Becky Dart: Born to Run

Me and Becky Dart ca. 1969. The fence is cribbed so I had her a while.

Once upon a time I had a sorrel mare so fast at the quarter mile, no other horse could beat her. When Becky Dart ran, it was like riding the wind, or a barrel down the rapids. She exploded with energy so fierce, it was hard to stay mounted. Of course, I rode bareback, and had thighs of steel. I was addicted to speed and she was born to run.

The thrill of riding an animal faster than any other four-legged creature on earth, save the cheetah, or antelope—neither of which you can ride—was euphoric.

My five-year-old mare came from Olema Ranch and cost $500. In those days there wasn't much readily available information on the pedigrees of horses. Most pedigree stories were passed down by word of mouth while standing at the corral gate. My aunt's friend Chuck traced her pedigree chart, the long hard way. At first, he thought her pedigree was forged, then he said that she was valuable as a broodmare, as her bloodline was that of champions. Of course I had no idea.

Becky Dart carried the same ancestry as California Chrome—right back to the Darley Arabian—they were Drinkers of the Wind. I had the fastest horse in West Marin. I rode the wind. No one could beat that horse at the quarter-mile. But at the two-mile marker, on the old Lagunitas railroad bed in Samuel P. Taylor Park, I was always left eating crow. Or dust. My competitive mare wouldn't give up until she was thoroughly winded and sobbing for breath.

I pored over that pedigree chart, the size of a coffee table, and memorized the names of her ancestors all the way back to the thoroughbred foundation sires. Her pedigree was studded with Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes winners: she had Triple Crown winners on both sides of the family tree. She was related to Man o' War, (1917-47) one of the greatest Thoroughbred racehorses of all time, through War Hug. And one jockey's name appeared again and again: the famous racing icon, Willie Shoemaker.

I remember watching Willie Shoemaker riding the legendary Candy Spots to victory at the 1963 televised Preakness. I was starstruck.

Becky Dart's great-grandfather was Three Bars (1940-1968.) Other than a wide blaze, she looked like him. Same tiny ears, dished face and teacup nose, reflecting Arabian ancestry. she even held her tail up like a flag when she ran. The mare was a bit slenderer, though. And she had scarred knees.

How the mare came to that ranch in Olema, her sire, Dart Bar, owned by Bill Cowan, was from McNeal, AZ), is a bit of a mystery. But her scarred knees suggest something went wrong and she was not racing track material. Retired from the track before she even began. But she carried the legendary names of Three Bars, and Dart Bar.

A cowboy at the Olema Ranch mentioned she wore braces as a foal, that's why her knees were bald. She was probably sold at auction to the knackers, or a claims race, and was rescued by those cowboys who ran the dude ranch. For a cripple, she sure could run. She had a palomino sister at the ranch too, also out of Dart Bar.

That spring, I put my mare in Mary Bianchi's pasture to graze on the lush grass. I checked on her after school and she was fine. But that evening, I had a hunch something was wrong and and I found her down and sweating.

Nothing should've gone wrong, but it did. She had colic, and though I walked her for 18 hours, she never got better, she'd twisted her colon—peritonitis had set in. No way to save her. She died in Edie Lehman's sand arena, where I worked as a exercise groom—after a long, and violent struggle.

I never got over watching her die like that, screaming, and rearing over backwards, to escape the pain. The vet ended it with a foot-long needle to the heart. I always meant to write about her, never quite managed to do a decent job of it. A snippet here and there. A horse like that leaves a deep sinkhole in the mind, and I had backfilled it with grief.

I worked for the Lehman's training stable, and showed their horses at gymkhanas, I collected armloads of blue and red ribbons, but I didn't want to own another horse, losing her was devastating. She was big and beautiful, there was so more of her to love. There was nothing much left of my childhood landscape. Sometimes I dream of my horses running free on the slopes of Mt. Barnabe, and wake up with an inconsolable sense of longing.

I had to wait decades for the internet cute animal memes to parade forth in order to find this page on Doc Bar...which led to this post.

My brother Guy, and a relation—who, I'm not sure.

Today’s coup is brought to you by Istanbul

Good gawd, as if yesterday's news wasn't bad enough, today's news is brought to you by a coup. Turkey's military declared a takeover, airports are closed, and to think that we were very nearly booked on that flight to Istanbul. I guess it’s off the bucket list.

Baking a Cake on Bastille Day

Last night, distraught by the news of a terrorist attack in Nice on Bastille Day, I baked a cake. When the going gets tough, tough broads make lemon cake. I haven't baked in ages. But last night, it seemed like the right thing to do. To balance all that bitterness and grief with something rich, sweet and tart.

I surfed the net before settling on a recipe I could tolerate. And even then, I was adapting it in my head, unconsciously nudging it toward the sublime symmetry of poundcake—quatre-quarts—made  with a 1:1:1:1 ratio; a pound each of butter, eggs, sugar, and flour. Sturdy bread flour, not cake flour, that has no gluten to hold it all together.

I assembled the dry ingredients, and as the oven was warming, I plucked handsome lemons off the same tree where I had placed that orphaned towhee chick I rescued a few days ago. I added an extra egg for luck, three golden jumbo-sized suns glistened in the bowl. Melted butter.  The Mexican morada sugar gave the batter a faint caramel flavor.

I scraped little runnels of Meyer lemon peel into the batter, like the fine golden threads that connect us all. I jettisoned the sweet milk and substituted double the yogurt for sour cream. Alors, the yogurt had mold on the top, but I scraped it off, and carried on. I am amazed how people go off the deep end if there's a little extra spontaneous culture on their yogurt. I mean, it's already spoiled rotten. Just do a generous scrape-off and use it for cooking.

A friend sent a recipe for coffeecake. If only we could go back to a gentler time, to, say, The Koffee Klatch in Fairfax, circa 1972. The Bon Appétit recipe sounds divine. They're generally very good. Intriguing concept to brown the butter first, drive out all the water and whey, to give it a nuttier caramel color and taste. (Like ghee, but toasted).

