Posts
A pal and I once drove from here,
clear across to over there,
sea-to-shining-sea, as it were.
This was in the seventies;
a long time ago from the Aught-Single-Digits thence.
To this day we both recall
the carnage of the Poconos:
ten dead deer littering the highway,
in a space of but a few miles.
In the darkness of November Saturday,
returning from a mild domestic errand,
peaceful in the warm evening air,
enjoying the pastoral environs I've chosen
intentionally, to enjoy these many years
part of the bucolic scenery leapt alive
across the picturesque wall and
into the two-lane-blacktop inches
from my unstoppable bumper.
The blur became a faun,
the faun became roadkill,
and I a roadkiller.
And it's still the same
woods-cradled two lane blacktop
and my bumper's trash
but the car will soldier on
(and my insurance company will pay
all but $100 to get it fixed).
But the little deer is dead,
and I'm not quite as comfortable as I was.
Which might be good.
I don't really know.
Copyright D. Quarrell 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Well, yet another segment in the busted dryer saga
so I took a couple of loads to the laundramat, couple towns to the south, 15 or 20 minute drive. Loaded up the big commercial dryer, popped the plastic token card in, set it off for 45 minutes, yatta yatta. Forty-five minutes later pulled out the fluffy-dries, loaded them back into the car and headed north. Just south of Atkinson (NH) center there's a lovely early-19th century house with humongous barn attached, that looks down onto NH Rte 121, and across it to a lovely meadow, once populated by grazing ungulants and other herbivores back in the days of our agrarian past. This big meadow (east of the two-lane blacktop that is Main St Atkinson, Stage Road and Main Street Hampstead, and up into Chester and Auburn, etc.) slopes down away from the right-of-way, and is separated from it by one of our ubiquitous stone walls. There are woods surrounding the meadow. It is an ideal place for wildlife to hang out - especially at night. So there I am headed north with me clean laundry, doing the speed limit (35, I make it a point, often just to piss of the guys behind me who want to do 50) and I see out of the corner of my eye, a greyish brown blur, and it hops the stone wall and is off my right front fender as I slam the brake pedal but it's not enough and not soon enough and the faun took the full impact of the front of the Highlander in the process of slowing down. He sort of bounced off my bumper, then managed to drag himself (or herself, I don't really know) into the path of a southbound Taurus wagon.
The deer's dead, I called 911 and waited, waving southbound traffic off to prevent the poor critter from becoming bloody pulp, it was entitled to that much dignity. I guess it was a good thing too for the safety of the southbound drivers, but some of them were driving like assholes and didn't deserve the courtesy. The local cop came, took my details, commiserated ("I hate this shift at this time of year, there's so much of this. They're pretty to look at but a danger.") and told me I was good to go. I'm fine, the front bumper of the Highlander is a disaster but it did its job nobly and that's why we have insurance. I won't lose any sleep over the poor critter, but I feel badly and I wish it hadn't happened.
The deer's dead, I called 911 and waited, waving southbound traffic off to prevent the poor critter from becoming bloody pulp, it was entitled to that much dignity. I guess it was a good thing too for the safety of the southbound drivers, but some of them were driving like assholes and didn't deserve the courtesy. The local cop came, took my details, commiserated ("I hate this shift at this time of year, there's so much of this. They're pretty to look at but a danger.") and told me I was good to go. I'm fine, the front bumper of the Highlander is a disaster but it did its job nobly and that's why we have insurance. I won't lose any sleep over the poor critter, but I feel badly and I wish it hadn't happened.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Gowf Chronicles 8/27/09
Played nine holes on a local course. Played horribly, but I still have beginner's status to fall back on for consolation. My game is pretty much summed up by "whack, 'dammit', trudge, whack, trudge, whack, 'dammit', trudge." I try not to let the golf spoil the "good walk" and the fun of being with a friend. Nice little course though (in Pelham NH) sort of backwoodsy, obviously a "neighborhood course" if there's such a thing, I'm sure there's a gowfish term for it, there's one for everything else. The fairways were kinda narrow & constricted. I suspect that "it's not an easy course" carried less consolation for me than was intended, but while not terrifically satisfactory as a golf outing, it wasn't the one that will make me decide not to play again. Nor did "the shot that'll bring you back" happen, so next time depends entirely on camaraderie & fellowship, I guess. That's strong enough.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Drove up to Salisbury Beach last night; pilgrimagically.
