I know why.

                                          

Free pattern here.

Dear Friends,

I know why you come here, I know how you get here, and I know that you don't mean to do it.

You have a long list of things that need to be done on this here computer-  decisions on accommodations, responses to emails, research on projects, difficult choices on what to buy and where to go, and when looking at a list like that, you think, oh, well, yes all this important stuff to do, of course, but first let's just take a minute to look at....

And then you are here, for a few minutes anyway.  It's like stopping by the bar on the way home for a quick beer, isn't it?

And I want to give you something that will get you through until tomorrow, at least; something nutritive, but of course, your eyes and mind are not really wanting that; they'd be happy with a hypnotizing blur of color and a two second long game in which you 'win.'  Winning is everything in the mind.  And completing.  Attaining, acquiring.  But, in the bar, in the windowless cool of the bar, what do we have?  We have people going nowhere, really.  They are making some jokes, maybe, they are eating some salty snacks, maybe.  They are saying how their day was hard, and there is some sympathy here, that's sure.  The beer alone understands more than most, so it's a soft place, a dim place, an unhurried place.  The air, even, might be quite still.  There might be some noisy recorded music, ubiquitous sports screen, and their might be a party of loud revelers, but it is often easier to be silent when others are yakking, isn't it?  No one will notice if you are quietly communing with your beverage.

I'd like to imagine the Dodo pages are the kind of bar I have been in, in England; not too many people in it, not too much noise, pretty dark, pretty womb like.  Familiar, safe, and hopefully, a little comforting, a little meditative. 

In the relic tv detective shows I watch, the detectives often say that they 'don't think anything,' that thinking is a road to serious error.  They observe, these detectives, they do not think. Let's do that, then, also, in our imaginary blog bar with our imaginary beer.  Until we next meet, g'night, Sam!

PS  Yes, I am leaving that 'in in' in.  (Ring the bell!  Three ins!) I actually love a that that, too.  I put the comma in just to be kind. 

PPS  I checked with the editing department here at the Dodo, and they said that, that that was a presentation at the end of a doohickey and it was to be avoided.  Kind of like that list of things you 'ought' to be doing instead of looking at the internet.

Let's see...3 + 2 +7 is 12? Add another 4?

 

Dear Makers,

On the coffee table is a reading project.  On the side table, a stack of pencils and a journal; more books: a writing project.  The kitchen table has a bag of clay, watercolors, another writing project, a bag of knitting, a box of fixtures from the (in progress) bathroom remodel.  Another surface has a correspondence project on it.  An embroidery project on another.  That's just the main living area.  

In my studio, in the stifling heat, I decided to count up the art/craft projects that are currently in make mode (mood?).  I counted 12, plus 4 sub-projects, so 16, say.  It felt a little overwhelming, or manic, or loony, so like anyone would, I thought what about combining this project with that one?  What if I take these unfinished watercolor collage pieces and glue them onto the unfinished Cat Boxes?  I mean, eleven Cat Boxes is probably more than the market (ha!) will bear.  Although, to be sure, I have mailed away 4 and handed away one, so I am not up to my cardboard ears in them or anything.  Yet.

Well, of course I thought this idea was perfect!  The combinatory is my favorite dance move!  The "cumulative gestures" as Rebecca Solnit writes.  And, here is your song of the day, so we can all dance to it!

the page

 

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I think about why we read; why I read; why one would read.  The other place, yes, of course- the destination that is not here.  The other voices, the new landscapes.  So, for variety, yes, and sometimes to be validated, and a lot of reading I think might be to increase one's status.  This is eggshell territory, I know- I am suggesting, very, very faintly, that we read to show off.  Why faintly?  Because I think on balance, it is a very minor infraction, showing off our intellects to other readers who are busy showing off their intellects.  I mention it only because I think back on my days, and I want to redact some of my show off statements.  I have regrets about throwing my intellectual weight around.  Don't you worry, though, I am still telling myself I am a paragon of well readness, an empress of big words and complex ideas; I am just hoping, at this point, not to sound like one.  

And what of the less public reasons we might read?  The personal, the private reasons; the reasons we don't tell everyone.  The things we maybe don't say on our media platforms.  We read for greater understanding, which might come under validation.  We read to be comforted, I reckon, and that seems okay to me.  I suggest another category, that we might call 'joyful surprise.'  This is that great feeling where a sentence just yells out at you, flashing its poetic lights and sirens all over the page.  This is a reason to read that can make you run and tell someone else about what you read, except you aren't showing off, you are excited and you actually want to share it; like a really great watermelon, or a cake:  "Hey, you have to try this!  It is so delicious!"

Yes, I am taking the usual scenic route: this is the sentence I want to slice into cold, juicy triangles and give to you today:  "She went looking for Brandon's Memorabilia (a place one of her artist friends told her about) to load up on antique paper angels and fold-out valentines and other useless tendernesses."  Eve Babitz, in Sex and Rage, page 196- in case you want to run out to your library and read immediately for yourself, the beautiful, exquisite phrase: useless tendernesses.

When I read it, useless tendernesses, I was stopped cold.  It all came to a swirling, gyrating center: of course!  It is all useless tendernesses!  My whole purpose in life, my time here, the reason for doing anything!  Useless tendernesses; all my paintings will be titled this from now on!  I will get a tattoo:  Useless Tendernesses!  I will get two: on both arms, reading right and left, and mirror-wise, so I can see it too.  The whole book could have been just blah blah blah printed endlessly, if there was a prize like this in the box!*

You might think, here, mistakenly, that I am being sardonic, or glib, or some damned thing, but what I am meaning is, yes, useless tendernesses, but not, not, not that tenderness is useless.  The whole point is tenderness is maybe all we can try for, useless and all, useless especially.

*  Of course it is a wonderful book, and not at all endless blah blah blah.

PS  I had another photo I was choosing between to lede/lead here.  It was a photo of book spines on my shelf- some read, some to be read, including Sex and Rage, but it felt a little show-offy, in a way that the sloppy stitch work on my denim shirt did not.

first blooms

 

recently

 

party food politics

 

Dear Diner,

The Big Thing we all just had; you know, the Pandemic?  I know it threw light on things for you, too, and one thing that got all kinds of spotlit for me was grocery shopping, and eating 'out,' and how enslaving & class structuring those two activities are, how much class politics there are in food.  I know!  So much to talk about!  Check out this thoughtful essay from Vittles, and we will return to these topics again soon.

PS  A history, for dipping into.

prickly unlearning

 

Dear Hillside,

I keep seeing you, at this time of year, separating into patches of color; the flaxen hair, yes, and the gray green of star thistle, the brighter yellow and green of mustard.  It interferes, this patchiness with my enjoyment of your form;  my stupid, sluggish artist eyes want less surface 'the better to see you with, my dear; the better to eat you with, my dear.'  But, that is all such simplistic simplifying; the kind I want to turn down in the great soundboard of my mind.  Trying to see essentials has trained me to annoyance with small details and difference, and what a pity!  

Please let me try again, to see and love the prickly, invasive patches, the discrete surfaces, and the larger form they dwell upon.  I want you, like you are, with all the prickles and snagging bitter sharpnesses.  Why would I learn to love only smooth undifferentiated expanses?