things on a table — knuckles dobrovic

Posted on May 23, 2014 by greg

Back in January I wrote about my reluctant conversion to Instagram. I was one of those people who mocked and jeered the app. I was one of those folks who used a camera to shoot photos — not a telephone with integrated camera-like technology. I considered Instagram to be a platform for cheesy photographers to display cheesy snapshots of their feet, or drunken snapshots of their drunken friends at parties, or sappy snapshots of sappy sunsets.

And hey, there really is a LOT of that stuff to be found in Instagram. But when I started to noodle around looking at photos on Instagram, I discovered there was also a surprising amount of really good work. It was because of that work (along with the purchase of a phone with a moderately decent camera) that I decided to dip my toe into the Instagram stream.

22 July, 2013

So in July of last year, I created an Instagram account. I was shy about it. I didn’t want something that could be publicly associated with me, so I used an alias for my account: Knuckles Dobrovic. I conceived a really simple (and let’s face it, really contrived) idea for some Instagram-ish photos: I would put something on a glass patio table, and I’d photograph it.

It was intended to be a lighthearted experiment. I was just going to noodle around and see what the cellphone camera could do, and get some idea of how Instagram worked. I wanted it to be something I could delete without hesitation or regret if/when it became too embarrassing or too dull.

August 3, 2013

What I’d actually done, of course, was unconsciously sabotage the experiment. I didn’t want to like Instagram. And in the earliest photographs, that really showed. I just put any damned thing near to hand on the table — some ears of corn, a baseball, a beer bottle, a random collection of old eyeglasses — and photographed it without much care or concern about the final image.

Sure, there was some minimal attempt at composition, but it remained basically a fairly lackadaisical exercise.

September 19, 2013

At some point, however, the experiment took hold of me. I found myself being more thoughtful and deliberate about the photos. I began to look around to find things that would be more photogenic on the table. I began to compose the shots more carefully. When I was out and about, I began collecting things specifically for the table. I talked about the project to friends and family. I actually began to care about the photographs.

November 4, 2013

Things on a Table became an actual project. Almost every day, I put something on the table and photographed it. I began to vary the time of day I shot the photo so I could use different light and catch different shadows. I photographed things on the table in all sorts of weather. I’d shift the table to different spots on the deck to get different patterns of line, light and shadow.

I even considered taking the table to different locations — out into the country, onto the sidewalk, into the city. That idea got tossed fairly quickly, mainly because it would have been a massive pain in the ass. But the important thing was that I’d begun to set specific parameters for limits on the project.

November 22, 2013

Winter came and snow covered the table, and I still put a thing on it and took a photo. I even began to create ice-things for the table. I’d find a thing, put it in a container, fill the container with water, set it outside and photograph the frozen result. I’d stuff things inside balloons, then fill the balloons with water and let them freeze. I’d shoot the photo, then leave the frozen things on the table and let the snow cover them. Over time the heat of the sun or the force of the wind would gradually reveal them, and I’d photograph them again.

January 9, 2014

To my surprise, friends and family members began gathering assorted bits and bobs of stuff they thought might appeal to me or look good on the table. An odd rock, plastic bubble wrap from a toner cartridge, an interesting weed, a hubcap found along the road. Eventually, people I know only through social media began to mail me things to put on the table.

I began to re-use some of the things — a piece of driftwood, a half a brick, some dead flower blossoms, an ornamental magnifier — partly because I like their shape or texture, and partly because the idea of continuity of things appealed to me.

March 15, 2014

Like any project, this one occasionally feels like a chore. I’ve considered abandoning it two or three times. But each time I’d spot something that might be interesting on the table, and I’d find myself out on the deck trying to find an angle that worked.

At this point I figure I’ll finish out the year. I’ll continue to photograph things on the table into July. Then I’ll probably come up with some other sort of project, simply because I’ve grown fond of the name Knuckles Dobrovic.

April 29, 2014

I realize that’s a stupid reason. I don’t care. I’ve no objection to doing things for stupid reasons. I mean, I’m the guy who came up with the name Knuckles Dobrovic just to photograph random things on a table. Stupid is where I live.

May 23, 2014

impermanence

Posted on March 25, 2014 by greg

So there’s me, on the first day of Spring, noodling around the Riverwalk just as if I didn’t have anything else to do. And man, it felt like Spring. Bright and sunny, almost warm, fresh breeze. Bicyclists were out, and young mothers with strollers, and over the lunch hour all the employed people abandoned their offices and escaped the skywalk and hit the sidewalks with all the energy of spawning salmon.

