End of year writing stats 2020

2020 Recap. Hindsight is a funny thing. Here I am, in lockdown (it’s April), we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and I’m looking back into the window of the past to see what I can salvage or glean from my old work. Having nothing better to do than to visit old journals during this downtime in order to see if I could flesh out some of the lean years of poetry, I hit some rich pockets. (See below for recap details)

Dec. update. That said, I easily met my 52 poem quota for the year, and then some. I didn’t even have to resort to splitting linked haiku, or counting prose poems. My end-of-year total is a whopping 196 posts (make that 228 posts, as I had forgotten to upload many of my Covid posts—resurrected in 2021, thanks to Facebook memories). My personal best, ever. Upping my game. Of course, the fire journals bulked it up. I also added another potential quota to my list—I will strive for 52 pieces of art a year. Don’t think I’ll make that quota this year, as I only thought of doing it in mid-December. Still, there’s hope. I’m at 28 pieces of art but there are only two days left in the year.

Publishing news: A poem I began in 2015, from a scrawny Facebook post, revised in 2019, was published in Spectrum 24, KILLING THE CAT, Don Kingfisher Campbell also published an aquarelle drawing of Arequipa, Peru, in B&W with less than stellar results. Finally my poem, True Chanterelles was finally published in Fungi magazine. TRUE CHANTERELLES originally written in 2013, was revised in 2018. A long publishing birth. But Art Goodtimes put a bid on it when it was barely a day old. It needed to ripen. Then he said load it up with Latinate names. And so I did. Three of my Solstice poems, one written for the occasion, THE APPROACH OF THE OLD YEAR, WRONG ROADS, and PERHAPS A GARDEN (Dec. 2019), were published and set to music by Kirk Whipple for a holiday Cranberry Covid Coast YouTube extravaganza, to be broadcast at a later date. Part Deux, two poems. Part Tres coming up.

Thanks to old Facebook entries, my 2019 posts which were an anemic 80 posts, have bulked up to 132 posts—I was not expecting that. My iPad was stolen in April 2019, and I lost some writing, but one poem came back home to me by way of Facebook memories. I was quite thrilled to find it. Not quite 52 poem posts total, but, close—as there are many prose poems—so I can put that task to bed. Finally. Small grace. I am pushing up on 4000 total posts since I began this blog process. OK, so it’s 3895. Hard to comprehend that much work, in a little over a half a lifetime.

Bad Apples

Wonky iPad traded in. What are the chances of getting a bad Apple? The screen kept freezing and no amount of rebooting or erasing settings—even resetting the OS to factory did not resolve the problem. After much cajoling, and posturing, the Apple Genius reluctantly admitted it was the iPad at fault, and since I had been complaining about it for months, they gave me a new one, gratis, though it was over three months out of warranty. And no, I hadn’t dropped it, taken it snorkeling, or sat on it, etc. The Apple Genius remarked that the wonky iPad and case were in remarkably pristine shape. It was a bad iPad. This time the customer was really right. He relented.Voilà! Within minutes, I had a brand new iPad in my hands. I was spending some serious quality time during the last days of the year in the Apple Store, I uploaded my OS, apps, and photos from iCloud. After a couple of hours or three, I was finally good to go. Sort of. Good/bad news: the new iPad works, it’s super fast, it doesn’t freeze like the old one, but as soon as I got down the road, I discovered that there was no cellular. No cellular reception at all. I was on the phone with T-Mobile all afternoon trying to problemsolve. Nada. Yes, I had three bars, but no reception. They were puzzled as from their end it was all systems go, but they at least admitted there might be a problem at their end. New towers, etc. Which didn’t make sense. But no matter what I tried, the iPad had no cellular reception. Full bars, all systems go, but, nada. Maddening. After much consternation, rebooting, etc., with myriad tech support phone calls to both Apple and T-Mobile, I gave up and headed north. But then, I finally figured it out. It hit me like a flash as I was driving back up I-580. Stuck in traffic, I took out my amethyst earring stud, pushed the gold post into the hole, and popped out the SIM tray. Yep. No SIM. Empty. I turned around and headed back toward Emeryville. This was becoming like the movie, Groundhog Day. Unfortunately the Apple genius forgot to swap out my SIM card. Who’s the genius now? Chasing darkness, I raced back over to the Emeryville Apple Store right before it closed, and luckily they had not recycled the old iPad yet. The old SIM was still in the broken iPad. I popped the SIM in. Online again. Occam’s Razor gave us a particularly close shave. Persistence was the aftershave.

From Facebook, rev. 12/21

How to move a piano

It’s not about the piano. B, who is decommissioning her life, is getting ready to transition, she is giving away everything. She goes through closets to get rid of old towels. She tells me stories of the blankets. The one her mother slept under for decades, cream white in the sun. It will go to one of her daughters along with the Seminole spread and ruana. She airs them out in the weak winter sun. She is making things ready for the next incarnation. She says don’t use the word death. Use use the word reincarnated. I am going to be reincarnated soon. B is 85. She is telling me where to put things, what to move, what goes to hospice. I am bearing witness. She tells me the grand piano needs to be moved to the San Geronimo Valley Golf Course. No matter that it is closed for good. She tells me this several times. So this is important. She is concerned about re-homing her things. She organizes her art pieces, broadsides in the vein of Kenneth Patchen, into threes, she wants her art to be collated and put up on the internet for others to see. She is also making up art packets as gifts for people—copies of her work. But she has written things down in an obscure language. She says her job on this earth was to translate this global language. Perhaps it’s phonetic, perhaps she has forgotten how to spell. Her mind wanders. I ask her to leave us a cypher, or a key so that we can translate her poems. It’s all about taking care of the reader, I tell her. She resists, but in the resisting, the penny drops. As she deciphers her secret language, she laughs, oh ho! and relives the delight of creating those riddles. She understands what I am asking her to do, in that her work will survive her. She calls it the galactic language. She tells me again and again that they are coming soon. That we don’t have to worry about anything. But I am ever the doubting Thomas, the meat and potato thinker, not the mercurial one. This woman I have known since I was ten is always listening to that silent inner music. Because my mother was also mercurial, I learned to be stubbornly stoic. What B is doing is writing things phonetically, it’s fascinating in that she has to read them aloud in order to learn what she has written. Last night she told me she was taking dictation from Jesus. But it is a lovely poem. I don’t have the heart to tell her that all if it is coming from her. As she reads, her hand plays an imaginary melody only she can hear. She thinks she is channeling things. I understand that. As a writer I am always channeling information. My mother was always channeling things too. But it got the best of her. And she let go of the thin grasp of the here and now. It’s a fine line we all straddle. I wrote hear and now. I realize that slip of the tongue is correct. It is what we hear and it is always now. Things that make up our lives, are trivial, after all. It’s what we do with the garden of our minds that’s important. We have made an unwritten pact. She tells me more stories, she is grateful that I am not freaking out. No one wants to face death alone but inevitably we are always alone. She wants me to use the word reincarnation, she tells me that she will be back. She tells me this again and again. Her attention span is shrinking. She tells me her job here is to translate the galactic language. When she talks of that realm that she goes to a place that I cannot follow. Nor do I want to. For me, this is not a place I want to visit, for there is no return. She banishes the word death from the conversation. Begone! This is the year of the myriad untold deaths. We have lost count. But we both know what its name is. I tell her there is a Swedish word for death cleaning—döstädning (“dö” which means death, and “standing,” which means cleaning). But I have to transliterate it for her, I have to use her language. We call it reincarnation cleansing. I mop the floors. She laughs, loves the concept, and says yes! Yes! I tell her I love her. She laughs, says, we are like family, and tells me again about the grand piano, and I ask how will they move the piano? And she tells me, No no. You don’t need to know. But I’ve already worked it out in my head, how the piano will be moved. All I wanted to know was how it got into her small trailer home via a narrow sliding glass door, and how it will get out again. It occupies centerstage of her abode. A massive gleaming beast filled with family photos. She asks me what will I do with the family photos, and I tell her that the children will want them. She sits down and plays a classical riff. I don’t know if it’s from memory or if it’s something new. She lives between complex worlds of music and air. She tells me her children will know what to do. And I explain, that it’s not about who is going to do it, it’s my need to know how things are done. I have a mind like that. I explain how dyslexia works like a puzzle. When I learned to read, late on the childhood horizon, but I had the inability to understand the questions being asked of me, haunted me and that all writing is a process of discovery. How to move the piano is how I navigate life, I need to know the story behind the story, call it the nuts and bolts. I say metaphor. She laughs, points to the bolts that hold the legs on. Smacks them like a horse. She says that the piano movers will know what to do. She gets it, that is how I process. The how, not just the why—the story behind the story is as important as the doing. The nuts and bolts. It’s all in the language we speak.

