Fiddling around with some old words

 

The flight was ugly and painful, but they always are.  It's just twilight as the descent goes on; seems to take hours, approaching this city.  This woman.  There are lights, there are people leaning and looking out windows, both at the ghost of a landscape disappearing in the dark, and at the twinkling glimmers in the gloaming.  Everything itches somehow; physically, mentally.  His stomach twitches and quivers.

 

There's nothing recognizable to him outside the windows, and so he doesn't look.  Just the music in the iPod and the sensations of deceleration, of approaching the ground again.

He carried on almost nothing, but everyone else has, so disembarkation takes forever.  Lurching, imbalanced, get off.  Get off.  Don't you people have loved ones to get to?  Just escape.  Only escape from this hideous capsule of farts and frustration and canned air.

 

Rickety tube of a gangway.  Smells disgusting.  Then, release - not escape, but expulsion now, into the milling murmuration, all off to the right, must go to the right.  He goes to the right, follows the exodus, sees plexi walls and now-disused ribbon-barriers into a security area all but dead and done.  Windows along the gates are black and blank.  It is night time now.

 

The walk toward the center of the airport, small as it is - is not a hurried one.  He's far too aware of the composite pattern of the grey floor, the white floor, the blue floor.  How polished it all is.  The metallic demarcations in terrazzo. 

 

He realizes he's looking down because he's *felt* that she's there. Not even letting his brain realize that he has seen her.  She is there.

How can she be there?  How can he?  It's ridiculous, and not at all passionate, poetic, or right.  So much hideous fear, uncertainty, stupidity.  How could he have done this?  No matter what she said.

 

The path between the gateway from security and gates and the ugly collection of seating and flourescents isn't even fifty yards. In crossing it, he ages seventy years; every creak of the flight now in his bones.  She's wearing an extraordinarily plain black dress with a wide scooped neck - so much severe fabric, so much white skin - and boots, though it is summer.  Her hair is down, and - she's curled it?  Somehow, his mind flashes to an airport in the ten years ago.  He remembers the pained girl he saw then, the almost brutal sensation of reunion. Gods, they had been so young.

 

Of every curve of her, it's the arch at her side, hinting at her back, that finally arrests his attention.  There is nothing else in the world for just a second; that luscious place, promising her back, all of her back - and suddenly she is there, really *there*, and so is he.

 

Sent: Mon, Sep 6, 2021 12:36 am
Subject: Witness to history

Here is a bit of first-hand history I just posted in response to someone else's re-post of some bullshit put out by the city manager. Feel free to share:

 
Dispatch from Olympia on the events of August (sic) 4, 2021.

I drove through as the city hall protest was dispersing. I was on 4th Avenue, a block south of the transit hub, and witnessed large numbers of people running. Many had clubs and masks (including gas masks) and helmets. A few of these appeared to be Black Bloc (based on clothing, hair, gender diversity, and all those other signals an anthropologist can recognize).

These people were running west and north from city hall, many of them ducking into stores or alleys.

They were being chased by a group of almost all men, mostly in black and yellow, many with insignia and flags we’ve come to recognize as the signs of right wing extremists. Many with military style haircuts, and a lot of body armor and more military-looking helmets and masks. Almost all had clubs. I yelled out the window for them to get their Nazi asses out of here.

I suppose that was a risk, but they were more interested in chasing and yelling at the “antifa” people, who continued to run away, not engaging. As I passed through the block between Franklin and Adam’s, some of the fascists were regrouping.

I got to Plum street, looped back on 5th, and as I passed south of City hall and the police station, I saw two OPD uniformed officers riding bicycles AWAY from the riot on 5th. I stopped and frantically told them that armed fascists were chasing people through downtown and asked what they were doing about it. One shrugged and the other completely ignored me, and then the continued riding away.

I kept west on 5th, then looped back east on 4th. When I got to Franklin, I looked north and saw a group of maybe 20-25 fascists running in formation toward transit center on or near State Street. All armored, all armed with clubs.

Just after that, I heard 5 gunshots. One, a slight pause, and then 4 more. So I got the hell out of there.

On returning home, I was pretty shaky, but I called 911 and reported what I had seen. I also reported that I had told police and they shrugged and went in the opposite direction.

