Classic French Omelette Project

… as i have likely mentioned before, my pandemic project was to master the making of a classic french omelette… i am getting pretty good at it…

… a fissure on the top, not ideal… otherwise, good form…

Walking

… sitting on a bench overlooking Fishkill Creek, which has swollen onto the banks i normally sit on… a stem of Queen Anne’s Lace is my companion…

… most of my walk has been about the contemplation of my tellahealth meeting… i will be glad to have it over… it will inevitably be more positive than i now imagine…

… i snagged another flattened can photograph for my series…

… time to move on…

** Maria Popova on Willa Cather**

… as an artist, i found this Brain Pickings post on Willa Cather particularly welcome this morning… i think it gets at one of the reasons i like living in communities with a lively mixture of working and middle class people who go about their lives largely without the pretensions that wealth can bring, or so it seems to me… from another post on Cather by Maria Popova…

The creative spirit creates with whatever materials are present. With food, with children, with building blocks, with speech, with thoughts, with pigment, with an umbrella, or a wineglass, or a torch. We are not craftsmen only during studio hours. Any more than a man is wise only in his library. Or devout only in church. The material is not the sign of the creative feeling for life: of the warmth and sympathy and reverence which foster being; techniques are not the sign; “art” is not the sign. The sign is the light that dwells within the act, whatever its nature or its medium.¹

Micro Poem

… i began this one days ago, but struggled to get it right… i think i may be close on this iteration…

My new electric shaver— have I met the Buddha?

Seabound by Elina Brotherus

Elina Brotherus’ new photobook, Seabound, is visually arresting…

…she photographs herself in varying landscapes by the Norwegian coast line, which the review of the book points out is the second longest in the world due to all the nooks and crannies… stretched out in a straight line it would wrap around the earth two and one half times…

… i am struck by the very painterly nature of the images… landscapes with her singular figure in the midst… i am struck by the carefully thought out wardrobe, clothing always chosen to match or contrast colors in the photograph… each photograph is meticulously framed, i am guessing she works with a large format camera?…

Like many of Brotherus’ past works, Seabound holds strong links to wider visual contexts, especially those found in art history. When she first arrived in Kristiansand in the winter of 2018, Brotherus visited the Sørlandets Kunstmuseum (the Southern Norway Art Museum), searching for historical depictions of the area. In the museum’s 19th-century landscape paintings, she found dramatic, romantic, and intense reflections of the coastline, a style that is echoed throughout Seabound. In doing so, Brotherus ties herself, and her images, into the wider context of Norwegian art history.¹

The Haiku of Issa

The Six Ways…

… this is a funny set of six… there are…

• Hell… in which there is a bright autumn moon and snails crying in the saucepan… a kind of hell on earth, if the cosmos is delivering something bad to you…
• The Hungry Ghosts… in which flowers are scattering, water is scarce, the far off mists tease us with the possibility of water… this one about how enlightenment is illusive, especially when we allow ourselves to “thirst” for it…
• Animals… in which it is pointed out that the falling of the flower petals mean nothing to them, they see no Buddha in it, but then again, it might be that they are all Buddhas because they lack desire and the ability to differentiate themselves from the cosmos…
• Malignant Spirits… in which, people carry on petty argumentative lives and gambling, not seeing the shadow of blossoms they are in… a Plato’s Cave type of analogy?… also seems to channel the spirit of conservatives in the present time…
• Men… in which humans squirm around on the ground amidst the blossoming flowers… no better than the animals?… “squirming around” channels the image of worms to me…
• The Heaven Dwellers… in which lazy humans on a hazy day excuse themselves by thinking even the gods must be indolent…

… i really like this set of poems…

First Thoughts

… weight down by almost three pounds since yesterday… sometimes the swings are large and i figure it’s water weight… happy to be heading back in the right direction…

… no alcohol last night, feel much better this AM… will try to forgo again tonight…

… Telehealth visit with my doctor this AM, white coat syndrome kicking in… i keep trying to tell myself doctors are my friends, but i am afraid always… afraid something nasty is wrong with me… of course, regular doctor contact is the best way to deal with nasty… nip it in the bud, until you can’t… the need to acknowledge that everyone dies whether they accept that or don’t… the idea that immortality can be achieved through ignorance…

