It may not look like it but there are finally some positive signs ten days after my father’s triple bypass. And, I agree with Jennifer, it could be anyone. Isn’t old age the great anonymizer?

Submitted by PeskyGodson

Bad Astronomy

For Michael.  From a story in today’s Boston Globe on the Carpenter Poets of Jamaica Plain – 18 men and one woman — and their weekly Thursday night gathering at Jame’s Gate Restaurant to share words on their craft over beers.

 

Too Slow for Demolition

by William Thibodeau

 
These days

I still do a bit of the demo work

Though I tell myself I’ve paid my dues

That I prefer construction to destruction –

Reminding myself that most of what I know

About putting things together

I learned by taking them apart.

Truth is …  I’m just too slow to make it pay.

And while I complain, saying:

Who needs all that plaster dust in the face …

The chaos …

The scramble to get it down and get it gone … ?

I still find myself wading into that mess.

Taking my time

I erase the work,

Of those who came before me –

All the detail and sweat

By nameless men –

With their crude tools

And materials I still can’t identify.

Men who’d be dumbstruck to see

The tools I’ll soon be setting up.

I see their spirit in the chalk-white dust

I feel their life force vibrating in each cut nail I pull –

And their hard learned lessons

And subtle chiding through the endless splinters

That come from that gnarly lath.

It all ends up in the truck.

And as if facing one of a pair of opposing mirrors

Looking at once ahead and behind me

Seeing an endless past and future stream –

No trick of light – no mere illusion

I can see them all on down the line

From the Colonial post and beam man

To the very one

Who’ll someday strip

My own work from this job.

Where will I be then … ?

Will I still be … then … ?

Or will I have become another half-heard voice

Murmuring between these rafters and studs?

It’s the movement of time

The skill of past carpenters

And the stories in voices that flow through a steam of generations:

(When heard by the pure of heart)

Voices that thunder like Brahman

Within and without these plastered walls and ceilings

That light my eyes and guide my hands.

No, I don’t make a very good demo man.

I’m just too slow.

I owe them that much.

Landslide

Click Here

The original German title given to the work by Munch was Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature).

In a note in his diary Munch described his inspiration for the image thus:

“I was walking along a path with two friends—the sun was setting—suddenly the sky turned blood red—I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence—there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city—my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”

—Edvard Munch

Diane bought me long underwear, and Christmas morning I pulled off my shirt to try on the top which is made out of something that feels like silk, but fits like a second skin. It’s black and makes me look sleek and sexy. Or so I thought.

Matthew: “Hey dad, you better start benching again. You’ve got saggy tits.”

Matt found this site and with practice reduced his time to type the alphabet to 3.53 seconds. Kate’s best is 3.20, while Diane has registered a respectable 4.99.

Watch those youthful fingers fly.

Lily and Dash

Less familiar than The Scream is Edvard Munch’s Evening On Karl Johan.

Following in Adam’s footprints I made this whimsical movie with help from Diane and Susan. A digital toast to the youth in our lives.

That’s a large file and given how slow my servers are you might want to compromise and opt for the smaller version.