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Month: November 2008

Skinny Woman Blues

Kalaloch, September 2008

I’ve been overdoing it lately, blues-wise. RL Burnside, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James..Oh, the humanity!

Now, I don’t want no, no skinny woman
I want the woman, she got-a plenty of, Lord!
I don’t want no skinny woman, I want some
A woman wit’ a-plenty of meat
Now, we can roll all night long, an this woman
Won’t have to stop ‘n eat

-Sonny Boy Williamson

Or another favorite:

Hey Miss Maybelle let me be your hoppin’ frog
drink muddy water sleep in a hollow log
Hey Miss Maybelle let me be your hoppin’frog
I got 10 little puppies and 12 shaggy hounds it takes them 22 dogs to run Miss Maybelle down

– RL Burnside

A cautious invincibility

Hurricane Ridge, November 2008

I think it will be a good year for storms. Just around town I’ve already seen encouraging festerings and festoonings on high, voluminous arrays dwarfing the highest surrounding peaks.

I love inclement weather, working in it, shooting it in. On some level it reminds me of being a kid bundling up and caroming through mudpuddles, snow banks or just piles of leaves. A down-stuffed buffer zone, cautiously impervious and wanting to test it. Even all grown up, what’s the worst that could happen? A tub and a whiskey after?

Tiny industry

Lake Crescent,  November 2008

Another from the same day, further along the trail. The trail is the Spruce Railroad trail, which connects Fairholm and the Discovery Trail along the northwest shore of Lake Crescent. All the abundant spruce was meant to be harvested for airplanes during WWI, but the railroad wasn’t completed until 1919, hindering it’s usefulness somewhat, and not a single log was ever run for the war effort.

Hard to imagine the scope of the project now. The ‘Milwaukee Road’ grade is now little more than a well worn foot path around such dramatic but very, very small tableaux; tiny coves, stunted trees and corkscrew trails, giving the illusion of a 1/4 scale enterprise, perhaps attended by Lilliputians and Rube Goldberg contraptions that run on steam and wishful thinking.

‘Your face is crap without shadows..’

Lake Crescent, November 2008

Only some short forays to the Lake so far this fall, for the spectacle of the big leaf maples, the mosses and the damp perpetual twilight of the Lake’s boundaries. I have a special hat for this trail; the rain under the canopy like a chronic condition, dripping well past sun and blue skies, grandfathered in somehow.

There is a density here like a warble in the manner of things, a buckle in the casualness of the moment, something that is difficult to portray except through failures; harsh light, flare and overbearing shadows. It somehow reminds me of misremembered conversations deep in drink late and early hours, fringed in numb poetry and practical impossibility, with people I once thought I would always know.

Useless gestures under a canopy of blue

Ediz Hook, October 2008

I feel my brain is still lagging behind my intent, so tired I be, but I did want to keep posting. Not sure if this is wise… I think I must be loosing some basic strings, because I’m feeling dumber than normal- I wonder if all the work and exercise is ratcheting up the testosterone or something and it’s blocking crucial beta waves. It’s fun to be manly, but it’s a hollow thrill, and the crash is predictable.
What’s happened?