This may have begun as a standoff or argument, but as a witness, I can tell you that it turned into fascists hunting their enemies. Reports are already making seem like “there are bad people on both sides.” Notice how the “official” statement insinuates that a fascist only recently out of jail on assault charges was shot by the opposition. That remains to be seen, and is a departure from standard no comment during investigation procedure. The gaslighting is already begun.

As we have discussed, the small amount of coverage thus far is already slanting right. Yes, some "antifa" types planned to counter-protest an anti-mask protest at the city hall. That is their right. There are no credible reports of violence by antifa or black bloc prior to their being chased and attacked by proud boys and whatever other fascists were involved. Proud boys incite violence as a strategy, and then play victim. It is bullshit.

Acting like we need to give both sides the benefit of the doubt when one side are Nazis is bullshit, and functions as a social ratchet to secure fascism.

Toese was probably shot by his own people, and friends who have followed proud boy forums today say it appear to have been planned. Reichstag moment.

Pig art is some of the BEST art!

I’d be really interested to hear an art historian with a deep understanding of pigment and process look at this oldest known artistic depiction of the animal world and deconstruct why there are two slightly different shades of red.

Most of the figure is done in a dark burgundy, but then there is a warmer ochre tone which looks like it expanded on the original image perhaps (*) – and one (left!) hand print in the darker color, then a right hand print in the warmer color. And even the darker burgundy color – there are many more “brush strokes” along the back of the animal in that color, where the body is much less saturated. Was there more “coloring” as the artist got the shape and size just the way they wanted it?

* Was this image complete, and the second “hand” added to it, made the pig larger and more fearsome? Were two artists working together, and the second color representing something – an aura of the spirit of the animal, a ridge of hair raised as the pig encountered the other pigs (do pigs “ridge back” as other animals do? They are mammals after all, and even humans’ hair stands on end on our necks when we are on alert)? Is it possible one color was laid down, and long after, the second color was added by a prehistoric critic? Or are there two tones because one pot of mixed pigment simply ran out?

I am prompted to recall: many of these “hand print” paintings were studied several years ago, and a new conclusion was reached that researchers had never come to before: that they were women’s hands.

A collection of one ...

The blog's been pretty limp for a long time - unfortunately not the kind of infrequency that keeps a reader wanting more. I follow several others like that, but even my following of other blogs has been pretty poor of late. I don't read like I used to, don't write at all, really haven't blogged either. And am not even really thinking about "maybe I'll write again" and so on.

That said ... please go visit one of those I follow! Jeff Sypeck is such a good writer, and his observations about anything he uses *his* blog to point to are worth the stopover every time. In this case, too, the way he's pointing has me fascinated AND my mind is blown. Spoiler alert: Mike Tyson is fascinated by Clovis, the Merovingians, the Franks???? I mean ... Huh. It doesn't take me back, ahem, but does provide the unexpected imaginary mindpic of Mike Tyson reading my novel (had it ever seen the light of day). Huh.

Beautiful

 

 

What DID happen to them?

 

 

This is one of my favorite videos in a long time. 24 minutes and some change, but if you're interested in dogs and history, or the history of dogs, worth every bit of it. Carolinas of course do feature, and in this context pups like my girl are even more interesting.

OH THE DIRTY, STUPID PAST, said the patriarchy

Oh my good Lord, THIS. All of this, all day long. Stay tuned for 12:35, when I wanted to stand up and CHEER.

WFH Window

The day is impossibly beautiful and breezy. Dazzling.

Nekkid baby has returned to my strip of the sidewalk, on a tiny bicycle. Riding it like a scooter. One foot on a pedal, one accelerating heedlessly.

An hour ago, with his mommy, he had walked by wearing nothing but a pull-up diaper, holding a sippy cup, absorbed utterly by anything under his nekkid little feet. Leading with his lil' boy belly. Dappled in sunshine.

But now, on his bike, daddy along for the ride literally, he is dressed and helmeted and speeding. I hear no wailing; he must be good at not falling.

He fades down the road.

The passel o' boys across the street from me are outside playing some game, squealing with joy between yelling like angry badgers, all modulated by occasional, calm dad-voice.

It. Is. OSUM.

