Play

“Play is the exultation of the possible.”
— Martin Buber

Especially when it involves toys that dispense treats.

Perhaps I'll try the sideways approach.

Have I won yet?

Five Senses Friday Number 31

See:
• There have been beautiful nights of crimson sunsets this week
• Thousands of crows roost in North Adams, and I saw them circling and resting in a tall tree on Main St. Thursday evening. To me it was breathtaking, though no one else around seemed to notice
• Long white Yeti fur covering my black pant legs. A small inconvenience balanced by a thousand moments of utter cuteness.


Hear:
• The roar of fire catching in the wood stove. The rattling of November's wind through dried leaves and the tall cornstalks I used to decorate the front door. The wreath of dried branches against the window knocking all afternoon, like a ghost.
• Water on the moon?!
• Only very random people talk to me about my mom during the week. An older gentleman at the gym, the Vietnam vet who works at our town recycling center, the IT guy at work. I don't have good news for them.


Taste:
• Early, local Thanksgiving last Friday
• Tonight: Bulgogi: Korean Marinated BBQ beef — lettuce wraps, white rice, pickled vegetables, miso paste and kimchi
• A lunch packed by J, in a special "m heart" lunch bag no less. What's in there? A natural turkey and provolone sandwich on fresh bakery bread, a local apple, a peanut butter protein bar, and some chips, something I would never in a million years pack for myself but am happy to discover in the bag
• Bagels and lox, though the bagels available here don't really deserve to be called bagels. They should be called "stalegels."


Smell:
• Walking in North Adams last night, I swore I could smell cotton candy
• Green apple dog shampoo
• New leather boots, in expectation of winter


Touch:
• Dog fluff
• The heft of a new book

More Non-Dull Moments with Yeti

J just emailed me this little series of photos to sum up what he's been doing this afternoon. I'll just give you his captions...

"Yeti, you come!"

"What's that extra green stripe on your back?"

"Hold still, Yeti."

Is that not the saddest face you've ever seen? Apparently another of Yeti's pastimes is rolling in things that smell horrible. A habit Vixen stopped engaging in so long ago I almost forgot about it completely...

Have a wonderful, clean-smelling evening, my friends!

A little older, a little more confused

I was probably in my 20's the first time I heard this song and the opening line (from Dennis Hopper in The American Friend, by the way). How much more poignant it is now though.

Tennis for Dogs

I considered naming this post "Tennis. Doggie Style" but imagine the various related google keyword searches I'd have to see every time I checked my stats...

Yeti can run ridiculously fast. Especially when he's escaping into the woods, which he's done several times this week, leaving J and I calling his name in the happiest sounding voices we can muster and trudging along the path with a bag full of all-natural doggie treats. One morning I took him out on a leash (not an ideal situation for such an exuberant dog), only to have it mysteriously fall off halfway through our woods walk.

"Yeti!" I screamed in a panic as he quickly realized his freedom and bolted away, bounding over fallen trees and whizzing to and fro, a little white blur of potential coyote snack tearing through the trees.

He sprinted teasingly back to me several times ("good boy! good come! here's a treat!") then darted away again ("damn!") before I could grab him. Finally I decided to start to jogging back towards the house with Vixen circling me nervously. Yeti, perhaps unable to control his instinct to herd his suddenly-running-away-pack, rushed around and around and tore past us, beating us to the door.

Vixen is still the alpha of the dog household, which she reminds Yeti of by holding him down and nibbling him like a corn cob several times a day. She's probably wondering how long this play date is going to last (until the weekend, actually). I don't think she's noticed that Yeti has wormed his way into sleeping on the bedroom rug unless she heard J and I thrashing around and screaming "what the hell is that?!" when he tried to jump on the bed at 4 in the morning. I think poor Yeti was as surprised as we were by the sudden ruckus.

There haven't been a lot of dull moments with this little guy around, which is fine by me.

Lightness

“He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.”
— Henri Matisse

Ready to Rouse Your Inner Warrior?

via succeed blog.

Dog Music

Dog Music

Amongst dogs are listeners and singers.
My big dog sang with me so purely,
puckering her ruffled lips into an O,
beginning with small, swallowing sounds
like Coltrane musing, then rising to power
and resonance, gulping air to continue—
her passion and sense of flawless form—
singing not with me, but for the art of dogs.
We joined in many fine songs—"Stardust,"
"Naima," "The Trout," "My Rosary," "Perdido."
She was a great master and died young,
leaving me with unrelieved grief,
her talents known to only a few.

