Lifetime Fitness Sprint Distance Triathlon

I woke at 4 am to big thunder, bright flashes, cracks and booms.

The transition area was scheduled to be open from 4:30am - 6:45am. The thunderstorm during that same time frame dumped 2.6 inches (6.7 cm) rain.

The Lifetime Fitness Triathlon twitter feed asked people to stay in their cars until the storm cleared. I was not in my car but home, four miles away, planning to ride my bike to the transition area.

6:20 AM Lifetime Fitness Triathlon Twitter:

"Lightning is cleared, transition is now open. See you there!"

I put on some rain gear, threw on my backpack with all of my gear, and hopped on my bike.  The thunder and lightning had stopped but according to NOAA the winds were from the south at 17 gusting to 28 MPH. The rain was still heavy.

The intersection in front of my house in south Minneapolis was flooded as were several others areas.  Part of my route to the transition area was along Minnehaha Creek.  Some of that same route was intended to be the Olympic distance bike course.  The creek was flooded up to and over the road in some areas.  I rode my bike through water that was deeper than my bottom bracket.  I'd say the deepest water was about ten inches. My feet were rotating through water.

As I neared the transition area, hundred of cyclists (actually 3,000 registered!) and their support crews were heading out of their cars and into the transition area.  It was still raining and I heard several "No way!" types of comments.

7:25 AM Lifetime Fitness Twitter:

"The International course is currently impassable due to flooding. The Sprint course is being evaluated. More details as they come."

The race was orginally scheduled to start at 7:00 am but due to the threat of thunderstorms and re-routing of the bike courses it was delayed.

After setting up in transition and meeting some of the other old dudes in my age group, I wandered the grounds.

During the delay I saw someone familiar. She recognized me and I recognized her but it took a moment for us to place each other because we were were out of our usual context and were wearing triathlon kits. It was Bridget, a fellow parent whom I had passed hundreds of times at our kids school. Our kids are the same age.  I hung with her and her husband, an Ironman Wisconsin veteran, during the delay.

It was announced that after studying "very sophisticated radar" the storm had cleared and we were safe to begin once the new bike route was set.  The Olympic distance was cancelled leaving only the sprint course. The pros and age groupers who came for the Olympic distance were then relegated to a sprint distance (.25 mile swim, 16 mile bike, 5k).

The pros started around 9. I was wearing a wet suit so waited in the water until it was time for my wave to go. They set us off two at a time every three seconds. I like that scheme.

The age grouper waves left by oldest first. I also like that. When it is done the opposite way, I am usually the last person out of the water and the life guards want to rescue me so they can go home.

It was windy and wavy but my swim started out pretty good. I stuck to my plan of using every stroke I know to survive. I crawled, breast stroked, back stroked, side stroked, dog paddled. I knew my swim time would be bad. I just wanted to make it.

There was a gauntlet of life guards on the swim course all of whom asked me if I was doing all right. I was going so slow I had conversations with several life guards. When one life guard complained about being hungry, I apologized for not bringing food but I was hungry, too. I hadn't planned on a two hour delay.

I had a long and slow transition but finally got out to the bike course. I passed a few dozen cyclists but then started getting passed by the younger age groupers.

I saw one woman, who must have thought the course was an out and back, cut the pylons and started returning. I thought, "Seriously?" If that was her intention, she was wrong about the route. Who knows where she ended up.

The winds were still strong, and the last portion of the bike was upwind. It was tough going but I enjoyed the ride through the beautiful parkways of Minneapolis.

The sun had come out and the temperature was now 80F (27C) and it was very humid.

I had another long, slow transition. I got out on the run. When I hit mile one I thought, "Damn, these are long miles." I walked some of the hills. There were lots of spectators out trying to tell me that I was doing great and that I was "almost there". Little did they know how not great I was doing and how "almost there" I was not.

The nicest thing about the finish was that there was a volunteer dipping towels in ice water and handing them to you. That was the best thing. I threw that ice cold towel over my head and neck.

I was handed a participant medal and began looking for apples and bananas but found none.

I wish I had pictures. Rain and mud-wise, this had been the Woodstock of triathlons.

Eventually I hopped on my bike and rode home. It is only four miles, but those were hard miles. Little inclines had turned into hills.

Three blocks from my house I saw a woman examining a downed tree. I said, "I thought all the trees that could blow down did in the last storm."  She said, "It wasn't wind. It was lightning."  That tree had been decimated by lightning earlier in the morning.