Oh man - another bloodcurdling scream! Kids at play so often sound so terrifying!!! It sounds exactly like my own neighborhood, circa 1978.

Between this, tweeting birds, and inviting breezes, I am hard put to finish part 2 of the month's reporting. Gah.

There is this very specific inflection to kids playing - an elastic up-and-down wave, nothing like so tidy as a sine - in which the sound of injustice resonates with purity. BUT WHYYYYY ... can't I go over here ... does he get to run to the next base ... am I not wiii-ii-iiiiiii-in-in-innniiiinnng?

The breeze in the maple outside the window, playing with the grass, scintillating in the treetops across the way. The beagle a couple houses away, Expressing Opinions.

It is ... beautiful.


***


Just a few miles away, filthy Confederate monuments I want to see for myself, updated for our age by people angry, and sad, and bereft for the several-millionth time in 400 years. The police chief here has been on the side of citizens. Just south of us, another chief stood with his people. It is not loaves and fishes The Beatitudes, and it IS optics and choices and amplification calculated - but it is good to see choices for those these polices forces are here to protect and serve.

One of my dearest friends, my best neighbor at work, a woman I love so much - I have heard the sirens, but she heard those and the sound of "no justice/no peace" and "I can't breathe" all this weekend. She is a living blessing.

The Daughters of the Confederacy could have done as others have - served history instead of themselves, as an institution. Why anyone would care to be institutionalized with a group of worshippers of the Lost Cause - people lionizing rebels, who broke away from and tried to destroy the United States - is beyond comprehension. Their existence is shameful, and their mission indefensible. They should relinquish their revolting relics to actual historians, donate their facilities, repent and make reparations. They are shameful. They burned - for a little while - this weekend. This is not looting, it is reprimand, and long past due.

Lee's tired horse, on an exalted platform of ridiculous loftiness - tail down and tired, while the old General still rides, ramrod straight and UNASHAMED, bronze and burnished, but shat on daily by local pigeons with more rectitude - is bedaubed with graffiti. Stuart's plinth, a little shorter, surrounded by a wrought iron bridge it could *not* have been easy to bring down - but brought down it has been, by living bodies who matter more than these rebels do.

Leave them desecrated, the echo of the desecration these insurgents brought to the United States, in dividing them. Remember them for the failures they were. Let the bronze and granite decay, the rot take them over. Leave them to rot, or take them away altogether.

Leave Kehinde Wiley's living horseman in their place - no traitor, but an AMERICAN man - pristine and strong and proud and standing for something. Let him tower over the others as they fall down.


***


It would take only minutes to see what has been done, and what has been undone, in my city. I will probably drive out - before the newly enacted curfew - to see what I need to know. To be a part of it.

To see the dazzling sun, perhaps, set ... on these newly-faced (hardly DEfaced - how do you "ruin" idolatrous monuments to traitors?) images.

To breathe the good air, and commit to using my privilege ... so that little nekkid kiddo can stay untouched a while longer.

WANTED

Erick...

Say just one variable had been different, and I'd been 1/4 mile east, walking with my neighbors. Say the "KKK leader" who revved his engine and ploughed into the crowd had hit me and killed me. I'm DEAD.

You're going to feel good about that?

Say you found out tomorrow that I am dead today. You'd regret nothing?

You'd never wish I were still alive ... wish you could still turn to me ..

Great Zot, yes, boy. This is a cry for help.

Ecolog-ollection

Genealogies gleaned from ancient human DNA are set to transform archaeology.

For an historical fiction author (well ... I used to be), this one represents a tantalizing plot bunny. Who were the unrelated women on these prosperous farmsteads? Why are there no offspring present with their DNA? Graves and grave goods gave me a huge amount of the research information I used when I wrote The Ax and the Vase, and still featured significantly in my work on the second novel. This sort of thing seems to energize my creative juices. Maybe, juuuuust maybe ... someday I can talk about work on that second novel in the present tense again. *Sigh*

Mmmm, ancient brains. Jokes aside, either one of these stories that could be a plot bunny, or maybe they're interesting in their own right. Right now, I am not chasing bunnies, but I have found myself peeping out of my own burrow from time to time to sniff the air and *think* about them.