… plans to drive to Florida to see C and J are progressing… starting to look forward to it…

… my new electric shaver is the bomb!…

… i have rediscovered Workflowy… we’ll see how long the discipline lasts to use it… right now i am on the free version, until i reach a level of usage where payment is required… then i will pay for it…

… i have also discovered a great expense logging app, Dollarbird, that doesn’t try to save the planet and beat the conservatives while it’s at it… a simple calendar oriented daily expense logging app where you can input cash on hand and then steadily subtract from it… we are in a tight squeeze this month and it is helping us stay disciplined in our spending…

… plans to withdraw from FB, Instagram and Google are progressing…

Micro Poem

Feet shuffle by slowly– is it youth, or old age?

Walking

I have Fiona with me today. H had a bad night, I thought she would appreciate not being awakened by her.

It’s humid, cloudy.

The river is dead calm. The cosmos feels like it is waiting for something.

A fly buzzing my head.

We meet Lyle and his person. Lyle is a little uncertain around other dogs. He and Fiona get nose to nose, then Fiona backs off.

Lyle is a rescue dog with anxiety issues. Apparently he chews up sheetrock walls and hasn’t met the crate he can’t escape. His person has ordered him a custom built steel crate.

Eve Adams

I have been following the blog Body Impolitic, written by Laurie Toby Edison. Today I read her post about Eve Adams and was moved by it. The final paragraph in the post:

Eve Adams is worth remembering both for her accomplishments and for her fate. In the end, in the hell of the camps, who she was, what she wrote, who she loved, and what she believed was dissolved and erased. Everyone who died in the camps, everyone who dies at the hands of the police, everyone who is deported today to a dangerous homeland, everyone who dies of abuse of any sort should be remembered both for their individuality and for their common experience. The celebrated and deported Lesbian activist writer dies next to the housewife who never left her home village, and nothing about any of their deaths is inspirational, or hopeful.¹

Ms. Edison describes herself this way.

Haiku by Issa

… a strange set this AM…

… one about fleas in the hut and someone looks skinny… a woman i am guessing…

… another about a zealous flea about to become a Buddha by the poet’s hand… a contradiction since Buddhism counsels non violence?…

… another about ducks bobbing on water and hoping to get lucky…

… another about a dragonfly dressed in red off to the festival…

… dragonflies are another animal that has cultural significance in Japan…

… this from Wikipedia…

_ As a seasonal symbol in Japan, the dragonflies are associated with season of autumn. In Japan, they are symbols of rebirth, courage, strength, and happiness. They are also depicted frequently in Japanese art and literature, especially haiku poetry. Japanese children catch large dragonflies as a game, using a hair with a small pebble tied to each end, which they throw into the air. The dragonfly mistakes the pebbles for prey, gets tangled in the hair, and is dragged to the ground by the weight.¹_

… the festival referred to in the poem is probably the festival of Obon, which is…

A Buddhist tradition celebrated in Japan for over 500 years, Obon is an annual three-day event held in honor of one’s ancestors, which sees families get together as the spirits visit household altars. More recently, the holiday has become a time for family reunions, as people return to their hometowns and revisit the graves of the deceased.²

… and it’s relation to Obon…

_ Although they are seen in abundance in early summer, tombo have become associated with the autumn and are often represented flying among the autumn grasses in Japanese art. A folk belief persists that the tombo is the steed of departed ancestors who return to visit their families during the summer festival of Obon.³_

Farmer’s Market Bounty

… planning on grilling some veggies… also, making some fennel frond pesto…

Walking

Sitting by the banks of the Hudson River on Denning’s Point…

… road trips are on my mind this morning… because of my father’s declining condition i am expecting to be traveling down to Florida frequently in the next half year or so… i have been thinking about the idea of turning the need to get down there into photographic road trip adventures… i would do the first one by myself… subsequent trips H and the dogs might come… i and we could develop our road trip chops this way… i have begun researching national park passes (though I remember H getting some sort of pass for parks)… i want to investigate park cabin rentals and camping as well… i am thinking the first trip would be end of August, beginning of September…