So yeah, even though I had work that needed to be done, I was out walking. And here’s a true thing: you cannot walk along the Riverwalk without stopping occasionally and peeking over the balustrade to watch the river flow by. While I was doing that, I saw a milky white film of some sort, splashed out on the river. Who knows what it was — soap scum maybe, or chemical waste, or something organic roiled up by the snow melt rushing over the dam upstream. Whatever it was, my immediate reaction was disappointment and a mild distaste at the sight of it.

But then it sort of drew me in. It was almost hypnotic, the way the motion of the river shaped and reshaped the stuff, the way the color shifted with each tiny wave.

I must have watched this happen for a quarter of an hour. I can’t say it was pretty, but there was something compelling about it — something unexpectedly absorbing. The river, I knew, would shrug this stuff off, whatever it was. Even in the short time I was there, I could see the stuff gradually being disrupted by the current — broken up, disorganized, reorganized, and all while being forced inevitably downstream. There wasn’t a single moment when the stuff held a coherent shape.

I realized the only constant in this event was me. I was standing still. I wasn’t moving. I was the only fixed point in an otherwise unfixed occurrence.

So I left.

nobody pays much attention

Posted on November 9, 2013 by greg

In the United States, November 11 is called Veterans Day. In other parts of the world it’s called Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. The latter is appropriate since it celebrates the anniversary of the day hostilities formally ceased in the First World War. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

Ninety-five years. And what have we learned? Aside from more efficient and more impersonal methods for killing, not a hell of a lot. We’re still fighting wars, we’re still fighting them for the same stupid reasons, and at the behest of the same powerful business and political interests. Young men and women are still killing and dying in foreign lands. And nobody is paying much attention.

U.S. Army Pfc. Michael W. Daley Jr. (right) and Pfc. Travis B. Woolwine, both Soldiers with 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), scan their surroundings while on patrol in Paktya Province, Afghanistan / Photo by Sgt. Justin Moeller

U.S. Army Pfc. Michael W. Daley Jr. (right) and Pfc. Travis B. Woolwine, with 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), scan their surroundings while on patrol in Paktya Province, Afghanistan / Photo by Sgt. Justin Moeller

As of this date, 402 troops have died fighting in Afghanistan this year. Most of those (310) were US troops, but soldiers and marines from the UK, from Poland, from Georgia (the former Soviet state), from Romania and Slovakia and Italy and Germany and Australia have also been killed.

In the last few days 42-year-old Warrant Officer Ian Fisher of Barking, Essex in England was killed in an IED attack in Lashkar Gah in Helmund Province. Army Sergeant 1st Class Forrest Robertson, 35 years old, of Westmoreland, Kansas was killed by small arms fire in Pul-i-Alam in Kogar Province — also known as Bab al-Jihad, the Gates of Jihad, because of the savage fighting between Soviet troops and mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war. Army Specialist Angel Lopez, 27, from Parma, Ohio was killed by small arms fire in a Green on Blue attack in Zabul Province. Twelve deaths in the first nine days this month. The youngest was 19 years old. Nineteen years old — Jeremiah Collins of Milwaukee wasn’t even old enough to buy a beer. Dead, 7000 miles from home, in service to his country.

US Army Spc. Kevin Jackson, 4th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, pulls security during a reconnaissance mission in a village south of Forward Operating Base Fenty, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, Sept. 8, 2013 / Photo by Sgt. Margaret Taylor

All of those troop who’ve died have families and friends, they have fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, they have wives and husbands and children. Outside of their families and friends, hardly anybody will notice those deaths. Because nobody, really, is paying much attention.

I mentioned this earlier in the year. At that point there were about 70,000 US troops serving in Afghanistan; today there are about 60,000. Combat operations by US troops are slated to end in late 2014 — but even then the US will likely leave between 15,000 and 30,000 troops in the region. And be sure of this: some of them will be fighting and dying.