Mercurial minds

When I was a child I loved to play with mercury, there was nothing more exciting than when a thermometer dropped and broke, scattering the small silver orbs across the floor My grandmother showed me how to roll the scattered quicksilver back together again into a large ball.

I was mesmerized by how it was attracted to itself. Both a liquid a solid at the same time. I loved playing with the mercury, smashing it, making it scatter to the four directions, then bring it home again. I was master of a small universe. I had no idea that it was lethal, or that it was absorbed through the skin, I had no idea that I was inviting myself to a future mad hatter’s tea party. Alice be damned. It was all about the mercury.

The place where I grew up was mercurial. West Marin was a place of serpentine and iron—and mercury. I had no idea that the quicksilver that we played with as children was also a part of a larger landscape. Years later, after the Nicasio reservoir had settled in for a long nap, punctuated by drought and deluge, and people flocked to it shores to fish, I barely noticed the mercury signs posted on the shore. Dire warnings not to eat the fish.

But when I went to looking for the information online, it was obfuscated. Yes, there were mercury mines in West Marin and West Sonoma County, yes, there was a superfund to clean up the Gambonini mine, but there was no overview of the role that mercury played in the North Bay. Certainly in the state of California, mercury was tantamount to gold, for without it, the rocks wouldn’t yield their precious cargo of silver and gold.

Happy Xmas, Chi-Rho, a medieval abbreviation

HAPPY XMAS! – X is the abbreviation of the name Christ used since early Christian times. Someone made a meme, “Put the ‘Christ’ back in “Xmas.” IT ALREADY IS. I had a good long rant with a meme, mind you, a MEME, not a sentient being, that stated that using the contraction X in Christmas negated Christ. Created by an overzealous, illiterate bible-thumper who meant well, superficially speaking. The commenters were equally well uninformed. I lost my cookies. But I was talking to the void. No audience. Facebook’s Irish Medieval History explains it more eloquently than I ever could. Check it out. Go raibh maith agat. And the -mas vs. -mass thing is worth the admission.

Three views of Elephant Mountain (drawings)

Cranberry Coast Covid Special (with Moi reading three poems set to music)

First musical interlude installment is due tonight, Dec 24, at 12AM, Miami time, Dec. 23, 10 PM CA time. Stay Tuned. I have poems set to music in later broadcasts. My poems were prerecorded, looking forward to seeing the collage. Ok, so it went up on YouTube on Dec. 26. Erm, 27th. There was a traffic jam, a technical delay. Installment no. 1, is 22 minutes long (it goes by fast). Take Five is lively.

https://www.facebook.com/whipplemorales/videos/10159287656274767/

Part two. Originally it was supposed to be one one-hour broadcast, but it proved to be an unwieldy octopus, that wouldn’t upload. Besides, everyone and their uncle was on the internet doing the virtual Christmas-sing thing. Get in line!

https://www.facebook.com/whipplemorales/videos/10159299000704767/ There’s photo of me performing for the Cranberry Coast Concert series in Wareham, MA, in 2014, my reading begins at 3:20 minutes in, Betrayals of the Mind, followed by Wrong Roads, at 4:50 minutes in. Most of those photos in the photo montage are mine.

Part three debutted heads with time on Little Christmas, thus ending the holiday season with cymbals galore. Well, maybe a kettledrum, or three. No flatulent partridges in pear trees.

https://www.facebook.com/whipplemorales/videos/10159325062334767/ My poem on Vincent van Gogh, Perhaps a Garden, begins 7:30 minutes in if you want to rush right in.

Or, if you prefer to avoid Facebook completely, you can go direct to the source and watch all three videos on Kirk & Mari’s YouTube channel.

Covid count, the year of the great plague

Someone, frustrated by all the people blatantly ignoring the travel restrictions, wondered if people were that dumb. Panicky, dangerous animals. I answered, Not so much dumb but certainly willful, delusional gamblers and risk takers. Oh, and incredibly selfish.

MS Annals of the Four Masters? on Black plague. Trinity College, 1316/2, p. 36. 1350

CONJUNCTIVITIS

Every time I searched the skies

there was always cloud cover, 

night after night, then I finally saw it, 

a brilliant blazing double star shining in the heavens.
Then I realized it had red running lights.

Personal space outer limits

Jaysus, I’m astounded by humanity, when walking on a public trail, how people, so deeply engrossed in conversation, don’t have the basic courtesy to move over to their side of the path, they walk two abreast, or, worse, in a gaggle, but the path itself is not even 6 feet wide. It’s basic math. I lead by example, so I wind up spending half my walkies time tromping in the shrubbery. FFS, people, move over to the shoulder, or step off the path when passing others while walking or riding a bike. Don’t hog the space. Wearing a flimsy mask or pulling up a bandana at the last minute is only a small part of the equation. This stuff makes me hostile to say the least. I’m thinking of designing a hat with 6 foot extensions. How about a hoolahoop pool noodle hat?

I’m really trying to walk more as I’m desperate for the exercise, but people are such personal space jerks. And they’re completely unaware. I miss the days of riding horseback, a blessed distance from humanity. I’m afraid I’ll get arrested for bopping people with pool noodles. And they’re only five feet long. I have a mean left hook, but that would mean violating my own overdeveloped personal treaty space. Does anyone have a great soundbyte that they use to get people to move over? Cattle prods mounted on selfie sticks are generally frowned upon.

