What's the Buzz, Tell me what's A-Happening

A man walked into a post office...
talking on his cell phone, as 8 or 10 of us waited patiently in line for the next available postal clerk. He was projecting rather loudly so it was impossible not to eavesdrop in that quiet space: "Okay, I didn't know if I needed to go around back or anything; okay, yep I see it." He hung up and by-passed the line, stepping over to a door that clearly went back into the sorting area of the facility. The door had a hinged section on the upper half that was made to open into a window. It was closed at the moment, blocking all view into the back area, and the man waited in front of it. The rest of us contiued to wait, now somewhat less patiently, not because of this man, but rather because the left-most postal clerk was now discussing a third movie plot with her current customer (an older Katherine Hepburn film this time, Adam's Rib). The opaque door-window opened just then, providing us a welcome distraction. A postal employee handed the man a small wooden frame, maybe 12 by 18 inches, covered with screen and a mailing label. Inside the screen were dozens or hundreds of small dark moving objects that could soon be recognized as honey bees, both by their appearrance and by the buzzing that was clearly audible as the gentleman thanked the postman and walked back past our line and out of the lobby.

The woman behind me remarked, "I didn't even know you could send bees through the mail." Nor did I, but clearly here was proof positive that you can. And apparently it's a good thing that you can, since we seem to be in need of replacement honey bees as I've been hearing and reading about Colony Collapse Disorder on National Public Radio, in the papers, and about people who are combatting it, or just trying out beekeeping as a hobby, like Neil Gaiman.

Seems like a very nice thing to do, but bees and wasps make me jumpy, even nice honey bees -- I suspect they're hive memory still holds a grudge from my kindergarten days when I would dare myself to stomp on bees that were finding pollen in ever taller flowers. Bees on flowers that were 1 or two inches off the ground were quickly sneaker-sole stains, but moving up to flowers 6 or 8 inches above the grass was a bit more of a challenge, you had to push them pretty directly and pretty quickly down into the turf, or they flew out the sides and were not happy honey-makers... so I try to show bees and their kin a bit of deference these days, lest I end up in a scene like those from the later pages of The Berenstain Bears "The Big Honey Hunt".

Wise Oak

Our Red oak seems to have been the smartest plant on our property, waiting until just about now to start to leaf out; it avoided the hard, hard frosts of a week or so ago. Okay, the persimmon tree did, too. But the rest of them were taken in by the three weeks of 70 and 80 degree days that were the end of March and first week of April. The maple trees, the hydrangeas, the fig, the pawpaws and my peas. The peas! There's a disappointment, I thought they were frost tolerant but I shoulda covered 'em up. They do seem to be slowly recovering but I planted some more, filling in where whole plants withered, this weekend. I also put in several tomato plants: Grape, Roma, Big Beef, Sweet 100, Early Girl and Better Boy. I also left a couple that sprouted on their own from last years seeds that had dropped to the soil. It'll be a surprise what grows on those plants -- these self-seeded tomato plants were a bit frost damaged, too, but they look like they'll make it..
And I started some radishes and bibb lettuce. The radishes because they're the quickest thing to get to harvest and the bibb because they didn't have "black seeded simpson", my usual lettuce although it doesn't seem to like growing in Alabama much -- too hot too early I assume.

My Pinhoe Egg Review has nothing to do with Imus

From my fresh review: "the titular egg doesn't seem to play into the subtext"....

Irish Haiku? Irish Haiku!

More heritage (rhyme it with triage and see who you can save...):
Poetry of Ireland from someone I'd assumed of Italian lineage.
And pictures, too,
-- Chip

Sharing the wisdom of our heritage

Travellers to the Old Country and other Brethren,

I caught this post on ex-Brit author Neil Gaiman’s blog this morning. I’d never read the Kipling poem before, The Land, but it is excellent and at the same time reminds me of the pavilion by the same name in Disney’s Epcot Center (there’s a personal story there that involves crème brouillet in a heroic role; perhaps another time...).

(Didn't read Neil's post, or The Land? Go now, but don't be long.)
The poem’s style, a ballad of quatrain couplets with an aura of peasantry is what I was going for (decades ago) in a poem of my own (that some of you have seen, but maybe not for a while) . It doesn't have the historical accuracy, but it's here: The Tale of Dunberton.

Mailbag from Snakes...

