The Mighty KC has struck out. (Somewhere the sun is shining, somewhere hearts are gay…Cincifookinnati?!)
A Moment of Silence...
Losing a big one in overtime requires a certain amount of time for grieving; there, that’ll suffice. Onward. Damn, though, ya know?
And Now, The Opposite Of Silence…
Not so quiet, please…
The night before: I was tired, on my way to bed when I heard this sound. Austin City Limits was on and they always have a great show, so I sat down again. The guy singing and playing the keyboard was surrounded by unusual stuff; a wired fiddle, a big bongo, a full set of drums, a midsize accordion, a Dobro, a bass guitar and an attractive young lady whose only instrument was vocal, a bell-like soprano offset to the male voices who came in on the refrain. I wasn’t tired anymore. This was energizing, high on the power curve. Were I to dance I’d be up and whirling, knocking over lamps and alarming the dogs, making the wife laugh uncontrollably. She’s a dancer. I was not issued that sim card. But in my head I have rhythm, and when I hear danger/roadhouse music like this I am alert. Also this: some of the band looked like they had tunneled out of John Knox Village. (For you distant readers, that’s an elder home in KC) But their white hair belied their kickass. I was being treated to Terry Allen and The Panhandle Mystery Band.
The Bandleader Makes Stuff…
I’ll let the video make the point. But Allen’s creativity is without bounds; he’s not only a storied and prolific singer/songwriter, a revered outlaw musician up there with Kris Kristofferson, he’s an artist and sculptor to boot, and a very accomplished one. Here’s a link to some of his bronzes. These are not the work of a wanna-be. This is modern art museum quality work. What an impressive guy he is. And his band is full of achievers too. The more you find out about this handpicked outfit the more awe it inspires. When you’re cruising his sculpture, look for “Corporate Head.” That and this Chevy are my favorites right now.
A couple of books...
The cover designer made Stay upside down. I get it on some level…
I read Nick Flynn’s “Another BS Night in Suck City” some time after it had been published; I guess the title put me off and I figured it was just one more weirdly titled book to bring in the young’ns. But that would be dismissive. It’s an odd book but an impressive one. The book chronicles Nick Flynn’s father, Jonathan Flynn, bank robber, bon vivant and self-described ‘world’s greatest author,’ and Nick’s mother, her boyfriends, and Nick. And all their swirling, buzzing demons.
The words. Sometimes he puts words together like a syntax magician. At other times he inserts a play that could have been left out. Mostly, the word combinations etch, so be careful; your brain could be a litho stone and his words will transfer to it. You may hear and see afterimages. Still, I recommend this book.
The movie, Being Flynn, was made due to this book—I haven’t seen it, and I don’t encourage anyone to spend money or time on what a Rotten Tomatoes moviegoer described as Robert DeNiro screaming for a couple hours. I prefer to see Nick’s father as a Jason Robards Jr. type with delusions. In a torn Brooks Brothers seersucker suit. He was homeless for years. Had DeNiro asked “What’s my motivation?” perhaps someone would have said, “Staying alive after sub-zero nights sleeping in a garbage bag and having your toes amputated, Bob.”
Oh well. The next book, same author, is Stay. It’s full of fragments. Many of them took my breath away. In a word, it’s a sonofabitch. I’d read and re-read some passages and said whew. But I would recommend reading Another BS Night first. Stay is not a book you just sit down and read; you pick it up like a sullen cat that might scratch, and read some pages, some thoughts, look at some collages. (Flynn makes collages on first days in new towns from things found on the street. They are sometimes powerful.)
Then there’s this book, which explains, in part, how Flynn writes. About how writers you enjoy or who transfix you write. This is another book you read for the fragments, the sentences about sentences. Tom McGuane, a big favorite of mine, endorses it. So I sent Amazon some money.
And that’s all I got.
Have a great February. It’s the first part of a year in which the Chiefs come out on that field of dreams again and make everybody, especially the opposition, nervous.
XO, ol’ G.
Last View From Wise Acres blog of 2021.
Monetization, Midwest Art and More…
I subscribe to some blogs, most of which promise me more if I cough up some dough. More of what? The descriptions are vague but tantalizing. Garrison Keillor just says the best stuff is reserved for paying subscribers but his free blog has enough chuckles and outright laughs to last me awhile. Austin Kleon gives me a list of 100 quotes, but stops at fifty, saying I can get the rest of them if I pay up. Shoot, fifty quotes are quite enough for me, thanks. Both bloggers are bestselling authors and I’ve read them, so I’ve tossed a few coins into their open guitar cases as they perform on the busy sidewalks of life. Pay for their blogs? I think not.
Roxane Gay’s blog is The Audacity and the gloves are always off when you open it. She’s a bestseller too, and well worth reading. My favorite book of hers is “Aiyiti” which, I think, is Haiti said correctly. She is savage and blunt, a wonderful writer and, yep, pay up and get the good stuff, although her free blog is plenty for me.