Later in the afternoon I went to the first game of my son's baseball tournament. The boys did great and won handily.

It was a good day.

Cliff Plunge

My friend Alex was in town from Arizona for his dad's funeral.  I spent yesterday afternoon with him.  We drove around the lakes, we had lunch, we drove around the lakes again, we had coffee, we talked about his dad and other things.

I wrote this last night and hope I got the detail and order of events correctly.  I will speak with Alex later to make any corrections and additions if necessary.

Alex is a big mountain biker and has done the Leadville 100 nine times.  This summer he will get the 1,000 mile buckle.

Alex did the Whiskey 50 in Prescott, Arizona with friends.  One friend, Dusty, was not riding but had a support role handing out water toward the top of a mountain.  Dusty's wife Kiki, Alex, and another friend Andy participated in the race.  As a side note, Andy is a chef from Salt Lake City.

Dusty was using Andy's black Toyota Forerunner and also had Andy's Husky dog Gigi with him.

Alex finished the race when he got a call from Dusty. Dusty said, "I've been in an accident but I'm okay.  I hurt my shoulder and I think my ear is ripped.  Can you come up?"

Alex said, "Where are you?"  Dusty said, "Come up the mountain, you'll find me.  There are rescue vehicles everywhere on the road.  I think I totaled Andy's Forerunner."

Alex thought, HOLY SHIT.  He discovered later that Dusty had made the calls from where he lay, half way down a cliff and was drifting in and out of consciousness.

Dusty had driven off the road.  The Forerunner rolled several times landing several hundred feet down.  Dusty and the dog were thrown free of the vehicle.  The Forerunner rolled until it hit a boulder.  Before I go on, the dog was hurt but now okay.

Alex headed up the mountain.  The rescue workers would not let him into the rescue zone even though he explained that he was Dusty's friend.  He said, "I just talked to Dusty.  He said he's okay."  They said, "Your friend is in a lot worse shape than that."

Alex told them he was coming through anyway.  At the same time, a deputy sheriff decided they needed Alex to tend to the dog who was being cared for by a woman who loves dogs.  Alex and the woman brought the dog down the mountain to a veterinary hospital.  Alex does not remember the woman’s name, only that she was a former Mormon.

Alex tried to find Dusty's wife Kiki and Andy who had finished the race but were lost in a crowd of 1700 bikers and a few hundred spectators.  Alex could not find them.  He had the finish line announcer page them but they did not hear it.

Alex finally found them somewhere in the crowd.  They were tired from the race and needed their clothes and belongings from Andy's car which now was stuck on a boulder half way down a cliff.

Alex reported what happened and said that he talked to Dusty and that Dusty said he was okay.  I'm not sure of the order of events but Kiki went to the hospital to wait for the ambulance to arrive.  Alex and Andy headed back up the mountain.  They needed Andy's and Kiki's clothes, cell phones, ID and such that had been in the SUV but were now actually strewn down the mountain.

Dusty arrived at the Prescott hospital but was soon airlifted to Phoenix. 

Alex and Andy surveyed the scene and just could not believe it.  Alex showed me photos and video from his phone of the wrecked car and of the helicopter that did the airlift.

I assumed this all happened some time ago and asked, when did this happen?  “Last Saturday.”

Sunday Alex called Dusty.  His sternum had been broken in four places, his body had been well lacerated, bloodied and bruised, he had a cracked vertebrae in his neck.  I asked, “Where was he when you called?” assuming he was in the hospital.  “He was home.”  He had been in the hospital only one day!

Last night when I got home I Googled “prescott forerunner accident” and found this:

Rescue Situation in Prescott

Wind Chimes Bells

Wind chimes bells
which wind chimes bells
what can tell
which wind chimes the bells

Tonight the wind flows through me
and past my naked face
it draws on my soul
to join its ceaseless race

The wind that cuts through rock and stone
blows hard through me tonight
The wind that gnaws me to the bone
pulls at me with its might

Tonight the wind flows through my eyes
and haunts my restless soul
to wake my mind and escape from thoughts
that hold me to this role

The wind that can be quiet to rustle a leaf
or ring a little bell
with a breath can rile an ocean wave
from a ripple to a heaving swell

Which wind is it that calls to me
to take me from my home
Which wind is it that calls to me
and makes me feel alone?

Is it the wind that fills a fledgling's wings
and gently urges it on to flight
or is it the wind that can roar like hell
and rip destruction through the night?