Historic mercury mines in the North Bay

 

Note bene: Under construction. Any info on mercury mines would be appreciated.  FWIW, every time I make an edit, Blogger keeps taking this post down, claiming it "violates community standards."but it doesn’t specify what it wants me to remove. I don't see how historic information from public sources violates any standards. All the research, and the writing is my own, and the photos too. Most of the information and maps were created via government funds, and should be copyright free or fair use. Plus I've provided the links. 

A Facebook reader posted a comment that there was cyanide runoff in Halleck Creek, under my Facebook post on the Nicasio dairies that were drowned during the construction of the Nicasio reservoir in the Lost Marin group, and I was off and running—right off the proverbial cliff. Was there any truth to that rumor? Or did he conflate mercury with cyanide? (According to WHO, low levels of cyanide are in our drinking water— usually related to mining activities, not naturally occurring sources.) 

My uncle, who was a surveyor, had some survey mining maps from long ago. I would give my eye teeth right about now to have them back. But the storm of 1984 took out my storage shed. I decided to go with the mercury interpretation instead of cyanide, because mercury mines have a tumultuous history in California.

What  I have mercurially uncovered so far:

According to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), there is an fish advisory or warning that Nicasio Reservoir mud contains methyl-mercury, as does Bon Tempe Reservoir on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais, which hosted several historic mines, including mercury, copper, gold, and even a nickel mine. 

And I assume that all the rest of the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) reservoirs (our drinking water supply) also contain trace amounts of some form of (inert) mercury too as they’re all downstream of Bon Tempe dam and empty into each other, exiting via Kent Lake into Lagunitas Creek that drains into Tomales Bay. Naturally occurring mercury oxide does not enter the food chain the way methyl-mercury does.

But at the Nicasio Reservoir methyl-mercury pollution is significant enough to trigger OEHHA advisory warnings about cumulative mercury poisoning from carp, sunfish, black, and large-mouth bass species (apex predators such as bass contain the most cumulative methyl-mercury in their systems). Why Nicasio? it doesn’t butt up against any known mercury mines, not like the unrelated Solejoule Reservoir watershed to the north (there’s an OEHHA advisory warning for black bass and crappie. There’s more on Solejoule dam methyl-mercury pollution below.)

I don’t know if Halleck Creek, a tributary of Nicasio Creek that feeds the reservoir, also has mercury in it. If so, then there’s probably an old mine shaft or two somewhere up-canyon on Big Rock Ridge. There is Lunny’s (LaFranchi?) gravel quarry across the way, but I don’t think they use cyanide for rock blasting! Nor are they transporting mercury ore for their gravel business as it wouldn’t be very good for business.

Note the MMWD mercury warnings are in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.

The fish warning signs along the Nicasio Reservoir serve as a grim reminder that mercury poisoning is cumulative. Mercury oxide is a naturally occurring inert mineral in the soil, but there are numerous cinnabar mine tailings throughout Marin and Sonoma counties that have added to the mercury levels of our reservoirs, not to mention, Tomales Bay. (Why I won’t eat Tomales Bay oysters….)

Red earth is often a sign of the presence of cinnabar (Remember Napa’s Silverado Mine on Mt. St. Helena, made famous by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1884 novel, The Silverado Squatters). And if there were heat-processed mine tailings to extract the mercury, then the leftover mercury particulates leaches out of the rock tailings whenever it rains. 

But some of those old red earth mine sites were hematite, a type of iron, not cinnabar—like the Sausalito mine and the prehistoric site on Mt. Burdell. Inert red dirt. Sometimes a red rock quarry is just a red rock quarry. 

That said, there are also several historic cinnabar mines in Novato (an unnamed claim, the Mazza Ranch Prospect, and Gaul mines), and other mine sites in West Marin. I remember seeing an old mining map of Bolinas Ridge dotted with several old cinnabar (and copper) mining claims. And another potential cinnabar site is on Elephant Mountain near Black Mt. Ranch and Platform Bridge, though only a gravel quarry is listed on the other side of the mountain.

Mercury ore mined in California, originally used for silver and gold extraction, was processed in high-temperature smelting ovens. Those unstable leftover tailings are what has caused the mercury runoffs into our watersheds, including in the San Francisco Bay. But Tomales Bay has higher mercury levels than San Francisco Bay—and not from naturally occurring cinnabar deposits, as the mineral mercury is inert unless it’s been heated and extracted.

The methylmercury is coming from somewhere. Question is, where?

Moving north to an adjoining Tomales Bay watershed (Walker Creek), on Hicks Valley Road, as you make the turn past Lincoln School, there’s a rock quarry at the top of the ridge to your left, (Hammock Hill) the exposed Franciscan rock is as red as can be. It looks like mine tailings galore. But not even a rock quarry is listed on that hill, though I can clearly see it from the road.

Rancher Sam Dolcini said it was a historic gravel pit used for making roadbeds. However it’s also a fair distance from Hick’s Mountain (see mining list) and Hick’s Valley Road. And it’s pretty darned red for Franciscan strata. It could also be an old Native American hematite mine. 

Question is, why did the Marin County road builders go all the way up that mountain for gravel? Surely there were more accessible rock outcrops? Maybe it was a speculatory dig that didn’t pan out—the entire northern Marin region has several mercury mines.

Sweetwater Springs mine on Mt. Jackson. Michael Kiesling photo

A little retrospective on reusing mine tailings, which was viewed as an easy source of cheap gravel. In Sonoma County, ca. 1974, the Guerneville sewage plant used mercury-laden tailings from an abandoned mine on Mt. Jackson for roadbeds. (I once hiked up to the Sweetwater mine via an eroded mule trail off Sweetwater Springs Road.) Luckily, it was a tempest in a teapot, the tailings were found to be inert, there was no leeching mercury. (See Mercury Rising 1999). The unlisted Hicks Valley rock quarry on Hammock Hill could be an old prospector site, and a gravel pit for road bed material. Both.

Hammock Hill, Hick’s Valley Road c Maureen Hurley 2020

There’s another rock outcrop that was probably also mined for roadbed material at the Point Reyes-Petaluma/Red Hill Road and Nicasio Valley Road junction at the old Gallagher Ranch. Geoff Davis said there was also cinnabar present there too, but it looks like it’s a limestone outcrop, or a ribbon chert reef, not cinnabar. Half the rock outcrop is gone, and other outcrops were left untouched. Apparently the host rock for mercury ore is serpentinite from the Upper Jurassic period. So, wherever there’s serpentine? All of West County!

This outcrop was twice as big, was it used for gravel or a mercury prospect?

Also within the Walker Creek watershed, the worst (and latest, 1970) mercury mine offender of all was the Gambonini Ranch mine complex on Walker Creek Road. The Gambonini Ranch family was not the problem, PG&E was, as they, or rather a sub-contracted mining company, Buttes Gas & Oil Co., leased at least four mines—the Gambonini, Turner, McFarland and Buena Suerte mines. When the mercury ore ran out, and the mines were “closed,” Buttes Gas & Oil Co. got off scot-free by claiming bankruptcy in 1985, leaving the state of California holding the bag, and liable for a massive Superfund cleanup. 

