The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish. When the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas…
BobLit 101
I knew Bob Dylan was out there, DJ of a show on XM Satellite Radio that hit the airwaves in May 2006. But I didn’t sign on to his Theme Time Radio Hour party until eighteen months later, well into the second season. By then, I had lots of catching up to do. “To listen to ‘Theme Time Radio Hour…
Those Stylish Elements…
We are on the cusp of having a U.S. President who is both a gifted orator and a talented writer. Election Night was “a very good night for the English language” according to James Wood in a recent issue of the New Yorker. He writes: “A movement in American politics hostile to the possession and…
At the Table When Company Comes
It has been an extraordinary few days. November 4, 2008, just after 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, barely the dinner hour for those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest, Barack Obama was declared the 44th President of the United States. The day after, Wednesday, November 5th, was like a…
Politics in the English Language
Lately, it seems like everyone I know is on edge. All the conversations I’ve had for the past month—whether back and forth in e-mail, on the phone, or chitchat over dinner—devolve into the same sentiment: We can’t wait until it’s midnight on November 4th. Election Day in the United States…
Porgy & Bess, Louis & Ella
This week began with John leaving early on Sunday and me stumbling on a great Live from Lincoln Center program on KMHD hosted by the always-informative Wynton Marsalis. The show’s theme? George Gershwin. A very very very interesting fellow.
I listened to the opera, Porgy and Bess, over two days this week and now, in celebration of the return of summer…
An Addled Brain
I’m not sure if I can attribute it to being too fond of books, as the Lainie’s Lady sent to me from Brisbane, Australia, by a friend says, quoting Louisa May Alcott, but today my brain has been addled by sickness and general aching malaise…
That Wonderful Smell of Baking Solved?
It started as a single event. One day I went outside and the air in our neighborhood here in Northeast Portland was filled with the wonderful smell of baking! At first, I assumed someone in the neighborhood wasn’t as calorie-phobic as I am and had decided to make a batch of cookies or pastries or donuts. Then I smelled it a second time. And a third…
You Can Go Home Again
I’m finally back in western Oregon after nearly three weeks in the Northeast, visiting with family in northeastern Pennsylvania; two nights and three days up …
That Said, What Was Fun About Driving 1000 Miles…
Highlights of My Thousand Miles to Nowhere, Somewhere and Back…
— Stumbling on/into Klindt’s, the oldest bookstore in Oregon, in The Dalles and finding a set of Lawrence Durell’s Alexandria Quartet for $12 just as R.E.M. is playing “The Great Beyond.”
— Doing “drive-by shootings”– photographs from the car while moving. Hold up the camera, point, and click. Vistas, clouds, rain off in the distance, the sunlight on the top of an old silo, a way-too-huge flag on the twin towers of a cement factory that rises up out of nowhere.
— A crow that I can pretend is Edgar Allan Poe’s raven, perched on the top of sign on Route 30, outside Haines, Oregon, announcing that I’m at the 45th parallel, the midpoint between the North Pole and the equator
— The way the leaves moved in the slightest breeze on the quaking aspen outside my window at the Sandman Inn in LaGrande, Oregon.
— At the same Sandman, overhearing a shard of conversation between army guys-on-tour and a couple who live near Antelope, Oregon where (as the husband says) “that Rajneesh guy used to live.”
— Eas-as-pie wireless in the Sandman; picking up wireless from hotels blocks away in downtown Boise before the genius light bulb goes on in my head and I think, aha! close the drapes!
— The Idaho Black History Museum in the Julia Davis Park across from the Rose Garden where I talk with the director (her sister is in the Lion King on Broadway) while I buy my son a $5 Juneteenth T-shirt for his birthday.
— The “Homage to the Pedestrian” art installation in The Grove in downtown Boise. Every time a person walks by, bells, whistles, clapping and light drumming start. I could never figure out if it was canned/pre-recorded or if the actual act of an individual walking by generated a unique set of rhythms each and every time.
— Getting that hour back as I return into Pacific Daylight Time just north of Huntington, Oregon.
— The sign at Exit 383 at Weatherby, Oregon “Panning for Gold, Next Exit.” Panning for gold translates into a pack of RVs and campers and tents alongside the highway and a bunch of humans with picks and shovels digging into the soil that made up two very tiny hills of dirt that look like they were leftover from some outhouse construction project.
— Randi Rhodes and her big, wonderful, sassy, obnoxious politically savvy mouth when I’m finally on I-5, close Albany, Oregon, and can pick up KTTH, 990 AM, The Truth once again.
— Cleaning out the car, starting laundry, realizing I have days and days stretching out in front of me where basically I don’t have to drive much again…
