Staring.

Pixley, River Scene #2 30/45, n/d

Let’s not get romantic or dismal about death.

Indeed it’s our most unique act along with birth.

We must think of it as cooking breakfast,

it’s that ordinary. Break two eggs into a bowl

or break a bowl into two eggs. Slip into a coffin

after the fluids have been drained, or better yet,

slide into the fire. Of course it’s a little hard

to accept your last kiss, your last drink,

your last meal about which the condemned

can be quite particular as if there could be

a cheeseburger sent by God. A few lovers

sweep by the inner eye, but it’s mostly a placid

lake at dawn, mist rising, a solitary loon

call, and staring into the still, opaque water.

We’ll know as children again all that we are

destined to know, that the water is cold

and deep, and the sun penetrates only so far.

Jim Harrison

Glimmer.

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Overlooked.

MAN DOG

I envied the dog lying in the yard

so I did it. But there was a pebble

under my flank so I got up and looked

for the pebble, brushed it away

and lay back down. My dog thus far

overlooked the pebble. I guess it's her thick

Lab fur. With my head downhill the blood gorged

me with ideas. Not good. Got up. Turned around. Now I

see hundreds of infinitesimal ants. I'm on an

ant home. I get up and move five feet.

The dog hasn't moved from her serene place.

Now I'm rather too near a thicket where

I saw a big black snake last week that might decide

to join me. I moved near the actual dog this time

but she got up and went under the porch. She doesn't like

it when I'm acting weird. I'm failing as a dog

when my own kind rejects me, but doing better

than when I envied birds, the creature the least

like us, therefore utterly enviable. To be sure

I cheeped a lot but didn't try to fly.

We humans can take off but are no good at landing.

Jim Harrison

Cure.

No medicine is more valuable, none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of all our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share our happiness in time of joy.  Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us. No one can interrupt us now.

Aelred of Rievaulx

Changed.

Stephen Fry documents Johannes Gutenberg and his medieval machine that changed the world ...

Veracini, Sonate Accademiche, Op. 2

Eva Saladin, violin, Daniel Rosin, cello, and Johannes Keller, clanger, perform the Adagio Assai & Capriccio from Sonata No. 5 in G Minor ...

Released.

Led Zeppelin released The Song Remains the Same on this day in 1976.

The film ...

Closer.

Sitting on a stump I feel a little closer to the idea that I’m a member of just one of possibly thirty million species. Some people don’t like to count bugs because they are frequently obnoxious. A stump or log seems to help me assume. Zen as a glyph for the vehicle of reality, the water that just happens to be contained by a glass and a myriad of other containers. Mistakes are made when students are led to believe that the water pipes, the steel culverts, the plumbing are the river.

Jim Harrison, from "Sitting Around"

Happy Birthday, Liszt

Franz Liszt was born on this day in 1811.

Vladimir Horowitz performs the Consolation No. 3 in D-flat Major ...

Happy Birthday, Lukather

Steve Lukather was born on this day in 1957.

"Hold the Line" with Toto ...

Happy Birthday, Diz

Dizzy Gillespie was born on this day in 1917.

"On the Sunny Side of the Street", performed by Diz, Sonny Stitt, tenor saxophone, Lou Levy, piano, Ray Brown, bass, and Gus Johnson, drums ...

Happy Birthday, Coleridge

Northcote, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1804

What if you slept

And what if

In your sleep

You dreamed

And what if

In your dream

You went to heaven

And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower

And what if

When you awoke

You had that flower in you hand

Ah, what then?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born on this day in 1772

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Making.

Systemic processes tend to reward people for making decisions that turn out to be right—creating great resentment among the anointed, who feel themselves entitled to rewards for being articulate, politically active, and morally fervent.

Thomas Sowell

Happy Birthday, Jackson

Keith Jackson was born on this day in 1928.

Memories ...

Holborne, "The Night Watch"

The Chelys Consort performs ...

Supertramp, "Take the Long Way Home

Morrissey, "Sister I'm a Poet"

Ain't.

Happy Birthday, Weir

Bob Weir was born on this day in 1947.

"Two Djinn"

Isn't this how all good tales begin?

Yes, "Magnification"

This.

Goldsworthy, Room, 1992

“What does not enter then my drowsy mind…?”

Derzhavin

I

October comes at last. The grove is shaking

The last reluctant leaves from naked boughs.

The autumn cold has breathed, the road is freezing—

The brook still sounds behind the miller’s house,

But the pond’s hushed; now with his pack my neighbor

Makes for the distant field—his hounds will rouse

The woods with barking, and his horse’s feet

Will trample cruelly the winter wheat

II

This is my time! What is the Spring to me?

