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Monday, October 1, 2012

Solutions! Problems! Tous à bord!

Problems come from all directions but solutions appear on a blackboard in the garden.



Although I've never witnessed this enigmatic calcography in progress, I believe this woman is responsible:


I caught her as she tried to escape on a steamboat. I believe it is she who chalked "Pour nous chante deja plus hautaine aventure. Route nouvelle et feux, portes de  cime en cime..." on the garden slate. And my poor but dogged attempts at mental translation generated the following: "Sing for us already haughty adventure. New course and lights, doors treetop to treetop ..." I try again: "High adventure is already singing for us. New routes, new lights, summits give upon summits..."  I have no confidence in the second translation but I like it. It is a solution. I like solutions but they can be lonely business.

As many have found to their dismay, when we follow our interests into detail, social invitations cease. We are a country of people who like to romp a wide pile of issues, sink our teeth briefly into them and throttle them as puppies worry socks. We do not like to chew one problem long. We like to dash after fresh socks, abandon anything to do with the old. This is not a society that tolerates anyone boring enough to have solved a problem. I know, I solved a problem once and never got invited anywhere again.

One may follow a problem to its solution and that is admirable and confusing. One loses the sense of the two things being separate, which they are. One is better off following the calcographist up a gangplank and learning over dinner the line is from Saint-John Perse's "Chronique" and means we ain't seen nuthin' yet.
Which brings us back to square one:

We chalk it up to experience.

She may be responsible for crop-circles too.

12 comments:

  1. Sounds like she has the answers so just follow her.

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  2. We live in a world of ADD and we can't fight it. Yesterday's problems are forgotten before the sun goes and answers or the truth are not important.

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  3. A slight inclination of the cranium is adequate to a spasmodic movement of the optic towards an equine quadruped devoid of it's visionary capacity.
    I do tend to hanker after the past. Why? I certainly wasn't any happier there.

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  4. From each according to his ability to each according to his need. (Marx)
    Some of us are good with that "pile of issues" and others like me get stuck on the problem. Hopefully, there's still room for both types. :)

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  5. I love the spot-on comments others have made, old friend, but my own right now seem as empty as my knowledge of French. I think the others have responded better than I could hope to at this time. Maybe it's the triple digit heat we're experiencing here today....

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  6. When I read your posts and Don't Unplug Your Hub's comments, I know that I'm completely out of my league.....

    .....but your limitless wit always leaves me smiling.

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  7. Allo! What can I say? Another funny, but oddly thought-provoking post.

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  8. Delores-- I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise.

    Arleen--Sadly true, but I must steadfastly fight distraction until I see something shiny.

    John-- I'm glad you're in the present, for purely selfish reasons.

    Rubye Jack-- Of course there's room, which might be why Marx never became a Marxist.

    Willie-- Poor Sonoma! Protracted heat is good for grape sugar-content though.

    Jon-- You're in a league of your own. We all are. More fun that way!

    Susan-- Thanks! "Oddly" thoughts are all I have to work with.

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  9. I think she might be named Allo Vera.

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  10. Murr-- Yes, similar curative plants but Vera is more pointy.

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  11. Good analogy of the puppy worrying a sock. Maybe it's because we're chewing empty socks.

    I have to go to the PIL's for Thanksgiving dinner this weekend. I should have tried to solve something sooner.

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  12. Thanks CarrieBoo! And a happy Jour de l'Action de grâce with family!

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