Already I am adapting and revising that recipe in my head. I'd just use all soured milk products: buttermilk, or yogurt. No fresh milk. Why use both? What's the logic behind it? You balance the sour milk ratio with baking soda, and baking powder. Quick breads are a gaseous Alka Seltzer-laden  doughy mess that rises as the heat sets it in place. And soured milk products, besides being better for you, make for a finer crumb and taste.

A general yuppified recipe peeve I have for the Let Them Eat Cake crowd: Why use unsalted butter if you're going to add more salt to savory dishes, or cookies and cakes? What's the rationale? Who made it an inviolate "rule" is that you had to use unsalted butter? Nonsense. I get the theory (fresh vs old butter) but these days, there's little difference, cooking-wise—unless you're making chocolate truffles.

As it is, for that browned butter coffeecake recipe, you're going to fry the living daylights out of the butter, char the milk sugars and trace minerals to a crisp, and then vaporize the emulsified water, so all that's left in the pan is clarified fat. I say use whatever butter's at hand... Just remember to cut back on the salt. And buy butter you like to eat. Just don't use Crisco.         

And while we're at it, what's with the hoity-toity kosher salt? Is it a case of using iodized vs not-iodized salt? What's the rationale? I don't think anyone will be able to tell if rabbis or foreskins were ecumenically invoked. It's all NaCl, folks! Like bitter tears. Just use less salt. Always taste as you go. Ditto that with the butter.

For what it's worth, I generally argue with most online recipes. I question ratios, choice of  ingredients, order of preparation. I'm a member of the less bowls to wash up is more club. There is so much voodoo and hype around recipes—vs logic, or common sense. (My folklore prof., Dr. Dundes, would have called it the use of sympathetic magic.) It's chemistry, not alchemy, fergawdsakeses.

Do most of those internet foodies even know what they're doing? Or are they blind sheep? We can thank/blame reality cook shows for much of the hype. Ina Garten and Martha Stewart insist on using unsalted butter and kosher salt, but it doesn't blend as well as fine grained table salt. Julia Child's sidekick, Jacques Pépin—the only voice of reason—said if you use salted butter, cut down on the salt in the recipe. (Or eliminate it entirely). Not rocket science. The rule of thumb is to taste and correct seasonings as you go.

Apparently, during times like this, I seek logic and clarity. Something with discrete steps. Plausible. Logical. With a tangible end result. Hypothesis, theory, outcome. Sometimes, it manifests itself by my reorganizing decades' worth of photo files, or rebuilding my old computers. No emotion there. Unless I'm swearing because I fucked it up. Besides I've been doing that all summer long.

The errant cake overran the edges of the pan, sending smoke signals out the door, which brought Himself steaming into the kitchen, all in a huff, fretting with his manspeak vocabulary of blame. I told him to shove off. It is what it is. Was I supposed to pull the raw cake out of the oven and scrub the hot oven right then and there? Never mind that the cake would collapse into a hockey puck or a black hole. And the whole point was to make comfort food during this time of terror.

Je suis Charlie, je suis Paris, avec Brussels, Bagdhad, Orlando, Istanbbul, je suis épuisé. Je suis fatigué. Je suis fatigué. And now a coup in Turkey.

The timer rang in some good news. I found myself singing:

Orléans, Beaugency, Notre-Dame de Cléry.Vendôme, Vendôme.
Quel chagrin, quel ennui, de compter toutes les heures 
Quel chagrin, quel ennui, de compter jusqu’à minuit, 
Mes amis que reste-t-il?

The cake came out golden as the sun and sweet as a child's kiss and it satisfied a small corner of the soul.

DEATH OF A SONGBIRD, BASTILLE DAY

This morning I heard the drab towhee
calling out her plain one-note song.
She bobbed and wove like a supplicant
at the Wailing Wall. She kept calling out to him,
but there was no answering chirp or warble
from the wayward fledgling that I had rescued,
and placed near her nest in the lemon tree.
The yard felt emptier than usual. An echo, a sob.

I found the grounded chick in the driveway,

there was no escape from the habūb shadow of tires

running the gauntlet down carnelian curbs, they were
insurmountable as the Grand Canyon to one so small. 
Meanwhile, on the promenade in Nice, tourists dance & toast 

la Fête Nationale, fireworks blossom—oh la belle rouge!
while a terrorist mows down flocks of revelers with a truck.
Sirens wail an off key La Marseillaise in the distance.

Among, the fallen, 10 children. A woman lies on the ground

talking  to her dead child who cannot answer. 

Small feathers of grief rise in the wind.

7/14/2016 
KITCHEN CHICKEN

Towhee visitor
Towhee in the Kitchen

Rescuing a Towhee Chick

Hoppity-hop

I have yet another old/new post, which was an end stub from another post so extensively revised that it really is a new post by itself but I originally posted it next to the longer article on cannabis, also July 13, 2016, because that was its spawning ground. It seems that the hops segue wanted to be its own post. So I revised it for a Facebook group, California History. And it’s off and running. 

• Hoppity-hop picking in Sonoma County

CAMP Season: Georgia DEA Declares War on Gumbo

Ah, here's to the joys of the dog days of summer, as we head into CAMP-ing season replete with those pesky DEA helicopters hovering over our bucolic West Sonoma County vineyards, like overgrown gnats on steroids.

What I like to do during CAMP season (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting), is to set out a lawnchair, pop open a cool one, and watch federal agents risk life and limb as they practice their rope ladder acrobatics mid-air over the orchards. It's like having my own private high-wire circus. Emphasis on high, here.

A chance reading of a news headline from The Washington Post gave me both comic pause and a serious meandering of the mind:

Georgia police raided a retired Atlanta man's garden last Wednesday after a helicopter crew with the Governor's Task Force for Drug Suppression spotted suspicious-looking plants on the man's property. A heavily-armed K9 unit arrived and discovered that the plants were, in fact, okra bushes."

OK, so I'm a tad behind on my reading, that article dates back to 2014. But CAMP is still the largest law enforcement task force in the United States, I guess they have to justify that ginormous budget. Now, I can't say I especially like okra, I like the idea of okra, aka ladies' fingers, but this illicit war on drugs thing is going a bit too far. Doncha think?