The Daily Read

The Haiku of Issa…

… an interesting set of poems today…

… a cricket chirps in the belly of a scarecrow…

… crickets are symbols of fall in Japanese haiku… in the west, they are symbols of summer…

… scarecrows in Japanese mythology (Kuebiko) are wise creatures and is one of three knowledge deities…

… taken together, a cricket in the scarecrow’s belly might be seen as suggesting the autumn phase of human aging, there being wisdom associated with approaching old age…

… another talks about the face of a spring moon 12 years old… the 12 years old part is the dead giveaway to me that the poet speaks of a girl on the cusp of menstruation, becoming an woman…

… another speaks of a woman washing the dishes by moonlight in the shallows of a river…

… this seems a multiple reference to feminine fluidity, the moon being a complex symbol of fluidity in Japanese culture… the river being a direct symbol of flowing time, the woman washing the dishes… the dishes themselves being concrete items that around which all this fluidity revolves… everything is feminine here… evocative of intuitive understandings… evocative of inner knowledge… wow, what a beautiful poem!…

Washing the saucepans—

the moon glows on her hands

in the shallow river.

… i am going to have to continue looking into this last one… there seems to be so much to it…

First Thoughts

… a better night for sleep…

… a new electric shaver arriving today, why am i excited?…

… it strikes me that what i wrote about the shaver could become a micro poem…

… the birds are singing… do i hear a cardinal?…

… last night, Heather Cox Richardson wrote about John Lewis and the voting rights act of 1965 and the wholesale attack by Republicans on voting rights, passing restrictive laws which disproportionately affect minorities negatively… it’s an old story, dating back well before the 1965 voting rights act to the Jim Crow south… some, too many, white people want power over everybody and everything else… democracy is not a tool they can successfully use to maintain that power, so they narrow the path to voting which they know will peel away more minority voters than white voters…

… ahh… the cardinal is singing outside my window…

… i have been working on de-googling my self… i have switched to duckduckgo as a search engine… i am working on leaving gmail having set up a new ProtonMail account… i have switched to a new feed reader, Reeder, can i import my feeds from Feedly?… only by installing them as a service… well, at least i am holding google at arm’s length?…

… H up early…

… we finally had some thunder storms yesterday which broke the heat a little bit… maybe some work can be done in the garden today…

Photography Sites I Follow @ci maybe a few of these would be of interest…

Micro Poems

Today’s offerings…

_ Buoyant Queen Anne’s Lace– lazy, hazy days._

_ A quiet walk with my dog– she stops to sniff some poop.

05 I Like

… this photography…

Alvaro Deprit, from Rendezvous, Things that happen

Alvaro Deprit’s Website is worth a look…

04 If I Had $85

… i might get this book… it promises an interesting portrait of China… from the sales page of the book…

History of Life is a collection of 415 restored photographs chronicling the history of modern China, from 1910s to the late 1990s. Compiled from over 600,000 negatives, Cai Dongdong curated the book using salvaged negatives from ordinary Chinese citizens and public records which he developed, scanned and selected. Adding a few of his own pictures into the story, the artist crafted his interpretation of the birth and growth of modern China over 3 of the country’s most formative eras: the founding of the Republic, the cultural revolution, and the post-Mao era.¹

03 The Tree of Life:

There is a giant pine tree growing on our neighbor’s property…

… it sits right on the property line… when we first bought the house, H dubbed it “The Tree of Life” because of all the animals she observed making use of its trunk and branches…

… over the years our attitude towards the tree moved from one of reverence to one of annoyance… it dropped truckloads of needles on the garden, pine cones too… it cast shadows over the rear yard that made growing vegetables difficult… during storms in the winter, it dropped enormous branches on the roof of the garage… it casts a shadow onto our solar panels and reduces their efficiency… it threatens to fall on our house if a storm ever brings it down…

… we have said to ourselves that we wish our neighbor would take it down, and to our neighbor that we would help with costs if he ever did…

… based on my readings about the significance of pine trees in Japanese culture this morning, i am thinking we should return to the reverent attitude we used to have…

02 The Daily Read:

“Haru no akebono” (Spring Sunrise), by Utagawa, Kuniteru, (1830?-1874), woodcut print on three sheets (Japan). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.  //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/jpd.00869, //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/jpd.00870,  //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/jpd.00871.

