Peg Duthie's Blog, page 25

hauling (gl)ass

I was not the only Nashvillian who decided to haul their past weeks' worth of glass to the East collection center this morning:



In my case, it was imperative that I make room in my car for a present waiting for me at Woodland Wine Merchant:



#100untimedbooks prompt 48: shovels



"There is the question of individual mining, by which farmers can mine some minerals by truck and shovel..."

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haunted by both high and low

Put mildly, 2015 was laden with its share of grief and aggro. It also contained a good deal of fun and wham boomery.

Two things that happened that made me happy: I finally tracked down Danny Spanos's "Hot Cherie," a raunchy song I'd heard on the radio as a teenager. Having heard both the name and title wrong back then, it's taken me this long to tunnel back to that earworm. (That metaphor doesn't quite work, does it. Story of 2016 so far...)

I also tracked down a copy of a portrait in the Boston Public Library that doesn't seem to be published anywhere else online: Irwin Hoffman's painting of his wife, Dorothea. I've had a crush on this painting since I first saw it over a decade ago in the library's reading room. The combination of elegance and strength is, as we say in fandom, one of my bulletproof kinks.

For the second day in a row, the urge to return to bed mid-morning is strong. There are, however, plays to read, plants to water and/or transplant, dishes to wash, vocabulary to memorize, brackets to dissect, and figures to tally. Onward!



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camel!

It wasn't part of the bestiary I was tracking down, but it was still fun to see this 17th-century camel and co. amid yesterday's runnings-around.

(I have a fondness for camels, as this snapshot from 2009 might indicate.)

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zirconium @ 2015-12-26T12:31:00

Recent reading has included Eleanor Self's You'll Never Get There If You Don't Go There, on working up the nerve to go to group yoga classes.

I can relate. While I have a reputation for being intrepid about many things, I have yet to make it to an English country dance class or a shape-note sing in this here town. It City-ness notwithstanding, Nashville remains small enough that I am likely to run into someone I know or someone who knows someone I know no matter what I am dabbling or dipping my toe into. That's daunting when you know you are on the beginner-pocked slope of the learning curve and that falling on your butt (aka borking figures or misreading intervals) is inevitable.

Then again, I've landed on my tail countless times in the studio (hello, awkward pose!) and forgotten about it within minutes. What would it be like to be as okay with all my other not-yet-theres -- to grin at the mirror and move on?


[Posted in response to a Reverb15 prompt at Kat McNally's: "I am wondering what would happen if I allowed a little more out-of-control-ness in my life. So I invite you to consider: where could you (like me) consider turning it up a few notches in the new year?"]

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among the bells

It's like being greeted by the dog each night: after so many years, I'm still thrilled whenever one of the Christmas cacti in my house goes into bloom, and mildly astonished when it happens during the season. The current plants are descended from one of my mom's, making them at least seven years old.



Past posts about Christmas cacti include:
http://mechaieh.livejournal.com/135446.html
http://mechaieh.diaryland.com/cactus.html

Here in Nashville, we are on alert for tornadoes and the like. This is not so surprising given that I was digging dandelions out of my driveway earlier this month. On the upside, I didn't need a coat for the walk to lunch with my mom-in-law earlier today. That was pleasant.

I am stupid tired and the pile of work that must be got through before the end of the week remains deeper than my stocking. I have been enjoying some of the season nevertheless. Indulging in glittery ribbons, for one (my department head, who approves of or is at least amused by my sea-streaked hair, joked that he should have unwrapped the package I brought over my head, given the green sparkly dust poofing up as he unknotted the bow).



Listening to the carol the Bicat brothers wrote for the 1984 film version of A Christmas Carol, and to Roger Rees's narration of the ending. (Also, non-seasonally, listening to Rees in The West Wing's Dead Irish Writers sceneand a band during high school, and can at least sympathize a bit with the Messiah-unfamiliar friends who told me after one concert that the Amens had taken so damn long they'd started timing them). Watching a dude in a Pekka Rinne jersey and Santa hat studying Michelangelo sketches. On 6th Avenue, seeing a woman buss a friend on the cheek and wishing them merry before the two continued walking in opposite directions. The Lyft driver with colored lights attached to the headliner and a caddy full of peppermints and candy canes. The absence of Salvation Army bell ringers in front of my neighborhood grocery. The rose stamps working out exactly right. Sealing wax. Stickers. Celebrations/exchanges deferred as well as those anticipated. The brownie/caramel debacle and the succesful cupcakes. Friendships of long-enough standing = faith that things will shake out in the wash. Revisiting old drafts and outlines and drawing breath to revive them...