Cpl. Zachery K. Arrowood with 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, provides security during a patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, Oct. 12, 2013. The patrol was conducted to disrupt enemy activity in the area / Photo by Lance Cpl. Zachery B. Martin

There’s still only one media outlet that routinely pays attention to the troops serving in combat zones — the liberal muckraking magazine Mother Jones. They still publish their brilliant photo series We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day. I don’t know how many people bother to look at the photos. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

Why? Because the war is primarily being fought by strangers — by people we don’t know and don’t care about. Historically, wars have always been fought primarily by the poor and working class. Officers, of course, usually come from the middle classes, but most of the killing and dying has been done by the underclasses. The demands of twelve years of war — the longest war in US history — have exacerbated that problem. The gap between the people who initiate the wars and the people who actually fight them is greater now than ever before. And the mass in the middle — which includes most of the American public — are estranged from both groups. And so when a soldier gets killed in some dusty desert, very few people are affected, and nobody pays much attention.

Marines and Georgian Soldiers with 33rd Georgian Battalion exit an MV-22 Osprey aircraft during an operation in Helmand province, Afghanistan, Sept. 23, 2013. Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 165 provided the service members with aerial support during the operation / Photo by Cpl. Ashley E. Santy

On Monday — Veterans Day — I’ll meet with my brother and my cousin, both of whom served in the Marines, and we’ll attend a breakfast given by a local grocery store chain (Hy-Vee), just as we’ve done for the last few years. There’ll be a lot of old veterans there — a handful from World War II, a few from Korea, some from Viet Nam and Iraq and Afghanistan. The food will be mediocre — but better than what we’d have gotten in the mess hall back when we were in uniform.

Nobody will be there just for the food. We’ll all be there because we’re veterans, and on this one day some folks will pay attention. Most of the veterans sitting down to breakfast will have scars, physical or emotional. Some will be missing limbs. And every one of us will, at some point, remember somebody who was wounded or killed.

Marines with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, patrol near Forward Operating Base Musa Qala, Helmand province, Afghanistan, Oct. 19, 2013. The Marines of 3/7 patrolled to reduce enemy activity in the area / Photo by Lance Cpl. James Mast

As we enter and leave the breakfast venue, the volunteers from the grocery store will thank us for our service. And they’ll be sincere, because they’re working people. Some of them will be veterans themselves, or have family members who have served or are still serving. During the day a lot of politicians will also give public thanks for our service. Some of them will be sincere and some of them will mean it. Damned few of them, though, will actually understand what service to the country means. It means sacrifice. When most politicians speak about sacrifice, they’re talking about other people.

On Tuesday the 12th, the world will forget us for another year. Troops in Afghanistan will continue to go out on patrol. Some of them will get wounded. Some will get killed. And nobody will pay much attention.

Editorial note: The photos above were shot by members of the military, and published in Mother Jones magazine.

happy birthday molly

Posted on August 31, 2013 by greg

Today is the birthday of the late, great Molly Ivins. ‘Late’ on account of she’s been dead since 2007, which is far too long. ‘Great’ on account of she was the smartest and wittiest and sharpest political writer since the invention of political writering.

Laughing Molly Ivins

I don’t recall the first time I came across Molly’s writing, but I’d been a fan for quite a long time before I ever saw her speak. I only saw her speak the one time. I was a grad student at the American University back in 1990 or 91, and I heard she was going to be interviewed at some local event. So I put on a sport coat and a tie and took myself to some grand Washingtonian venue and joined the other couple hundred folks who’d come to hear Molly speak.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t the tall (in her cowboy boots she had to be over six feet tall), awkward-looking woman with the unfortunate haircut (it looked like she’d cut her own hair…with pinking sheers) who walked onto the stage. Then she sort of dropped herself into a wing-backed chair and grinned — and there was so much joy and delight and orneriness in that grin that I completely fell in love with her. She grinned like a pirate.

I couldn’t tell you what she talked about. I just don’t recall. What I do recall is that she was charming and clever and thoughtful and uproariously funny. I don’t know if she was exaggerating her drawl or if she was moderating it, but there was no doubt Molly Ivins was from Texas. And laugh…lawdy, that woman could bring a laugh. Nothing demure about it; she laughed all the way down to her boots.

Young Molly Ivins

It was the breast cancer that killed her. One more reason to hate cancer and donate money to kick its ass.

“Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.”

That was Molly Ivins. She’d bring you the Truth in all its ugliness. And she’d make you laugh about it. She didn’t make light of it, she didn’t want you to ignore the ugliness; she wanted you to feel the sting of the ugly. But she didn’t want you to forget to laugh. She didn’t want you to forget that having fun isn’t just how we tolerate the ugly. It’s how we defeat it.

