Sunday, January 18, 2009
Mayday! Mayday!
…The Thrift Shop in Townshend – seen above and below, the one near Mary Myers and The Stuffed Bun, not the used clothing store uptown, no, we mean The Thrift Shop – 802/365-7234, open M-W-F-S from 10 – 4 and Sunday from 10 – 1 (wheeew, long windy sentence, where was I), oh yeah, The Thrift Shop, whose hard-working volunteers are unpaid, The Thrift Shop where used clothing is clean and quality, where prices are as low as you can get anywhere – just try us, we’ll undersell ANYbody – is in dire need of your help!
…where else can you outfit your entire family for 20 bucks - we don’t care if you got ten kids...bring ‘em in, no in-laws, but outlaws are okay…well, we need your help or we’re going to go belly up…
…where else can you outfit your entire family for 20 bucks - we don’t care if you got ten kids...bring ‘em in, no in-laws, but outlaws are okay…well, we need your help or we’re going to go belly up…
…we’re practically broke, busted and disgusted…here’s how you can help: donate money or ANYthing quality, and/or buy something.
…ALL proceeds go to those in need, all of it after expenses like rent, lights heat…the rest goes to anyone needs some help. Now we need some help and would appreciate your donations of money or goods, any amount, a dollar, ten dollars whatever you can afford. Clothes, furniture, whatever – no junk, trash or soiled goods need apply…
…there are lots of people who don’t have a very big piece of the pie. I don’t know if you’ll be rewarded in heaven for your efforts but you’ll feel good about it here on earth. Thank you for thinking of others…
…ALL proceeds go to those in need, all of it after expenses like rent, lights heat…the rest goes to anyone needs some help. Now we need some help and would appreciate your donations of money or goods, any amount, a dollar, ten dollars whatever you can afford. Clothes, furniture, whatever – no junk, trash or soiled goods need apply…
…there are lots of people who don’t have a very big piece of the pie. I don’t know if you’ll be rewarded in heaven for your efforts but you’ll feel good about it here on earth. Thank you for thinking of others…
Friday, January 16, 2009
Looking for a secluded oceanside retreat...
...in case you should happen to have one available for next to nothing in which I might enjoy the recuperative salt air and warm breezes of the Carribean for a while or two (prior to my Netherlands campaign I should take respite in a hammock for a fortnight perhaps, pina colada at the ready, reggae music coming at me on all sides) or even I might stoop to a visit in yon Florida Keys midst mangoes and pelicans, why not?
Wherever is warmth is my heart and soul. I've had 66 winters in New England more or less and the novelty has worn off. I don't care if I ever see snow or ice again, which I may regret saying someday as I languish in the tropics with nothing to do but paint and read and write and eat and drink and smoke and...
But meanwhile...
We're in the midst of what is known as a silver thaw where all the
branches and roadways and everything is encased in gleaming shimmering ice
- o yes it's very beautiful - beneath an ice-blue sky peppered with huge white clouds driven by an occluded front which translates down here to a bone-chilling ten degrees as I tramp across the tundra arms loaded with ice-caked wood...wood so green it needs a blowtorch to get it going.
Who needs it!?
The hell with this mountain man/cabin in the woods bullshit, I want a hammock in the jungle about 50 easy yards from the azure sea, breeze wafting my sarong to and fro...buds of resin-soaked ganje at my beck and call, buckets of fruit, bottles of Red Stripe, the sun bursting forth in a shower of glorious color in the morning and folding at night into ink-blue darkness - all the while I've barely stirred save to turn the page, light a splif, take a swallow, maybe even kiss your pretty plum-colored lips if you should show up. (Please be a girl...)
Don't stay though; I do my fantasizing alone.
Not to worry I tell myself; nobody stays very long. `You're better on paper than you are in real life' is a regular refrain in my memory, and still true for which I offer no apology.
Wherever is warmth is my heart and soul. I've had 66 winters in New England more or less and the novelty has worn off. I don't care if I ever see snow or ice again, which I may regret saying someday as I languish in the tropics with nothing to do but paint and read and write and eat and drink and smoke and...