The Haiku of Issa…

… another set of poems that are down to earth, finding Buddha in simple moments… a pretty girl yawning in spring rain… there have been many sittings of pretty girls in my life… this poem about the indifference of youth to youth, perhaps?… unaware of how fleeting youth is… another about a woman putting her child to bed and washing clothes by the light of the summer moon… life unfolding as it needs to… another poem about not having attained Buddhahood, an ancient pine tree and dreaming… pine trees are signifiers of longevity, prosperity and to guard against bad fortune…

… i find an article about the significance of pine trees in Japanese culture… this jumps out at me and reminds me of pansychism…

It is a Shinto belief that everything has a spirit, and how it is treated determines whether it becomes benevolent or malevolent.¹

… i also read about becoming a Buddha, and the three secret activities to be pursued, according to Esoteric Buddhist tradition in Japan… they are…

• assuming the posture of the Buddha
• correct recitation of a buddha’s mantra
• to see things as they truly are

… so, ancient pine tree, not yet a buddha, dreaming…

… another article on the significance of dreaming in Buddhism… all life is dreaming… any sense that there is a difference between self and everything else is an illusion that must be overcome… one awakens when one no longer feels this separateness… this from the article…

All the things of this world should be seen as

A phantom’s mask,

A shooting star, a guttering flame.

A sorcerer’s trick, a bubble swept

On a swiftly moving stream.

A flash of lightning among dark clouds.

A drop of dew,

a dream.

… so, sacred tree, dreaming, no awakening… this poem quite dense in Buddhist thought…

… another poem about a gorgeous kite rising from a beggar’s shack… a statement that there is beauty and understanding to be found everywhere?…

… from an article on the origin of kites… kites have a significance in warding off bad spirits and communicating with the gods in Asian traditions… so, perhaps, even a beggar can communicate with the gods, become a Buddha, be enlightened…

01 First Thoughts:

Up way too early… again…

… this time, not the dogs’ fault, though the dogs made sure i got up once i woke up…

… Heather Cox Richardson wrote on the role of social media in spreading misinformation about vaccines and COVID… apparently just 12 accounts are responsible for priding 65% of the misinformation and, while free speech cannot be regulated, algorithms can… ahhh… well, let’s get busy then… that should solve part of the problem… we still have to address Fox and other outlets intent on spreading bad, misleading and seditious information…

… we will go to K and B’s on Sunday… at last i can deliver their photograph and get that off my mind…

… there appears to have been little rain since yesterday afternoon… this summer, rain gets promised by the weather app, then fails to materialize constantly… yesterday there was a level five flash flood warning… hardly a drop of rain… it’s weird, the app used to be more accurate than that… have conditions changed away from the algorithms?…

… computer problems… crash and reboot… why is it that i struggle with computer issue when i am up early and might be extra productive… is there only a certain amount of productive available on any given day?…

… i looked through Riddle by Fiona Veronique… i struggle to comprehend the narrative except it is about the latter day west and a road trip she took with her sister through it… the photographs are a trail of breadcrumbs and i suppose the title refers to the idea that we might need to carefully follow it to get the gist… my primary reaction is that there are photographs missing… there needed to be a few more crumbs… and i wonder about her focus on her sister who repeatedly appears in the book… there seems no specific purpose to that other than she needed some portrait shots… will continue to review and see if my impressions change at all…

07 Puccini in the Parking Lot

… so, i am coming out of Shoprite with my groceries when a wall of the most beautiful music hits me… i look up and there is this elderly gentleman in a bright yellow blazer shuffling around his car, the doors of which are wide open… that’s opera, i think to myself!… now, we are talking about a bleak parking lot on a hot as hell day, and this guy is blasting his music while he tends to this and that around his car… the gentleman was elderly, probably Italian, probably waiting for his wife to return with groceries, enjoying a simple pleasure, Puccini’s Che gelida manina from La Boheme… i suppose this is not everyone’s idea of wonderful, but it sure brought tears to my eyes…

06 Scenes From a Walk:

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Anyone else here using ProtonMail? Thoughts? Experiences? Alternatives?