For certain folks of a certain age living in a certain part of New England, Salisbury Beach was always part of summer. Not necessarily the best part, but the greasy pizza (cheese extra at Cristy's) and fries and onion rings, followed by ice cream and a walk up the midway was a necessity of summer. When we were kids, there were rides and lots of games and arcades; when our kids were kids there were still a few rides & arcades, still some hurly-burly, noise and of course the dirty sand. Salisbury Beach midway was never a place to actually go "to the beach" though, at least not for us. Beach-sitting (or prowling & ogling when we got a little older) was for Hampton or Plum Island or Rye. Salisbury Beach was for honky-tonk and horrid food and chintzy games & rides.
Salisbury Beach is not quite dead & gone; the rides are all gone, and most of the game booths, there's a couple of arcades left, as well as Cristy's and Tripoly's pizza stands and a few ice cream stands, and fried dough, and some really sleazy bars (there have always been sleazy bars of course, but they weren't part of my growing up so they're sorta wallpaper to this little reverie). But last night there weren't any people there. In the middle of the last week in August, we expected stragglers galore, as in summers of yore, wringing the last drops out of the summer before Labor Day rang the gong. But there were very few folks around, and they were indeed clearly stragglers, some of them may even have been fall move-ins, the folks who live at the beach in the winter because the rents are very cheap in some of the older "cottages." I make no comment about the new, year-round condos that developers have slapped up in attempts to cash in on a longed-for gentrification. But Salisbury Beach is pretty much gone - no Frolics, no Normandy Hotel, no rides, no people.
Hampton Beach, on the other hand, was exactly as we'd expected - as rowdy as ever but cleaner, and with slightly less honk to its tonk, crowded with people sucking the last juices out of August-by-the-sea. Good to know. And Cristy's Pizza now has a stand in Hampton. Old Sam's heirs & assigns have obviously seen the writing on the wall. Adios Salisbury Beach.
Salisbury Beach is not quite dead & gone; the rides are all gone, and most of the game booths, there's a couple of arcades left, as well as Cristy's and Tripoly's pizza stands and a few ice cream stands, and fried dough, and some really sleazy bars (there have always been sleazy bars of course, but they weren't part of my growing up so they're sorta wallpaper to this little reverie). But last night there weren't any people there. In the middle of the last week in August, we expected stragglers galore, as in summers of yore, wringing the last drops out of the summer before Labor Day rang the gong. But there were very few folks around, and they were indeed clearly stragglers, some of them may even have been fall move-ins, the folks who live at the beach in the winter because the rents are very cheap in some of the older "cottages." I make no comment about the new, year-round condos that developers have slapped up in attempts to cash in on a longed-for gentrification. But Salisbury Beach is pretty much gone - no Frolics, no Normandy Hotel, no rides, no people.
Hampton Beach, on the other hand, was exactly as we'd expected - as rowdy as ever but cleaner, and with slightly less honk to its tonk, crowded with people sucking the last juices out of August-by-the-sea. Good to know. And Cristy's Pizza now has a stand in Hampton. Old Sam's heirs & assigns have obviously seen the writing on the wall. Adios Salisbury Beach.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
I played golf with my best bud today
and my first point of insecurity has nothing to do with golf but with whether the guy I've known since 1962, and have been pals with since 1964, and who has in fact been my "best bud" since about 1966, should be referred to with more capitalization. I dunno. Played golf with Huz today. I haven't played golf since about 1963, when Dana Parker and Mike Robinson and I hiked (literally) to the Sagamore course in Lynnfield and whacked balls around mercilessly (and totally unproductively, in golf terms). I was about 16 or 17, and we played about five or six times, it being summer and we being headed into our senior years in high school, and more or less unemployed, and it was something to do. I sucked at it, as I recall, but no one was any good, so who cares.