A few of my favorite lines from our Molly:

[W]e’ve bounced back from this same mistake before—the mistake of thinking that we can make ourselves safer if we just make ourselves less free. We get so scared of something—scared of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens—that we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing freedom. Never works. It’s still true: the only thing to fear is fear itself.

I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.

A populist is someone who is for the people and against the powerful, and so a populist is generally the same as a liberal—except we tend to have more fun.

In Texas, we do not hold high expectations for the [Governor’s] office; it’s mostly been occupied by crooks, dorks and the comatose.

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.

I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.

So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.

Aw lawdy, that was a woman. They say the good die young. I don’t know about that. What I do know is this: the great die too soon.

The late, great, beautiful Molly Ivins

Happy birthday, Molly Ivins. We miss you.

coffee, guns, & sensitivity

Posted on August 12, 2013 by greg

“Starbucks? You get coffee at Starbucks?” I get asked that question periodically. Sometimes by people who dislike the cost or taste of Starbucks coffee, sometimes by folks who dislike the way Starbucks treats its employees, sometimes by people who dislike the music at Starbucks, or the customers who frequent Starbucks, or the name Starbucks. And lately I’ve been asked that question by folks who are appalled by the refusal of Starbucks to ban firearms from their coffee shops.

That’s right, Starbucks allows its overly-caffeinated customers to be armed. Not every Starbucks; only those Starbucks in states that have ‘open carry’ laws**. According to Zack Hutson, a spokesman for Starbucks,

“We comply with local laws and statutes in the communities we serve, abiding by laws that permit open carry. Where these laws don’t exist, openly carrying weapons in our stores is prohibited.”

So if your state or city allows folks to openly tote a firearm, then Starbucks says you’re welcome to take that firearm into their coffee shops. They don’t advertise this, but there it is.

Gun safety advocates think this stance is massively stupid. Gun rights advocates are basically divided into three camps. There are those who think anybody who’d enter a Starbucks is a communist who’s only about five minutes away from gay-marrying a sheep. There are those who dislike Starbucks because they’re only ‘gun-neutral’ instead of ‘pro-gun.’ And there are those folks who think Starbucks deserves a round of applause for their bold hey-we-didn’t-write-the-law stance on firearms.

The latter group organized Starbucks Appreciation Day. Which was last Friday, in case you didn’t notice (and you probably didn’t). Starbucks Appreciation Day was sort of like Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, only that was for hating gay folks and this was for loving firearms. Given that there’s some serious overlap among the gun-loving and gay-hating subsets, it’s not surprising that Starbucks Appreciation Day received some blowback (hah, blowback…see what I did there?) from the triple-shot testosterone black coffee crowd.

The CEO OF fAGbucks told the rest of us that if we dont support ass munchers getting married, we should not buy fagbucks, so I now go to the Coffee Bean

I’m aware of [Starbucks] recent backing of homosexual “partnerships”. My point was that they have not changed their open-carry policy and that behavior deserves acknowledgement. As long as the homosexuals don’t “invade my space”, I’ll let them suffer the consequences of their lifestyle.

Yeah. Fagbucks. One argument for getting coffee at Starbucks is you’re not likely to meet the guy who refers to it as ‘Fagbucks.’

In any event, I was pleased by Starbucks Appreciation Day. Not because I support the notion of openly carrying firearms — I definitely do not. I like Starbucks Appreciation Day because 1) it brings attention to Starbucks’ policy (which, in my opinion, really needs to change), and 2) I’m a very firm believer in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” So it makes me perversely proud to see people with whom I actively disagree making a public stand and exercising their constitutional rights. I’m more willing to support people who openly stand up for causes I dislike than I am to support a corporation that quietly refuses to adopt a policy that’s in the best interest of its customers.

Here’s the thing about freedom of speech and freedom of assembly: if it’s to have any meaning at all, it can’t be limited for reasons of sensitivity. These rights cannot be restricted simply because they might upset somebody.

It would, for example, be incredibly insensitive and deliberately offensive for gun rights advocates to hold Starbucks Appreciation Day at a Starbucks in Newtown, where more than two dozen children and teachers were murdered eight months ago. Only a group of world class jackasses would schedule a pro-gun rally in Newtown.

And so, of course, that’s exactly what the Connecticut Citizens Defense League decided to do. Not surprisingly, gun safety advocates objected. Equally unsurprising, pro-gun folks mocked them.

Interesting comments by the “victim class” from Newtown.

