All aboard. People I very much appreciate:

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Oh Bountious Fevered Spring!

It is springtime! We who have reached the age of sentiment --what, 1 day old and above?-- feel that lovely return of a loving Earth. Our kitchen walls --hangings and bouquets-- look like this:
Aggressive Carpenter Bees come out of their wooden tunnels and coat their backs with pollen, to ease our minds about them stinging anybody very much. Darth Vader could've used some yellow pollen on him.
As you may have already surmised, I have no idea what my  subject is here --except the gentle, enigmatic possibilities of springtime. It is a time when movies let up on violence a little and concentrate on scripts that have characters chewing each others clothes off.  Even martial arts films settle down to combats like Feng Shui --oh no? you haven't seen how I practice it-- and the devastating discipline of Fukurettsura (ふくれっ面 =Japanese for pouting, sulking). I am really good at it. Bullies don't want to mess with me.

 So, let's repair to nature, rapidly encroaching around the barn. Here we see a wild rose climbing a plum tree --a view that incriminates our impatience with sweet fruits-- with barbed flowers that protect, judge, and remand us into the custody of our imaginations.
To all, a beauteous, gladsome spring!


Wednesday, April 17, 2019

C'est Moi !


"Chuff! Chuff!"
"Who is this "Chuffing" in the garden?"
"C'est moi!!!"
"Ah, E(a)rnest! Good day."
"Bonjour."
"Two questions: What are you chuffing at?"
"Cette! (cette=that)"

"That cat? But he is a stranger --perhaps related to Roofcat, but with white paws."

"Indeed, and I must bark at him, scold the rules of the property into him. Second question?"

"Why are you speaking French?"

"So he will think he has wandered into a foreign country and must immediately turn back."

"Why must he do that?"

"Because he will upset the balance of scolding on this property and by ampliation, the entire world! Observe:"

"Consider new doves, or any hatchlings. They need protectors. They must learn to scold other creatures, myself included, in every language --but mainly cats! You know Norma's Garden speaks French..."

"Of course, that chalkboard has been there for 35 years. Today it's asking if I read books in English."

"But you see, Geo. I do not read at all. I learn languages in my sleep. In dreams, we meet astral figures from all over the world, and we all understand each other."

"Is this why my life-long friend, Willie, refers to dreams as "night school"?

"Could be, but we can always make friendly contact with species that scold us as much as we scold them, like birds. Lookie:"

"Just pat their lovely heads?"
"Mais oui, mon ami."




Thursday, April 11, 2019

Just Like Romeo and Juliet?



Normaphoto was taken this sunny afternoon by she who has just helped me through a very hard year.  I was getting out of the car after gassing it up and buying a bottle of red wine from nearby Lodi. Now if that isn't romantic I give up. 

Consider the closing lyrics of a 1964 song (written by Adair, Hampton, Hamilton):

   "Gonna buy something I can ride in
     Take my girl dating at the drive-in,
     Our love's gonna be written down in history
     Just like Romeo and Juliet."


Or, consider the whole song by The Reflections:



"Just Like Romeo and Juliet"

Or not. Let's think about this archetypal affair. Shakespeare drew his material loosely from a story of two lovers from the 1300s. In forms varying from historical to poetic --Arthur Brook, Matteo Bandello (1550s?), Luigi Da Porto (1530s), and various other works. At which point I am reminded of the wonderful Katherine Hepburn, who portrayed Eleanor in the film "Lion in Winter"

I firmly believe she ad libbed: "Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!" It was kept in the movie.

Hepburn delivered the potential of violence in formative civilization. Even in Shakespeare's time there were confrontations between adherents of Royalty and those of the Pope --most were hopefully settled in pubs, unlike our Hatfields and McCoys whatever that was about.

As you may have surmised, I'm terrible with history but recall the romance between Romeo and his 13 year-old Juliet left 5 or 6 people dead. This seems a high mortality rate for a date at the drive-in.

In an infinite universe, there are many blessings upon lovers and maybe, like in Shakespeare, as many curses. I don't know. I'm old enough to be my own grandfather and I still don't know.