Now I have a small dog who does not sing,
but listens with discernment, requiring
skill and spirit in my falsetto voice.
I sing her name and words of love
andante, con brio, vivace, adagio.
Sometimes she is so moved she turns
to place a paw across her snout,
closes her eyes, sighing like a girl
I held and danced with years ago.

But I am a pretender to dog music.
The true strains rise only from
the rich, red chambers of a canine heart,
these melodies best when the moon is up,
listeners and singers together or
apart, beyond friendship and anger,
far from any human imposter—
ballads of long nights lifting
to starlight, songs of bones, turds,
conquests, hunts, smells, rankings,
things settled long before our birth.

— by Paul Zimmer

Books, books, and more books...

I have lots of  time to find books I want to read lately, but not enough time to actually read them. Maybe once the sub-zero nights and Nor'easter days of winter kick in I'll catch up...not that I'm looking forward to that kind of weather.

I just pre-ordered New York: The Novel on Amazon, after seeing an ad for it in the New York Times Book Review (somewhere a marketing person is giving a little cheer over that statement, believe me). Booklist calls Edward Rutherfurd's 7th novel a "lush, lavish tribute to the Big Apple" that spans four centuries of it's history (880 pages!) "New York's growing pains, tragedies and triumphs, are reflected in the experiences of a range of ordinary and extraordinary citizens from varying backgrounds, with a wide spectrum of ambitions and expectations. Although it is hard to do justice to a city with such a throbbing pulse, Rutherford’s homage is compulsively readable." To learn more you can visit the author's website here. I'm looking forward to reading this book all winter.

Maybe a light-hearted companion to New York: The Novel could be Robinson's New York Line By Line.  From the Amazon description: In the early ’60s, Robinson, a German illustrator, visited New York and documented his trip in his signature style, the self-described "X-ray view," in which he depicts important buildings simultaneously from within and without (instead of showing exactly what was already visible in photographs). Today, with such programs available as Freehand and Illustrator, Robinson is considered a graphics pioneer. From a Greenwich Village restaurant to Chinatown’s Mott Street; from a Museum of Modern Art exhibit to takeoffs and landings at Kennedy Airport; and from the Rockefeller Center ice rink to Times Square, New Yorkers and tourists alike will savor Robinson’s beautiful and meticulous re-creations. The book also includes updated urban facts.

It can sit on my coffee table next to This is New York, a copy of which J gave to me as a gift this past summer. Originally published in 1960 Miroslav Sasek's bright and graphic illustrated picture book of Manhattan is a joy to leaf through for kids and adults alike.

Another new book arrival, completley unrelated to New York (gasp!) is Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. This is the hot-off-the-presses follow-up to the wildly popular Artisan Bread in five Minutes a Day, which I was contemplating purchasing until I began reading comments on Amazon.com and noticed lots of complaints about the book's lack of whole grain recipes. That won't do, I thought, even if their technique takes only 5 seconds a day. A little more searching and I discovered this new book with 100 recipes featuring whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and even gluten-free ingredients. I need a few basic tools before donning my baker's hat (a baking stone and oven thermometer, most importantly) but I'll let you know how their technique works out for an impatient I'd-rather-be-blogging baking novice like myself. Has anyone out there tried it?

Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart recently appeared on my desk at work for a gardening book photo shoot, and I didn't hesitate to take it home with me afterwards (that's the danger of leaving nice books within my reach, and a perk of working for a publisher). This little hardcover would make a wonderful gift for the plant/history/folklore/science lover. Of course the more pages I turn the more paranoid I am about going outside. I thought poison ivy was all I needed to worry about, when in reality my gardens and woods are full of ghoulishly poisonous greenery. 

Last but not least, a couple of weeks ago I went online and felt inexplicably compelled to buy used copies of Kerouac: The Definitve Biography, Visions of Cody (which I somehow never read), and The Subterraneans (my copy disappeared years ago), only realizing a few days later that I'd bought them on October 21 — the 40 year anniversary of Kerouac's death. I love coincidence.

Now I just need more time to read. Maybe while I'm waiting for my bread dough to rest.

Good Morning!

Guess who's back for a visit?

Sunday Sunset

The Loser

A man thinks of the woman he once loved: first, after her wedding, and then nearly a decade later.