They need to suck it up. We don’t all stop driving our cars when there is a big car crash. We don’t ban flights over a town where a plane crashed. to heck with all that. If we want to be sensitive of the kids fears then let them stay home from public school for a year. My rights are not negotiable on someone elses fears.

As if we should be ashamed at insisting on rights in such an insensitive way. Screw that! Sensitivity is why they band open carry and concealed carry in most states ages ago. It took us DECADES of tragedies before people started insisting on overturning those laws. We will NOT crawl back in our holes because someone whines and cries.

I guess civil rights stop after a killing.

Seriously, these guys were actually offended–offended–by the notion that they should be sensitive to the pain and suffering of parents whose six-year-old children were recently murdered. In fact, they seemed to see this as some sort of challenge. “You don’t want me to bring a gun to your Starbucks in Newtown? Fuck you in the neck, you whining babies. I’m going to drive an extra ninety minutes just so I can bring a gun to Newtown. In fact, fuck you so much I’m bringing TWO guns now. Sensitivity is for pussies. Suck my puny white dick.”

The whole Starbucks Appreciation Day idea put the corporation in an uncomfortable public relations situation (which, let’s face it, is exactly where they belong for having such a passive policy). They had to choose between 1) maintaining their policies and showing themselves to be heartless corporate fuckwads or 2) being decent members of the community. They tried to choose both.

Starbucks issued a statement on the decision of pro-gun advocates to hold Appreciation Day:

These events are not endorsed by Starbucks. That said, our stores are gathering places for the communities we serve and we respect the diverse views of our customers. We recognize that there is significant and genuine passion surrounding open carry weapon laws. Our long-standing approach to this topic remains unchanged.

Oh Starbucks, you had me at ‘that said.’ Except, of course, this is NOT an issue of ‘diverse views’ as the Starbucks statement suggests. It’s an issue of health and safety. While it’s true that occasionally somebody carrying a concealed weapon will prevent a crime from taking place, it’s a lot more likely somebody carrying a weapon will fire it in anger (and I don’t know about you, but every time I’m behind somebody who orders a “Venti iced skinny hazelnut macchiato, sugar-free syrup, extra shot, light ice, no whip” I want to kneecap them). It’s even more likely somebody will discharge their weapon accidentally (and if we’re lucky, they’ll only wound themselves).

In the end, Starbucks is a corporation and the only thing corporations really care about is maximizing profit. Starbucks isn’t about coffee; it’s about selling coffee. At least whoever owns the Newtown Starbucks franchise had the decency to close the coffee shop five hours early, so there was no Starbucks Loves Guns event there.

Oh, and if Starbucks is so wicked, why do I buy their coffee on occasion? Simple. There’s a Starbucks about seventy paces from the entrance to the main branch of the public library. I can stop there, buy a big white chocolate mocha, take it into the library with me, and sip on it for an hour or two while I work.

I’m apparently willing to periodically sacrifice my principles in the interest of convenience.

** There are only seven states and the District of Columbia (in red) that prohibit the open carrying of handguns (California permits citizens to openly carry rifles and shotguns in rural areas). Fourteen states (in green) require some form of permit to openly carry a handgun in public. Seventeen states (in gold) allow open carry of handguns, though there are general restrictions (for example, it may be prohibited to openly carry a handgun into a church or an establishment that serves alcohol). The remaining twelve states allow full open carry (though individual businesses and establishments can forbid weapons on the premises).

gazania in a monkey’s head

Posted on August 1, 2013 by greg

So, back in May, right? I’m noodling around in the Sally (yes, I know the Salvation Army opposes marriage equality, but they still provide services to poor folks and since I live nearby, I like to stop in now and then and slip them a few bucks; I’m vocal about my support for marriage quality, but I’m not going to ace out poor folks just to get back at the Sally, and anyway same-sex marriage has been legal in Iowa for a few years now, so let’s not get sidetracked from oh lawdy it’s too late). And what do I see? A ceramic boxlike thing with a monkey’s head on it.

And I snatch it off the shelf. I know immediately, right then, I’m buying it.

“You’re buying a tissue holder with a chimpanzee’s head on it?” my friend asked. And I realize I’m not holding a boxlike thing with a monkey’s head; I’m holding a tissue holder with a chimpanzee’s head. Easy mistake to make.

“It’s not a tissue holder,” I tell her. “It’s a planter. Or it’s going to be.” She gives me that patient no-point-in-discussing-it look, which I get so often. At the checkout counter, a short woman wearing a sweater with a teddy bear holding some balloons on the front says, “Oh, I’ve always liked that tissue holder. That’ll be four dollars.”

