Sit.

Balke, Lighthouse on the Coast of Norway (detail), 1853

The Cold Mountain Poems

The path to Han-shan's place is laughable,

A path, but no sign of cart or horse.

Converging gorges - hard to trace their twists

Jumbled cliffs - unbelievably rugged.

A thousand grasses bend with dew,

A hill of pines hums in the wind.

And now I've lost the shortcut home,

Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

In a tangle of cliffs, I chose a place -

Bird paths, but no trails for me.

What's beyond the yard?

White clouds clinging to vague rocks.

Now I've lived here - how many years -

Again and again, spring and winter pass.

Go tell families with silverware and cars

"What's the use of all that noise and money?"

In the mountains it's cold.

Always been cold, not just this year.

Jagged scarps forever snowed in

Woods in the dark ravines spitting mist.

Grass is still sprouting at the end of June,

Leaves begin to fall in early August.

And here I am, high on mountains,

Peering and peering, but I can't even see the sky.

I spur my horse through the wrecked town,

The wrecked town sinks my spirit.

High, low, old parapet walls

Big, small, the aging tombs.

I waggle my shadow, all alone;

Not even the crack of a shrinking coffin is heard.

I pity all those ordinary bones,

In the books of the Immortals they are nameless.

I wanted a good place to settle:

Cold Mountain would be safe.

Light wind in a hidden pine -

Listen close - the sound gets better.

Under it a gray haired man

Mumbles along reading Huang and Lao.

For ten years I havn't gone back home

I've even forgotten the way by which I came.

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain: there's no through trail.

In summer, ice doesn't melt

The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.

How did I make it?

My heart's not the same as yours.

If your heart was like mine

You'd get it and be right here.

I settled at Cold Mountain long ago,

Already it seems like years and years.

Freely drifting, I prowl the woods and streams

And linger watching things themselves.

Men don't get this far into the mountains,

White clouds gather and billow.

Thin grass does for a mattress,

The blue sky makes a good quilt.

Happy with a stone under head

Let heaven and earth go about their changes.

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,

The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:

The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,

The wide creek, the mist blurred grass.

The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain

The pine sings, but there's no wind.

Who can leap the word's ties

And sit with me among the white clouds?

Rough and dark - the Cold Mountain trail,

Sharp cobbles - the icy creek bank.

Yammering, chirping - always birds

Bleak, alone, not even a lone hiker.

Whip, whip - the wind slaps my face

Whirled and tumbled - snow piles on my back.

Morning after morning I don't see the sun

Year after year, not a sign of spring.

I have lived at Cold Mountain

These thirty long years.

Yesterday I called on friends and family:

More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs.

Slowly consumed, like fire down a candle;

Forever flowing, like a passing river.

Now, morning, I face my lone shadow:

Suddenly my eyes are bleared with tears.

Spring water in the green creek is clear

Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white

Silent knowledge - the spirit is enlightened of itself

Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.

In my first thirty years of life

I roamed hundreds and thousands of miles.

Walked by rivers through deep green grass

Entered cities of boiling red dust.

Tried drugs, but couldn't make Immortal;

Read books and wrote poems on history.

Today I'm back at Cold Mountain:

I'll sleep by the creek and purify my ears.

I can't stand these bird songs

Now I'll go rest in my straw shack.

The cherry flowers are scarlet

The willow shoots up feathery.

Morning sun drives over blue peaks

Bright clouds wash green ponds.

Who knows that I'm out of the dusty world

Climbing the southern slope of Cold Mountain?

Cold Mountain has many hidden wonders,

People who climb here are always getting scared.

When the moon shines, water sparkles clear

When the wind blows, grass swishes and rattles.

On the bare plum, flowers of snow

On the dead stump, leaves of mist.

At the touch of rain it all turns fresh and live

At the wrong season you can't ford the creeks.

There's a naked bug at Cold Mountain

With a white body and a black head.

His hand holds two book scrolls,

One the Way and one its Power.

His shack's got no pots or oven,

He goes for a long walk with his shirt and pants askew.

But he always carries the sword of wisdom:

He means to cut down senseless craving.

Cold Mountain is a house

Without beans or walls.

The six doors left and right are open

The hall is sky blue.

The rooms all vacant and vague

The east wall beats on the west wall

At the center nothing.

