Tuesday, February 28, 2017

The Glad Game
























Dear One,

I try not to say fatuous and stupidly optimistic things to you, I try not to soothe with clichés and false promises, but I know, I know that I have been misunderstood.  I know that I have said the thing that makes you mad.  The thing that dismisses your world, the thing that ignores the obvious.

In the fullness of time, I hope, that maybe it won't matter.  Maybe it will turn out to be nothing.





















Saturday, February 25, 2017

Music from the movies.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dear Tuneful,
 
Your song for today, brought to you by Radio Dodo.  This second tune is another composed and written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington.  I note, sometimes in this world, a discomfort in pathos or anguish in music; the listener finds it 'corny.'  Be warned, then, of corn, because I just adore this song, as do Duane Eddy, Connie Francis, and Frankie Laine.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Packed with peanuts, citations really satisfy!










 via BuzzFeed











Dear Interested,

I am visiting some of the old haunts today.  You will recall I am not so much re-writing my history as rebuilding it into paintings, drawings, and sculptures.  I have a few drops of aluminum slag, some handspun wool and a little oval of wood that, combined with the folded pages of 3/4 of 1989, is going to become a small object that is not a book, and not for reading.  I hope the object will retain all of the love & affection, and the beauty in those pages, but that the indecision, the insecurity, the fear, and the envy will not be visible.

Before the transmutation though, I am reading it.  It's actually quite riveting, but so much of what you want to know isn't given by the author.  What about the next room?  Wait, why is that person referred to as Margarine Brain?  Who is this Paul from the gas station?  Where was this ride in the Model A?  What was Powwow Highway like?  B. brought Finger puppets so you could talk in the movies!- why can't we keep this character around longer?  What were the other three measures in the 'quadruple dose of humiliation?' 

Alas, my memory is only jogged so far, and so much is without citation.  Including this comment:  "The 800 foot Snickers Bar that we have made rock & roll into."  I knew some poets at that time, and some song-writers, too, and I went to a lot of coffee shop readings, so my best guess is it was one of the poets' lines, but the world may never know.  And there's something kind of great about that, too.

We can meditate on what it might mean:  That rock & roll is too sweet?  Too satisfying?  Too commercial?  Too packaged?  Too packed with peanuts?

Unpacking Snickers generally, the candy bar was named after the Mars' family horse.  'Nickers' (or sometimes 'whickers') is something a horse gives in communication.  This, from the Equuisite website:


The Nicker The horse creates a vibrating sound with his mouth closed, from his vocal cords. The strength and tone of the nicker vary greatly, and will tell you what the horse is saying. "Hello, good to see you" - The horse nickers fairly quietly, and moves toward the other horse or person who he is nickering to. "Hi, beautiful!" or "Woo Hoo, you're sexy!" - Usually said by a stallion. This nicker is slightly more intense than the one above, with mating in mind, and accomodated by shaking of the head. "Come closer" - This sound is most usually made by a mare to her foal. It is much softer and quieter than the "hello" nicker. This nicker is usually accomodated by a nudge from the horse's nose (usually towards her flanks to protect her foal from danger). 


I imagine that author Cheryl Sutor (What is Your Horse Saying? June, 1999) meant to use the word 'accompanied' in the places where 'accomodated' is used.

Here also is a recipe for Snickers Salad, because it obviously relates to this little grouping of ideas.  Wikipedia tells me that Snickers Salad is found in Iowa, at church suppers and the like.  I tell you, nothing could be more satisfying than loading your car up with rock & roll, a blank journal, and heading out I-o-way to find this salad in its native habitat!


















Friday, February 17, 2017

wind









Dear Curious Appreciator of Beauty,

You must take a look at these marvelous windmills!  They remind me very much of the Strandbeest.




















Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Radio Dodo












Dear Lovers,

I looked for a nice set of songs of love for you today, and then it seemed that just this one would be enough.





It is enough, but maybe you aren't in as big a hurry as you thought you were.






























Friday, February 10, 2017

My Lucky Number's Here.


















Salutations,

Age is just a number.  So is weight, and visual acuity; heart rate.  Height, pants size and GPA.  Shoe size and bust measurement, cholesterol and bank account balances.  BMI.  Lottery jackpot.  Highway speeds.  IQ.  All these numbers are out to diminish your esteem.  So if anyone hands you that bit of cold comfort, that some measurement or other is 'just a number' you know what to do:  deck them with something very un-numerical, like the back of your hand.

When you have done with that, you will need to really try, and try harder as time marches on, to pretend that these numbers mean nothing to you.  Practice now for a minute or something that might be a number that is more than one.  You see what I mean?  Now we are stuck with noticing that we can only meditate on the meaninglessness of numbers for 30 seconds, and not a full minute or more.

I bring all this up, because there is no way to live comfortably with these numbers, and acknowledging this is at least honest.  I also want to thank you, earnestly, for your four years of attention- the Dodo debuted four years and 388 posts ago, on February 10, 2013. Thank you very much, and please tune in again soon!

















Tuesday, February 7, 2017

C'est louche.











 
(photo credit: Cole E. Harvey)
 
 
 





Dear Customer,

Today I have a kit for you, for thinking on.  The topic is: What a Pair of Folks Like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow Might Mean to Us Now.  Inside this blog post is all you need to contemplate the topic fully:


Something from the FBI.

Film footage.

An immortalizing song.


If you would like to customize your Thinking Kit, you might consider what it means for such a car to be on display in a casino in Nevada.


Encore.










Friday, February 3, 2017

Going On.











Dear Loud Voices and Soft,

Please sing the song for today with me now- it's so beautiful!  Those strings that answer the refrain?  I can't get enough of it.