Not only is CAMP a colossal waste of taxpayer money, it's devolved into a war on the Southern national dish, gumbo. I mean, really. Ya all don't find that funny? As one cannibal said to the other cannabis eater, does this clown taste funny to you? Hold the Häagen-Dazs. I respect the farmer's right to grow okra. Who knew that in Georgia, it's Give me gumbo filé, or give me death? Or at least a death sentence for cultivating okra.

I admit I like the idea of eating Malvaceae flower buds, aka mallow (origin of mauve—and purple prose). The Malvaceae family includes hollyhocks, hibiscus, cotton, and cacao—especially cacao—but noshing on gooey mucilaginous vegetables doesn't float my boat. Or slime my throat.

How the DEA mistook okra for cannabis suggests they've been smoking some of their own confiscated booty. Or they need to take a botany class. And hold the brew with the gumbo stew. 

The West African word okra, or okro is from the Igbo ọ́kụ̀rụ̀. One source suggest that the origin of gumbo is from the Bantu, ki ngombo, another suggests that it's the Choctaw word for filé, kombo. Medieval Moors called it bamya, from the Arabic. First written account of okra was in 1216, from a Spanish Moor in Egypt who described an herb the locals relished for their tender pods. It was not mistaken for ganja.

Flowering okra and seed pod—does this even remotely look like pot to you? —Wiki

Okra arrived to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade. By 1800, okra—synonymous with gumbo,  was grown throughout the southern United States—Georgia included. It also became synonymous with southern cooking—especially in Louisiana. In fact, gumbo is the official state dish of Louisiana. You'd think the Georgia DEA would know the difference between pot and okra by now. What a fine kettle of fish calling the pot back.

This is a hibiscus, it is related to hollyhocks, cacao, cotton, and okra gumbo, not grass

Reading up on this curious matter, I discovered that 98% of all DEA helicopter busts are for ditchweed, aka feral hemp, from the pre-plastic WWII day. Not pot. Or okra.

"... of the estimated 223 million marijuana plants destroyed by law enforcement in 2005, approximately 219 million were classified as "ditchweed.... Unlike cultivated marijuana, feral hemp contains virtually no detectable levels of THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, and does not contribute to the black market marijuana trade.  —98 Percent Of All Domestically Eradicated Marijuana Is "Ditchweed," DEA Admits

This is a hollyhock, related to hibiscus, okra & cotton, it is not grass.

About that Ditchweed and hops, if you’re over 21, read on at your own tangental peril.

Rescuing a Towhee Chick

 

Found this little towhee fledgling scurrying up the driveway like a mouse

A bird in hand is worth...? I found this little towhee fledgling scurrying up the driveway like a mouse. I was going to head out to do some shopping. I completely forgot to do my errands, as I played nursemaid to this chick. No milk, no TP.

No tail feathers, a suggestion of wings, orange ass coming in nicely.

Note to feather-brained self: don't jump from the nest until your feathers have fully fledged. He was reunited with his ma in the lemon tree. Lots of squawking going down. They had much to say to each other. I'm sure scolding was involved.

Are you calling me cheep? Cheep? Why I oughta...

 S/he's been playing Marco Polo with the parental-unit in the lemon tree all afternoon. Mother bird barks a shrill militant "Marco," and her offspring dutifully answers with a melodious "Polo"—somewhat like a raven's secret warble song.

Insert Beatles song here: "She's leaving home..." Methinks s/he will be spending the might alone in the tree. S/e was eating bugs earlier, preening, simultaneously stretching both leg and wing at the same time, like a very small ballerina dancing to Swan Lake on a branch.

Um, you're not my mother. Emits an ungawdly squawk of protest.

Maw, come back! Feed me. I'm so very hungry.

ENVOI: Two days later, on Bastille Day, when I finally got around to running my errands, I heard the towhee calling her one-note song. And no answering warble from her wayward chick. The yard felt emptier than usual. Sad to say, I found the chick, or his brother, squashed in the driveway, the salmon-painted curbs, insurmountable as the Grand Canyon to one so small.

She's hopping up and down the driveway, bobbing and weaving like someone at the Wailing Wall, she keeps calling out to him, he no longer answers, he lies so near her in the garden above the curb, but she can't see him, can't smell him. Meanwhile the ants begin their grim work, transforming the chick into another iteration of the self.

I don't think it was me who ran over the young bird, rigor mortis had set in.It may have been another bird, but I think not. I went back and checked, I was feeling so bad.... So, despite my best intentions, I guess I didn't interrupt its karma, I merely changed its delivery date. Then I got the news about Nice. It all fell into place and became a poem.

DEATH OF A SONGBIRD, BASTILLE DAY
Towhee visitor
Towhee in the KitchenKITCHEN CHICKEN

Know Your Rights Taking Photos in Public Places

At risk of plagiarizing the ACLU website, this is very important information for anyone taking photos in public places.

TO summarize the ACLU web pages: Taking photographs of things plainly visible in public spaces (including airports) where you are lawfully present, is a constitutional right – including federal buildings, transportation facilities, and it also includes police or other government officials carrying out their duties as long as you're not interfering with their operations. Unfortunately, there is a trend in law enforcement. with officers ordering people to stop taking photographs in public places, which often leads to harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply.

Most significant line to remember, if you're ever detained, is to POLITELY ask: am I free to go? That changes the legal paradigm. Then things become formal. Law enforcement has to either charge you, read you your rights, or let you go. Any perceived hostility on your part changes that paradigm again—with charges.

Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video (audio sometimes falls under other laws, be careful) without a warrant. That includes cell phones. They may not delete any photos from your cell phone or memory card either.

However, the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws. If you're standing on private property, this rule does not apply. You're trespassing. Make sure you're not standing on a corporate flowerbed when documenting law enforcement.

Please visit the ACLU site: Know Your Rights: Photographers - What To Do If You Are Stopped Or Detained For Taking Photographs

Since this post (originally on Facebook) generated a lot of conversation, I've added some related information on photographing in parks and forest service lands. By right, this should be a sidebar, but it does entail knowing your rights.