Borrowers don't bother me

In the cold I build a little fire

When I'm hungry I boil up some greens.

I've got no use for the kulak

With hs big barn and pasture -

He just sets uo a prison for himself.

Once in he can't get out.

Think it over -

You know it might happen to you.

If I hide out at Cold Mountain

Living off mountain plants and berries -

All my lifetime, why worry?

One follows his karma through.

Days and months slip by like water,

Time is like sparks knocked off flint.

Go ahead and let the world change -

I'm happy to sit among these cliffs.

Most T'ien-t'ai men

Don't know Han-shan

Don't know his real thought

And call it silly talk.

Once at Cold Mountain, troubles cease -

No more tangled, hung up mind.

I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff,

Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.

Some critic tried to put me down -

"Your poems lack the Basic Truth of Tao."

And I recall the old timers

Who were poor and didn't care.

I have to laugh at him,

He misses the point entirely,

Men like that

Ought to stick to making money.

I've lived at Cold Mountain - how many autumns.

Alone, I hum a song - utterly without regret.

Hungry, I eat one grain of Immortal medicine

Mind solid and sharp; leaning on a stone.

On top of Cold Mountain the lone round moon

Lights the whole clear cloudless sky.

Honor this priceless natural treasure

Concealed in five shadows, sunk deep in the flesh.

My home was at Cold Mountain from the start,

Rambling among the hills, far from trouble.

Gone, and a million things leave no trace

Loosed, and it flows through galaxies

A fountain of light, into the very mind -

Not a thing, and yet it appears before me:

Now I know the pearl of the Buddha nature

Know its use: a boundless perfect sphere.

When men see Han-shan

They all say he's crazy

And not much to look at -

Dressed in rags and hides.

They don't get what I say

And I don't talk their language.

All I can say to those I meet:

"Try and make it to Cold Mountain."

Gary Snyder

Thank you for leading the way, Poetessa.

Clear.

Clear the mechanism.

Jerry Jeff Walker, "Gettin' By"

Beethoven, Symphony No.3 In E Flat, Op.55, "Eroica"

Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic ...

Remember.

President Reagan's remarks at Arlington Cemetery during the Veterans Day National Ceremony, November 11, 1985 ... 

It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired. But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives -- the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. And all we can do is remember.

There's always someone who is remembering for us. No matter what time of year it is or what time of day, there are always people who come to this cemetery, leave a flag or a flower or a little rock on a headstone. And they stop and bow their heads and communicate what they wished to communicate. They say, "Hello, Johnny," or "Hello, Bob. We still think of you. You're still with us. We never got over you, and we pray for you still, and we'll see you again. We'll all meet again." In a way, they represent us, these relatives and friends, and they speak for us as they walk among the headstones and remember. It's not so hard to summon memory, but it's hard to recapture meaning.

Fitz.

On this date, at this time, in 1975, the Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald was lost with all hands on Lake Superior.



CONNECT

Joy.

One for the Monk of Mauntadon

I like to wake up somewhere
between Hawaiian music and Mormon architecture,
say, another coffee shop above the sea,
a silver, streamlined diner in the dawn
with chrome stools, cushioned booths,
cold food on a hot plate.

When the smoke clears,
I like to just continue,
sit on a brilliant windowsill
and enjoy the view; wonder about things
such as what’s in it that makes glass
cast more of a shadow than some people I know.

I like to order another cup of coffee,
light another cigarette and admire the paint job,
check out the insects sealed under a third coat,
or see yet another sullen short order cook
bitch and grumble above the grill.

I love the way the waitress
can chew gum and sing while she wipes
the dust off a plastic plant
and then stop and talk about the weather.
And I love the dramatic weather:
the way the air changes with us,
the way another world arrives
in an avalanche of clouds,
the way the continents meet and separate again
while I jot down my immediate impressions
on a sheet of yellow paper;
taking note of little things, like the scorpion,
the first creature to walk on land;
or craters of illusion, great assumptions of normalcy,
where Ohio once was, or never was.

And I’m glad of a chance to meet people,
like Miss Ohio
(“five foot nine, eyes that shine”),
if for no other reason than the pleasure
of shaking hands or the opportunity
of leaning into the distances
while a strand of smoke lingers, and rises,
and turns like an unheard but legible desire.