You can explore the types of mines at Minedat. Most are mercury mines.

(You can explore the types of mines in the North Bay at Minedat. Most are mercury mines. See also the the Cycle, and Franciscan mines. I know they exist, but can’t find supporting data, the adjoining Edwards  mines (Panco No. 1; Chileno Valley; Bueno Chilano; Chileno Valley), and Bently Ranch.) And there is the mercury Bivalve Mine, near Soulajule Dam, and another mercury mine, Petaluma Mine (Superior Gypsum Company Mine), on Red Hill Road.)

Not only was liquid mercury useful in extracting silver and gold ore from mine tailings during the gold rush, it was used for barometers, thermometers, clock pendulums, dental amalgams, auto parts, batteries, plating silver mirrors, fluorescent bulb filaments, and delicate electronics. The military also used liquid mercury for calibrated gauges, ammunition primers, and detonators, so it was a valuable restricted resource. (Military mercury uses PDF.) 

Until recently, liquid mercury was also used in the construction of legacy PG&E electrical transformers. Later, PCB laden oil was used. (Sources of PCBs and Mercury contamination). Curious, I can’t find information on how PG&E used mercury. I found this downloadable PDF from Internet Archive Scholar, The Needs of Miners: Political Ethics, Mercury Abatement, "The need for a global mercury pollution reduction strategy emerged from scientific revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s.” Mercury was becoming increasingly scarce during the 1960s, which drove its value through the roof. 

Cool old trucks at the Gambonini Ranch c Maureen Hurley 2019

Back to the Gambonini Ranch story, in 1964, a PG&E subcontractor, Oakland-based Buttes Gas & Oil, did a blitzkreig open pit mining job and in 1970, when the price of mercury dropped, they folded shop and left the open pit mercury mine tailings exposed to the elements behind an earthen dam that epically failed during a series of storms in 1982—they never sealed the mines, nor capped the tailings. 

Meanwhile, in 1977, Buttes Gas & Oil claimed bankruptcy and suspended operations in California, leaving the ranch owner Alvin Gambonini holding the bag—environmentally speaking. When methylmercury began showing up in Tomales Bay, it triggered a $3 million Superfund cleanup in 2000. The company had leased the land from Alvin Gambonini’s father from 1964 to 1970, and no one ever disclosed to the Gambonini family the potential dangers involved.

San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, 2012 A state funded agency

Few knew about the danger or full extent of the mercury pollution in the North Bay until significant amounts of methylmercury began showing up in Tomales Bay in 1999 after a series of back-to-back severe storms created a deluge runoff.

“The mercury, in a particularly toxic form called methylmercury, was discovered in a test of Tomales Bay fish conducted in 1999 by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.…The mercury is believed to have infiltrated Tomales Bay from an open-pit mercury mine located 6 miles upstream from 1968 to 1972. The mine is now an EPA Superfund site.” —Mercury Warning For Fish / 7 Tomales Bay species show contamination, 2000

Since 1964, every time it rained, it means that methylmercury spilled into Tomales Bay. Soulajule Dam, constructed in 1980, conceals an environmental atrocity. Luckily, Soulajule is a reserve reservoir not used for drinking water. The old mines are above waterline, but the lethal tailings around the reservoir are the real problem. And dare I ask the question: what actual earth was used to build that dam?

"If you take a sample of soils anywhere in this county, you will find mercury in it, but in the form of oxide, so it's not a dangerous element," geologist Dylan Whyte says.“The mine site, leased to the Buttes Gas & Oil Co. by Gambonini's parents, is across Wilson Hill Road from the ranch house six miles southwest of Petaluma, and up a steep ridge.” Mercury Rising 1999.

From MMWD: “The District also can transfer Soulajule Reservoir water to other District locations, as needed.” How? I don’t imagine that MMWD would transport water from Solajoule to Nicasio via truck. Someone suggested the water can be moved overland via stock ponds. If mercury oxide is inert, then it suggests that the methylmercury isn’t coming from natural sources. So where is the mercury coming from?

On lost diatribes

See, this is how my diatribes get started. It begins innocently enough, I make a small comment on Facebook, and then it won’t let me alone, it keeps pestering me, breeding in my mind, and I keep trying to clarify and organize, my muddled sentences, raging dyslexic that I am, and soon there are hundreds of phrases slugging each other, out of context, wanting some semblance of order, jockeying for a position in line. Next thing I know, 3.75 hours have passed. My eyes are bloodshot. My head hurts. I look like Lurch. Don’t encourage me. You know I can’t stop. It’s like an addiction, this revisioning process. Call it a written from of logorrhea. How did Charles Dickens do it month after month, year after year, serially writing novels without editing? Did you know revision means to see again? I can’t stop seeing the connections between things—that’s the problem. Even when they’re not there. They insist. Like the difference between caribou and reindeer, mercury levels in fish, tilting planets.Then Facebook usually decides that my constant revisioning process somehow violates community standards, and slaps me in the honor farm jail, like that one in Santa Venecia. So, locked out of my own post, I usually move it over to my blog, work on it some more. But it’s still not done with me. And on it goes. There’s something tribal about it. Polishing the words until they shine like moonstone and jasper trade beads. The thing is, I shouldn’t even be a writer fergawdsakes, I mean, I have freakin’ dyslexia, I have to work harder than the average bear just to make sense out of sense.

Solstice natterings

Today the sun lit the chamber at Newgrange, Brú na Boinne. Newgrange is sinking, the sun’s axis is shifting. Nothing remains the same. Tilting planets.Why is it Bru, and no longer brug, is it related to Iron Bru? Did the g get lost somewhere along the way when it grew up? All those silent, lost gs, where did they go? Was the bridge moved? Was there never a bridge? A bridge too far? Was the washer at the ford? Was the ford too liminal? Did it get a makeover? Where is the word “palace” embedded? Is there even a word for palace in Irish? Does the fada make a changeling of the word? Google Translate thinks brú means pressure. I’m not trying to put the pressure on, but inquiring minds want to know.

Rappelling in the rotunda, USSR

When I think of all the scrapes I’ve gotten myself into, it flummoxes me. I think that’s why am a writer. Perhaps the weirdest moment was when I was in the Soviet Union, midwinter, visiting a friend who took me to see a muralist who was restoring a cathedral, dubbed the Museum of Atheism and Religion. The muralist asked if I wanted to see the rotunda mural up close. I said yes, not knowing that we had to climb up outside the copper dome along a catwalk where the railing was literally no longer attached, then go in between the outer copper dome, and enter the inner plaster dome, and traverse to an ancient circus trampoline stretched over the opening of the rotunda—we had to let go of our faith and land on the trampoline so that we could be strapped into a harness. Now understand, I have never been rappelling in my life. This was the Soviet Union where everything was either fly by night, or cobbled together. Or both. No such thing as safety nets. Good news I got to work on the mural a bit, scraping off years of smoke with an exacto knife, but then I had to get down from that lofty height. I was suspended 40 feet above the floor, like a spider. So in Russian, mind you, I didn’t speak Russian, they told me how to rappel. I looked down, not knowing my long hair was going to be problem, and let’s just say a huge hunk got ripped out of the top of my head as I descended spider like to the cold stone floor below. Crapping my pants was the least of my worries.

see 

• Those foolhardy moments in time

Lagunitas Lake vs Lagunitas town

With an alarming disregard for geography, Facebook folks keep misidentifying old photos of Lake Lagunitas above Ross on Mt. Tam as the unrelated town of Lagunitas, in the San Geronimo Valley, which was part of the 1906 Lagunitas Land Development Company tract. They are not one and the same place. One did not spawn the other. But the dual toponym keeps on confusing people—especially since Lagunitas Brewery moved to Petaluma! No wonder I need a drink!