My friend Gail Armand asked: "I wonder about the constitutionality of the process that requires photographers to pay fees and obtain permits if they photograph public places with the idea of selling their art. In Hawaii professional photographers are required to obtain permits and pay fees." This instigated a lively discussion, and I realized more research was required.

Professional photographers pay for photographic access to local, regional, state, or national park in ALL states. And in BC, too. So I presume, by extension, all of Canada, as well. Who is considered a professional photographer, is subjective, and it is unevenly enforced by park officials.

It seems that if you have lots of camera gear, a camera with a big lens, a light meter, a model (or a prop), and a tripod, then the local, regional, state, and National Parks, the US Forest Service, (and the BLM) all want a permit. Not just in Hawaii. See the California information below. Repeat the same situation with an iPhone (sans tripod), no fee required—you're perceived as an amateur—go figure. The bottom line is: know your rights.

The professional photography rules are similar in all National Parks, websites and required forms are listed by actual park site, there's no general NPS webpage. And it looks like the professional photographer fee process was set in motion ten years ago, in 2006. I imagine that the rules will be amended some more, with the advent of drone photography.

Here are a few sample NPS photography permit pages:

Arches NPS photography rules.

Yellowstone NPS photography rules.

Here's a link to a forum on Large Format Photography from 2006, that's interesting.

When this photographer fee process was set into place by the United States Forest Service, the fee in 2012 was quoted at $1500 a day! General outcry (and massive pants-soiling) resulted in clarification. This is from a 2014 article.

Today, the team at Oregon Live exposed a new rule proposed by the United States Forest Service, that, if passed, will take effect in November. The rule calls for any member of the "media" to first apply for a permit before being allowed to take photos or video on 193 million acres of designated wilderness areas. Oh, and by the way, the permit costs $1,500.

And the clarification:

According to the Washington Post, Tom Tidwell, chief of the United States Forest Service says “If you’re news media, it has no effect at all,” he said. “If you’re a private individual, this doesn’t apply. Individuals who want to shoot on wild lands won’t need a permit, even if they plan to sell their photographs, except if it involves props. Fees for permits vary by size. Groups of up to three will pay $10 a day, while crews of 80 shooting movies usually pay around $800 a day. —Fstoppers Is The U.S Forest Service About To Charge Photographers To Take Photos?

How photography is interpreted and enforced in public parks is very subjective. Some agencies won't let an amateur photographer create a portfolio, or use photos for a contest, or even use their own photos on personal web pages. Of course, enforcing that last one is impossible.

An in-depth article by Jeff Conrad for the Large Format Page, Still Photography and Permits On US and California Public Land, is a must-read. He goes over these points and your rights in depth. At the end, he refers to many CA places/rules. Well worth reading. Here's a sampling.

Many public agencies require permits for photography done for “commercial” purposes, often without defining the term. most state and local agencies in California require permits for any photography for “commercial purposes,” possibly with the assumption that “commercial” is equivalent to “large-scale and disruptive.... 

Photography for personal use doesn’t usually require a permit, as long as the photographer follows the same rules as the general public. A few sites do restrict the use of certain equipment (such as tripods or artificial lighting).... 

Federal agencies do not consider commercial intent in determining when a permit is required for still photography; if the photography involves “models, sets, or props,” a permit is required. It is not yet clear whether photographic equipment other than a camera and tripod will be considered a prop.... —Still Photography and Permits On US and California Public Land

The stickler is: are you a professional photographer vs. an amateur. The answer: amateur—for personal use only—if questioned. Anything else opens too many doors for litigation if you're caught without a permit, and it's ruled that you're not an amateur. 

Under these definitions, I am definitely a rank amateur photographer—as I don't sell my work, nor do I have the equipment to take fine art photography. I like to shoot low profile, with a camera that fits in my jeans pocket. I also often shoot blind without looking into the viewfinder or LED screen. I never bring the camera up to my face if I feel I'm in a dicy situation.

Besides, I don't think fine art photography should be subject to photographer's fees, as the fees are not only steep, but the chance of your ever recouping those fees are next to nil, unless you're Ansel Adams, or Galen Rowell (may they RIP).

Claiming that your photography is documentary, or for news media is far too subjective. Theoretically it should be OK under most circumstances, but is subject to law enforcement whim. And you know how that goes.

Learn more about your photographic rights here at the ACLU site. See slide 8 for more legal language, and memorize it, if you're ever detained, you'll want that language.

Type Faster

This morning, Facebook coughed up an old memory, a quote:

"What would I do if I had only six months left to live? I'd type faster."
                         —Isaac Assimov

I think I'd also travel. I love travel, how it unleashes language. And photos, the unformed image resonating on the retina, begging for the stasis of the photograph. Line and form.

But the main thing I would focus on, would be to get all my writing organized, online, etc. Books, art, photos, and writing re-homed... A daunting task, at best. I've been nibbling at the concept in one form or another during the past year, and beyond. I still haven't uncovered all my writing from those madcap SSU daze. Only hints here and there resurface. It's like an archaeological dig into the past of one's craft.

I'm also snagging old Facebook memories that pop up daily (mainly from 2009 to 2013), and turning a few of them into blog entries as well—if they merit it, and no, I don't think my aesthetic standards have slipped. Well, not too much, anyway. Facebook offers up old status quotes by the day, not by year. So it's interesting to see what I was doing on July 4, from 2009 to time present. Sometimes the gold's in the comments. Not the post itself.

Funny, I didn't twig that many of my old Facebook posts were also writing worth saving, other than the obvious ones. I am still uneasy with the concept of prose, and tend to shy away from it, as it's a different voice, not like how a poem comes, complete, and unbidden. And so it goes.

NB: Well, I've managed to load the bulk of my nature photos for 2015-2016 up onto Picasa, in two days... A whole lotta editing and culling: 72 folders and counting! I was up until 5 AM, and I hit the keyboard by 8 AM. Still to do Monument Valley and Flagstaff.  It becomes a diary of sorts. What I took photos of. Last year was tough emotionally. My partner went batshit crazy in Febuary, and it peaked in June. I was sleeping on my cousin's couch a lot. Seeking beauty and solace in nature.