So today I was a duffer wannabe out on the course with another slightly more experienced duffer wannabe, and another somewhat more experienced (and talented) duffer and his teenaged son who was doing his best not to embarrass Dad (and he succeeded, he wasn't horrible). Somewhere around the middle of hole two I realized we weren't really counting strokes so I stopped counting strokes and it instantly became more fun. I have no idea what my final stroke count might have been ( I do know that on more than one hole I said "Ah fuckit" rather than keep trying to putt the ball into the cup) but I had fun, and at the end of nine holes there was a place to have a snort of Jameson's.
What could be bad? I suspect I'll play golf (or as Wodehouse has it "the gowf") again.
So today I was a duffer wannabe out on the course with another slightly more experienced duffer wannabe, and another somewhat more experienced (and talented) duffer and his teenaged son who was doing his best not to embarrass Dad (and he succeeded, he wasn't horrible). Somewhere around the middle of hole two I realized we weren't really counting strokes so I stopped counting strokes and it instantly became more fun. I have no idea what my final stroke count might have been ( I do know that on more than one hole I said "Ah fuckit" rather than keep trying to putt the ball into the cup) but I had fun, and at the end of nine holes there was a place to have a snort of Jameson's.
What could be bad? I suspect I'll play golf (or as Wodehouse has it "the gowf") again.
Friday, July 3, 2009
I watched the film about Garrison Keillor on American Masters the other night.
Very enjoyable. I think GK is a talented, intelligent and funny guy. A bit sentimental and cornball perhaps, but I think he sincerely believes in the values. He made a couple of interesting remarks in the course of the film (a lot of it was him talking over footage following him around in the course of preparing and presenting APHC). One was that in order to make a show like APHC work, it had to be pretty light-hearted entertainment, and in order for light-hearted entertainment to work, it had to be heartfelt and had to be seen to be heartfelt, therefore the main production value driving the show (I'm paraphrasing he didn't use the term production value or heartfelt) was for the participants to be having fun themselves, ergo the goal is always to be entertaining themselves.
Another interesting thing he said was that writing (he is primarily a writer, in his own and in my opinion) is discovery. "We write in order to find out what we think." "Writing what you know is a starting point."
Mulling that in conjunction with words from Michael Chabon and Stephen King, who say that writing is to entertain, and to tell a story (different aspects of the same coin), respectively.
So writing is to entertain by telling a story, in order to find out what we think.
Another interesting thing he said was that writing (he is primarily a writer, in his own and in my opinion) is discovery. "We write in order to find out what we think." "Writing what you know is a starting point."
Mulling that in conjunction with words from Michael Chabon and Stephen King, who say that writing is to entertain, and to tell a story (different aspects of the same coin), respectively.
So writing is to entertain by telling a story, in order to find out what we think.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
HMS
HMS
She slooped the grand vessel of her pregnancy
Along the sidewalk,
tacking to this or that shop window,
luffing back toward curb to watch the traffic
She dabbled in her progress
A dilettante of forward motion,
Undestined but unwilling to stay put
As if to stand would risk a topple
As if the movement lent her balance
Like a boy on a bicycle
And then her chariot of dreams arrived
And she pushed the spinnaker
of imminent maternity
ahead of her onto the bus.
copyright 2009 D. Quarrell
She slooped the grand vessel of her pregnancy
Along the sidewalk,
tacking to this or that shop window,
luffing back toward curb to watch the traffic
She dabbled in her progress
A dilettante of forward motion,
Undestined but unwilling to stay put
As if to stand would risk a topple
As if the movement lent her balance
Like a boy on a bicycle
And then her chariot of dreams arrived
And she pushed the spinnaker
of imminent maternity
ahead of her onto the bus.
copyright 2009 D. Quarrell
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
To Carve a Horse
They say to carve a horse
is easy; simply take away the stuff
that doesnt look like a horse.
Suppose, suppose the horse youre trying to carve
doesnt look like horses youve seen?