Urban ecologists who ignore the geography of race and income in a city do so at the peril of their science

Time to tell that one middle manager to lose the "survival of the fittest" poster. It is INSPIRING and very, very cool to take a closer look not only at the influence of community and cooperation in biology, but to once again review the very idea of individuality, as regards any body ... and anybody. This, for me, begins to look like a bunny I'd like to chase.

Bacteria, for instance, may make as much as 95 percent of the serotonin in our bloodstreams, meaning you have a diverse symbiont community to thank for your pleasant mood. ... (A)nimals, humans included, are really multispecies events, composite byproducts of collaboration.

Rumors of War

"I'm working on something, and you're going to love it, and it belongs in Richmond, Virginia."

Honestly, I'm not so sure about the point that Rumors of War actually "outflanks" discussion of removing monuments bought and paid for toward a racist political and social agenda. I hope that the idea of removing such so-called monuments (to insurrectionists who rebelled against the United States and lost) isn't just *over*. But I do appreciate the strategy, and not least because this is the most breathtaking kind of  art.

Side note ... given how lazy/racist it is to use chocolate and coffee imagery in describing characters of color in fiction, how do we feel about the "silky, dark patina" comment from a white journalist? Hmm.

Collection

Here is a plot bunny giant enough and strong enough for me to want to saddle it up and gall-hop away: on "crones" in sci fi. YES, PLEASE.

(N)o person inherently deserves to have a larger psychological piece of the universe than another person

I would add: or physical piece. Walk like a man, talk like a man - get crashed into by men, my friend! This phenomenon is the WORST in grocery stores, and it's always white men.

the brittle tedium of being yourself in a foreign place

This is an exhibit I might have to visit, Hopper and hotels. (Initially, I used the term "go see" in that first sentence, but changed it to "visit" ... both because my brain insists upon certain rhythms - but also because it seems, in the dingy gradation of color words have for me, a better choice for the picture.) What Sebastian Smee reviews as problems are part of what I see as the strengths in Hopper. The unfinished stories these pieces evoke. The "clunkiness" of his female figures strike me as, in fact, similarly honest to the rest of his images; celebrating bodies which are not artistically or aesthetically perfect. The strands of hair, the skin tones and shadow are impeccable. I can see muscles and bones where Smee apparently cannot.

"... Dad?"

Look, I know the answer is NO.

But today I have been distracted from the American impeachment inquiry testimony today ...

Seriously, is Sting David Holmes's father? Uncle? Older brother?

Image: NBC News

Image: Huffpost

Collection

I have been in this room, but we were with Cicero, not Spock. An elegiac, good read. "The logic of mercy" ... yes ...

It's not news to me that the fashion industry produces a massive amount of the garbage we create, but ten percent is still an eye opening figure. Also, just a bit more for my TBR pile; thanks, Nature!

Speaking of fashion ... it's been some time since I linked an American Duchess piece, but how about - oh, sixteen pieces? Looking at the capsule wardrobe. Love the "just one black frock" image!

History which, not only did they fail to teach this in my schools, I literally have never even heard of these HUNDREDS of takeovers, or the IAT, before now. It seems like that's burial. It seems like that is colonial power and prejudice, still alive and well.

(T)rans joy is real

What a beautiful essay. Go click and be blessed

Collection

Synesthesia, misphonia, repetitive motion, ASMR - all threads in the skein of my family, and each one fascinating. For the record, 7 and L (lower case as well) are yellow and sometimes paler. Never bright. 4 is more a buff. And at least one person in my family has misphonia badly and copes with it, and another one has it intermittently and just doesn't. (None of us into ASMR that I know of: we are a deaf lot!)

Adventures in Teh Intarwebs, People Have Time On Their Hands edition: someone took the trouble for this. *SMH* Honestly, it's just bewildering.

Happy birthday to Nature, turning 150 this week! A few great links from the past couple of daily emails from them - one, on an astonishingly promising therapy for cystic fibrosis, a disease very closely related to the pulmonary fibrosis which had a hand in the deaths of four people I have loved very much. Another, pointing to the immune damage measles can cause, exposing victims to risk from diseases to which they were formerly immune. Thanks again, anti-vaxxers.