1.
I kissed you, bride and lost, and went
home from that bougeois sacrament,
your cheek still tasting cold upon
my lips that gave you benison
with all the swagger that they knew—
as losers somehow learn to do.

Your wedding made my eyes ache; soon
the world would be worse off for one
more golden apple dropped to ground
without the least protesting sound,
and you would windfall lie, and we
forget your shimmer on the tree.

Beauty is always wasted: if
not Mignon's song sung to the deaf,
at all events to the unmoved.
A face like yours cannot be loved
long or seriously enough.
Almost, we seem to hold it off.

2.
Well, you are tougher than I thought.
Now when the wash with ice hangs taut
this morning of St. Valentine,
I see you strip the squeaking line,
your body weighed against the load,
and all my groans can do no good.

Because you are still beautiful,
Though squared and stiffened by the pull
of what nine windy years have done.
You have three daughters, lost a son.
I see all your intelligence
flung into that unwearied stance.

My envy is of no avail.
I turn my head and wish him well
who chafed your beauty into use
and lives forever in a house
lit by the friction of your mind.
You stagger in against the wind.

— Adrienne Rich, 1958

It's a little disarming to pull a favorite book from the shelf and see that the pages have gone and yellowed on me. Does that happen to you? Was it that long ago that I bought it? In my defense, The Fact of a Doorframe, like many of my other books, was purchased used — and for only $4.50. When I think of the profound influence poems like The Loser had one me, it's almost an incomprehensible bargain.

Someday perhaps I'll tell the story of how the dress and veil came to be hanging in the closet.

Saturday Double Takes

The last double take. At least for now.

It feels as if there are million things I could or should be doing this evening but I can't seem to focus on any of them. I thought I'd choose some simple diversions — create mini moo.com cards for the blog, start a Blurb book of images, dive into a new book — but I can't muster up the enthusiasm to get started on any of them. Perhaps these endeavors are too much like my day job to seem fun on the weekend, and maybe I'm just burnt out from a fast-paced, meeting-heavy week and feeling physically under the weather.

Last night, however, J and I celebrated a little bit of early Thanksgiving with friends by attending the first annual (hopefully annual) Grateful Harvest Dinner at nearby Elmer's, the local general-store-turned-homey-restaurant that we love. Everything on the night's set menu was grown, raised, or produced within a 100-mile radius and consisted of:

• Savory Brined Turkey
• Roasted Fall Vegetables: Parsnips, Carrots, Brussel sprouts, Acorn Squash
• Gorgonzola and Bacon Mashed Potatoes
• “Old School” Pan Gravy
• Roasted Mushrooms, Green Beans and Caramelized Onions
• Chestnut Dressing
• AnnaBread (made locally)
• Dessert - pumpkin pie or Berkshire ice cream

Also featured were a variety of local hard ciders from West County Cider and local Meade. That the meal was utterly delicious probably goes without saying. How could one go wrong with a menu like that? I don't know specifically what kind of local mushrooms were served but they were dark and meaty and utterly delicious (turns out I like to eat mushrooms as much as I like to photograph them). There was also a tart-yet-sweet berry compote on the plate that didn't appear on the official menu. Post-feast we headed for our friend's house to sip tequila and play dominos until the wee hours. It didn't occur to me until just now that the last time I played dominos was on Thanksgiving proper, a couple of years ago. J and I would always play along with my family on Thanksgiving evening, huddled around our tiny kitchen table sipping cider and snacking, candles flickering in the windows, a fire crackling in the woodstove. I have great memories of those games.

Maybe there will be new traditions. How does the saying go? Friends are family you choose yourself. I always thought that quote implied a dissatisfaction with or rejection of one's actual family and viewed it with suspicion — but latley I see it simply as an acknowledgement of the wider circle one can create.

"Cheers" to life's widening circles.

Five Senses Friday #30

Wow, a Five Senses Friday on a Friday!

Taste:
• Cheddar, apple, and caramelized onion tart
• Andouille sausage with red beans and rice
• Roasted delicata, garlic, sweet potatoes, and Brussels sprouts over quinoia with tempeh
• Nutella on sour dough toast

See:
• No wild turkeys this week, but a cattle crossing!
• And speaking of cattle, my friends with the beautiful Highland cattle have just started both a newsletter and a Facebook page for their family farm, Gordon's Fold, which they're trying to save from being sold. Cross all available appendages that they can save their beautiful spot. And go be their fan!
• Today the hills were purple, green, and gray and frosted with a bit of icy snow; behind clouds the sky turned the pale blue usually reserved for the later winter months

Hear:
• Pomplamoose? The video is cute.
• Vixen and Yeti panting and play-fighting

Feel:
• Pants that fit perfectly right off-the-rack are nothing short of miraculous, and I had to restrain myself from buying every style in the store.
• Confident driving someplace unfamiliar with the help of my GPS. No more hour-long side trips through the great unknown.
• I've now surmised that my shoulder only feels good when I'm moving it.