But meanwhile...
We're in the midst of what is known as a silver thaw where all the
branches and roadways and everything is encased in gleaming shimmering ice
- o yes it's very beautiful - beneath an ice-blue sky peppered with huge white clouds driven by an occluded front which translates down here to a bone-chilling ten degrees as I tramp across the tundra arms loaded with ice-caked wood...wood so green it needs a blowtorch to get it going.
Who needs it!?
The hell with this mountain man/cabin in the woods bullshit, I want a hammock in the jungle about 50 easy yards from the azure sea, breeze wafting my sarong to and fro...buds of resin-soaked ganje at my beck and call, buckets of fruit, bottles of Red Stripe, the sun bursting forth in a shower of glorious color in the morning and folding at night into ink-blue darkness - all the while I've barely stirred save to turn the page, light a splif, take a swallow, maybe even kiss your pretty plum-colored lips if you should show up. (Please be a girl...)
Don't stay though; I do my fantasizing alone.
Not to worry I tell myself; nobody stays very long. `You're better on paper than you are in real life' is a regular refrain in my memory, and still true for which I offer no apology.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
THE FIRST THING I’M GONNA DO…
“…is stand up, but that’s as far ahead as I’ve planned…enuff of this sophomoric sophistry…”, I mutter aloud to no one and, upright now even if listing to port, head for the fridge to decap a stout, returning from which arduous chore (psychologically speaking the love-hate relationship is always there) I wonder did I mean that literally…sophomoric sophistry…hmmm…again Merriam-Webster to the rescue, I leave it to Noah’s wisdom and hope he delivers big time, because in the realm of the pure idea where NFTD is from - sophomoric reigns, Dude! It is like the foundation on which this sophistry is built!
…leave it to the lexicographers, just look at the synonyms for sophomoric: bombastic, foolish, immature, inexperienced, infantile, inflated, naive, pretentious, reckless, brash, young - except for young every word is me incarnate…and a sophist? How’s this, sophistry: specious, inconsistent, ah, be still my heart – NFTD is about as deft a hand of casuistry as you’re ever gonna see…we’re kindred spirits.
I STARTED LIFE WITH MONEY…
…for awhile I had some, then life began in earnest and the free ride was over; for the next forty years I had no money, then I hit a lottery, couple of them actually and, as happens in a life which isn’t fair, I had lots of fun and pretty much did what I wanted for a couple years then when it was gone reverted to type and continued life broke but not broken; about poor I know, and wealth too, the yin and yang of Galbraithian/Keynesian economic theory.
…everything you do is predicated on ‘can I afford it’…I have no stats to back me up but it seems to me that many, I will say even most, relationships and families which break up are grounded in the one common denominator of not enough money. Occasionally there’s a cuckolding interloper but usually it’s cash flow…
…look here Dude – I had $36,000 cash in my hand and I am here to tell you that people who go on and on about money can’t buy happiness don’t know what they’re talking about…for the duration of that 36Gs I was deliriously happy and, sad to say too because I abused some of it, sometimes just delirious…well, that is one of the deleterious side effects of having too much…but I was much younger and more foolish then than I am now; I’d like to get another windfall, this time you could color me frugal. Parenthetically, I could never understand why to husband means to save, to parse it out, whereas husbands are not noted for thrift…and speaking of thrift:
…It’s high time to hie thee to…
The Thrift Shop
Route 30, Townshend VT
Next to Mary Myers & Stuffed Bun
Open 10-4 M-W-F-S
Sun 10-1
You can outfit your entire family in clean, quality clothing for 20 bucks!
(Try THAT at Wal-Mart)
“…is stand up, but that’s as far ahead as I’ve planned…enuff of this sophomoric sophistry…”, I mutter aloud to no one and, upright now even if listing to port, head for the fridge to decap a stout, returning from which arduous chore (psychologically speaking the love-hate relationship is always there) I wonder did I mean that literally…sophomoric sophistry…hmmm…again Merriam-Webster to the rescue, I leave it to Noah’s wisdom and hope he delivers big time, because in the realm of the pure idea where NFTD is from - sophomoric reigns, Dude! It is like the foundation on which this sophistry is built!
