enthusiastic following, and Sonny Liston talking on a delicate French phone engulfed by his large, dangerous hand, are two of my very favorites. In fact they both inspired, and appear in, a G-poem titled “Sonny Liston Looking Vulnerable.” That poem will be in Third Wednesday, I’m happy to say, a top publication. Other poetry and essays will be forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys, Sledgehammer Review, Eclectica and Words & Whispers. It’s been a busy year and it’s only a little more than half over. I’ve got a lot more rejections coming, maybe a few more acceptances.

 And finally, I can’t ignore this second pandemic. May we make it through. Vaccinations are available here, unlike some other countries. Did you know most of us have had ten (or more) vaccinations by the time we were 18?  They were, are, mandatory in all 50 states in order to attend public school as kids. (No federally mandated laws) Thanks to vaccinations, we don’t have to worry about polio—and that was a scary sonofa...gun when I was young. It didn’t quite kill you—it just paralyzed you. Picture kids laying around in big tubelike machines called Iron Lungs. The machine helped them to breathe. There was a mirror so you could look at your face. That was it. Nightmarish. Thank God and Jonas Salk for that vaccine.

 The more people who get the covid vax, any of the three available, the sooner we can get through this thing. Thanks to those who have, those who will, and those who are considering it. Be careful everyone.

 Happy August.

PS: here’s a shot at a piece incorporating some Futura-ism…

 

 

 

Surfing on a paper airplane

This sculpture by Gary Lee Price, “Journeys of the Imagination,” personifies our attitude when we moved here. And now, as well. Freddie and I saw it in Santa Fe and, with very little fanfare, grabbed it. It’s Price’s son, who he photographed one day playing super hero and leaping off boulders with a towel cape. It made us feel good then and now, as we are both caped and goggled paper airplane surfers.

 When we first moved out here to Resume Speed, Kansas, a noted farmer from the area asked me if I was going to farm. I told him, no, I couldn’t stand the hours or the learning curve. He laughed and said, “I sure hear that.” The feed store owner merely asked, “Are you lost?” every time I’d venture in there. After thirty plus years I get to ask that question of others who are usually looking for the winery store or folk art. The town hasn’t grown much in the years we’ve been here, but it’s acquired a veneer. Artisanal?  Artist + anal I guess is the etymology of that word.

 I sold my hot rod cruiser to Buck Ballou who has trimmed the trees at Wise Acres for years. He was taken by its chopped lines and ‘88 Mercury powerhouse. I had traded him an unused Sasser saddle for some tree work and the hot rod caught his eye that day. The basketweave patterned Sasser was made in Greenville Texas and gathered dust on a saddle rack I bought in California. My using saddle was, is, an old ranch work saddle that Harley and Lopez and several others found comfortable. Percy, a wonderful horse I had 50 years ago liked it too. I still have it but I doubt I’ll ever sit it again. Not so much my age, but no more horses, thanks. They are just too hard to lose.

 Buck had one day of cruising in the 1949 Ford lead sled, and from an account I heard, thoroughly enjoyed it. Vintage hot rods that run well have a way of bringing past years and old songs up to now in a nice way. Sadly, Buck passed away some weeks later. He’s a legend and he is missed. He was 86.

 F gave me a Fitbit a couple birthdays ago and it says I’ve walked over 12 million steps, averaging 11,000+ a day. Thousands of miles. My resting heart rate is 57; it was 67 when I started; not bad but better now. She walks, too. A lot faster than I do, though I slow jog to get my heart rate up to 120 or so. Walking requires no gym membership and it’s something just about anyone can do anywhere. It’s cheap and effective. End of commercial.

Cut this out and surf it…no telling where it’ll take you…

 Paper airplane surfing; did some after covid interrupted a novel that was showing some promise (fun to write often results in fun to read) as it was contemporary and I couldn’t just put masks on everyone and blithely sail forward. What I did was corner a producer about the prospects of an earlier novel becoming a streaming episodic deal. That’s all I’ll say for now. Will have to do a pilot and some synopses, see where it goes.

 Had a fun interview by Suanne Shaeffer, a writer of bestsellers and a force in the lit world. Here’s the link, if you care to pursue.

 And this from Jessie Krebs, a trailer from her Masterclass on survival. I have the MC series so will probably audit this one if not actually go out in the wild and face off with grizzlies and avalanches. She is a former Air Force SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) instructor, and a cool lady. As she says in the trailer, make your exhales longer than your inhales.

 And surf the paper airplane once in awhile. Oh, the places it’ll take you!