I was well-heartened to receive several positive replies to my recent "Snakes in a Blog Post" message. A couple folks were put in mind of other verses from their own encounters, from Lynard Skynard's "That Smell" to Astrud Gilberto's "It Might As Well Be Spring"!

Others, in New York state, bemoaned that it isn't exactly spring there yet; sure enough, I checked and Yahoo! says the high for the Peak'n'Peek ski resort today was 13. Uh, brrrrrrrr.

And apparently Brad Pitt's character sings along to Keep on Loving You "in the midst of a hellish car chase in the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He just could not help himself." (Thanks, Linda.)

I haven’t seen that movie yet. I’m still PO’ed at Brad Pitt for breaking up with Jennifer Anniston. I like her, I knew a girl in high school with similar mannerisms, if not looks. But I’ll watch for this scene on the DVD. Curiously, I see Vince Vaughn is in this film, (he is/was Anniston’s boyfriend after the Pitt break up, in case you don’t follow these things; not that I do…)

I'm sure Spring, will, um, spring again for you all up north, but it's no wonder I live in Alabama these days. Of course, we have other challenges in these parts (this is where I need a photo of a bunch of pickups in the parking lot with 3-year-old “W” stickers on the back (although here around Huntsville you're not unlikely to see a car with a Jesus Fish on the back pulled up to a red light beside one with a Darwin Fish.) Yep, spring’ll be back for ya'all, but these folks are a fixture here….

Just warming up,
-- Chip

Snakes in a Blog Post

I know my hearing is actually getting worse as I age a bit, but there have been a number of songs (hang on: for a quirky effect, not that it has anything to do with anything, but try reading this first part with a valley-girl affectation; let’s try again:)

I know my hearing, is, actually – getting worse, but there have been, like, a number of saw-ungs that have been onthe rad-ee-o, and, like, for the first time ever, I’ve been able to understand the lyrics ?! (Okay enough of that.) This morning’s example of a great, previously missed snippet of lyric, like many, is about the angst of love:

“You played dead
But you never bled
Instead you lay still in the grass
All coiled up and hissin’”
That’s early 80’s classic rock – that’s what they’re calling it now – how can post-punk anything have become classic? What’s such a pointed metaphor doing in burner-rock? Anyway; that music all sounds so rich to me now; today’s tunes all sounds so, to steal from American Idol judge Randy Jackson’s most overused critique, “plucky”. There’s no anthemism, no backbeat, no continuum of reverb. Of course we would have called it banal (“baa” –naal”, two rhyming syllables, the first a sheep’s sound; (reading my crap sometimes, it’s like Americanism (from “The American President”, with Michael Douglas (parentheses nested deep enough for you yet?)) it’s advanced citizenship, you gotta want it bad)), and wouldn’t have been caught dead enjoying REO Speedwagon, or their midwestern compatriot band, Styx, or others of their ilk (e.g. Journey). But now, even the album title strikes me as great: “Hi Infidelity”.

I’ll drop the rest of the words down here, it gets a bit trite, but when delivered with that nasally-toned staccato voice (“foreverrrrr”) and all the contractions (hissin’, lovin’, wanna…) it’s a lot of fun, if not deep: missin-listen-hissin, now that’s a terrific triplet!

Keep On Loving You

You should've seen by the look in my eyes, baby
There was somethin missin
You should've known by the tone of my voice, maybe
But you didn't listen
You played dead
But you never bled
Instead you lay still in the grass
All coiled up and hissin
And though I know all about those men
Still I don't remember
Cause it was us baby, way before then
And we're still together
And I meant, every word I said
When I said that I love you I meant
That I love you forever

And I'm gonna keep on lovin you
Cause it's the only thing I wanna do
I don't wanna sleep
I just wanna keep on lovin you

(solo)

And I meant every word I said
When I said that I love you I meant
That I love you forever

(chorus)


Words & Music Kevin Cronin
©1980 Fate Music, all rights reserved


And I love the parentheticals in the lyric text (from the official website), just in case you didn’t know, but wished you did, exactly where the solo happens. It must be Spring. I’m feelin’ Spring, because it’s Monday morning and I’m pretty upbeat. There was still frost on my windshield this morning, but there’s daffodils and dandelions and bloomin’ forsythias. (Another cliché, for me from B.C., the comic strip: “There may be frost on the roof, baby, but…”)