And the sight of a cat, undisturbed,
curled in the sunlight, pleases me;
or ketchup smears on table mats
of Venezuela and its hideous flowers;
or the sight of boys splattering peaches
against an ancient stone wall.

I just like to sit back and take it all in,
watch the sea and sky move together
like memory and imagination,
move me out of a dripping indolence
to a dripping cathedral, like Chartres
(“walls of glass, roof of stone”),
where I can stand outside, see
whatever a summer sky can do, doing it all at once:
sunbursts through the daylong overcast
just when the rain begins to fall,
wind that leaps through the light and dark
to tear newspapers out of old grumps’ hands
and raise the skirts of secretaries
who run by in groups that sound full of birdcalls
and smell like groves in bloom.

Or I just enjoy relaxing, follow
my thoughts and shadows
through the light of a vacant lot
where a cathedral once stood, or a cleaning store
(“Clothes Cleaned In An Hour, Fresh As A Flower”),
and watch a cassowary stamp and scratch in the rubble,
able to explain the dust of his resentment
to anyone who might ask: although
he’s not the only bird that can’t fly, he is the only one
that can cripple a man with one swell foop.

And after the dust settles and the snow falls,
I like to listen to the cars
stuck throughout the hills,
tires that spin and smoke and wail,
attracting greater creatures
whose wings creak with sadness,
whose eyes sway with the stars.

And I like to sink into the bright desolation,
the sword-of-the-Lord glare
of empty, limitless parking lots,
the vast western skies above highways,
galactic pinball nights
when the wind carries my sight
and I’m lulled by the sound of passing trucks,
the surf-like rumble
that splashes a dusty light over my face.

Highway jetsam: hubcaps, tailpipes, a shoe,
mere logic’s gleam in an empty bottle,
the spark of omniscience on my fingertips
wondering where the ocean went
that bared these gray miles, this unfinished world
where a miniature figure waves an armless sleeve,
greetings from the phantom of an ever-widening hour,
where fountains in the rain,
half frozen, half music,
shine with a dim dream of the sun.

Or after drinking white wine on a gray day,
I want to step outside,
see the rain fall with the snow
and lick it off my lips.

Another fast walker in the smeared city,
people huddled under umbrellas
like clumps of black mushrooms on the corners,
shriveled rainbows on the oil-stained sidewalk,
cars sprouting clear wings
as they cut through flooded streets.

And it’s a good day
when the wind is pure sensation
and I can lie in the garden with my lady,
watch the crows slide sideways above the clearing
and squirrels trash through the treetops;
when I can listen to dragonflies
roll in a dogfight over the snowpeas
and the wind fizz through blighted pines;
or watch my shadow climb after a yellow bird
through the towering ruins of memory.

And by the rings of St. Elmo,
it’s a good day when I can stretch out
under the magnolia tree,
hear its limbs rub the ground,
see its flowers still filled with water
days after it’s rained.

In a place like that I like to think
about where I’ve been
—Milwaukee, Cleveland, Dallas—
or where I’m not sure I’ve been
—Milwaukee, Detroit, Tenerife—
Just put a shining finger on the globe
and cloud-crawl above the spin,
from Agadir to Inertia.

An occasional pastime,
and the past is endless:
Hausaland to Sokoto, Senegambia
to Isfahan, Kabul, Baluchistan,
the Southern Limit of the Grain,
the Southern Limit of the Vine,
the Standing Bear, the Gold Flies,
the Blue-eyed Dog, Yenner’s Slopshop,
muezzins’ voices and kites
whirling above the skyline,
craven runts suddenly dancing through trashfires
on a hilltop intersection,
or jumping through stars reflected in the Bosphorus.
Dutch junkie in a sweetshop
slouched over the jukebox;
just me and a few shivering cheerleaders
loitering in Asia Minor.

On a good day, I’m glad I was there
and glad I’m not there now,
another paleface in the middle of winter
living on hotel roofs covered with plastic,
almost asleep beside the trashfire
while French tramps broadjumped the flames.

Sparks and singed hair.
Moonhole through a dome of clouds
or starlight through plastic,
withered plastic flapping above the heat.

Cold, thick fingers. Mine.
And I could see myself in time
the way the log burned brighter than the flames.