I have people/event pix on another Google+ site. To do. Recycled a few bits of old FB fragments in my blog. Picasa's being shelved, deep-sixed, going to the dark net, so it means that some pix will show up on Google+. Not sure of all my kid teaching pix. I may need to rescue them. Or consolidate my two sites. I need to create a new Google+ site for CPITS pix as an archive, so that's a project in the works. I've got some pix and poems from 2015 in Dropbox, But I can see that I'll soon run out of room. Future task. One among many. Trouble is, I hate Google+, and I don't like the photo layout, but storage is now limitless. 



WIKI IS THE NEW OED
Straddling the Continental Divide
ALARMED AND DANGEROUS

Finally found my cellphone

Finally found my cellphone—on the lam since Memorial Day Weekend. Not so sure if I'm glad I found it, or not. It's supposed to buzz and spin on its back like a hissing Hawaiian cockroach, when I call it. Hmmmf. Kafka's dead, I tell you. So much for Metamorphosis. Twigged my neck scooting all over the floor into deep corners, on my stomach, like a very large dustmop. Nursing a headache and a prodigious thirst. Didn't get anything done on my To Do list. Too traumatized. Just forget about any passwords working. Not in the cards. Yesterday the neighbor went on a batshit crazy rampage over rats. Tried to board up OUR crawlspace. I said But what about the 'possom who lives there? I won't mention the black widow nested under the Route 66 thermometer, I was playing toesies with. That's one way to get your kicks. More like kicking and screaming. I seem to have my own personal lowgrade Mercury retrograde techie cloud following me. The gnarliest of which, is that my wireless keyboard has completely lost its bluetoothy mind. Or has exquisite caviar taste in batteries. Stupid brushed al-u-mini-um battery-sucker stalls, stutters, or plain old types unrelated letters. Maddening ghost in the machine. I have to smack it like paddle to get it to work again. (It's holding its own now, small miracle.) No way I'm gonna upgrade the new hard drives in my computers now. Not in this state. I'm all elbows, arseholes, and emotional sinkholes. Make that a black hole. Mateo got my hopes up, told me to freeze my crashed hard drives for an hour, and maybe they'll start. Nope. Dyslexia is having a field day, unchaperoned, with spare change in its pocketses. Think I'll sit in the garden and watch the fennel grow. Maybe set the clock to 5PM. It's 5 o'clock somewhere, right? Maybe on the Yeast Coast. But, yeah, I'm fresh out of milk, which, in this household, is tantamount to a nuclear disaster, and coaxing himself to go get milk requires strategic tactics, I don't have the chops, and I don't dare drive with this techno-cloud hanging over me. The stolen car whose gifts keep on giving: like the new wheel bearings in Willits. I won't mention the quirky ignition tricks. Let's just say, you don't need a key anymore. Parking now requires a S&M steering wheel club and clutch club bondage routine. I can't seem to get anything done, let alone, done right. Spazzykakes crazy. Blame it on NASA's Juno orbiting Jupiter, which, apparently, is a big ball of gas. Juno is searching of an explanation on our humble beginnings, how everything started. 'Splains a lot.

And how was your day, Dearie?

Did You Save?

I can't tell you how many brilliant blogeens and Amazon book reviews I've written, and didn't save them, only to have them evaporate into vaporware. I am not an organized, nor logical writer, I write in the heat of passion, and then go back and plug the holes...layer and substantiate. So I often don't save those first drafts. It is probably a good habit to compose offline and save first. If only my brain worked that way...

Pestocide

Today I made super-pesto with two heads, not cloves, of fresh local garlic. I forgot how hot garlic can get on the Scoville scale. Practically Scotch bonnet hot. Don't think my tongue will recover. Everything tastes of garlic. Even chocolate. Not worried about the garlic, really, it does mellow in a few days, but when pesto is involved, it's hard to wait. Then it's time for pestocide. Meanwhile, I'm hanging out with the dragons and dreaming of pesto pasta, pesto salmon, pesto-garlic bread. I can do a faceplant in a good bowl of fresh pesto. I adore garlic. It doesn't always adore me. My tongue is still committing pestocide.

Father's Day notes

What I don't like about Facebook posts: the plethora of Hallmark memes harping on our collective sentimental heartstrings, asking that we please post a photo of our dearest fathers for Father's Day. The assumptions made. Not all of us had a Leave it to Beaver upbringing. I would gladly post, if I had a father who was actually a father, rather than an absentee stranger who was an ardent supporter of the bar at Mission District's 3300 Club (which burnt down last night), and kept a chilled bottle of Seagram's in the ice box for when the bars were closed. When did it all go so terribly wrong for him? Before I was born. I found these photos after he had died. A life that I knew next to nothing about. No substitute father figure either. But a story of sorts emerged from the photos.

What I dislike are the Hallmark knee-jerk memes telling us how we're supposed to feel. Someone, I don't remember who, said to distrust sentimentality (as it led to fascism.). And, on some level, it's true as it creates an illusion, not a true emotion. Edward Abbey took it a step further with "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."

Most of the fathers I saw growing up were also terribly flawed figures. So, I never sought out a father figure. It was a hard-drinking culture during the late 40s, early 50s. Mine left when I was four. He tried to connect a couple of times when I was 16, but by then, it was too late. His idea of taking his daughter out was to take me to bars. His usual haunts.

My father's mother did kill herself. Maybe that's where my father's wounding began... His father died soon after, of TB. He was a SF cop. They lived in Oakland, from what I can glean via birth certificates, then they moved to SF—by way of Boston, when, I don't know. I need to track that backstory down. A mysogenist uncle raised him. (Read into this, an alcoholic uncle?) It sounded like my father might have been better off as an orphan. He looks happy in the young photos.