…leave it to the lexicographers, just look at the synonyms for sophomoric: bombastic, foolish, immature, inexperienced, infantile, inflated, naive, pretentious, reckless, brash, young - except for young every word is me incarnate…and a sophist? How’s this, sophistry: specious, inconsistent, ah, be still my heart – NFTD is about as deft a hand of casuistry as you’re ever gonna see…we’re kindred spirits.
I STARTED LIFE WITH MONEY…
…for awhile I had some, then life began in earnest and the free ride was over; for the next forty years I had no money, then I hit a lottery, couple of them actually and, as happens in a life which isn’t fair, I had lots of fun and pretty much did what I wanted for a couple years then when it was gone reverted to type and continued life broke but not broken; about poor I know, and wealth too, the yin and yang of Galbraithian/Keynesian economic theory.
…everything you do is predicated on ‘can I afford it’…I have no stats to back me up but it seems to me that many, I will say even most, relationships and families which break up are grounded in the one common denominator of not enough money. Occasionally there’s a cuckolding interloper but usually it’s cash flow…
…look here Dude – I had $36,000 cash in my hand and I am here to tell you that people who go on and on about money can’t buy happiness don’t know what they’re talking about…for the duration of that 36Gs I was deliriously happy and, sad to say too because I abused some of it, sometimes just delirious…well, that is one of the deleterious side effects of having too much…but I was much younger and more foolish then than I am now; I’d like to get another windfall, this time you could color me frugal. Parenthetically, I could never understand why to husband means to save, to parse it out, whereas husbands are not noted for thrift…and speaking of thrift:
…It’s high time to hie thee to…
The Thrift Shop
Route 30, Townshend VT
Next to Mary Myers & Stuffed Bun
Open 10-4 M-W-F-S
Sun 10-1
You can outfit your entire family in clean, quality clothing for 20 bucks!
(Try THAT at Wal-Mart)
Thursday, January 1, 2009
So right away I bury myself in Rousseau...
Jean Jacques Rousseau and his `Confessions' about which I've heard so much over the years but never until now had any truck with...why am I compared to him I ask myself and before long I see why with a quote like this: "My passions are extremely strong, and while I am under their sway nothing can equal my impetuosity. I am amenable to no restraint, respect, fear or decorum. I am cynical, bold, violent, and daring. No shame can stop me, no fear of danger alarm me. Except for the one object in my mind, the universe for me is non-existent. But all this lasts only a moment; and the next moment plunges me into complete annihilation. Catch me in a calm mood, I am all indolence and timidity. Everything alarms me, everything discourages me. I am frightened by a buzzing fly. I am too lazy to speak a word or make a gesture. So much am I a slave to fears and shames that I long to vanish from mortal sight. If action is necessary I do not know what to do; if I must speak I do not know what to say; if anyone looks at me I drop my eyes. When roused by passion, I can sometimes find the right words to say, but in ordinary conversation I can find none, none at all. I find conversation unbearable owing to the very fact that I am obliged to speak..."
I burst out laughing…a man after my own heart I must say but I'll have to read on further to see if his life's confessions and mine are compatible beyond these rather dubious distinctions...
I burst out laughing…a man after my own heart I must say but I'll have to read on further to see if his life's confessions and mine are compatible beyond these rather dubious distinctions...
Business and pleasure may not mix...
…but pleasure and pleasure do...does…so in concelebrating this not-so-ballyhooed non-event, the 24th birthday of “…NOTES…” I salute us, me and you Dear Reader, by burning evidence with a bone which is the herbal equivalent of an all-day sucker and a jeroboam of Moet which, alas Dear Reader, because you are not here, I had to drink it myself lest it go bad; you would have liked it…I think I did, I don’t quite remember, about half-way down the label things got a little lightheaded which is what champagne is all about so I let it take over and drifted off into the ether, into the distant universe, lost in space, adrift in the Sea of Tranquility and never left the chair. That is a sum and substance synopsis of that inauspicious moment.
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