We spent a day in Batavia. I do not recall visiting Batavia in the past. We decided that we want to live in Batavia, –so what better reason for a visit? Seriously! Not unlike a pioneer family who left what they knew behind for distant California, (a territory they had no experience of) on…
I remembered an old photograph that depicts us in an earlier time. In 1977 we held our first born girl. We had no idea what life had in store for us. That is a metaphor to be taken seriously but not literally. It Is not as if there was any predetermined path, which is…
Yesterday we celebrated our 48th year of marriage. Seems like a long journey, when I think of it that way. We purchased greeting cards for each other, with verses that expressed our affection for the other. She purchased a Wendell Berry book of essays for me. We celebrated by enjoying the Friday evening fish…
During my high school years, I owned a surfboard. I remember paddling out beyond the breakers at Carolina Beach, during the onset of a squall. The waves were as big as a house. The challenge was timing, to drive the board between the mountains of water, to avoid the break. If I mistimed the…
Art begins with the animal, at least with the animal that carves out a territory and constructs a house (both are correlative, or even one and the same, in what is called a habitat). The territory-house system transforms a number of organic functions— sexuality, procreation, aggression, feeding. But this transformation does not explain the…
In a vain attempt to avoid being serious, all too serious, I offer this respite. Van Halen’s 1983 hit Jump will get your blood pumping, period. When and if I am in a coma, I hope that someone remembers to play this song. Curious about the origin and meaning of the song I consulted…
Hurricane Florence. Like a massive heat-driven-machine the storm churns the Atlantic sucking up moisture. It’s path along a vector of the Bermudas and the Bahamas is aimed at North and South Carolina. Possibly as a cat 5 storm, water and wind will batter the coastal areas. What we know as civilization, homes, schools, roads,…
Not a “minute of the world passes,” says Cezanne, that we will preserve if we do not “become the minute.” We are not in the world, we become with the world; we become by contemplating it. Everything is vision, becoming. We become universes. Becoming animal, plant, molecular, becoming zero. What terror haunts Van Gogh’s…
A few more photos of the Piñata “contest” at the family pig roast. Its everyone against the pig. No matter how difficult, how tough the pig, perseverance is called for to “bring it down.” Keep swinging! Keep stepping up, and taking your turn with the bat. I captured these additional photos. Enjoy! Life: Never…
There are times when I can hardly believe my good fortune. Yesterday Laura and I traveled a few miles to Kevin and Caryn’s house in Arlington Heights were the annual family pig roast is convened in Kevin’s back-yard. A young pig is slow roasted over a charcoal fire, in the rotisserie cooker. The steel…
