Peg Duthie's Blog, page 35

from ARABIC CALLIGRAPHY: NASKH SCRIPT FOR BEGINNERS

(by Mustafa Ja'far, British Museum/McGraw-Hill, 2002)

The famous Persian calligrapher, Mir 'Ali of Herat (d. 1556), gave the following advice to those embarking on the task: "The calligrapher needs five things: a fine temperament, an understanding of calligraphy, a good hand, the ability to endure pain and a perfect set of implements."

- from the introduction by Venetia Porter, Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum

[I don't really agree with this -- especially not the "perfect set of implements" -- but it does amuse me.]

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51 things I like doing, part 2

22. Stopping by my favorite bakery, Sweet 16th [poem here].

23. Sipping new-to-me whiskies.

24. Napping.

25. Revising poems.

26. Hymn-nerding.

27. Getting friends to the party.

28. Wearing my sheep slippers.



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50. Showing visitors around Nashville, especially the hall of vintage posters and the limited editions room at the downtown public library.

51. Wrapping things (up). :)



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50 things I like doing

Prompted by Kylie.

1. Listening to the Beautiful Young Man yammer at the dog when he gets home.

2. Taking photographs.



3. Gardening. (There are TWO tomatoes on one of the indoor vines now!)

4. Cooking.

5. Reading cookbooks.

6. Proofreading.

7. Traveling.

8. Enjoying the smell of crayons.

9. And then using them in coloring books and on calendars.

10. Playing fantasy tennis.

11. Horse handicapping, too.

12. Listening both to Handel and heavy metal as I work.

13. Swimming.

14. Crocheting.

15. Throwing dinner parties.

16. Sending postcards, and receiving them.

17. Getting massages.

18. Watching tennis.

19. Watching dancers.

20. Dancing.

21. Singing.



[to be continued...]

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you know some time has passed...

since your wedding when you have to Google one of the names on the announcement list, because you no longer remember what that person looked like, let alone why they were either close or important enough to be on list.

(Doing some more purging of papers before the next shift of easel-work. Ditched: notes for my BA thesis, supporting docs for my parents' early 1990s tax returns, coupons that expired this past Sunday ...)

In the meantime, the crepe myrtles and other trees/shrubs/what-have-you look spectacular. I haven't been outside today; these are from Monday:







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rolling, rolling ... pause

A reason to love being an adult: beginning a holiday with lasagna, salad, and half a glass of white wine.

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This fall and winter, the sounds of a house being built across the street have filled many weekdays and most Saturdays. But not today:



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breaks for broken beauty

Published last week: my little poem about Hari-Kuyo, a festival that honors broken needles. [bio]

Seen on yesterday's walk (several blocks apart):





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always the making of things

Spending the day at my easel, but first, sifting through a box of old photos and letters. In the jumble, a photo from 1982:



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hustling

This afternoon's main project is getting ready for this evening's Heartbreak Happy Hour at the Stone Fox -- I'm one of the performers.

The years I've spent drafting sermons (and numerous other speeches for church) mean that I now have a pretty good sense of how many words = ten minutes of material. Which I found myself grateful for this past week, what with trying to bounce back from the flu while going back to work and staying on schedule on a commission and so on. It was nice to know that ten minutes of material isn't actually that many words and that I could knock it out in a day if I couldn't carve out the time any earlier. (But what actually happened was that I started writing it in my head two minutes after receiving the invitation, and sketched it various lines and points in my Workflowy during the rest of the week before slicing and knotting it all together the past two days.)

Coincidentally, two of the hymns in this morning's church service were ones I selected for a service I led a decade or so ago. One was "When Shall We Learn," which is Carl Flentge Schalk's setting of a poem by Auden:

When shall we learn, what should be clear as day,
we cannot choose what we are free to love?
We are created with and from the world
to suffer with and by it day by day.

For through our lively traffic all the day,
in my own person I am forced to know
how much must be forgotten out of love,
how much must be forgiven, even love.

Or else we make a scarecrow of the day,
loose ends and jumble of our common world;
or else our changing flesh can never know
there must be sorrow if there can be love.

The other is "Creative Love, Our Thanks We Give," a William DeWitt Hyde poem adapted by Beth Ide, and set to "Truth from Above" with harmony by Vaughan Williams:

Creative love, our thanks we give
that this, our world is incomplete . . .

Since what we choose is what we are,
and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal may ever shine afar--
the will to reach it makes us free.

Also at church: an adorable mop of a service dog, who snuggled into its owner's shoulder for a while during the sermon:



After church, I ran an errand and picked up Chinese carryout. There was an invisible fortune cookie in the bag...



... and this advice in one of the corporeal cookies:

Business is a lot like playing tennis; if you don't serve well, you lose.

From the speculative writing/publishing realm:

Sue Burke and several other very experienced translators want to bring castles in Spain to you -- specifically Castles in Spain, a bilingual anthology they're raising funds for via Indiegogo.

If you're a Science Fiction Poetry Association member, you have one week left to nominate your favorite 2014 poems for Rhysling Awards. I have both long and short poems eligible this year [downloadable at http://sfpoetry.com/ra/eligible/PegDuthie2014.rtf] . . .

How to Live on Other Planets is available for pre-order. The list of contributors is fierce, y'all.

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snowmen on benches

Mary's comment on yesterday's entry reminded me that I hadn't yet posted snapshots from a hike two Saturdays ago. It was a crowded morning at Radnor, with overflow parking very much in use:



My hiking partner's son was among the young men (most of them from Lipscomb) shredding Christmas trees and wheeling the mulch up the trails.

As we came down Garnier Ridge, we glimpsed turtles sunning themselves. There were also a series of snowmen on the benches along the trail:





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first indoor tomato

Been down with the flu; slammed with work. This may become the Year of Blogging Just Pictures of Tomatoes (Guest Starring Peppers).

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