Speaking of Spring… a number of things are conspiring to keep us close to home this Spring Break; close to our house in Alabama, that is, I still tend to stall at calling it home; I continue to feel like an ex-patriot here, yet there are local treasures… e.g. “first Sunday” at Garden Cove, the Seventh Day Adventist-run health food store that offers 10% off their already low prices every first Sunday of the month (Saturday is their Sabbath). Great produce. But I’ve drifted. I had thought to go see a Wonder, like the Grand Canyon and visit missed relatives in Arizona. But we are busy. I’m ditching the “rat race” metaphor for one I find more insidious: a “hamster wheel” – maybe I’ll get to say more about that another time, though. There’s soccer (reffing and playing). There’s airfare that is not as low as hoped. There’s college indecisions and college finances looming. Another rant that I’ll (mostly) forego for now: saving much money for college means that the FAFSA people will have one word for you when you look for financial aid: “fuggetaboutit”. Negative motivations everywhere you turn. (Visions of an Alabama native son –er, daughter, Helen Keller, violently twisting this way, then that to get away from what she cannot see.)

But hey, I’m feelin’ Spring: let the sun hit zenith, step outside, walk onto the grass and inhale!
When I said that I love you I meant
That I love you forever,
-- Chip

Creativity to the People

“I said out loud: 'There it is, that's the moment we're reversing now. It was a mistake to believe that creativity was something you could delegate, no matter how much better they were than you, because it's an important human activity, like breathing, eating, walking, laughing, loving.'”

Dave Winer's insight after quoting a lady on "Empire of the Air"; she said there came a point soon after she started listening to radio when she realized she could stop practicing the piano, because she would now get her entertainment from better musicians.

For myself, it’s my New Year resolution to produce more creative output. Of course that was for 2006. But I renewed it. Can you do that, like a library book, without getting fined?

Lapsing into a Review

Another book review

A favor

Because we owe it to the requester:
Penn Jillette

Just Lunch

Lunch was a little too good today at work. It was "just leftovers", things we'd prepared at home over the long MLK weekend (Martin Luther King -- I caught part of an interview with him on one of the talk shows from back in 1969 or so, Dick Cavett I think, amazing man; smart man, two (white) interviewers tried to get him riled up but he gave thoughtful, complete-yet-concise answers that were difficult to argue with to tough questions like why it wasn't an affront to the parents of black soldiers when his movement protested the Viet Nam War; no real mystery why some wrong-thinking folks considered him dangerous). Back to lunch: leftovers, but pretty good ones: brocolli with cheese sauce, about 4 oz. of NY strip steak (this thicker portion had only been grilled to about medium rare so I was able to microwave it until hot and yet it didn't cook beyond medium well -- usually you have a choice of having leftover steak either cold, or well done), a can of Fresca, and for dessert, creme brouillet. Very tasty, but it does make me feel a little guilty in the world of "Babel" (awarded best film drama at The Golden Globes last night).

Two Book Reviews, One Real, One Audio

Imagined Worlds


Anansi Boys

New AudioBook Review: Lazy B

Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest***

Merry Christmas and all that...

I've posted this year's Xmas Note and photos!

2006 Xmas Note

Baby Bunny in my Garden

Last night this young rabbit was inside my fence and under my tomato plants.

Apparently he chewed a hole in the fence; it's only plastic.

A Green Spider...

on my tomato plants. I refused to photograph the 3 large hornworms I pulled off today, then I Sevin dusted. Unfortunately the spider probably got caught in the dust, too. But the horn worms are miserable blighters, I refused to take their picture.

Vincent Wood

Added some scanned image links to signed trading cards and a print. The artist, Vincent Wood, signed our cards at a dinner and later sent us the print: The Charles R. Patton Jr. and Family Page. His twin brother custom painted us a willow tree some years earlier, also shown on this page.

Tree Damage

A couple days our neighborhood had some wind damage during a thunderstorm. We lost the big half of the only tree that wasn't planted by us or the builder, a persimmon that was 6 or 7 feet tall when we moved in. It was probably 16 or 17 feet before the break:

More from Caralyn on the Other Art Page

I added three things from Caralyn to the Other Art page:
Houses under the Moon
Comic Girl
Do You Want To Dance?

Neverwhere Reviewed

I posted a short review of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.