Lake Lagunitas was part of the San Rafael Township, Ross Landing School District, the old Tomales Baulinas Rancho lands. It was listed as a laguna on the diseño of Cañada de Herrera map of 1839. A very small body of water, not a town.

The current town of Lagunitas, ok, so it’s not a town but a hamlet—also referred to as Lagunitas Station, was so small it didn’t even have a post office until 1906, (can someone verify the PO story please?) It is on the San Geronimo rancho lands and school district. I need maps. Please send maps.

From my understanding, the current town of Lagunitas didn’t even come into existence until 1906. My grandfather bought three lots, so this date jives with family stories. And you certainly couldn’t go boating on the creek that runs through it—not even when Shafter’s was dammed. Unless it was a toy boat. Say toy boat five times real fast after you’ve had a beer. I double dare ya.

“Adolph Mailliard bought the San Geronimo Valley in 1867 for $50,000. The Mailliard children started to partition the property in 1906 by filing the first Lagunitas tract map. The Lagunitas Development Company bought the Mailliard holdings in 1912 and created the Woodacre and San Geronimo tracts in 1913. —Caption provided by Jim Staley” Plausable, and verifiable.

Seems to me that the omlet, I mean hamlet of Lagunitas took its name from the Mailliard land division, as there was no other wide spot in the road called Lagunitas. No lakes or large puddles involved.

Maurice Del Mue’s painting of our hill, Forest Knolls, 1939

Maurice Del Mué, Forest Knolls, Marin County, 1939.

Paris-born Marin County artist Maurice August Del Mué (1875-1955) emigrated to San Francisco when he was seven, and died in at Ross Hospital in Marin County, January, 24, 1955 after a long illness. He was 79. I was barely three. 

Besides sharing a birthday, November 24, and a town in common, Forest Knolls, I have a deep connection with Del Mué as he painted the central WPA mural at our Lagunitas school, it graces the hall of the old school office and was fully restored. When we had Picture Day at school, we’d line up along the mural waiting our turn. I was always fascinated by it. It was a fixture of my childhood.

Del Mué painted other murals at College of Marin Student Union, in Kentfield, at Tamalpais High School, in Mill Valley, and at the Officer’s Club at Hamilton Airfield in Novato. Painter Tom Wood says the The 38 x 8 foot mural “The Golden Hills of Marin” at Tamalpais High School, was restored. The College of Marin mural was saved; not restored, but in good shape; it hangs informally in one of the science rooms at COM. The Hamilton mural has never been found.

Maurice lived in a small cabin on Resaca Ave., I think near Ron Thelin’s shack above the Nielsen’s old place. So it’s quite probable my family knew him. Tom Wood said he lived in that house for seven years, and another friend, Claudia Ward said she grew up in that house. The Wards incorporated the art studio when they remodeled their house. On Facebook, Everett Basset posted, “I have del Mue’s property now with a nice view of the falls in the other direction. I found some of his sketches and paintings rolled up in the walls.” Imagine! 

Photo by Everett Bassett used with permission, 2020

Michael Toivonen, who posted the Del Mué painting of Forest Knolls on Facebook, and got me into this mess, salvaged a small pantry door from Del Mué’s house, he plans to mount the giclée print on it. Michael was friends with the former owner, and spent quite a bit of time working on the cabin. He said his friend found old paint tubes scattered on the hillside, Del Mué’s castoffs.

ILLUSION, a somewhat found poem

A broken connection, 
loosened a litany 
of breakthrough curses
but that wasn’t the lesson.
So much for the creation 
of self care.

12/15/20

2020, the year of the pajama

It seems that 2020 is going down as the year I gave up all pretense of getting out of bed in a timely manner, or for that matter getting dressed unless I absolutely had to—& you? What’s your ensemble?

If I must get out of bed, I sometimes slip a rather fetching pair of 32° black knit pants under my flannel nightgown, topped with a furry black hooded parka over the ensemble. It’s like being hugged inside a stuffed plush toy. Lord knows hugging isn’t an option these days. The long shirttails of my flannel nightie keep the ensemble casual without being slovenly. Sportbra optional, underwire bra. Nope.

Formal inside dress is the same get up, sans nightgown. But not always. I often swap my nightie for an old cashmere sweater to mix it up. Good for casual Zoom meetings. Choice of either UGG boots or plush grey kitty slippers.

Outside formal dress is similar to formal inside dress except I wear UGG boots, and corduroy pants in lieu of the yoga pants. Because, pockets. I give the hoodie a rest so I have something to look forward to later in the evening.

Dressing for cocktails and dinner al fresco is a snap, I shed just enough clothing to reinsert my flannel nightie, the furry black hoodie becomes a stunning bed jacket, or a bib. Great on cold nights. Or for late night snacks. I’m thinking of adding ears to my hoodie. To kick it up a notch, I might rotate out my plaid nighties—just for a change of scenery. Ditto that with my flannel sheets.

Like Donna Hilbert, I now try to wear zip-up pants twice a week. After not wearing them for weeks was a sobering moment. A wake-up call.

SANTA SIGHTING IN SAN ANSELMO

Traffic was backed up near my old high school, 

we pulled over to let a fire truck squeeze by,

with an entourage of police cars, 

in a mad whirl of blue lights and sirens

but suddenly the air was filled with bubbles,

bubbles everywhere, and behind that fire truck 

was a red wagon, with Santa in the back, 

he was waving to everyone. We all waved back.

Rainbow bubbles everywhere. Pure magic.

For a moment I forgot about the plague.

12/15/20

Notes on paywalls and fair use, Ok, so it’s a rant

—for Garry Hayes

A friend of mine wanted to read an article in the WSJ, but was blocked by paywalls. I know his frustration. He also doesn’t want to support that particular newspaper by getting a subscription. It is a bit too red—as in conservative. And the opinion pieces are downright yellow. Besides, opinion pieces should be free, not behind a paywall. 

Yeah, about those paywalls, I find them maddening. I try and copy or paraphrase a salient paragraph if I have access to an article I’m posting. Otherwise I just pass by those headline-only posts.

Another friend often posts paywall articles on her Facebook page—which drives me crazy. Talk about the big tease. No preamble, not even a synopsis—and you know how misleading those headlines are. And, lo, there was the same WSJ article in question. So, I asked if someone could please post a salient paragraph or two of the opinion piece for those of us left in the dark, outside the paywall.