A different color perhaps,
or shaggy in the mane,
short in the shanks,
no Trigger,
Buttermilk or
Silver, not even
Champion or
Scout, but
Shorty or Scruffy.
Suppose the horse youre trying to carve
is really named Tubby,
and you carve away too much
and are left with only part of a horse.
The back part, maybe.
Then what have you done,
there are already more of
those in the world
than there are horses?
copyright 2009, Dean Quarrell
is easy; simply take away the stuff
that doesnt look like a horse.
Suppose, suppose the horse youre trying to carve
doesnt look like horses youve seen?
A different color perhaps,
or shaggy in the mane,
short in the shanks,
no Trigger,
Buttermilk or
Silver, not even
Champion or
Scout, but
Shorty or Scruffy.
Suppose the horse youre trying to carve
is really named Tubby,
and you carve away too much
and are left with only part of a horse.
The back part, maybe.
Then what have you done,
there are already more of
those in the world
than there are horses?
copyright 2009, Dean Quarrell
Monday, June 15, 2009
I was culling books in the attic Saturday
Oh the things you find.
Four copies of Volume I, number 1 of "Parnassus" the literary magazine of Northern Essex Community College, from 1966 or so. Why four copies I hear the yowl? Well, (sheepish shuckens ensues) there are several chunks of juvenilia from Yrs Trly, and I was on the staff of the mag. We invented it. Was fun. Also on the staff was Tom Sexton, well known poet, professor, and former Poet Laureate of Alaska (honest). Knew Tom well, he was a hoot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sexton
Also in the rummagem, lots of Christie, and incredible array of miscellany, a copy of the "War Log" of the USS New Jersey from WWII, my dad's ship, and his copy of Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, inscribed "To George from Greta, Christmas 1925."
No idea who Greta was but apparently Little George was doing ok at 14 back there in Leominster.
Did you know that TASER (that ray gun that reduces the perps to yowling jelly on "Cops") is an acronym? I always figured it was, but it stands for "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle." That's what I've heard, anyway - you could look it up. I may have to read that book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taser
Four copies of Volume I, number 1 of "Parnassus" the literary magazine of Northern Essex Community College, from 1966 or so. Why four copies I hear the yowl? Well, (sheepish shuckens ensues) there are several chunks of juvenilia from Yrs Trly, and I was on the staff of the mag. We invented it. Was fun. Also on the staff was Tom Sexton, well known poet, professor, and former Poet Laureate of Alaska (honest). Knew Tom well, he was a hoot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sexton
Also in the rummagem, lots of Christie, and incredible array of miscellany, a copy of the "War Log" of the USS New Jersey from WWII, my dad's ship, and his copy of Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, inscribed "To George from Greta, Christmas 1925."
No idea who Greta was but apparently Little George was doing ok at 14 back there in Leominster.
Did you know that TASER (that ray gun that reduces the perps to yowling jelly on "Cops") is an acronym? I always figured it was, but it stands for "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle." That's what I've heard, anyway - you could look it up. I may have to read that book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taser
Sunday, June 7, 2009
"That music, used to make me smile..."
and I know that some of the (few & dwindling) folk who check in here from time to time share some of my affections, but I know some of the folks have their own likes etc. and I'm wondering about them.
As if anyone didn't know, I'm a folkie at heart, so The Weavers and The Kingston Trio and all the names of The Great Folk Scare, are sacred to me.
But I also grew up as a kid of folks who came of age in the Depression and WWII - so Swing and Big Band (and they are different) are very special to me as well. The audio wallpaper to my very earliest memories is not Glenn Miller (though he's in the background) but Patti Page and Perry Como, who were current when I was a tad. Later I grew an appreciation of Miller slightly later, (and even stronger) Benny Goodman. So those are my faves of that era.
Later yet I became acquainted with an even earlier era - that of the 30s, and "Hot Jazz" and that where I met Grapelli and Reinhardt who are today heroes of mine for the genre they invented & mastered.