The years below, rooms
with the furniture removed,
where moths rested on my bare arms
and spiders descended into conversations
on spectral parachutes;
where the words flowed
and the beginnings of all my thoughts
sat behind me like an idol in the night,
the dark and fearsome generosity,
the eyes of some gigantic child
who has never spoken, never slept.

And I swear by the Blue Saint of Tolerance
that when the future looks bright
I’m as happy as a flame in a lumberyard,
and nothing pleases me more
than to sit under a clear sky
at a table piled high
with oysters and shrimp, mushrooms and veal,
wine, strawberries, brandy, coffee and mints.

For it’s a pure and simple joy
to eat and drink with those I love,
to stay late and celebrate
a few certainties
while confusion and scorn
and a few other crazy, weather-beaten guests
continue to roll across the cold floors,
out the doors, the gates, the empty palace of the night.

And I like the sweet, weary feeling
of going sleepless, aimless through city streets,
have the action and ebullient tones
carry me like the first wave-borne beer can
to near a pristine shore;
and then wallow in the sunlight
as the day drifts into one long morning,
sit on a bench and gaze at the river
and, above its glimmer of forgetfulness,
at the wild blue yonder,
and wonder whether the haze between
—like a life—joins or separates them.

I like to consider what else
could be more important than kindness and work,
or think of a better way to end a day
than to lie on a lawn
as the sun casts a net of shadows
below the leafless trees, a net
that slides over me and gathers in its gentleness
what a mind finds too heavy to force away.

And for a while I am outside of time,
amazed by what’s left of me
and all there is to know.
I can close my eyes and bask in a satisfaction
that begins to glow with silence;
it could be green, dark green, the entrance
to the deep, empty well
that Pliny told astronomers was the best place
from which to watch stars move in daylight.
And though he meant that as practical advice,
it sounds to me like a prayer
from one of those barren, cloudy lands
that I’ve seen and liked,
forgotten and then wrote about.

Paul Violi

Miracle.

Thich Nhat Hahn: The Miracle of Being Alive

Jackson Browne.

Jackson's pretty neat, but what if Mozart or van Gogh did this? Or Georgia? 

Believe.

So many traditions look for the ethereal in animals. The Hindus, among others, believe we are reincarnated over and over, taking on animal and human forms as we move toward the divine. Cats were deified in ancient Egypt, and in the Catholic tradition, St. Francis of Assisi communicated with and preached to animals. Many Native American cultures have totems — wolves, hawks and others — to guide, protect and test individuals throughout life. Human beings may look to animals to embody what we can’t see but want to believe is there.

CONNECT

Happy birthday, Couperin.

François Couperin was born on this date in 1668.

Christophe Rousset leads and performs with Les Nations in Couperin’s L'espagnole in C minor, La françoise in E minor, and L'impériale in D minor ...

Happy birthday, Hogarth.

William Hogarth was born on this date in 1697.

The serpentine line, or the line of grace, by its waving and winding at the same time different ways, leads the eye in a pleasing manner along the continuity of its variety. 

CONNECT

James McMurtry, "Peter Pan"

Bright.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory just released this amazing timelapse created from 17,000 images of the sun taken late last month. The bright spot you see gradually passing from right to left is sunspot AR 2192, the largest observed sunspot in 22 years. It measures 80,000 miles across or roughly the width of 10 Earths side by side. 

Mozart.

Improvising Mozart

In his first lecture-recital, Professor Levin considerers idiomatic embellishment and cadenzas in Mozart, making extensive use of facsimiles of autograph manuscripts as well as free fantasies.

Composing Mozart
In his second lecture-recital, Professor Levin will discusses the various completions that he has provided to a wide range of Mozart fragments, from small piano pieces to concerto movements and the Requiem and C-minor Mass.



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New.

Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it — and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

Life.

Wyeth, Fall Grasses, 1955

Still
In the fall, I believe again in poetry
if nothing else it is
a movement of the mind.
Summers ball together
into sticky lumps,
spring evenings are glass beads from one mould
for standard-size youth,
winter a smooth heaviness, not even cold.
But the mind trembles
here, on the brink
the mind trembles
there is life, after all,
there is life, still
unbelief left.

Jaakko A. Ahokas

Dreams.