When I was a kid, it may have been anywhere from when I was eight to twelve or so, my aunts and maybe even my grandma were visiting. Mom had a bushel, perhaps even more, of tomatoes to can, and she was manning the pot on the stove. My memory is that I was at the back side of the table next to my aunt V, and mom gave me the bright chrome knife. A small knife, it's a heavy one, gleaming, and that day it was freshly sharp, and my job was to slit and skin the cooked tomato bodies, crushing them with my hand and pulling off the skin, and take out any part of the flesh not good for preserving. The tomatoes were terribly hot, and the acid would burn if you had a cut on your finger. But my only memory is the cacophany, the steam, the sitting around a brown formica table with my family, mom running the show.

Why tell the story above? Because this makes so much sense to me. (Though, to be fair: I have a *peninsula* in my kitchen, and it is spiff.) 

As we come to the season of holidays, treats, great meals and small ... what are your kitchen table memories?



Edited to fret: I fear there is a new addiction in the offing. Science Daily has an article about dingoes, AND an article about Ötzi. Hooray for twin obsessions!

Right now

One year ago, it was clear and golden and dazzling, and I was holding the hand of my friend as she died. And then I was watching them disconnect her, de-intubating her, taking her finger out of the monitor, settling her arms and head and sheets. It was quiet, the beeping done with.

I came to work today. There seemed no point in not coming. I don't know why I did.

That day, I went home, after being with her husband, her friends, her family. Witnessing one brother's pain, because he missed her last moments. I sat on my couch, insensible to the Poobahs, and I knew they smelled her on me, smelled the hospital, smelled death. They were subdued, and I was inert to even their gentlest, inquiring, sweet attentions. The next night, my mom came over with food, and we ate, and we gave out candy to the neighborhood kids. I am grateful.

Jesus, babe. I miss you. My girl.

Morning walk

The alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. instead of 5:40, and I rolled over out of habit, then found I actually felt like getting up. Pum came to the bedside in the dark, her ritual morning greeting, and I felt the strong, tight curl of her tail on my wrist as she padded away again, back to her bed.

Dressed and hair wrestled down, the kit and pup kibbled, I pulled on a sweater coat and light gloves, and we were off.

Penelope is a good girl on walks, and today was so quiet I had time to notice the tall oak to the southeast was not lit from below, as it usually is on autumn and winter mornings. Against the fathomless teal just outside the bare halo of sunrise, its bent branch and filigree were achingly lovely. I had time to muse - is that quiet sound, of minimal sand on damp asphalt under my soft shoe, is that a crunch, or something gentler? I had the time to muse, but did not find the word.

Just last night, talking with mom about her puppy and my now older baby girl, I'd said how funny it is: dogs' communication is most chancy not in the dark, but at twilight and dawn - when light is there, but they can't quite see the cues dogs signal each other with. This morning, we passed a shepherd going our way briefly, but across the street, and though she clearly saw the other dog, Penelope had no response at all. No pulling, "Mom, I want to go see the other dog - and thereby make friends with its person."

Dark, still, when we got home, Pum had her sniffs and her business done, and I had all my shoulder and back muscles intact. Seven years old now, she's powerful and big enough, this still is important.


***


One week from today, it will be the first anniversary of my best friend's - my sister's - death. Someone who loved her hard has gone to a place the rest of us who love her can't join him, and it is heartbreaking. Two of us - two of the three who made up our little Musketeers - cling to each other, and count ourselves blessed we ever had her. We are angry still, and yet able to laugh at the ways she haunts us.

Mostly by sending Def Leppard songs at incongruous - or entirely TOO congruous - moments. She remains an inveterate smartass. And she remains with us.

I will mark her passing in a couple of ways, across the miles with our third sister, and alone - and in figuring out exactly how to dress for Hallowe'en. She always LOVED Hallowe'en, and if dressing up is memorial to her now, it is a joyous celebration.


***


The dark season has begun, and that means not just winter's advent. It means not just cooling and sweatering and cozying and contemplating. It means BOO, it's Hallowe'n. It means grappling and reckoning with her loss. Trips to the cemetery, and always, always down memory lane.