Well, all sorts of fresh hell broke loose. I was not prepared for the sanctimonious BS I got from my writer friend’s constituents—which was off the chart. They went for blood, they raged and railed, saying that what I was suggesting was theft, that we were ripping the paper off, ripping the writers off, that’s how the writers got paid, we were voiding copyright, etc. And, me, a journalist. I had no qualms about liberating the news—especially opinion pieces which should be fair game.

It was like being stuck in one of the Hieronymus Bosch hell painting from The Garden of Earthly Delights. But this wasn’t Venice, there were no canals to drain the carnage and the bloodshed. It was like an omen, an online version of The Lottery. I literally wanted to fold my poker hand four ways and put it where the moon don’t shine. At least hide the chips.

But the Facebook comments thread was growing exponentially by the minute, and she has 4001 + friends. The end wasn’t in sight—other than my own rather exposed behind. So I did the next best thing, I deleted the thread. Poof! they were all gone like a puzzled cloud of mosquitoes, left to satiate their bloodlust elsewhere. I blame the current gloves-off political milieu for all manner of bad manners.

Whatever happened to the lost art of writing a synopsis of an article, or using a salient paragraph—which is all that I originally asked for—not to repost the entire article. My motto: always take care of the reader. Posting a sentence or a paragraph with a news link is allowed, btw, no copyright laws are infringed, or being broken. It’s called fair use, or for educational purposes.

We’re not talking about appropriating sacred text here. I wasn’t St. Columba attempting to bust copyright laws, thus starting a war over a psalter. To every cow its calf, and all that. And you know what that led to—banishment. I’ve been to Iona, it’s a lovely place. But not in winter.

Needless to say, I did not even bother to point out to the angry mosquito mob that I merely wanted a synopsis, or a salient paragraph. Not the entire bloody article. But the posters were well beyond the age of reason. I retreated, not wanting to pitch a forked battle on my friend’s wall, so I deleted all my comments from my friend’s post. Licked my word wounds in private. But the wound festered, only to erupt here.

Never mind that the news journals are now riddled with so many aggressive obnoxious ads that it is impossible to see the article for the trees. SF Gate is impossible to actually read. Their ads often move or cover the text of the article, that it’s like playing hopscotch with words.

Was a time, not too long ago, when we were able to access WSJ, Wa Post, NY Times, etc., for free. Those news journals are getting plenty of ad revenue. And because of that, I am against paywalls in general.

Because I have dyslexia and cannot read articles surrounded by large blocks of red and yellow, or moving text/images/videos, let alone, a Google blanket of banner ads draped atop text so you have to play dodgeball in order to finish a sentence, I also use AdBlocker, which also triggers a paywall response from most free journals as well, so I can’t win for losing.

There is a workaround, if you can’t access a cached article in Google, you can usually access articles using Reader View in Safari. Blessed soot of plain text on a field of silent snow. Until the website uses a lipsum fake text shield written in gibberish that either resembles Finnish, or Klingon to obscure their articles.

Personally, I do better with the Latin gibberish. And by then it’s Game on, as I try and outfox the dummy text walls. And when I do breach the webwalls, the article is usually a profound disappointment. Why did I even bother?

You’re probably wondering what lipsum is. And well you should. It’s a nickname, a made up word for a made up text “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.” A 15th century gonzo typesetter took Cicero's De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum and turned it into gibberish to use as fake text.

Or, another more stately paywall workaround, if you go to your local library webpage, they often have journal subscriptions and you can access articles that way. So genteel, I know.

But I’ve discovered that the newspapers behind those paywalls still want us to pony up to read their articles, and do nothing to tame those obnoxious ads flashing and screaming and yowling. How is this aggravated assault on the senses even remotely fair? I give up.

Sometimes it is too difficult getting the news when it’s a matter of yellow journalism masquerading behind a paywall.

Practicing the lucid art of Covid dreaming

Last night I dreamed I was in a darkened hall filled with far too many people that  I cared about, who crowded too close to me, some wanting to hug me, or to converse with me—or perhaps even to say goodbye. They were all there, the old boyfriends, ex lovers, even my former partner. My long-dead grandmother, where was my mother? MIA most of my life. Some thing never change. I’m having personal space boundary issues. No one was keeping social distance, no one was masked. Maybe it no longer mattered. Maybe this was it. The last hurrah, the long goodbye. The hubbub and roar of things left too long unsaid was palpable. No more pretense. To mask, or not to mask, that is no longer the question. We are all unmasked by this disease, and have entered into the third realm. I found myself freaking out, thinking, We’re all going to die. Shouting at my friends, and relatives—Keep your distance. Quarantine, thy name is.... Hold on. Thinking, it’s hopeless. Trying not to breathe. The very thing we need to do right now, is remember to breathe. To focus. How do we circumvent the futility of our dreams? We have entered a new realm—the lucid art of Covid dreaming. Meanwhile, the earth abides. When’s the last time you were hugged? This is a question for those of us who are alone in this madness. The other week, an old friend hugged me. I had all kinds of reactions, it dawned on me that I hadn’t been hugged in nearly a year. I burst into tears. I find myself making drawings of places I’ve never been, a landscape of hope on my bucket list, God willing. We will abide, our hearts will lead us, show us the way home. This what love is.

—for Laura Austin Wiley, who dreams she is being served cake, the final dessert, the endgame. But there’s always a cheese plate. —with love.

Bucket list. Fjaðrárgljúfur Gorge, SE Iceland. Rebecca Schultz went to Iceland and did these fantastic canvases of rock formations, which inspired me, then, and when I saw photos of this gorge with the unpronounceable name, I had to draw it.

Per aspera ad astra

Per aspera ad astra (or ad astra per aspera) is a Latin phrase meaning "through hardships to the stars". I prefer to translate it as:  through aspiration—to the stars. A gold pin we found in the back of a lovely old bureau abandoned by the roadside. Or rather, a hidden dime-sized enamel pin that stuck me and drew blood...I guess it wanted my attention. 

I have no idea what the rest of the pin means. A red star, a beehive on a piece of wood? Busy bees? Work? A mercator sky to map the stars? A red star, a Communist symbol, if ever there was one, a reference to socialism? Or what LOTM means. At first I thought it was LOTR! Hobbitses! One ring (or pin) to rule them all. And we do have that double planet conjunction coming up on the 21st. 

Katherine Hastings suggested, Ladies of the Maccabees is a possibility. Which proved to be harder to trace, than not. References were clear as mud. Something to do with a rebellion. But I got a lead, some Knights, and a whiff of masonry. A secret society. 

Are handshakes or fez hats involved? Oddfellows? Let’s try the Knights. See where that leads. KOTM doesn’t have that same ring to it. Oh great, a graveyard reference, but their motto is catchy: Astra Castra Numen Lumen. Just don’t say it while drunk. Any low-flying vultures involved? Do I need to duck? Kyle Alden Thayer says Life of the mind. I can work with that.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862)

My favorite astronaut, Colonel Chris Hadfield said the phrase was the motto of the Royal Canadian Air Force.  Per aspera ad astra .Through adversity to the stars. But their logo is a maple leaf, so I’m suspecting it really is much older than the Air Force. 