And this blog you’re reading, The View from Wise Acres, is free. I’ve been told it’s worth every cent you pay for it. Should I become a bestseller, watch out. And if you’re reading this (free) blog a glance to your upper left and a click will connect you to my books and my sculpture which (gulp) are for sale.
Onward.
Two books I’m reading alternately couldn’t be more dissimilar: Jeff Tweedy’s Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc. and Mr. Dickens and His Carol, by Samantha Silva. The first, I stumbled upon cruising Amazon and chose it without hesitation; I find his humor and irony engaging. Fans of Wilco’s singer, songwriter and leader will enjoy this disarming book. So will those who discover his music through these well-written pages. Double-win.
Freddie suggested the Dickens book, and I’m finding it not only readable and fun, but Ms. Silva’s atmospherics and descriptions are magical and re-create the old streets of London, so I’m walking (striding) right along with “old Boz,” experiencing the sting of his latest book flop and his scorn for what his publishers want: the book that will change the face of Christmas forever. (And they want it in a matter of days! No pressure there.) And on top of it all, a possible love rectangle with the emphasis on tangle.
Ben Bauer, artist. Click HERE for a bunch of great winter rural art.
Midwest winter coming. The mild and deceptive KC December weather ended today and I bundled against stiff north winds on my walks. Here’s some nice Midwest Winter Art offered by a NYC gallery, Ben Bauer artist. (link) Then there’s Keith Jacobshagen who I recall from KC Art Institute days. Beautiful work then, beautiful work now. (link) I also remember our painting instructor, who reminded me of Boris Karloff, intoning “Yellow Ochre. More yellow ochre,” sepulchrally, as he drifted from easel to easel, hands clasped behind his back. He was a fine artist and a good guy—he just had this very imitable way saying that phrase. We’d say it under our breath as we entered class. Yeello Ooochre.
Communication Art Magazine’s Typography issue, January-February, 2022
And speaking of quotes, as I did in the first paragraph, here’s a doozy; Georgia O’Keeffe and being terrified. (Georgia O’Keeffe? Really?) I saw this one in the pages of CA Magazine’s Typography Annual 12. Great issue, and some pretty good quotes to show off the newest typefaces. This one got my attention. I resemble that remark.
Here are 100 New Year’s Quotes, beginning with Oprah’s “Cheers to a New Year and another chance to get it right.” The first fifty are free, and, hey, so are the second fifty. (Some really good ones in this bunch). And let’s hope it’s not the Same Old Lang Syne healthwise. xo GW
(Shorpy photo) 30’s era cowboy, thankful for his flivver and gas to fill it. Pie Town Motel manager at far right, thankful for spree-killers and bank robbers traipsing the west, and paying good money for rooms. (Note: a gas tank just like that above, stands in the living room of Wise Acres Bunkhouse, bright red, same top, everything. Maybe it comes from Pie Town…)
Pie Town, NM
Pie Town, Wise Acres, and Indigenous Peoples Day
I imagine you’re full up with November and December holidata, though some of it is kind of fun; the really REALLY bad schmaltz-TV romantic shows, and the attempts to “update” Christmas song classics. I heard (on a sports talk show, no less) while driving, a host ranting on just that.
“Leave ‘em alone! You don’t put lettuce on a PB&J. It’s a classic!” That made me smile. But “Buy More, Save More!” doesn’t, even though it’s just a comment on The American Way, which, all in all, is a pretty good way, or struggling to be. Back to the classics; wonder how Mel, Bing, Frank, Nat et al would feel about their music being compared to the most pedestrian of sandwiches. Well, it’s the thought, and it took a sportscaster to vent it, to matriculate it down the field, as they were fond of saying for awhile. (Here’s a link to some classics, led off by Nat King Cole…)
The Wise Acres lighting ceremony went off (on?) without a hitch and we gave thanks for perfectly prepared salmon, sweet potatoes and various fantastic pies, none of them from Pie Town, but here’s a link. Salmon was more like what the pilgrims had, that and cod and eel. No turkeys, maybe some grouse.
The postlady is showing up later each day, a sign of her increased burden of boxes and Christmas cards and “Buy More, Save More” sales literature. The supply chain deficit seems remote; is it just another conspiracy? There may be an XBox shortage, but any gamers under 14 should be outside anyway. No hope for the rest of them.
The postlady reminds me of all the various holidays when the mail doesn’t come and the banks close. Fed stuff. Like Columbus Day. Which they have now designated Indigenous Peoples Day. Columbus “discovered” San Salvador, not America, but he savaged a lot of natives along the way. What he had to do with America is doubtful. The El Nino, the Pinto and the Santa Fe, right? Anyway, Indigenous Peoples Day came out of Berkeley in 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival... somewhere, and was a sop to the forenamed groups to make up for the 400+ treaties that the feds made. And broke. Every single one. Let that sink in. I’m guessing it doesn’t come close, this naming of the day.