Today in mild lysdexia

This small Pennsylvania school wants to be the Notre Dame of escorts (NOPE)

Kim Jong Un rides white horse on scared mountain – and plans ‘great operation’ (NOPE)

Collection

But our stories are about resistance, resurgence and badass MMA fighting congresswomen, reconnecting with our grandparents, fighting for future generations, building pathways for our fish, our children and our more-than-human relatives to thrive. It's time to represent our stories, our voices, our insights, our languages and our words for ourselves. In most of our Indigenous languages, our terms for ourselves translate to "the people." "Who are you?" someone asks. "What is the name of your tribe?" Our word usually translates to "We are the people. We are people, human beings." It's how we have represented ourselves since time began. It's about time for the media to catch up.

Once again, I'm confronted with a scientific expression of that system/spirit intuition I've been working within for the past two years at least. This article is a beautifully put ... sense of self, if you will.  "‘you’ are more than the contents of your chromosomes. The human body contains at least as many non-human cells (mostly bacteria, archaea and fungi) as human ones. Tens of thousands of microbial species crowd and jostle over and through the body, with profound effects on digestion, complexion, disease resistance, vision and mood. Without them, you don’t feel like you; in fact, you aren’t really you. The biological self has been reframed as a cluster of communities, all in communication with each other." This is worth the click for the writing, too, which is wonderful.

Banana. Plastic. Cool.

Edited to go beyond the bananas.

We all need hope, and I am willing to be persuaded it's worthwhile. So - yes, the environment as it existed before human intervention is in TROUBLE ... but the rate at which we're recognizing and seeking to rectify our errors is increasing every day. That is a good thing.

We're figuring out strategies to capture CO2. We're insatiably curious, even as we're scared, and that means we're fighting the consequences of our own blunders. Because homo sapiens are innovators.

Yes, there will be more unforseen consequences. Yes, there will always be greedy bastards who don't believe and don't care what has been manifest for decades - and is exponentially dangerous with every year that passes. Yes, it's sad we all look to (my niece, whom I shall not name here), Autumn Peltier, and Greta Thunberg - and feel stupid and scared and ineffectually guilty. The stupids *are* real.

Those who contemplate the groceries and trash we use are often paralyzed by the solutions that make their way into our attention - out of reach financially and/or geographically. When even the solutions aren't solutions, some, overwhelmed, just throw out plastic when nobody's looking - the new "throw up our hands and give up."

But there is HOPE. We are more than the contents of our chromosomes. And we're more than the consequences of our hubris.

And we're smart. And we're fascinated. And we're thinking about this. There's never been more focus on the problems stemming from and leading to climate, ecological, specie-al change.

Hope. Hope. HOPE. And learn.

The Collection of Happy-making-ness

I just subscribed to Nature's daily briefing. Best idea I've had in ages; it's already brought me joy, and that's worth dusting off this old blog, even though I know it's not exactly The Bullhorn of Teh Intarwebs 'round here ...



Happy birthday to Trillian & company.

“Zachary Taylor was there. George W. Bush was there. Jimmy Carter was there,” Jacoby said, and then paused to think. “Oh, uh, Hillary Clinton was there! I believe Chelsea Clinton was there. I think Alexander Hamilton was there, too.”

Not merely non-horiffic news about something happening in the environment, but teeming, JOYFUL news. With dolphins (failing to say so long and thanks for all the fish, which is a good thing).

Okay, moving on from the links I got from Nature - but not stopping with links to provide hope and the-happy ...

Coral farming. It's slow, but even just seeing that humans *try* to bring back this habitat and life and beauty is hopeful.

Repatriation stories always make ME happy, how about you?

One last link, again from The History Blog ... would you like to actually DO something to preserve America's unique history? Welp, because I have been remiss in checking the HB, we're too late to donate to this particular cause ... HOWEVER ... the saving has been DONE (see comments section - one of the few comments fora on the internet where it's always safe to keep reading)! One of the last Hopewell sites in Ohio has NOT been sold for McMansion development. A win for all of us, and one I am so glad to see.

And, if it were not obvious: The Archaeological Conservancy did not go *poof* with the gavel bang above. There are other opportunities to participate in saving material cultural heritage, and for some things it may become "too late" at any time. Consider donating, becoming a member, or learning more. I'm definitely adding this to my special lists of give-to organizations.