Then it dawned on me that Lowell Hendrickson, who once lived on our road, was a pilot. Weekends he would take his biplane out for a spin and do barrel rolls and loop-de-loops overhead with all of us kids out in the field screaming our heads off cheering him on. Either way, it’s a cool pin, and a cool motto.

Note bene: stuffing that little bureau into the back of my Guppy car (a Scion) was almost a comedy of errors, an engineering feat requiring precision to clear the wheel well, but we did it. My cousin, who fancied it, said it couldn’t be done. Passers-by shook their heads in disbelief. But I am allergic to the concept of No, I prefer to work with Yes! I knew it would fit if only we got the right configuration.

And so, we managed to wedge the bureau into the back of the itty-bitty hatchback, and bring it home like lions triumphantly dragging home their prey. Getting it back out of the car again required another round of finesse. Lift and twist. The little pin was easier to carry, despite its stellar weight. Maybe someday its cryptic message will be revealed.

Vultures falling from the sky

When I posted this falling vulture meme on my Facebook page, I took a lot of ribbing. It could’ve been worse. Was it an omen, portent of things to come. At least no naked ribs were showing. Just naked fear. Though it was a rather spectacular accident to have a vulture fall from the sky onto my windshield while driving down the road. 

Judith Gips said, you lead a very interesting life. I don't think I know anyone else who has been hit by a falling vulture. True, that. It’s not every day you get clobbered by a vulture falling from the sky. His wings completely covered the windshield, I could not see where I was going, I had to pull over. But I couldn’t even see in order to pull over. I had to do it driving blind.

Luckily I was driving on Pepper Road slowly going around a road crew, so it was no big deal. There was a wide shoulder, no ditches. I think a power line was down, and he got electrocuted. Maybe he was the reason why the lines were down. There were tree and power line trucks all over, we're having a red flag fire warning, high winds and no rain in a bone-dry December. Drought weather. It all could go up in smoke again. Another utility pole near the Two Rock Coast Guard Station had already set the grass on fire last week. 

I got out of the car to make sure the vulture was OK, but I also didn’t want to stress him out any more than he already was. Poor creature was hopping around because he couldn’t fly. And I was wondering how the hell I was going to try and rescue a vulture, they’re enormous animals. Much bigger than you’d think. The animal rescue place was right down the road on Meecham, by the dumps.

Katherine Hastings said, Gee, you could at LEAST have given him mouth-to-mouth! Well, considering that their nostrils go right through their skull to the other side like a hollow cave, it would be really a challenge to give mouth-to-beak to a vulture. For a moment there I thought I was going to have to add vulture wrestling to my animal rescue resume. Opossum nanny was bad enough.

Rich Arik wanted to know, Is that a poem or a true story? Were you clobbered, or, was you car clobbered by a vulture? I said yes, my car. Yes, a true story. You can’t make this kind of shit up. It’s too weird even for me to craft this bizarre event into a poem.

Apparently the poor thing got a shock from the power line. He was careening around so I had to pull off the road because when he hit my car, his wings covered my entire windscreen. And I couldn’t see a thing. Can you imagine explaining to the CHP how you got into the accident? But officer, I was driving down the road and out of nowhere this vulture fell out of the sky on top of my car. A breathalyzer test for sure even if it was early morning.

 

Luckily I was already driving slow because of roadwork. PG&E guys fixing the powerlines, and also electrocuting vultures, apparently.

The vulture sat in the front yard of the farm house for a quite a while, stunned (he wasn’t the only one) with his wings outspread, as if he was sunning himself. Eventually he was able to lift off the ground, but his navigation was for shit, and so he careened and crashed hard into the side of the farmhouse several times. BAM! Like a drunk kamakazi pilot.

By this time he had an audience. We watched him flounder around, trying to get his bearings. I suspect he will be fine, other than crashing into random things during liftoff. I’m sure he is muttering under his breath right about now about lost dignity and whatnot. Apparently 2020 is for the birds, it really sucks. Even for vultures. 

AT THE READY

Because I wasn’t ready, I missed 

the photo of a bobcat hunting in a field.

Because I was not ready, I missed the coyote 

who stopped in the middle of the road 

to stare at me with contempt, I missed that photo too.

Because I wasn’t ready I missed the photo of a vulture,

harbinger of death, who hit my car, 

perhaps a shock from a PG&E line that went south. 

One is never eve ready for a vulture 

to fall from the sky like a piece of the night, 

his outstretched wings covering my windshield 

like a shroud as he plummeted to earth, a fallen Icarus. 

I stopped to watch him on the ground, 

such enormous beauty. His red head was glistening 

like a ruby or a flower, perhaps a rose. 

He sat for a moment, stunned in the grass,

then lifted his wings to fly, but he was still so stoned, 

he hit the side of the house with such force 

I was concerned for his safety. 

But I figured whatever happened, 

whether he was struck by a car, 

lightning or electricity, he was well on his way,

and would probably survive the blow. 

I was also trying to figure out

how I was going to wrestle a vulture 

into the car in order to save him.

I wasn’t ready for a herd of randy young bucks 

who jumped in front of me chasing a young doe, 

but I managed to not hit them thanking God 

that I was driving slow for a change. 

Then, as I was driving the final stretch of back road, 

a hawk landed right in front of me as if to taunt me.

This time I was ready. I got my camera out 

and took photos of him standing on the powerline. 

But I had to leave, driving down the backroad,

slowly wondering, marveling at its beauty. 

I wasn’t ready when the second hawk 

landed right in front of me, that swoop of red 

and brown and gray as she ruffled her feathers. 

I wasn’t ready but all of those photos, 

all those images are in my mind. For that I was ready.

Then bluebirds crossed my path and I thought

of a piece of the sky was fluttering in the breeze. 

During these Covid times, all these portents of death, 

portents of things to come.

12/9/20

I created a photo blog, test drive

 I created a photo blog but am rethinking what I need, want. this is close, but I can’t make a collection or stack. all photos take up space. So I can’t post by year, or person, etc. Suggestions?

https://maureenhurleyphotos.blogspot.com/

Finding Toofta

Facebook works in mysterious ways. My Facebook friend, whom I’ve never met in person, Swedish filmmaker, Pamela Robertson-Pearce, posted Christmassy foodie customs on her page which led to my asking her about Swedish folk customs. It was a lutefisk-laden stray thought. 

Long ago, while I was at UC Berkeley, I collected 40 pieces of folklore, and one piece on the Norwegian Christmas impish elf, Toofta, stealer of drinks, was lacking scholarly reference, that is, any backup material. I found nothing in the basement folklore archives of the Dow Library. I sighed, and turned the paper in. Much later, I found a minuscule footnote on Wiki while writing a piece on Marconi Station in 2015. 

Fast forward five years, this morning, first day of Advent, Pamela led me to a gift, gold treasure—the 1881 poem, The Tomten by Viktor Rydberg, based on Swedish folklore. One thing led to another. She said, “In Sweden too we have a Tomte who lives on farms possibly in barns, but he is very much a winter thing. The Tomte in Sweden also brings gifts, but he does errands around the place too. Before Saint Nicholas we had a Julbock, a straw goat ram, who came at Christmas with gifts.” See pagan origins of the yule goat.