What my mother's cousin said that he had a a terrible life, whoever was taking care of him was mean is spot on. I think my mom tried to explain his behavior with that story...meaning the uncle who raised him was a bit of a sadist. What saddens me is seeing the stories repeat themselves, generationally—certainly in my extended family.

The same holds true for my mother as well. I knew her well, but am glad she didn't raise me, it was always traumatic. She was manic-depressive. Her father was an alcoholic. All my aunts and uncles married alcoholics as well. My grannie was my salvation, she was both mother and father.

A friend made an interesting observation: "men have been massively victimized by the culture of machismo." And the "streetcorner virility-cripples club" an apt, and funny observation, that also conveys a lot of pain as well.

I found some family photos as we were cleaning out my grandmother's house. My mom's, and two of my aunt's photos (many in sad disrepair), as well as my grandmother's photos. This story emerged from the photos. I posted a memory from last year, that goes into greater depth, of the era of Big Band.

As to the stories that emerge, I am often the last to know how I feel, but by writing, I learn where I need to go. So far, I only had one pan dowdy making a comment about oversharing... I wanted to scream at him, You asshole! I am not seeking sympathy, I'm merely being a Sagge, saying it blunt, like it is... I guess that made Frank Toews uncomfortable. (I eventually unfriended him because of his constant derisive comments.)

I value everyone's stories, so often we sweep under the rug what must not be hidden. Other's stories, they enrich me, and I feel lucky to be able to share stories. Our perception and understanding of each other shifts. And empathy blossoms. we are all connected, I do feel the sadness, but I no longer dwell on it. It's like a tide that washes through me, not grief, but melancholy.
I also dislike how the world treated those of us who were parentless, sometimes as objects of pity, sometimes with derision, as if our unfortunate parental luck would rub off onto them. A shunning. When I confessed my mother was bipolar, the girls in high school literally excluded me, turned their backs on me, but they had the suburban life. They had no skills to comprehend what I was saying. This I learned much later in life."Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal." —Albert Camus

That history really doesn't run me, it's merely an old observation. But it also opens up dialogue with many people. so that's a good thing. Not catharsis, merely observation. It's really about the memes, how silly they are, and how everyone goes awwww.... What's really interesting to me is the developing dialogue in this thread. 

And believe it or not, I did get a comment that gave me more information about my father...from my mother's cousin, I had no idea she even knew him. Something that would never have happened if I didn't post this Facebook thread. And I learned some backstory of others, things that I never knew about. Since I didn't know my father, it wasn't so much about repressed emotions, as a void... and many of the fathers I saw while growing up were also fairly flawed. So I was never a fan of Father's Day. My grannie was my mother, so that was less of an issue.

In the end, art was my salvation, what I turned to. (Well, my horse, too.) And later, to writing. Poetry saved me. Poetry was my mother and father.

Who was your father poet? My Father Poet is Pablo Neruda. Possibly WS Merwin, or Galway Kinnell as well.

from a Facebook post. See original thread here.

WORLD CUP

Around the world,
men are collectively screaming
at their TVs in unison,
yelling about the weather as well.
But not doing a damned thing about it.

#soccer

6/6/16

On Finns and Celts

A comment from my Viking-Irish Redhead Gene Myth post turned into a long blog post of its own. So I decided to repost it here. I may or may not get around to fashioning it into a story so these are notes.

Arhi Kuittinen Finnsanity said...
Mother of European culture is Finnic culture.
Blue eyed, blonde and red haired ur-culture. Finnish language is the oldest language in Europe.
"Vikings" were originally Kvens, Kveenit, the biggest Finnish Tribe years 400-1100. Popes robber barons made unholy big crusade to the Finland 1100 and ended the oldest culture in Europe which was called by Greeks Hyberborea. Finland was the last who standed against pope and Vatican.
King word is from Finnish word Kuningas.
Queen is from Kven word, "She is Kven".
Apollo cult hwrote about nordic Hyperborea the home of Greek knowledge and religion.
20 the most old written history text about Europe speaks about Hyperborea.
Blue eyed sea people destroyed Egyptian culture in Ramses III times - Ramsesses and Seth I were red haired Finnic Pharaos.
In China oldest mummies are red haired Finnic - N1C1 genetic line.
Silk road was Finnic project by these white skinned Finnic mummies.
Moscow and every big European city were originally Finnic town and commercial place.
In England there was Finnish names and Towns like Caleva.
Druids were continuing and developing original Finnic rituals but the language changed during 10000 years.
In Stone Henge there is both Moon and Sun ritually respected - that is Finnic cult, holistic feminine cult. "Hengettäret".
In Finland you can found 35 OLDER stone henges' ruins, Jätinkirkko, 5500 years old astronomical temples.
Lord Of The Rings -book is based on Finnic tales "Kalevala", Battle of the warlocks, etc.
Now you know something about the root of the European culture.

Maureen Hurley said...

LOL, Arhi Kuittinen Finnsanity, you've certainly conflated many, many cultures—not to mention time-zones, and millennia (Neolithic Stonehenge to Medieval Vikings), to support your theory, with no sustaining facts whatsoever. But thank you for your close reading, and comments.

For what it's worth, Stonehenge predates both the Finns and Celts. It was not built by the Finns (or the Druids, for that matter). Every culture on earth worships, or has worshiped the sun and the moon. And most cultures have created celestial, or astronomical temple calendars. The Finns didn't invent the idea. Whether Stonehenge was built by blue-eyed blonds, is moot.

Lithuanian-American archaeologist, Marija Gimbutas said the pre-Indo-European Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe" were the builders of Stonehenge, etc.

The Greeks were not referring to the Finns when they wrote of Hyberborea. The Hyperboreans were a mythical idyllic people who lived forever, "beyond the North Wind," in a land of eternal spring, where there was no war, or strife. That definition says more about the Greek state of affairs, than it did about Finnic culture.

Whether you read the works of Homer, Pindar, or Herodotus, the Greeks were referring to Hyberborea ,a land north of Thrace, BTW. Roman historian Plutarch connected the Hyperboreans with the Gauls. Hecataeus of Abdera further claimed that Hyperborea was Britain.