I have no affection for "cool jazz" or "be-bop" in the vein of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I hear their stuff and I'm enough (just barely) of a musician to recognize the importance of what they did nd how the shifted things, but the bottom line is, they (Bird and Diz and miles etc.) don't make me smile.
Django and Stephane make me smile. Benny & Krupa make me smile. The Trombones of G. Miller in the break of Moonlight Serenade or In The Mood make me smile - always. Just like a piano rag of Joplin makes me smile, without fail.
What artists of which genres make you smile? I'm especially interested in hearing from the folks I know who drop in regularly, but also some of the unknown folks - lurkers, what music, which artists, make you smile?
As if anyone didn't know, I'm a folkie at heart, so The Weavers and The Kingston Trio and all the names of The Great Folk Scare, are sacred to me.
But I also grew up as a kid of folks who came of age in the Depression and WWII - so Swing and Big Band (and they are different) are very special to me as well. The audio wallpaper to my very earliest memories is not Glenn Miller (though he's in the background) but Patti Page and Perry Como, who were current when I was a tad. Later I grew an appreciation of Miller slightly later, (and even stronger) Benny Goodman. So those are my faves of that era.
Later yet I became acquainted with an even earlier era - that of the 30s, and "Hot Jazz" and that where I met Grapelli and Reinhardt who are today heroes of mine for the genre they invented & mastered.
I have no affection for "cool jazz" or "be-bop" in the vein of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I hear their stuff and I'm enough (just barely) of a musician to recognize the importance of what they did nd how the shifted things, but the bottom line is, they (Bird and Diz and miles etc.) don't make me smile.
Django and Stephane make me smile. Benny & Krupa make me smile. The Trombones of G. Miller in the break of Moonlight Serenade or In The Mood make me smile - always. Just like a piano rag of Joplin makes me smile, without fail.
What artists of which genres make you smile? I'm especially interested in hearing from the folks I know who drop in regularly, but also some of the unknown folks - lurkers, what music, which artists, make you smile?
Sunday, May 31, 2009
So this "T.J. Somethingsky" guy who's been producing
all these "My Music" fundraising specials on PBS (the folk shit, and the doo-wop shit, etc.) has finally gotten around to music that clearly ISN'T his (since he's thirty something) - Big Band. And he's recruited Peter Marshall and Nick Clooney to host, and the majority of it (so far) is clips from film and early TV appearances.
Well damn I love this shit. I am a firm believer in the identification of Benny Goodman as "King of Swing" and a clip they just showed of "Sing, sing, sing" with Gene Krupa doing his usual bananas act on the skins....
well shit. But it does of course add sweet irony to the fact that the time BG got whipped as "KofS" it was by Chick Webb - a drummer/Bandleader.
This is such way cool music, this Glenn Miller and tiny-little-young Frank Sinatra and the Andrews Sisters (there's a clip of "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" from an Abbot & Costello movie - ambrosia.
Well damn I love this shit. I am a firm believer in the identification of Benny Goodman as "King of Swing" and a clip they just showed of "Sing, sing, sing" with Gene Krupa doing his usual bananas act on the skins....
well shit. But it does of course add sweet irony to the fact that the time BG got whipped as "KofS" it was by Chick Webb - a drummer/Bandleader.
This is such way cool music, this Glenn Miller and tiny-little-young Frank Sinatra and the Andrews Sisters (there's a clip of "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" from an Abbot & Costello movie - ambrosia.
So Conan O'Brien is the host of the Tonight Show now.
I have to admit I never watched a Jay Leno episode - not because I don't like Leno (how could I not like a guy who has so many cars & motorcycles and understands things like the allure of the Vincent Black Shadow, and understands stuff about steam automobile power?) (who hails from Andover, yet?) but because a long time ago I started having to get up at about 4:30 in the morning to get to work in various factories at the crack o' and that's incompatible with staying up past 10 or so. And then going to bed around 10 just became a habit.