Thaw is a bore: mud running thick and stinking—

Spring makes me ill: my mind is never free

From dizzy dreams, my blood’s in constant ferment.

Give me instead Winter’s austerity,

The snows under the moon—and what is gayer

Than to glide lightly in a sleigh with her

Whose fingers are like fire beneath the fur?

III

And oh, the fun, steel-shod to trace a pattern

In crystal on the river’s glassy face!

The shining stir of festivals in winter!

But there’s a limit—nobody could face

Six months of snow—even that cave-dweller,

The bear, would growl “enough” in such a case.

Sleigh rides with young Armidas pall, by Jove,

And you turn sour with loafing by the stove.

IV

Oh, darling Summer, I could cherish you,

If heat and dust and gnats and flies were banished.

These dull the mind, the heart grows weary, too.

We, like the meadows, suffer drought: thought withers

Drink is our only hope, and how we rue

Old woman Winter, at whose funeral banquet

Pancakes and wine were served, but now we hold

Memorial feasts of ices, sweet and cold.

V

They say ill things of the last days of Autumn:

But I, friend reader, not a one will hear;

Her quiet beauty touches me as surely

As does a wistful child, to no one dear.

She can rejoice me more, I tell you frankly,

Than all the other seasons of the year.

I am a humble lover, and I could

Find, singularly, much in her that’s good.

VI

How shall I make it clear? I find her pleasing

As you perhaps may like a sickly girl,

Condemned to die, and shortly, who is drooping

Without a murmur of reproach to hurl

At life, forsaking her—upon her paling

Young lips a little smile is seen to curl.

She does not hear the grave’s horrific yawn.

Today she lives—tomorrow she is gone.

VII

Oh, mournful season that delights the eyes,

Your farewell beauty captivates my spirit.

I love the pomp of Nature’s fading dyes,

The forests, garmented in gold and purple,

The rush of noisy wind, and the pale skies

Half-hidden by the clouds in darkling billows,

And the rare sun-ray and the early frost,

And threats of grizzled Winter, heard and lost.

VIII

Each time that Autumn comes I bloom afresh;

For me, I find, the Russian cold is good;

Again I go through life’s routine with relish:

Sleep comes in season, and the need for food;

Desire seethes—and I am young and merry,

My heart beats fast with lightly leaping blood.

I’m full of life—such is my organism.

(if you will please excuse the prosaism.)

IX

My horse is brought; far out onto the plain

He carries his glad rider, and the frozen

Dale echoes to his shining hooves, his mane

Streams in the keen wind like a banner blowing,

And the bright ice creaks under him again.

But day soon flickers out. At the forgotten

Hearth, where the fire purrs low or leaps like wind,

I read, or nourish long thoughts in my mind.

X

And I forget the world in the sweet silence,

While I am lulled by fancy, and once more

The soul oppressed with the old lyric fever

Trembles, reverberates, and seeks to pour

Its burden freely forth, and as though dreaming

I watch the children that my visions bore,

And I am host to the invisible throngs

Who fill my reveries and build my songs.

XI

And thoughts stir bravely in my head, and rhymes

Run forth to meet them on light feet, and fingers

Reach for the pen, and the good quill betimes

Asks for the foolscap. Wait: the verses follow.

Thus a still ship sleeps on still seas. Hark: Chimes!

And swiftly all hands leap to man the rigging,

The sails are filled, they belly in the wind—

The monster moves—a foaming track behind.

XII

It sails, but whither is it our ship goes?…

Alexander Pushkin

Missing.

HAUNTED

And how bewildered is any womb-born creature that has to fly.

— Rainer Maria Rilke

The bats who hang in the dark, chittering

from our eaves, seem

members of our house we haven’t

yet had time to name. We feel them

in the night air around us and catch

a glimpse of the movement

of their wings in the half-light of the moon.

Mouse angels I have called them,

terrifying and warm and mythical,

seeming almost terrified themselves,

skittering after the echoes of

their own voices homing in

on the smaller creatures of the night

and also larger winged beings, hunting

their bat blood to stay alive.

 

This morning I found one of them asleep,

hanging from the inside of a window screen

in our half-dark bedroom, and

wondered how it had gotten in and

why it wasn’t sleeping with the other

members of its choir, if it had been

expelled or simply gotten lost.

I covered it with a child’s

plastic drinking cup and slid a large

jack-of-diamonds playing card under

the lip, then I carried it out to the yard.