Pseudo-Scymnus wrote that the hero Boreas, for whom Hyberborea was named, dwelled at the extremity of Gaulish territory (Britain). Hyperborea was one of several terrae incognito. One of the unknown, unmapped realms.

BTW, during this timeframe there was no such thing as Finland. From the 12th c., onward, Finland was part of Sweden. When Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (1791–1858), proclaimed, "we are no-longer Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns," the idea of Finland was born.

The term "Nordic" does not refer to Finns. As you said, Finns are another culture. Nordic means Norse. As in Norseman. It can refer to five separate countries, from Greenland to Denmark. The word Viking can mean raider or pirate, and it's not a Finnish word. There were viking raiders of many cultures, including the Irish, though the Roman term was Scotii.

The relationship between Finnish and the Indo-European Scandanavian or Celtic languages is scant, as Balto-Finnic is a completely unrelated branch of the Uralic language family. Kuningas is from Proto-Finnic *kuningas, which was borrowed from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz. Finnic, a conservative language, even preserved the Germanic normative singular case.

As to Egypt, there were Celtic mercenaries during the reign of the Ptolemys, who were Greek, not Finnic.

Nor were the Tocharians of the Taklimakan Desert Finnic. Their language, Tocharian A, was Indo-European, not Finnic, it shared many linguistic similarities with Irish, both highly inflected archaic languages.

The specific sheep wool found and the style of plaid twill weaving reflects that of N. Europe, what is now Germany, then a Celtic, or Celto-Germanic region. (We know of this because of placenames, and personal names, as recorded by Tacitus, and others.)

Since you mentioned genetics earlier, by blood, the genetic bond between Finns and Swedes is closer than, say, the Finns and Irish. Haplogroup N1c is found in northeastern Europe, Siberia, and the Far East. It's a descendant of an East Asian macro-haplogroup. Uralic N1c1 is found in Samoyedic (Nganasans, Enets, Nenets and Selkups); and Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic: Baltic Finnic (Finnish, Karelian, Estonia, etc.); and Permic: (Komi, Udmurt). Saamic (Saami), Volgaic (Mari, Mordvin), Ugric, Hungarian, and Ob-Ugric (Khanty, Masi). The Baltic Finnic branch is related to the migration of the N1c1a1a1 (VL29) group.

As to the Tarim Basin mummies, I don't know where you got your information from. Please cite your sources. The paternal lines of male remains belongs to Y-DNA haplogroup R1a1, and a later Tocharian haplogroup genetic signature is R1b-M343.

You're right that Tolkien used Finnic sources. The Silmarillion is partially based on Finnic tales recorded in the "Kalevala" (which is a 19th c. construct from folkloric fragments from Karelian, Estonian, (Baltic), and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. But it was compiled into epic verse by Elias Lönnrot, who also coined the name, "Kalevala."

Like Scottish poet James Macpherson's Ossian Cycle, so influential in the development of the Romantic movement, the Kalevala is not an authentic, replete tale unto itself. It is a quilt, a pastiche. LOTR was also heavily based on Welsh and other cultural (read Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon) mythologies as well.

The Romantic movement emphasized emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, vs. rational, or Classicist ideals: not inclusive of history, anthropology, nor archaeology. It was the birth of the ideal of the Noble Savage, and epic folk hero—which ironically, stemmed from the ancient Greek writings. Full circle.

Merrie Monarchs madly munching on milkweed (photos)

My not-so-local red and orange milkweed, from Meadow in a Can had three fat monarch caterpillars on it. I've waited three years for this moment. Needless to say, I'm jealously  guarding it.



This fat fellow fell off his milkweed perch, then decided he liked my finger, tickle-tasting it all the way. I felt like a little kid again. Who remembers picking up woolybears, just because? I had a hard time convincing him that he couldn't stay on my finger. Most impractical.



I'm having trouble telling the front end from the back end on these guys, so I don't know whether they're coming or going. I think the short antennae are the front end. Dual suspension pipes, antennae at both ends.



Four, no make that five caterpillars are voraciously eating the milkweed down to the ground. They're huge. Soon, now. Found a new one eating a flower. Never been so happy to have caterpillars destroy my plants.

Think I'll call him Al-Hookah. These ones are only eating milkweed. They won't touch the verbena. Don't think you'd find these guys palatable, not with all that noxious milkweed inside them. 

The swallowtail caterpillar in the front yard is even more amazing, he has orange horns that deliver little poopy stinkums if you disturb him. 

That said, I used to play with woolybears, and hairy tent caterpillars, they're a type of procession caterpillar. They'd crawl up my finger, following each other like a little train. Maybe because I didn't disturb their hairs, but I never got stung. They're amazing critters. Not like the fat green bastards that leveled my kale. They had serious camo, blended right in with the stems.

Here's hoping my monarch caterpillars make it to chrysalis phase. I got mad and sprayed the orange aphids on the flowers with Spick & Span laced with alcohol. Then I discovered the little caterpillars. Oops! So I hosed the bush down and hand-squashed the rest of the bleeping aphids. What a putrid orange mess.

The caterpillars are toxic, but only if you eat them. For the most part, you might get a rash. The hairs on wooly caterpillars do spell DANGER! Avoid me. These guys are as smooth-bottomed as Alice in Wonderland's friend.

I've been staked out in the front garden with camera at the ready waiting to see if I can find any swallowtail caterpillars on my fennel bush. Mom swallowtail has been hovering a lot lately. Especially since I trimmed the fennel. I did check for eggs and critters. So far, nada. 

Hard part is to trick the camera into focusing on the right spot. Most are slightly out of focus. I wind up overshooting to compensate and throw at least half of them away.

A friend said that the milkweed I have (Asclepias curassavica) is not as good one for monarchs because it doesn't have as many toxins as native milkweeds. I got it from the California native species variety of Meadow in a Can (was supposed to be a CA species), and had no idea what it was until it flowered last year, I wasn't even sure it was a milkweed until I found the caterpillars on it. I'm wondering why it would've even been included with CA native species.

There are more than 100 different species of milkweed, and they are not all created equally.  

