When it's equinox time in old New Jersey, we'll be a peach of a pear.

Dear Weathered,

What of these phenomena:  Why are crumbling buildings the most beautiful?  Why are people the most appealing when they are clothed against a bit of cold? 

Autumnal thoughts, to be sure, but what is it about a hat for the cold that is more aesthetically pleasing than a hat for the sun?


An example:  Read this picture with me.

Yes, they are traveling, they have bags, and coats, and boots.  They are headed 'up' a dirt road.  They have turned, to look back at us, mid stride.  Are they hurrying?  There is no place that the road seems to end.  Where are they going, then?  The picture is split, diagonally, into a dark and a light half.  The line that the two values meeting makes is intersected by the left figure- the figures are also dressed darkly, and they balance the shadowed mystery of the untamed woods on the left half of the image.  The origami shapes of their coats make two upward pointing arrows.  They have also turned towards each other slightly, in turning to us.  They are surprised?  Impatient for us to catch up?  Annoyed at the interruption?  It's a fairly neutral expression that we can read a lot of different narratives onto.  Are they headed out, or returning to home?

Imagine, now, that they are wearing shorts, tank tops, flip-flops; sunlight pours down on the dusty heat of the road.  It's just not as good, no matter how much we might enjoy ogling bare skin.  Wearing a coat says you are going somewhere, doesn't it?   It says you mean to do business with the caprices of nature, with the bodily dangers of the world.






For the few people left in the auditorium, after all the folks who feel that things just are, and that meaning isn't relevant to their puny lives; yes, isn't it grand to play these kinds of parlor games with the cultural artifacts of humanity?  Why this album cover in particular, you ask?  Because I happen, at this moment in time, to have two of these records, and one is out of the cabinet, awaiting a new home.  Perhaps you would like a copy of this fine album?  Let me know, by tying a message to a dove's leg- I'll send it to you next week by bike carrier, or parachute drop.

Sacred Calf

Dear Little Dogies,


You know, I could report to you every day about the marvelous things I see behind the wheel of my automobile.  A few evenings ago, I passed a particularly lovely slope, just after a sweeping horseshoe curve, that I have often seen remarkable sights in- coyote, vultures, some cattle now and then, a shrub, windwolves. 

On this particular evening it was being traversed at a complementary angle by a cream colored spotted cow with a beautiful, brand new calf by its side- the lowering sunlight shone on it's new face, and oh! what a sight!  So new, and so pale- all soft grey spottings at its head; it was an absolutely sacred cow.  This calf could turn you into all kinds of believers, it was that beautiful. 

I tried to fix it in my mind forever, so I could return to it and that moment over and over, because it was a moment that had no doubts, had no questions, no anticipations, no desire- it was a moment that was just full, just right. 

I have seen so many things like this, and I fight like crazy with my mind and senses to save them, but they often fade a bit, and they gather doubts, and they become lost often permanently.  What a terrible, awful pity this is.















PS  Are you aware that dogie (as one hears in the cowboy guitar songs) means a 'motherless or neglected calf" according to Webster's?

wind

Dear Curious Appreciator of Beauty,

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

Outrageous Beauty.

Dear Dirt Tillers,

To think, it came from a tiny seed, planted months ago!  Watching things grow is a very inexpensive hobby- you don't even need seeds; the birds are always planting things, and unplanned plants come up anywhere there's a sliver of earth.  Don't think of them as weeds, that wouldn't encourage them or your new hobby.

Sommarboken.

Dear Reader,

Here I find myself, again, pleading with you, enjoining you, to read a particular book.  I know, you aren't really looking for a book right now, and you already have three others started, and you really ought to read some of the *classics you've been promising yourself you'll get to, but, if you read only one book that I suggest, let it be The Summer Book.  I know, I know, I said the same thing about The Dud Avocado, and The Animal Family, and The Writing Life, and Lolita, and those wonderful Irish mysteries about the pig, too, but this is a book you will absolutely love- don't wait another minute to read it.

What makes you want to read in the first place?  Do you want a sense of place, or a flavor of the exotic?  A fine turn of phrase?  A compelling narrative?  A world of believability?  A character you can identify with?  A handmade miniature Venice flooded by a storm?  Oh, please read it.  Please read about Berenice's beautiful hair, and loving Moppy the murderous cat harder and harder, and drinking Verner's sherry even though you hate sherry.  Do read it, dear reader, do.

If I cannot convince you, read about the authoress here, and maybe the fascinating details of her life, as delineated by content writing professionals, will compel you to try it.






* Exempli gratia: The Mill on the Floss, The Grapes of Wrath, Catch 22, Anna Karenina, Centerburg Tales.