Four bucks for a planter with a chimpanzee’s head. That’s a bargain. In fact, there are four chimpanzee faces on it. See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, and a fourth face which I believe is Contemplating a Little Evil.

So since I now own a planter, I need a plant. We head off to the nearest garden center, where I wander around aimlessly, looking at a staggering array of plants, all of which are labeled with detailed information about the amount of water required, the amount of light necessary, the proper pH level, appropriate moon cycle for planting, the expected growth size of the plant, the size and color and dimension of its blooms, the Latin name of the plant, whether or not its edible and how best to prepare it, the etymology of its common name, which chapter the plant appears in Professor Snape’s Potions textbook.

I see a plant called a Gazania. It has odd, primitive-looking leaves and a name that sounds like a fictional nation in a Marx Brothers movie. I snatch it off the shelf. I know immediately, right then, I’m buying it.

It turns out you can’t actually plant a Gazania (or anything else, for that matter, in a tissue holder on account of a tissue holder doesn’t have a bottom. You need a bottom in a planter, else the plant just falls out. I figured that out my ownself. So you have to plant the Gazania in a small planter, then somehow weasel the leaves through the tissue opening. If you take your time and are careful, it can be done. It can also be done if you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing and just try shit until it works.

My friend’s friend said, “It’ll die. It needs a bigger pot. It’s got to have muttermutter sunlight. It’s supposed to be planted muttermutter.” “It’s a Gazania,” I said. “In a monkey’s head. If it lasts a week, I’ll be happy. Anything beyond that is gravy. And besides, I piss on the nation of your birth.”

I cannot abide a naysayer.

Anyway, I was happy. Stupidly and completely happy. I had a Gazania in a monkey’s head. How many folks can say that? If it died, so what? Four bucks for the monkey’s head, four bucks for the Gazania — hell, you pay more than that for a movie (I saw The Heat with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock last week — it’s hilarious, y’all should go see it; it won’t bring you as much joy as a Gazania in a monkey’s head, but very few things will, you know?).

And hey, it didn’t die. In fact, in a couple of weeks, it blossomed. Which was pretty much a shock on account of I didn’t even know it was a flower. I had a flowering Gazania in a monkey’s head. Crazy-ass, wild yellow flowers. Gaudy bastards, with a red blaze down the center of each petal.

I was over the moon.

Look at those flowers. They look like something a child would draw. A child who’s seen too much Speed Racer.

And it hasn’t stopped. It just keeps on continuing to blossom. One flower withers and dies, and another takes its place. Sometimes two takes its place. I trim off the dying flowers and this thing just keeps pushing out new flowers, like Octomom.

I swear, no power in the ‘verse can stop it.

Well, okay. I know that’s not true. I know it’ll die in the fall. Maybe. Actually, I don’t have a clue what it’ll do in the fall. But probably it’ll die, right? And that’s okay. On account of it’s been the best eight bucks I’ve ever…well, no. That’s almost certainly not true either. I’m sure I’ve spent eight bucks in lots of better ways, though I can’t think of any at the moment. Still, it was a really great eight bucks, no mistake.

Also? I may start a website MonkeyHeadGazaniasforMarriageEquality.com. And I’ll be sure to thank the Sally for giving me the idea.

the elves all burst into song

Posted on June 12, 2013 by greg

A few days ago, on a whim, I decided to re-read The Lord of the Rings this summer. It’s been a long while since I’ve read the books. I first read them when I was eighteen years old and in Basic Training. We weren’t allowed to have any books during Basic (or any other personal belongings, for that matter), but somebody had smuggled in the paperback version of LoTR — and we’d chopped them up into something like chapter-sized chunks, easily hideable. About half of my unit, desperate to read anything, passed around the various chapters, sometimes out of order, and we’d discuss the story over chow or when we were out in the field.

I’ve re-read the books a couple of times since then, and I’ve seen the movies, of course. I’m not quite sure what sparked the decision to re-read them again. Maybe the current enthusiasm for HBO’s version of Game of Thrones (which I haven’t seen, though, again, I’ve read the books). But like I said, it was a whim — and I am weak to the whim.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

I was surprised and delighted to discover LoTR was available as an e-book, and only for something like ten dollars. So I downloaded it (unlike the print versions, all three volumes and all six books are in one large file, which makes it easy.