Asclepias curassavica, tropical milkweed, is native to the American tropics.Common names include bloodflower , cotton bush, hierba de la cucaracha, Mexican butterfly weed, redhead, scarlet milkweed, and wild ipecacuanha.

Not much I can do if it's not the right species now, other than pull it up, and it has visitors. So I'm going to leave it for now. Maybe I can find a slip of the right one for next year. If these three make it to adulthood, their colors alone will keep the birds away. The mimic queen butterfly banks on it.

I wanted to make an avant garden, but found the idea was already taken.

A Mexican poet I met in Rotterdam in the 1990s, Homero Aradjis started a foundation to save butterflies. This is an open letter call to action to President Barack Obama signed by the poets of the world, many of whom are my friends.

Shelley was right: Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world..

Resurrected and revised from a Facebook post. Lots of great links on monarchs posted there. added 6/2017.

Yet Another Migraine Day

I need to finish my final kid-book of poetry, but that blasted migraine just won't let go of me...just try reading with a migraine...Advil takes forever to kick in, and does as little as possible. Lazy sloth.

Not to malign sloths. I think they're adorable, especially when they snack on hibiscus flowers, or try and cross a road, clinging to the pavement with those long arms, like that time I got right smashed in Dougie McLean's pub, the Taybank in Dunkeld, and had to crawl down the humped bridge over the River Tay...  

Dunkeld, Dùn Chailleann means Fort of the Caledonii. They exacted a strange revenge. Or was it tribute? As we sat in the beer garden overlooking the River Tay, I also didn't factor in how long the gloaming lasted that far north. What seemed like minutes, was probably hours.

Great Birnam Wood, with its dark secrets, was to my right. People still leave flower offerings in the hole in the trunk of a massive oak reputed to be one of the last original big trees, but that would make it a thousand years old! The three witches told Macbeth he'd be safe until Birnam wood reached his castle at Dunsinane, some 13 miles away. He figured he had it covered. Across from Birnam Wood, was Beatrix Potter's beloved Eastwood House, where she was inspired to write her tales of Peter Rabbit. Odd juxtaposition of history.

Old Tree in Birnam Wood c 1880

THIRD APPARITION
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him. —Macbeth, Act 4, scene 1

The Birnam Oak?

Och aye, I was the chicken crossing the road, and high Dunsinane Hill was upstream. Or was that the bridge? Oh puddleducks! I remember a hump in the middle. I admired the stop sign with its cryptic "Look" painted on the road pointing to Birnam Wood (were the trees on the move? Or was it an Ent crossing?), replete with white zebra zigzags that glowed like fangs— on all fours. Scottish beer seemed to be a tad stronger than American beer. I bet the next morning wasn't a pretty sight.

I'm thinking of sacking it. The Advil, that is, not the sloth, the beer, nor the puddleduck. Today I did manage to hand-calligraph 30-something Poetic Licenses for the kidlets. First names will have to do, I'm afraid. I can't focus long enough to decipher their last names.

OK, I've got a book title. Let's get on with it, shall we? Done with the final fiddly-bits, art work plugged in! Now to hobble over to the school in my stolen car that I can't clean up until the adjuster sees it, and the starter's permanently stuck in the ON position, so you can start it with just about anything. a nickel, a pen, your big toe.

When I got to school, I literally couldn't focus, all that bright light, spectacles were useless. So the teacher had to set up the copy machine for me....I banged out 40 kid-books, it looks lovely. I couldn't read my intro either, so here's hoping it'll pass muster, or my name's Grey Poupon.

WHAT THE CAMERA SEES

What I see,
and what the camera sees
are not necessarily the same thing.
The camera is always post aha!
An afterthought.

6/4/16

Tomales Bay (photo)

Tomales Bay from Inverness Park, New Year's Eve. The last gasps of a dying camera. This was the day my camera went south, the photos came out incredibly dark, and the imager had developed several black reflection spots. I was so discouraged that I didn't edit them. My skills weren't up to the rescue job.

Lightening the image up enough to see the trees turned the hill a ridiculous noisy blue. Cropping the sky close got rid of some of the splotches, and by playing with the levels, I was able to salvage some of the photos. I had to clone the black spots out of the water and sky. 

The worst sunspots eventually healed/faded on the imager, and I did a factory reset on it to partially restore light functions, but it's still shooting way too dark. And depth of field is not what it was. I can't trust it, now it only works on autofocus mode. I got a new camera in Feb. It was a long 2.5 months sans working camera.

Sadly those are also my last photos of the famous beached boat, the Point Reyes, before some asshole photographers burnt it down by using a wool spinner strobe light on it.

Wildfire on 580, photo

Astounding how fast this wildfire on Hwy 580 near Grand Ave., Oakland, exploded and leapt tree high within minutes. Despite last week's rain, the trees and bushes are already bone-dry. I did not have my camera when it erupted, by the time I ran in to grab it, and up to the overpass for a view, the firemen managed to arrive on the scene and put it out in record time. We were all glad it was white smoke. Grassfire vs. industrial fire. I was shocked to see the flames erupt like that. Very nearly an explosion. Combustion at work. And so tall, tall as those trees.

Earless Cat at San Juan Bautista Mission

At the San Juan Bautista mission, after hours, outwaiting traffic, we sneaked in through the back garden gate where I was greeted by a cat who was born without ears, and for our trespass fee, she wanted a belly rub. Pronto! She had a  nice thick coat but was in need of grooming. She doesn't get a lot of pets from what I can gather.

She was a sweetheart. Earless kitty, no scar tissue, the outer fur made a nice fat lip. Perhaps she had cancer of the ears, she is a white cat. But they didn't look malformed. And she twitched her stumps. I never realized how much I depend upon their ears to read their emotions. I didn't want to get chomped for rubbing her belly....but she really wanted a belly rub and a head scratch. So I obliged.

She's not a Scottish fold cat, as their ears are bent over. I don't know if it's a weird mutation or a new breed. She has a little igloo nest with a foam pillow and a blankie, her nest is surrounded by statues of saints... clearly she is loved. Ears, or no ears.