It was AA Gill who sent me to eat at St John, about 15 years ago. I went there alone, so compelling a case did he make, and I ate as much as I could off the menu. After my meal I remember tottering unsteadily into the kitchen, getting on to my knees and bowing down in front of Fergus. It really was the restaurant of my dreams. I loved absolutely everything about it: the attitude, the look, the food, the wine.

CONNECT

Strong.

Clouds grew out of nothing into giant thunderheads. The wind went from calm to 40 knots and slammed head on into the 40-foot sailboat. Liz Clark was alone in the middle of a 1,300-mile passage to Bora Bora from Kiribati, a mere speck of tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. She hadn’t slept in almost three days. She had run out of food. The storm threatened to snap her headstay and cause her mast to fall over, and she feared the lightning would blow a hole in her boat. It was a low point in the 34-year-old exploratory surfer’s nine-year quest for remote breaks.

“That was one of my most challenging times at sea,” says Clark. “It really showed me what I'm capable of after a few days of no sleep. It made me strong.”

CONNECT

Kris Kristofferson, "Big River"

Haulin'.

Comanche haulin' the mail ...

Windmill.

On the road between Henencourt and Baizieux, south of the village of Warloy-Baillon, is the Moulin de Rolmont. Typical of those in the region it is a stone tower that in 1914 was a fully working and functioning windmill. In 1916 the windmill was well behind the lines in what was a rest area for the British Army, and close to a Royal Flying Corps aerodrome.

CONNECT

Perspective.

Leonardo, La Bella Principessa (detail), 1490

Consider for a time how the world might look through other eyes, to shuttle between the human and the natural perspective.  Why might this be interesting, or even inspiring? Perhaps because unhappiness can stem from only having one perspective to play with.

Alain de Botton

Model.

A rising swell that announces its arrival in the calm and peaceful ocean; an abundance of snow, carried by the wind, lying thick on the ground; the flow of pure water, hugging a gian moss-covered rock: I constantly model myself on these things.

Taro Tamai 

Best.

… [T]here’s nothing like returning to a farm with horses and chickens, and then on to a fairly remote cabin off a two-track road where when you try to sleep at night you hear a river flowing, probably the best sound on earth.

CONNECT

Collaboration.

I don’t think there are “bad books” for children, mostly because people leave one ingredient out of the equation – which is the child… What you’re failing to realize is the kid is bringing [him or herself] to the book – which is also a failure to understand that books are collaborative. Fiction is collaborative – it’s collaboration between the person who wrote it and the person reading it… Kids improve the books they read.

On Halloween, Neil Gaiman visited the New York Public Library dressed as a dead Charles Dickens to read from his fantastic adaptation of the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel and talk to the library’s intellectual impresario, Paul Holdengräber. 

CONNECT

Better.

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

Calvados.

There is no secret to making good calvados, says Claude Camut. "All you need is the bonne fortune of being in the right place, on the right farm, with the right apples, for 800 years." He should know. The head of a family that can indeed trace its lineage back eight centuries, to Viking times, he bears a name synonymous with some of Normandy's finest farm-produced calvados.

CONNECT

Best.

Bolt and bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.

Horace there by Homer stands,
Plato stands below,
And here is Tully's open page.
How many years ago
Were you and I unlettered lads
Mad as the mist and snow?

You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
What makes me shudder so?
I shudder and I sigh to think
That even Cicero
And many-minded Homer were
Mad as the mist and snow.

William Butler Yeats

Mike Scott and Steve Wickham perform ...

Something.

In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you'll dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it to the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.

Ernest Hemingway

Nobody's.

Harris & Ewing, Getting ready for Halloween, and it's nobody's business where he got the pumpkin, 1923

CONNECT

Jethro Tull, "One White Duck"

Happy birthday, Chardin.

Chardin, A Green Neck Duck with a Seville Orange, 1730

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was born on this date in 1699.

We have learned from Chardin that a pear is as living as a woman, that an ordinary piece of pottery is as beautiful as a precious stone. Everyday life will charm you once you have absorbed Chardin’s painting for a few days like a lesson. Then, having understood the life of his painting, you will have discovered the beauty of life.

Marcel Proust

Spirits.

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stainèd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

`The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

`The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.'
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

William Blake

CONNECT

Storm King.