The first thing I noticed was the deliberate pace of the writing. I don’t think you could accurately describe it as slowly-paced, but the pacing is very deliberately moderated. Tolkien clearly wanted his readers to settle into the story, to get nestled down into his Middle Earth. That sort of pacing would, I suspect, be a hard sell for a publisher these day. I’ve no doubt an awful lot of modern readers would find the pacing off-putting, but I think it suits the story.

I was reading comfortably along, enjoying the gradual increase in tension — the discovery that Bilbo’s ring was the One Ring, the unexplained tardiness of Gandalf, the sale of Bag End to the dreadful Sackville-Bagginses, the arrival of the wonderfully spooky Black Riders. Then Frodo and Sam and Pippin, making their way through the woods, stumble upon a troupe of wandering Elves.

I’d always remembered this scene with particular fondness. In part, that’s because it’s Sam Gamgee’s very first experience with Elves, and so much is made of his desire to see them. But I suspect I’ve liked this scene in part because when I first read it I was living in a barracks with forty other troops. The tranquility of the scene and the ethereal quality of the encounter was so utterly unlike barracks life. So I was prepared to be charmed. Then I read this:

The Elves all burst into song. Suddenly under the trees a fire sprang up with a red light.

“Come!” the Elves called to the hobbits. “Come! Now is the time for speech and merriment!”

Several things occurred to me at that point. First, Elves can be pretty fucking annoying. I suppose you can excuse the fact that they just start singing en masse, without any warning because…well, Elves. But the tendency to speak in exclamation points is a tad over the top. Actually, when it’s a single Elf speaking it’s not so bad, but as a group they’re awfully exclamatory.

Second, speech and merriment? Okay, they’re Elves — you can’t expect them to say “Let’s hang out, talk, drink a bit, have some fun, whaddaya say?” I get that. But there’s something about the need to announce that it’s time to talk and have fun that sort of mutes the fun of talking. They announce everything, the Elves. “Earlier was the time for walking in green woods! Then came the time for impromptu acapella singing! Now is the time for speech and merriment!”

But as you continue to read the scene, you realize there’s a great deal of speech, but not much merriment at all. What did Frodo and the Elves speak about?

The tidings were mostly sad and ominous: of gathering darkness, the wars of Men, and the flight of the Elves.

That’s awfully merriment-deficient. I’m sure orcs would think that was a hoot, but we’re talking about High Elves here. Maybe they should stick to bursting into song.

Gildor

The third thing that occurred to me was this: Tolkien, as a writer, gets away with a lot of shit we wouldn’t tolerate in a modern writer. He gets away with it because he’s Tolkien. He didn’t invent epic fantasy fiction, but he’s the guy who single-handedly revived the genre, and that makes him an unalloyed literary badass. Only a literary badass could write this and get away with it:

The merry voice of Pippin came to him. He was running on the green turf and singing.

If a student of mine wrote that, I’d bitch-slap him ’til Tuesday. The image of a small, furry-footed being larking about on the lawn and singing like Julie Andrews on an alp is singularly ridiculous. Dude, singing and running at the same time? Really?

But because it’s Tolkien, I not only tolerate it, I embrace it. Yes, his writing is creaky and his style is outmoded and archaic. I don’t care. Yes, his dialog is sometimes (well, often) embarrassing. I really don’t care. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien provides me with speech and merriment, so he gets a pass.

“Courage is found in unlikely places,” said Gildor. “Be of good hope! Sleep now!”

I’m almost certainly going to read other books as well this summer. I’ll take occasional short breaks from reading The Lord of the Rings and dip into something without Elves. But LoTR will be the book I read last before turning out the light. I am of good hope! I may burst into song!

But probably not.

done for the season

Posted on May 30, 2013 by greg

Okay, that’s it. Morel season is over. Done, finished, kaput. Oh, there are probably still some ‘shrooms out there, but I won’t find them because I won’t be looking. At this point, the undergrowth is so thick that searching for morels would be almost like work. Where’s the fun in that?

It was weird Spring — weird in a lot of ways; weird weather, weird things happening in the world — and I didn’t get to hunt nearly as often as I’d have liked. Four times. That was it. Four times between May 1st and May 19th. The video above was shot on the first hunt of the season. Last year I’d been hunting three or four times by May 1st. Two days after the video was shot, it snowed. Snowed. Like I said, weird.