Picture of F’s grandmother, sits in the dining room amid some heirlooms…
Reparations would force a lot of moves. A huge reverse Mayflower deal, millions of us being returned somewhere. I’d be hustled off to Belgium. My wife would suddenly have lots of land, her grandmother, Pearl Bigfeather Osburn, having been 100% Cherokee. Pearl lived to 100, and her mother before her, a Sixkiller, was also longlived. Freddie loved visiting her grandmother as a child, remembers sitting on the porch and watching her quilt. I asked, the grandparents being a farm family, if they put her and her siblings to work. “Oh, no. She waited on us hand and foot, taught us to quilt and crochet, all kinds of things. It was great fun visiting there.” She had one of the colorful quilts for years but lost it in a move.
And here’s a picture I love; sunflowers and Freddie in Maui maybe three years ago, a trip she took with her good friend Gail. Not the usual beach/sunset/palm trees shot, this, but F likes exploring, checking out the windward side and roads less taken. Makes me smile. I hope you like it too. Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate it, good times to all, and a Happier, Healthier New Year! Imagine. Sunflowers in Maui. Maybe we’ll plant ‘em at Wise Acres. (Or hemp, not hay.)
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Bedtime Reading...
…And Living To Be 100+.
A stack of recent reads. You might like ‘em…
Bedtime reading is one of the things recommended by a wellness list of things to do to live to be 100. More about that and a link to it in the next paragraph; and more about the books (and links) in paragraphs four to nine.
I just read an article about becoming a centenarian; 100 things to do to live to be 100. I’m happy to report that I do a bunch of them. So does Freddie*. Like not riding a motorcycle (anymore). Like not smoking (anymore). Not BASE jumping (never did). Well, they aren’t mostly negative, most are about doing things, not NOT doing things, like...well here’s the link. On that subject, I read somewhere that once you get into your 80’s you’re good for awhile; you’ve evaded most of the stuff that’ll kakk you right away, so it might be good to read the list and go for a hundred or more, whatever your age.
Can’t read it? Neither can I…have an Atomic Fireball.
One of the things TO do is to keep a journal. I do. Here’s a picture of it and an Atomic Fireball, which didn’t make the list; I use Atomic Fireballs sporadically. They’re hot, cinnamony, and sort of like the old Jawbreakers, hard as a rock, so you have to wait until they dematerialize. You don’t want to chew on them. Another thing I do that’s good is walk. Over 10,000 steps a day, about five miles, usually more, but always at least 10k. (An Atomic Fireball lasts about 1200 steps.) And I keep a record of it in the journal. I can hardly read my writing (or printing) so it's not for posterity. If I can’t read it nobody else can either. Who would want to. But I do it and it’s a good thing, apparently.
The book stack. I’ve been reading (and writing) a lot of nonfiction. Poetry, too. Starting at the top, Zadie Smith’s Intimations, essays about the early days of the New York-emptying pandemic and related thoughts. I’ll be reading more of her; this is my first. Great writer. Garrison Keillor’s compilation of Good Poems, American Places is a masterful collection and I wrung it dry, reading the bios at the end, each poem more than once. It’s about 500 pages. I read this slowly, about two poems a day. Thank you, GK, for putting this together. Country Dark by Chris Offut was one of two fiction books I’ve read lately and it was well-named, set in rural Kentucky in the years following the Korean War. Cormac McCarthy meets Raymond Carver. What a writer.
Just Before Dark, by Jim Harrison, one of my favorite writers, was a revealing book of essays about true Zen-masters, poetry, coming of several ages, various appetites and unimaginable feasts to satisfy them. Mile Marker Zero, The Moveable Feast Of Key West by William McKeen, is, as Tom Wolfe puts it: “A tall but telescopic-sight-true tale of Hunter Thompson, Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and a large cavorting cast running around with sand in their shoes at ‘ground zero’ for lust and greed and most of the other deadly sins’: Key West.” Entertaining.
Walker Percy’s The Message in the Bottle, was, for me, a slooowww read, as his gargantuan intellect and deep philosophical meanderings were not at all like his fiction which I enjoyed immensely, all of it. I will have to read it again to see if I “get it.” Maybe you will. I did “get” the Helen Keller treatise and found it view-changing. No pun.
Steve Erickson’s fiction novel Shadowbahn is vintage Erickson slipstream—if you read Rubicon Beach, Zeroville or Arc d’X you know the context. I first read his Days Between Stations and I was hooked. Beautiful.
I wanted to read some of Jo Ann Beard’s nonfiction and chose The Boys of My Youth. I will read more of Beard. Her voice is, at once, comic, sad, wise and hugely entertaining.
And, at stack’s bottom, National Bestseller, Up In The Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell, an oft-times New Yorker contributor whose book makes the case for journalism-as-literature. A friend gave me this book years ago and it has remained in one dusty, towering stack or another for all that time until it finally caught my eye, and I’m glad it did. So that’s the stack. Good reading.
*Now for Freddie’s asterisk. Just wanted to say, she is beautiful. And will be at 100 plus. Nobody’s surprised at my age. But Freddie, she is flat gorgeous. I look at her when she’s cooking something or getting ready to head out the door, and think, man, what a chick. Sorry feministas, but there it is. That old guy thing. Hey, stay well. (I just got back from Louisburg and a J&J booster shot—I’d like to see 100+)