Goldsworthy, Five Men, Seventeen Days, Fifteen Boulders, One Wall, 2010

Widely celebrated as one of the world’s leading sculpture parks, Storm King Art Center has welcomed visitors from across the globe for fifty years. It is located only one hour north of New York City, in the lower Hudson Valley, where its pristine 500-acre landscape of fields, hills, and woodlands provides the setting for a collection of more than 100 carefully sited sculptures created by some of the most acclaimed artists of our time.

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Decided.

Collins, Hudson River, 2009

I’ve decided to make up my mind
about nothing, to assume the water mask,
to finish my life disguised as a creek,
an eddy, joining at night the full,
sweet flow, to absorb the sky,
to swallow the heat and cold, the moon
and the stars, to swallow myself
in ceaseless flow.

Jim Harrison

Formations.

Ice formations along the shores of the Mackenzie River in Tulit’a, Northwest Territories, Canada.

CONNECT

Golden.

Now that the World Series has come to an end, the Hall of Fame has made news by announcing the names of the ten players and general managers who have made the final cut for the Golden Era ballot. This ballot features those candidates whose primes fell in the years between 1947 (the year that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier) and 1972 (the final season before the implementation of the DH).

The ballot features Gil Hodges, a combination candidate who had moments of glory both as a player and as a manager. Former Phillies star Dick Allen, one of the most controversial athletes of the 1960s, also made the final ballot, as did third baseman Ken Boyer, general manager Bob Howsam, left-handed pitcher Jim Kaat, outfielder Minnie Minoso, batting champion Tony Oliva, lefty Billy Pierce, pitcher Luis Tiant, and champion base thief Maury Wills.

The ballot does not feature an alumnus of the Tigers, a disappointment to Detroit fans no doubt. But the Tigers have several players who could have potentially been considered. Here are the top Tiger candidates, in reverse order of the likelihood that they will qualify for the Golden Era ballot in the future.

CONNECT

Greatest.

He’s big, and while I didn’t have directions, I didn’t think it would be possible to miss him. The greatest living landscape painter in America, famous for his outlandish appetites for great food, wine, travel, art, music, literature, and the sporting life, including what some might label an obsessive relationship with flyfishing: Wherever he was located, no matter how rural and remote the location—somewhere north of San Francisco—people would know where he was.

There are few places a soul so large can hide.

CONNECT  -- Don't miss the great picture of Valdene, Harrison, Chatham, and McGuane ...  I'd like a seat at that dinner table.

Moon.

We’re going back to the Moon. For good.

Why? Our Moon---the ‘eighth continent’---has a land area larger than Brazil and North America put together…and people have only been to 5% of it! There are amazing natural wonders, valuable resources, and unsolved mysteries waiting to be discovered.

Unfortunately, getting to the Moon hasn’t been very cost-effective---yet. And that’s where the Google Lunar XPRIZE comes in: $30 million in prizes designed to inspire pioneers to do robotic space transport on a budget. Teams from around the world are well on their way to accomplishing this  and ushering in a new era of space frontiers!

To win the grand prize ($20 million), private teams (with no more than 10% in government funding) must:

• Land a robot safely on the Moon

• Move 500 meters on, above, or below the Moon’s surface; and

• Send back HDTV Mooncasts for everyone to enjoy

….and this must all be completed before the December 31st, 2015 deadline! There are other prizes, too, for missions like surviving the lunar night and visiting an Apollo site.

In the spirit of Charles Lindbergh, we want to break open space the same way he broke open aviation. Join us---as we open up the Moon, and create an epic future in space for all of us!

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Hideout.

Kurt's hideout.

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Understand.

Sensed.

[Ted] Williams used a postal scale in the clubhouse to make sure humidity had not increased the weight of his bats. An official of the Louisville Slugger company once challenged Williams to pick the one bat among six that weighed half an ounce more than the other five. He did. He once sent back to the factory a shipment of bats because he sensed that the handles were too thick. They were, by .005 of an inch. 

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Do you smell that?

earthshine.

November arrives
carried in on wind, driven by rain.
At the edge of the field I feel the lingering gusts
and the gravel crunch under my heels.
In the aperture of dawn
the lens is a mind wide-open to the movement of time
caught as blur --
a moon shine smudge of light.
The earth's shine
a gray glow
illuminating its own shadow.

Jessica Gutliph Karr

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