Smell:
• Fresh fish cakes
• Fresh brewed cappaccino

Zimoun: Sound Sculptures & Installations

Zimoun : Sound Sculptures & Installations | Compilation Video V1.0 from [ ] on Vimeo.

This is super cool, and I'd love to experience it live in a gallery space (like at MASS MoCA for example). I love how the "swarm prepared vibration motors" at 3:48 have a robotic insect thing going on, and that final installation looks like a lot of fun to play with...

Via Swissmiss

Friday Double Takes

My parent's backyard in RI/NYC bodega.

Thursday Double Takes

These hills are bare now, but last week I caught the very end of the day's light as I trudged towards the parking lot after work — the leaves were golden alchemy against the eerie gray sky of an impending rain storm.

Scene

MASS MoCA, October, 2009

Wednesday Double Takes

North Adams/Northampton. Who could resist shooting that statuesque dog? I shot from the hip, not wanting to get yelled at. One never knows.

Earth to Earth

North Adams, MA

These images give the impression that this particular cemetery is in complete disrepair, but that is not really the case. I just find the toppled statuary and stones striking, sinking quietly into the grass — did someone push them over, or was a strong wind responsible? There are broken bits everywhere, engraved letters filled with rain, stones covered in moss. Thankfully nobody takes them, or so it appears.

Tuesday Double Takes

On the one hand, if this were our wood pile we would have very few worries about heating this winter. On the other, if this were our wood pile we would have had to have stacked all of it.

Until next year...

Here is one last image from Halloween, taken in the car while J and I sat wondering whether or not to abandon our plans to see The Alchemystics in favor of simply spooking around the drizzly streets of Northampton, as we did when we first met. We ended up having plenty of time for a bit of both. Did I mention that J is responsible for all the detail work on my face paint? It was hard to stand still and not burst out laughing while he added the flowers and swirls, eyeliner pen in hand, his face inches away and serious with concentration.

I'm a bit late discovering it, but there is a beautiful Day of the Dead tribute (Dia de Bloglandia) going on at the Rogridvitz Style blog. I'd like to participate next year and am already thinking about my altar, about those I could honor. The more I learn about the Dia de los Muertos holiday the more appealing it's traditions feel — how comforting to share our remembrances as a community, to know that we're not alone with our losses, not isolated in our grief; and how appropriate to acknowledge the briefness of our life here not with morbidity and sadness but with celebration.

Doin' the (brrrbrrr)...Pigeon

Watching this short video, I realized that pigeon flying or keeping is something I know absolutely nothing about. But it's fascinating that someone could have that many birds in the middle of the city.

And for those of you who didn't grow up watching Sesame Street in the 1970's and are trying to figure out what the post title is all about...



This was one of my favorite things to do as a little kid. Apparently J too.

There are lots more short videos about real New Yorkers on the The Revel in New York site.

Monday Pairings

Pairing up some photos this week, for fun.

Five Senses Friday # 29

See:
• Japanese maples shrugging off red dresses
• A pink clouded moonrise
• Those wild & crazy turkeys again
• Gangs of costumed revelers on night sidewalks
• Newborn glass beads, still on their mandrels


Hear:
• A forceful hissing coming from my rear driver's side tire
• A new washing machine agitating in the laundry room
• Related by J: An older man sitting outside a local bank was having his photo snapped by a younger man with an iPhone. "What's the apple for?" he asked.


Taste:
• New York strip steak with a green peppercorn Cognac cream sauce, bleu cheese and scallion mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables, followed by a cup of Americano and spicy pumpkin pie
• Lobster spring rolls
• Burritos and cold Modelos at La Veracruzana, Northampton


Feel:
• J drawing on the details of my Halloween face with black eyeliner (more photos to come)
• Can't shake my recent shoulder and neck pain

Smell:
• Sometimes when the air is filled with car exhaust it reminds me so much of Manhattan that I find myself enjoying it
• The increasingly strong scent of skunk as J and I made our way back to the car on Halloween night