The bat landed on its back, spreading

the intricate framework of its wings

to right itself while I waited

to see if it could fly, as I remembered reading

that rabid bats can’t, and how my friend Ted,

having been bitten trying to help a fallen bat,

had needed a battery of painful injections to

sear the rabies away.

The bat struggled up on its pinions,

dragging itself through the grass as if

trying to reach me for help,

but I, fearing disease and for our dogs,

killed it with a shovel, not then knowing

that a bat can’t take flight from the ground,

must have a perch to receive the

grace of air under its wings. I could have

released it in the crotch of a tree, on a

window ledge. . . .

I picked up the skin of a ripped balloon

on the tip of the shovel and

carried it to the trash, protecting

our house and this faltering world

from what may have been just the

physics of being a bat. Maybe

the world won’t miss one bat. Maybe

I did the right thing. But the world, my world,

is missing it, crawling toward me for life.

Dan Gerber

Heaven.

Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!

Martin Luther

It's sandwich time.

Read.

Google Arts and Culture on "How to Read a Church."

Power.

From Washington Irving's "The Hunting-Dinner" ...

The time that had been consumed in dozing after dinner, and in the refreshment and consultation of the cedar parlor, was sufficient, in the opinion of the rosy-faced butler, to engender a reasonable appetite for supper. A slight repast had therefore been tricked up from the residue of dinner, consisting of cold sirloin of beef; hashed venison; a devilled leg of a turkey or so, and a few other of those light articles taken by country gentlemen to ensure sound sleep and heavy snoring.

The nap after dinner had brightened up every one's wit; and a great deal of excellent humor was expended upon the perplexities of mine host and his housekeeper, by certain married gentlemen of the company, who considered themselves privileged in joking with a bachelor's establishment. From this the banter turned as to what quarters each would find, on being thus suddenly billeted in so antiquated a mansion.

"By my soul," said an Irish captain of dragoons, one of the most merry and boisterous of the party--"by my soul, but I should not be surprised if some of those good-looking gentlefolks that hang along the walls, should walk about the rooms of this stormy night; or if I should find the ghost of one of these long-waisted ladies turning into my bed in mistake for her grave in the church-yard.

"Do you believe in ghosts, then?" said a thin, hatchet-faced gentleman, with projecting eyes like a lobster.

I had remarked this last personage throughout dinner-time for one of Those incessant questioners, who seem to have a craving, unhealthy appetite in conversation. He never seemed satisfied with the whole of a story; never laughed when others laughed; but always put the joke to the question. He could never enjoy the kernel of the nut, but pestered himself to get more out of the shell.

"Do you believe in ghosts, then?" said the inquisitive gentleman.

"Faith, but I do," replied the jovial Irishman; "I was brought up in the fear and belief of them; we had a Benshee in our own family, honey."

"A Benshee--and what's that?" cried the questioner.

"Why an old lady ghost that tends upon your real Milesian families, and wails at their window to let them know when some of them are to die."

"A mighty pleasant piece of information," cried an elderly gentleman, with a knowing look and a flexible nose, to which he could give a whimsical twist when he wished to be waggish.

"By my soul, but I'd have you know it's a piece of distinction to be waited upon by a Benshee. It's a proof that one has pure blood in one's veins. But, egad, now we're talking of ghosts, there never was a house or a night better fitted than the present for a ghost adventure. Faith, Sir John, haven't you such a thing as a haunted chamber to put a guest in?"

"Perhaps," said the Baronet, smiling, "I might accommodate you even on that point."

"Oh, I should like it of all things, my jewel. Some dark oaken room, with ugly wo-begone portraits that stare dismally at one, and about which the housekeeper has a power of delightful stories of love and murder. And then a dim lamp, a table with a rusty sword across it, and a spectre all in white to draw aside one's curtains at midnight--"

"In truth," said an old gentleman at one end of the table, "you put me in mind of an anecdote."

"Oh, a ghost story! a ghost story!" was vociferated round the board, every one edging his chair a little nearer.

CONNECT

Platinum.

Distinguishes.

Simanowiz, Portrait of Schiller, 1794

In the case of the creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. You worthy critics, or whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. Hence your complaints of unfruitfulness, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely.  It is impossible to please everyone in deeds and in art.  Better to please a few. To please many is dangerous.

Friedrich Schiller

Welcome.

This family grows and grows and we're all better for it ...

Welcome home.  Welcome to the party!  You really are in for a grand old journey!

Congratulations to all! 

CONNECT 

Mood.

OCTOBER

The green elm with the one great bough of gold

Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one,

The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white

Harebell and scabious and tormentil,

That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,

Bow down to; and the wind travels too light

To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;

The gossamers wander at their own will.