My affection for The Tonight Show goes back to Steve Allen, and mellowed out through Jack Paar, and I loved the early Carson days, having been a fan of "Who Do You Trust?" the afternoon game show he & Ed hosted just before Paar (finally) bolted permanently. But there's just so many times you can hear the same tired nattery jokes about the current crop of idiot politicians, and just so many idiot authors and celebrities you can feign attention to. I guess it's a sign of my age (or my age 20 years ago) - I wish Conan O'Brien well (I hear he's another Metro-Bostonian, an Irishman from Brookline? Something awry there methinks...) but doubt if I'll tune in. I've never tuned in to his current show and I doubt if I've seen more than ten minutes of his work.
What is it with me anyway - first I ditch The Tonight Show, then newspapers... [sigh] life hasn't been the same since Bob & Ray retired, y'know what I mean?
My affection for The Tonight Show goes back to Steve Allen, and mellowed out through Jack Paar, and I loved the early Carson days, having been a fan of "Who Do You Trust?" the afternoon game show he & Ed hosted just before Paar (finally) bolted permanently. But there's just so many times you can hear the same tired nattery jokes about the current crop of idiot politicians, and just so many idiot authors and celebrities you can feign attention to. I guess it's a sign of my age (or my age 20 years ago) - I wish Conan O'Brien well (I hear he's another Metro-Bostonian, an Irishman from Brookline? Something awry there methinks...) but doubt if I'll tune in. I've never tuned in to his current show and I doubt if I've seen more than ten minutes of his work.
What is it with me anyway - first I ditch The Tonight Show, then newspapers... [sigh] life hasn't been the same since Bob & Ray retired, y'know what I mean?
Sunday, April 12, 2009
So The Times (the vaunted national "newspaper of record") may shut down The Boston Globe
- allegedly New England's "NoR" - maybe (to all three propositions), but is it a cultural tragedy or just one more step in the evolution of communication? I grew up in a two newspaper town (Springfield Massachusetts had The Republican and The Union back in the 50s) and when we moved to the greater Boston Metro area ('59) there were three or four (let's see, Globe, Traveler, Herald, Record, American (or Record-American?) which later fused into the Herald-Traveler and Record-American, and the Sunday Advertiser. There may have been more, I'm not sure. The point is newspapers aren't all-of-a-sudden disappearing, and certainly not for nefarious reasons. They're no longer commercially viable as a mode of mass communication. Period. If they were profitable, they wouldn't be going out of business.
When I subscribed to a newspaper, it was the Globe for a long time, then it was a more local paper, as I got more & more of my national & global information from radio (NPR) and online over the last 15 years. Newspapers ceased to have a place for me partly because they're physically awkward, they lack immediacy, you can't really read the paper while you're driving, etc.
So what do we lose when we stop reading the paper? I haven't subscribed to a newspaper for 15 years or so, 10 at least. I've missed crossword puzzles, the funnies, lots of biased bloviating, tons of dubious reportage, but I've gotten more than my share of that elsewhere. I guess I'm part of the problem - a physical newspaper holds no magic for me whatsoever. Oddly, I don't feel the same at all about books, and don't EVEN threaten my pulp copy of the TLS...
When I subscribed to a newspaper, it was the Globe for a long time, then it was a more local paper, as I got more & more of my national & global information from radio (NPR) and online over the last 15 years. Newspapers ceased to have a place for me partly because they're physically awkward, they lack immediacy, you can't really read the paper while you're driving, etc.
So what do we lose when we stop reading the paper? I haven't subscribed to a newspaper for 15 years or so, 10 at least. I've missed crossword puzzles, the funnies, lots of biased bloviating, tons of dubious reportage, but I've gotten more than my share of that elsewhere. I guess I'm part of the problem - a physical newspaper holds no magic for me whatsoever. Oddly, I don't feel the same at all about books, and don't EVEN threaten my pulp copy of the TLS...