Mostly I went morel hunting with my cousin Scott, who’s like a brother to me. He’s an ideal ‘shroom hunting partner because he doesn’t fret. I’ve been hunting with other folks who are uncomfortable in the woods. They always want to be near you — in sight of you, in shouting distance. They call out to you periodically. Not Scott. He assumes you know what you’re doing. He says stuff like “I’m gonna walk along this hill line, see where it leads. You try another direction, I’ll meet you somewhere in about an hour.” He trusts that in around sixty minutes he’ll find you or you’ll find him. Somewhere in the woods.

This second video was shot ‘somewhere’ in the woods — in the same general vicinity of the first video. In fact, all the videos here were shot in the same general vicinity (we hunted other spots, but we always included this area because we knew we’d find morels there). Here’s the thing about the woods. ‘Somewhere’ looks a lot like ‘everywhere else.’ Once you get far enough into the woods, everything around you looks pretty much the same.

It’s not uncommon for me to be searching for ‘shrooms, then look around to get my bearings, and realize I have no fucking clue where I am. I have to stop and think about the terrain I hiked — or any unusual features I noticed on the way — and figure out how to get back to where I started. Or how to locate the ‘somewhere’ I was supposed to meet Scott. Yes, a compass would help resolve that, but my compass is in a box in Ohio and I never seem to remember to buy a new one. But I’m comfortable enough in the woods to assume I’m not actually lost. I may not know where I am — but that’s not lost. I’ve always managed to find my way back, or to find Scott ‘somewhere’ in the woods. So far.

What I like most about hunting morels (aside from the morels) is this: it’s tranquil. It’s not exactly quiet because there are always birds, and wind in the trees, and the occasional critter moving through the underbrush, and sometimes the chuckling of a brook. But those are peaceful sounds. The tranquility allows your brain to do double duty. On one level your brain is monitoring the search for that particular shape and pattern that indicates morel. The little bastards can be hard to spot, but once spotted are easily identifiable. So there’s always a part of your consciousness that’s scanning the earth, engaged in primary pattern recognition. But another part is placidly turning over other thoughts. Nothing too intense, of course, or it overrides the pattern recognition process.

I often think about writing. Sometimes it’s my own work — mulling over any issues I’m having with a story I’m working on. Sometimes I think about whatever I happen to be reading at the time. Sometimes I think about the work of my students. For example, I’m working with a former student who’s writing a wonderful story that revolves around the murder of a nun, but also delves into a such complex social issues as the sexual abuse of children by clergy, drug trafficking, and corruption in public housing. I’d be searching for morels and thinking of ways to simplify her story without sacrificing its scope and complexity. All those thoughts are periodically interrupted by the brain suddenly alerting you to the possible presence of a morel. It’s like a little alarm — morel alert morel alert, all brain functions report to duty stations.

My fourth — and last — hunt was less than three weeks after the first. As you can see in the video, the undergrowth had grown significantly thicker in those three weeks. The trees still weren’t fully leafed out. By now, they are.

That matters, because what you can’t tell from these videos is how increasingly difficult it becomes to move through the woods as Spring progresses. Early in the season you can pretty much wander at will. You have to wear a thick flannel shirt and jeans because of the thorny bushes, but so long as you carry a stick (and all serious morel hunters have a mushroom stick) you can usually work your way through them without much damage. But as the undergrowth gets thicker and the trees and shrubs and bushes get leafier, it not only makes movement more difficult, but you can’t see nearly as far. It becomes even harder to tell where you are and where you were. And, of course, mushrooms become much harder to spot.

On my last hunt, I spent much of my time bent like a dwarf, duck-walking along narrow deer tracks, struggling with thorns, looking less for morels and more for a small clearing where I could stand up and stretch out the kinks in my back. And even though it was fun and interesting, I’m in no hurry to do it again. That’s why I’m done for the season.

a very small, very welcome clearing

It was a good year for morels. An odd year, given the weather. Where morels grew, they grew in profusion. If people found them at all, they found them in staggering amounts. They collected bags full of morels. Pounds of morels. The shock absorbers on pick-up trucks were distressed under the weight of all the morels.

How many did I find? None. Not one. I found other mushrooms, but no morels.

I’m okay with that. Mostly. I love morels. Hunting them, finding them, cooking them, eating them. But so long as I get to do that first part — hunting them — I’m mostly satisfied. Mostly. But even though my ‘shroom bag remained empty all season, I enjoyed myself. Not just mostly, but always.

gregfallis.com

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Category Archives: confessional crap