At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.

The rich scene has grown fresh again and new

As Spring and to the touch is not more cool

Than it is warm to the gaze: and now I might 

As happy be as earth is beautiful,

Were I some other or with earth could turn

In alternation of violet and rose,

Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,

And gorse that has no time not to be gay.

But if this be not happiness, - who knows?

Some day I shall think this a happy day,

And this mood by the name of melancholy 

Shall no more blackened and obscured be. 

Edward Thomas

Time.

Released.

Robert Plant released No Quarter on this day in 1994.

"Yallah" ...

Enchanted.

W. M. Beauchamp's "Indian Corn Stories and Customs", from The Journal of American Folklore, July- September, 1898 ...

The great magician called Masswaweinini, or the Living Statue, remained on the Manitoulin Islands after his friends had left. While hunting one day, he came suddenly to a wide prairie, across which he proceeded. There he met a small man, wearing a red feather on his head, and they smoked together. A wrestling match followed, with doubtful fortunes, but at last the small man was thrown. As directed, the victor cried out, "I have thrown you; wa ge me na;" and his opponent at once disappeared. In his place there lay on the ground a crooked ear of mondamin, or Indian corn, with a red hairy tassel at the top. A voice was heard, directing him to strip the body and throw the fragments all around. The spine, which gave these parts support, was also to be broken up and scattered near the edge of the wood. In one moon he was to return. This he did, and found the plain filled with growing corn. From the broken cob grew luxuriant pumpkin vines. At the end of summer he was on the wrestling ground again, where the corn was in full ear and the pumpkins of great size. Of these he gathered a good store, and the voice was heard again: "Masswaweinini, you have conquered me, and thus saved your own life. Victory has crowned your efforts, and now my body shall forever nourish the human race." Thus came the gift of corn and pumpkins, and the gift of wampum followed closely, brought about by the good fairies of that enchanted land. 

CONNECT

Revolt.

Happy Birthday, Arendt

The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.

Hannah Arendt, born on this day in 1906, from The Origins of Totalitarianism

Franceso, "La Compagna"

Xavier Díaz-Latorre performs ...

Happy Birthday, cummings

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:

your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness

--- electrons deify one razorblade

into a mountainrange; lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish

returns on its unself.

                          A world of made

is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this

fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell

of a good universe next door; let's go

e. e. cummings, born on this day in 1894

Hail.

Sorbie, D.H. Day Barn, Leland, 2006, 2006

Hail, old October, bright and chill,

First freedman from the summer sun!

Spice high the bowl, and drink your fill!

Thank heaven, at last the summer's done!

Come, friend, my fire is burning bright,

A fire's no longer out of place,

How clear it glows! (there's frost to-night,)

It looks white winter in the face.

You've been to Richard Ah! you've seen

A noble play: I'm glad you went;

But what on earth does Shakespeare mean

By "winter of our discontent?"

Be mine the tree that feeds the fire!

Be mine the sun knows when to set!

Be mine the months when friends desire

To turn in here from cold and wet!

The sentry sun, that glared so long

O'erhead, deserts his summer post;

Ay, you may brew it hot and strong:

"The joys of winter" - come, a toast!

Shine on the kangaroo, thou sun!

Make far New Zealand faint with fear!

Don't hurry back to spoil our fun,

Thank goodness, old October's here!

Thomas Constable

Here.

Telemann, Concerto in D major for Violin, Cello, Trumpet and Strings, TWV 53:D5

Bremer Barockorchester performs ...

Good morning, 'tis Autumn.

Rekindle.

Jackson Browne, "Sky Blue and Black"

Existence.

Each poetic world is not a pure invention, it is a possibility of nature.  Imagination is itself immanent in the real. It is not a state. It is human existence itself.

Gaston Bachelar, from On Poetic Imagination and Reverie

Reveal.

Beware.

A discarded title page from The Autumn People, late 1959.

Fill.

OCTOBER

Say! October, how in thunder

Do you keep so young, I wonder?

You're no chicken, and you know it,

Yet, old man, for all you show it,

You might, on a sunny day,

Pass for April or for May.

See, your house is falling round you,

Yet you're laughing — say! confound you,

What's the secret? How'd you do it?

Mist and moisture? Ah, I knew it!

A pipe! A mug! October brew,

Fill up — October — here's to you!

Oliver Herford

Thanks for the mood, Kurt.

Released.

Jackson Browne released I'm Alive on this day in 1993.

The title-track ...

Happy Birthday, Monk

Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy.

Thelonious Monk, born on this day in 1917

"Blue Monk" ...

Moonlight.