Tomten, by Viktor Rydberg

Midvinternattens köld är hård,
stjärnorna gnistra och glimma.
Alla sova i enslig gård
djupt under midnattstimma.
Månen vandrar sin tysta ban,
snön lyser vit på fur och gran,
snön lyser vit på taken.
Endast tomten är vaken….

Of course I don’t understand a word of it. 

My fake transliteration:

Midwinter nights, cold and hard
the stars gleam and glimmer
all over the land
under a midnight sky...
Men? wander without shelter?
snow lies with the ? on the great cliffs
snow lies on the path taken.
Where the Tomten waken.

I looked up Tomte, and was redirected to a Wiki entry, where Tufte, or Toofta, was mentioned. I was chuffed. For decades, I’ve had this little fellow orphaned in my memory banks, with no other reference point, and the reference is Tomten, poem in Swedish by Viktor Rydberg! Full circle.

Apparently Kierkegaard also mentioned the tomte and nisse. How did I not know this? In the farback days when the nissar and the tomte were murderous mischievous farmhands, they needed to be appeased. This is more in line with the toofta that I knew and feared as a child.

I was afraid I was becoming a monopolizing pest on her page, but it was so exciting to find a connection nearly 20 years after I had collected the folklore. Toofta made me do it. And then it was like Christmas, unwrapping all the connections. Tack, Pamela! What a fabulous Advent gift.

Olaus Magnus’s 1555  print,“A Description of the Northern Peoples” an early depiction of a farmhouse spirit in the center, sweeping the barn. He is more in keeping with the current popular cultural version.

Tomtenissar preparing for the children to visit “on detsembris jõululainel ja ootab külla lapsi.” By Swedish illustrator and painter,  Kurt Nüström Stoopendaal (d. July 27, 1965,) Rannarootsi Muuseum, Estonia.

And here is my amended folklore piece on Toofta, aka Tufte. I’m sure Papa Dundes would be proud. To see all the comments, research, and links, visit  my original Facebook post.

Now, where did I put my drink? Tooofta? Apparently I’ve inherited a Norwegian house sprite.

Coyote crossing

The coyote slowly crossed the road, stopped at the mailbox, took a sniff, so domestic, for a moment I thought he was a dog. But there was something so scruffy about him, his fur unkempt. He looked like he was sleeping rough. I stop the car to take a photo, but my camera battery was dead. The coyote stopped to eye me warily, and we stood there for the longest time, eye to eye, each measuring the cut of the other. And then he slipped off between the vineyards ghostlike, searching for breakfast among the rows of grapes dried on the vine.

12/6/20

Notes on paywalls and fair use, Ok, so it’s a rant

—for Garry Hayes 

A friend of mine wanted to read an article in the WSJ, but was blocked by paywalls. I know his frustration. He also doesn’t want to support that particular newspaper by getting a subscription. It is a bit too red as in conservative. And the opinion pieces are downright yellow. Yeah, about those paywalls, I find them maddening. I try and copy a salient paragraph if I have access to an article I’m posting. Otherwise I just pass by those headline only posts.

Another friend often posts paywall articles on Facebook which drives me crazy, talk about the big tease. No preamble, no synopsis—and you know how misleading those headlines are. And, lo, there was the WSJ article in question.  So, I asked if someone could please post a salient paragraph or two for those of us left in the dark, outside the paywall. 

All sorts of fresh hell broke loose. I was not prepared for the sanctimonious BS I got from my writer friend’s constituents—which was off the chart. They went for blood, they raged and railed, saying that what I was suggesting was theft, that we were ripping the paper off, ripping the writers off, that’s how the writers got paid, we were voiding copyright, etc.

It was like being stuck in one of the Hieronymus Bosch hell painting from The Garden of Earthly Delights. But this wasn’t Venice, no canals to drain the carnage and bloodshed. It was like an omen, an online version of The Lottery. I literally wanted to fold my poker hand four ways and put it where the moon don’t shine. At least hide the chips.

But the thread was growing exponentially by the minute, she has 4001+ friends. The end wasn’t in sight—other than my own rather exposed behind. So I did the next best thing, I deleted the thread. Poof! they were gone like a puzzled cloud of mosquitoes, left to satiate their bloodlust elsewhere. I blame the current gloves-off political milieu for all manner of bad manners.

Whatever happened to the lost art of writing a synopsis of an article, or using a salient paragraph—which is all that I originally asked for—not to repost the entire article. My motto: always take care of the reader. Posting a sentence or a paragraph with a news link is allowed, btw, no copyright laws are infringed, or being broken. It’s called fair use, or for educational purposes. 

We’re not talking sacred text here. I wasn’t St. Columba attempting to bust copyright laws, thus starting a war over a psalter. To every cow its calf, and all that. And you know what that led to—banishment. I’ve been to Iona, it’s a lovely place. But not in winter.

Needless to say, I did not even bother to point out to the mosquito mob that I merely wanted a synopsis, or a salient paragraph. Not the entire bloody article. But the posters were well beyond the age of reason. I retreated, not wanting to pitch a forked battle on my friend’s wall, so I deleted all my comments from my friend’s post. Licked my word wounds in private. But the wound festered only to erupt here.

Never mind that the news journals are riddled with so many aggressive ads that it is impossible to see the article for the trees. SF Gate is impossible to actually read. Their ads often move or cover the text of the article, that it’s like playing hopscotch with words.

Was a time, not too long ago, when we were able to access WSJ, Wa Post, NY Times, etc., for free. Those news journals are getting plenty of ad revenue. And because of that, I am against paywalls in general.

Because I have dyslexia and cannot read articles surrounded by large blocks of red and yellow, or moving text/images/videos, let alone Google blanket banner ads draped atop text so you have to play dodgeball in order to finish a sentence, I also use AdBlocker, which also triggers a paywall response from most free journals as well, so I can’t win for losing.

There is a workaround, if you can’t access a cached article in Google, you can usually access articles using Reader View in Safari. Blessed soot of plain text on a field of silent snow. Until the website uses a lipsum fake text shield written in gibberish that either resembles Finnish, or Klingon to obscure their articles. 

Personally, I do better with the Latin gibberish. And by then it’s Game on, as I try and outfox the dummy text walls. And when I do breach the webwalls, the article is usually a profound disappointment. Why did I even bother? 

You’re probably wondering what lipsum is. And well you should. It’s a nickname, a made up word for a made up text “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.” A 15th century gonzo typesetter took Cicero's De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum and turned it into gibberish to use as fake text.

Or, another more stately paywall workaround, if you go to your local library webpage, they often have journal subscriptions and you can access articles that way. So genteel, I know.

But I’ve discovered that the newspapers behind those paywalls still want us to pony up to read their articles, and do nothing to tame those obnoxious ads flashing and screaming and yowling. How is this aggravated assault on the senses even remotely fair? I give up.

Sometimes it is too difficult getting the news when it’s a matter of yellow journalism masquerading behind a paywall.