Ye everlasting doors...

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now and recently up

I am the featured poet at 7x20 this week. It also featured ten pieces by me during October and November:

champagne...
spoon...
sweeping...
smearing...
half...

Co-cola salad...
painting spells...
mother interred...
Persian calligraphy...
Code Name Taurus...

Autumn Sky Poetry published my poem "Turning, Turning, We Come Out" on December 3. The editor nominated "O Clouds Unfold" for a Pushcart Prize.

Much to write -- and acres to edit before I sleep. Onward!

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the whatness of wanting

[Inspired by a typo-line in Mary's entry: "I don't know, really, want to do with it." And by the fact that I can't find the sexy sufganiyot poem I thought I'd published 12-15 years ago but perhaps simply sent during an e-mail exchange with a friend that has since disappeared, what with friend and I both moving on to other accounts and machines. Oh, and yesterday would have been my mother's 72nd birthday. That might be on my mind as well.]

I don't know, really, what to want about them,
the doughnuts I was sure I'd brought along.
Did they fall off the roof of the car, my
forgetfulness feeding birds or strays
or sweeten the tires of a semi? How
the ghosts growl, the ones who couldn't
forgive the other lapses of attention:
the textbooks and sneakers and cups of coffee
inadvertently littering Lancaster,
Kimbark, Burns -- all those streets
and avs anointed by my distraction.
How wasteful. How pointless -- and
perhaps a rebuke? for I confess
my plan to give was flavored with
the hope of gaining points: pastries
paving the way for projects in need
of green lights, grease, goodwill -- you
know, the unwritten blessings
that separate the inn-mates
from those consigned to the barn. Yes,
a reprimand: see the servant candle
sharing the night with ones expressly
saved for the sameach, that light no others
because they were cast for the holiday.
So why do I long -- aye, pray -- that those donuts
met with the fate of loaves rather than lilies,
I who sit with my thermos of coffee
amid the waiting ledgers and lists?
I don't know what I'm ready to want
beyond the age-old cravings --
one more night, one more meal,
one more story, one more hug --
that always and forever were an asking too much
and yet, oh wondrous world, were sometimes answered.



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amid tangerines of wet clay

As de Waal worked, his dog, Isla, sat in a corner, chewing on a torn-up plush pheasant. I asked how many dog hairs he thought had become embedded in his pots over the years. "Oh, just a wonderful number," he said.

"Thinking with His Hands," by Sam Anderson (NYT Magazine, November 29)

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how thin the margin is

When Mr. Edelstein started the "Globe for All" initiative, he knew he’d have to raise about $250,000 per season for a theater with an annual budget of roughly $20 million. But he considers the nontraditional stagings "the most important work we do."

He recalled a performance last year at the Veterans Village of San Diego, a shelter for homeless veterans. "One of the guys came up to me after the show and said, 'I have P.T.S.D., and I can't concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds. But I just watched 90 minutes of a Shakespeare play.'"

"That was," and here Mr. Edelstein caught his breath and his voice broke at the other end of the phone line, "a very special kind of thing. It's a reminder of how thin the margin is between our comfortable middle-class lives and a very, very different version of ourselves."

-- Dominic P. Patola, Theater Troupe Gives Those on the Margins a Front-Row Seat

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zirconium @ 2015-12-03T04:36:00

When Mr. Edelstein started the "Globe for All" initiative, he knew he’d have to raise about $250,000 per season for a theater with an annual budget of roughly $20 million. But he considers the nontraditional stagings "the most important work we do."

He recalled a performance last year at the Veterans Village of San Diego, a shelter for homeless veterans. "One of the guys came up to me after the show and said, 'I have P.T.S.D., and I can't concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds. But I just watched 90 minutes of a Shakespeare play.'"

"That was," and here Mr. Edelstein caught his breath and his voice broke at the other end of the phone line, "a very special kind of thing. It's a reminder of how thin the margin is between our comfortable middle-class lives and a very, very different version of ourselves."

-- Dominic P. Patola, Theater Troupe Gives Those on the Margins a Front-Row Seat

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