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Well the Northspoon didn't rise up and flood us (didn't expect it to) and it's beginning to subside a little. The yard's a mess of course, and the wooded parts of the property are going to need some serious tending to; there's dead branches all over, any number of trees actually broken in two and whatnot, and the grass took another beating from the moles, or woodchucks, or whatever the critters are that have been eating it from below for the past couple of winters. I hate to poison 'em, but I may yet resort to that. Spraying fox urine-scented repellent around didn't seem to have much effect. Maybe they know the foxes are long gone from this neighborhood. Also need to build a wee doghouse for the generator we bought during the long darkness of early December. Would never have thought we'd have such a tool, but it was significantly cheaper to buy one than to rent one for 10 days, and the "peace of mind" factor, for us folks getting on in years, is high, as well. Added to which, it occurred to me recently, we now have the option of using electrically powered tools out in the wayback of the yard, and in the woods. I'll hafta look into that. In the meantime, the renovation o the kids' bedrooms proceeds - one is done entirely, walls, ceiling, woodwork freshened up, floor sanded, sealed and new polyurethane put down, etc. So now we're in the midst of stripping wallpaper from the other one, patching up the sheetrock, and will be papering soon, repainting woodwork, sanding, sealing & varnishing the floor in there. So it goes. Seems like I just finished re-doing the whole house not more than fifteen years ago...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Northspoon???
The new photo is my own, taken today (24 February 2009, which would have been my Mom's 92d birthday). The little brook (barely discernible in the snow, among the trees) is a "seasonal" brook that runs along the west side of our house, through an area we refer to as "the bog" - technically it's a "wetland." I call it the "Northspoon" for no good reason other than that when we'd been living here a year or two, we got a letter in the mail, with a check, addressed to "The Northspoon Aviary" ordering some bird food or other, addressed to our street address. Never heard of the aviary of course, and returned the check to the sender, but I loved the name "Northspoon" and applied it to the little on-again/off-again book that passes by us on its way to Wash Pond (or Sunset Lake, depending on how you feel about it).
No news is good news? Maybe but what constitutes "no news?"
If you undergo some medical diagnostic procedure or other (MRI, any of various scans, blood work, etc.) particularly on a specialist's orders, in pursuit of diagnosis of some lump or bump or twitch or hitch in yer gitalong, is it acceptable to you when the doctor or some of his or her minions announces "Oh, we won't call you if the results are negative. If we called everyone it would take up too much time."
It's not acceptable to me, and even LESS acceptable is the fact that in such situations, when you call the Dr's office seeking info, they get a little testy and issue a ration of shit, like "Well we TOLD you we wouldn't call if there was nothing to report." I think at the VERY LEAST, if you take the trouble to call, you should get a polite "The tests came back ok."
But I really think that it isn't really all that onerous and time-consuming to simply call the patient with the "tests came back ok" news - they can sure take the time to call to remind you of appointments (or is that because there's $$ involved??)
Or am I just being grumpy?
It's not acceptable to me, and even LESS acceptable is the fact that in such situations, when you call the Dr's office seeking info, they get a little testy and issue a ration of shit, like "Well we TOLD you we wouldn't call if there was nothing to report." I think at the VERY LEAST, if you take the trouble to call, you should get a polite "The tests came back ok."
But I really think that it isn't really all that onerous and time-consuming to simply call the patient with the "tests came back ok" news - they can sure take the time to call to remind you of appointments (or is that because there's $$ involved??)
Or am I just being grumpy?
Monday, February 23, 2009
Good Old Mike, of Mike's Appliance Service
(Newton NH, I recommend him highly indeed), yanked the stove out, tinkered with the heating element in the oven, muttered a little under his breath, went down to the service panel in the cellar and jiggered stuff a bit, came back upstairs, tinkered some more, muttered a little more, and announced that it was not, after all, new stove time, but that the old ark would be back on the air entirely with a new oven element, and in the meantime the cooktop was fine and we could broil if we wanted. I mentioned this to a pal, who was aware of the fact that in the past twelvemonth we've replaced our water heater and furnace, not to mention retired an old car with over 200,000 miles on it. "Jeez," he said, "It's like getting old. Things just keep wearing out." And so, it seems, they do, and it emerged that he was speaking more specifically of anatomical and physiological infrastructure, since we've arrived at the point in our lives where, when three pals get together for a bit of lunch, the beers are barely opened when talk has turned to the latest visits to this or that doctor or diagnostic procedure. We're collections of lumps and bumps and jitters (oh my) and hitches in our collective gitalongs, but it is not without its boon, for the fact of our entropy lends truth to the old saw "the older I get, the better I was."
