Autumn in August

Summer forgot about us. It's cold here in Minnesota. It shouldn't be in the forties in the middle of August, but it is. Poor pumkins. Growers say what are normally the size of basketballs by this time rather resemble golf balls. You probably could get away with growing lettuce or broccoli throughout this summer. It does make me smile though to hear people complain about it. Normally this time of year one hears bitter comments on all sides about the sweltering conditions. Strange and a little bit sad though, to feel it's autumn and hardly have noticed the summer.



Mary and I are going with a group of her friends to Wisconsin tomorrow, to the Bois Brule river. A few days of floating and sleeping on the ground. Will be nice, I think. Nice anyway to wake up smelling like wood smoke, damp or not. Showers predicted for each day :) Going to miss a couple of classes though, which feels irresponsible.



Bois Brule, Mary's dad informs me, means burnt wood in French. Apparently it was what French settlers called Native Americans, once upon a time. So far removed from the time and the daily usage, it is impossible to know if it was used with derision, if it was pejorative, or not. Funny thing about words. I'm told the section of river we'll follow has lots of Class I and II rapids, with a couple of Class III. I, of no experience on rivers, will be walking around the last I think. No one ever drowned--or lost one's kit--on a portage. Brule empties into Lake Superior and that is where we finish. Something deeply satisfying about that. Even if you don't leave from the headwaters, following a stream till it gives up to something greater has a beauty to it.

New Aortal Link: Tvindy

Long time ago I had a nice plan to update my Aortal link weekly. Things got off to a fine start with NoMilkPlease which continues to be an exceptional site, regularly updated, and has grown in its sophistication. Then, really just a week later, I linked Bakerina. I fully intended to continue finding and posting new sites on a weekly basis, but somehow life intervenes. Also, I'm lazy. I think I've failed to change it this long because having that link to Bakerina high up in the side bar is almost like having a book on the shelf. Unconscious spell casting and well-wishful-thinking. Ok, but I've seen the future. Not sure how, it just happens, and the very talented Bakerina will have a book out in the next two years. Believe. So, time to change links.



Of course, my new link, Tvindy, I found via Bakerina, but that's beside the point. I only started reading it recently and have been impressed by how well it lives up to its description, A Blog About Nearly Everything. I still don't understand the name Tvindy, but I haven't tried to find out. Tend to take names at face value. I was led to the blog by the voice articulated in comments he's left on other sites, and have not been at all disappointed since. I found the thoughts of a down to earth, extremely smart young man interested in nearly everything, but without an obsessive need to show off. Haven't communicated with him directly, so how do I really know, but I just get the impression this is a person you would have to really like who has interesting things to say, and says them well.



Also, in quite an astounding contrast to me, he's a high quality and impact linker. If a post mentions little house on the prairie, expect a picture and a link. If it mentions cockroaches, a lovely huge picture of cockroaches and so forth.



Tvindy had a filthy refrigerator at one point, but God knows he must drink a lot of orange juice. And made friends with a scrub jay. I was excited to see this post because I haven't seen a scrub jay since I left Fresno.



Anyway, I'm horseshit at this kind of thing. In the main trying to say this guy has a great blog, the kind of blog to which I'd aspire if I were of a mind to aspire. I'm glad I found it. Tvindy.

My dad as grub

And this is a picture of my dad...long time ago. Box from Danish Creamery Butter shields him.

Mokey with the mango runs

Okay, hooking up hardware is simple, easy, plug in, and on so. Right? What a fucking pain in the ass when everything decides to hang and deceive and mislead, and why? Because some horseshit software tack-on wants to be registered and then silently, invisibly, tries for fifteen minutes and is, finally, unable. That's all. What a sack of monkey shit. The kind with the unripe mango runs. The kind of sack with a wide weave. The kind that sweats shit water running down your calves. Burlap or hemp fiber, or some damn jute thing, but full of monkey feces all the same. And these monkeys! Lord, what have they been eating? Week old aoli left in the sun?



Sometimes, no matter their magic, I hate how pathetically wnt-to-be-brilliant-helpful-and-pleasing computers and software are. It always comes down to some idiotic half-wit full-shit trying to get you to accidentally agree to be on the mailing list of every fuck-shit in the industry--and that's the crappy panty that hangs!



Ok, and anyway, several months of wading through half digested Lunchables--they're never fully digested, are they? How could they be? I mean, they sit on the shelf, in plastic boxes, in the warm air of supermarket ailses, the meat and the cheese--but several long moments later, my scanner works again. This is a picture of me as a shaver, doing something quite fun.

Artcyclopedia

Stumbled on this site via a comment on, christ don't remember, on someone's blog. But, it is great, in any case. It's not so hard to search a particular artist and find examples on the web, but it is fun to browse too, hence the Artcyclopedia. Blue Horses is one of my favorite paintings of all time, and I don't know if it's there. I should go check, but I feel my washing maching swelling, vibrating in the floorboards. Everything being about laundry lately.

Hands

This is my hand. One can tell it's a hand. Hands trip me out sometimes, all that they see, so to speak. Hands are in everything, unlike the back of one's neck. The nape sees some good times to be sure, but it also spends quite a lot of life being a place for hairs and shirt tags to irritate. I like people's hands anyway. I look at a hand and wonder what the owner is like. Hard working, hard living, kind to animals, secret glutton, nose picker--that sort of thing. Looking at my hand from the outside, I'd say sausage maker. I don't make sausages, not at all. But from this picture, my fingers look the sort that loiter round the nozzle of a grinder catching casing and whirling it into links.



Trying to think about hooking up my scanner. We've lived here a year and I've yet to unpack it. Hrm.

Playing with new blogger

Goofing around with uploading pictures and things. Changed the pictures link over in the sidebar. Mostly seeing what's up with blogger's changes. This picture is as you walk into our house. Not much of a photo, and distorted now!, but anyway...