Just not the way we usually mean it.
Just not the way we usually mean it.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Zombie Banks
Heard this on the drive to the office this morning. I'm confused.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100762999
Not very long ago (weeks? not more than a couple of months) it was unthinkable that humongous corporations could be allowed to self-destruct under the weight of their own greed and mismanagement. Now there are voices piping up pointing out (rightly, for all I know) that these dinosaurs are sucking up rescue resources without contributing to the economy, and should be "dismantled" and "restructured." Perhaps. I tend to think that organizations that can't or don't survive on their own ought to suffer the consequences, and yeah it's a pity all those shareholders will lost their stake, and all those people will be out of work, but in the latter case it'll only be temporary, and why should they be more entitled to the job they want than I am to mine (i.e. "not") and in the case of shareholders, well those are mostly institutions not widows & orphans, and where the institutions are holding funds invested by people representing the widows & orphans, I dunno what to say but when the shit hits the fan, everyone gets dirty.
The solution to the state of the world economic disaster is fundamental reconstruction, not constant propping up of the crummy policies, practices and institutions that fell apart on us. Inevitably, IMO.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100762999
Not very long ago (weeks? not more than a couple of months) it was unthinkable that humongous corporations could be allowed to self-destruct under the weight of their own greed and mismanagement. Now there are voices piping up pointing out (rightly, for all I know) that these dinosaurs are sucking up rescue resources without contributing to the economy, and should be "dismantled" and "restructured." Perhaps. I tend to think that organizations that can't or don't survive on their own ought to suffer the consequences, and yeah it's a pity all those shareholders will lost their stake, and all those people will be out of work, but in the latter case it'll only be temporary, and why should they be more entitled to the job they want than I am to mine (i.e. "not") and in the case of shareholders, well those are mostly institutions not widows & orphans, and where the institutions are holding funds invested by people representing the widows & orphans, I dunno what to say but when the shit hits the fan, everyone gets dirty.
The solution to the state of the world economic disaster is fundamental reconstruction, not constant propping up of the crummy policies, practices and institutions that fell apart on us. Inevitably, IMO.
I think it's time to re-invigorate this exercise.
For no real reason other than otherwise it's a resource sitting going to waste. Here's another piece about a dream.
I have not had this dream in many years. I wish I could remember reliably when the last time I had it was, but it was surely more than 10 years ago. But I had it a number of times during my 30s, I think. It was not always exactly the same dream – the “plot” and the “setting” varied. Interestingly, it was a progression of variations, such that the changes that would happen (or appear) in one instance, would continue through the next instance, and probably be built upon, with more variations – often slight - and so on. I should probably set it up – like most dreams, it has “hooks” in reality. In this case the realities in which the dream has hooks are two: one is the old “Adult Entertainment District” in Boston, known as “The Combat Zone” – for many years, lower Washington and Boylston Streets, down to Kneeland and Stuart, were more or less officially set aside as a place where strip joints and smut shops and hookers could operate more or less “unmolested” by the cops. One could walk down
Anyway, the earliest occurrences of this dream seem (as near as I can recall – I don’t remember dreams very often to begin with, and the first occurrence of this one was probably over 30 years ago), I am walking down Washington St. (“down” here meaning in a general direction from Old South Meeting House toward Chinatown, for anyone who knows the neighborhood). The old “Publix” and “State” theaters are there, and lots of smutshops and stripjoints, and I go into a few of each, and browse, and have a beer and watch a girl get naked on stage. In none of these dreams did I ever go into any of the movie theaters, I don’t think. I wend my way down through the Combat Zone, fending off approaches by various more-or-less young females, all offering to do sexual things for me/to me, for money. When I get to the “bottom” of the CZ, somewhere around
Here’s where the interesting thing comes in – I spent a year in
*All of this information about the Combat Zone, and Chico Ville is, of course, hearsay.
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