The wind that persuades by ringing a bell
and summons by smoke from the fire
does not have to beg to me
it knows what I desire

But is the wind that rings the bell
and tempts by smoke from the fire
a wind that gusts from hell
or the wind of God's desire?

Whether the wind is pulling me
or pushing me to go
it does not have to beg
it knows I want to go

I know the wind is calling me
I know it knows, I know
The wind does not have to beg
It knows I want to go

Wind chimes bells
which wind chimes bells?
Who can tell
which wind chimes the bells?

Zapatos

By Filencio Salmon

There is, essentially, one city in our country. It is a city in which everyone wears a hat, works in an office, jogs, and eats simply but elegantly; a city, above all, in which everyone covets shoes. Italian shoes, in particular. Oh, you can get by with a pair of domestically made pumps or cordovans or the supplest sheepskin, or even, in the languid days of summer, with huaraches or Chinese slippers made of silk or even nylon. There are those who claim to prefer running shoes -- Puma, Nike, Saucony -- winter and summer. But the truth is, what everyone wants -- for the status, the cachet, the charm and refinement -- are the Italian loafers and ankle boots, hand-stitched and with a grain as soft and rich as, well - is this the place to talk of the private parts of girls still in school?

My uncle -- call him Dagoberto -- imports shoes. From Italy. And yet, until recently, he himself could barely afford a pair. It's the government, of course. Our country -- the longest and leanest in the world -- is hemmed in by the ocean on one side, the desert and mountains on the other, and the government has leached and pounded it dry till sometimes I think we live atop a stupendous, three-thousand-mile-long strip of jerky. There are duties -- prohibitive duties -- on everything. Or rather, on everything we want. Cocktail napkins, band-aids, Tupperware, Crescent wrenches, and kimchi come in practically for nothing. But the things we crave -- microwaves, Lean Cuisine, CDs, leisure suits, and above all, Italian shoes -- carry a duty of two and sometimes three-hundred percent. The government is unfriendly. We are born, we die, it rains, it clears, the government is unfriendly. Facts of life.

Uncle Dagoberto is no revolutionary -- none of us are; let's face it, we manage -- but the shoe situation was killing him. He'd bring his shoes in, arrange them seductively in the windows of his three downtown shops, and there they'd languish, despite a markup so small he'd have to sell a hundred pairs just to take his shop girls out to lunch. It was intolerable. And what made it worse was that the good citizens of our city, vain and covetous as they are, paraded up and down in front of his very windows in shoes identical to those he was selling -- shoes for which they'd paid half price or less. And how were these shoes getting through customs and finding their way to the dark little no-name shops in the ill-lit vacancies of waterfront warehouses? Ask the Black Hand, Los Dedos Muertos, the fat and corrupt Minister of Commerce.

For months, poor Uncle Dagoberto brooded over the situation, while his wife (my mother's sister, Carmen, a merciless woman) and his six daughters screamed for the laser facials, cellular phones, and Fila sweats he could no longer provide for them. He is a heavyset man, my uncle, and balding, and he seemed to grow heavier and balder during those months of commercial despair. But one morning, as he came down to breakfast in the gleaming, tiled expanse of the kitchen our families share in the big venerable old mansion on La Calle Verdad, there was a spring in his step and a look on his face that, well -- there is a little shark in the waters here, capable of smelling out one part of blood in a million parts of water, and when he does smell out that impossible single molecule of blood, I imagine he must have a look like that of Uncle Dagoberto on that sun struck morning.

"Tomas" he said to me, rubbing his hands over his Bran Checks, Metamucil, and decaffeinated coffee, "we're in business."

The kitchen was deserted at that hour. My aunt and sisters were off jogging, Dagoberto's daughters at the beach, my mother busy with aerobics, and my father -- my late, lamented father -- lying in his grave. I didn't understand. I looked up at him blankly from my plate of microwave waffles.

His eyes darted around the room. There was a sheen of sweat on his massive, close-shaven jowls. He began to whistle -- a tune my mother used to sing me, by Grandmaster Flash -- and then he broke off and gave me a gold-capped smile. "The shoe business," he said. "There's fifteen hundred in it for you."

I was at the university at the time, studying semantics, hermeneutics, and the deconstruction of deconstruction. I myself owned two sleek pairs of Italian loafers, in ecru and rust. Still, I wasn't working, and I could have used the money. "I'm listening," I said.

What he wanted me to do was simple -- simple, but potentially dangerous. He wanted me to spend two days in the north, in El Puerto Libre -- Freeport. There are two free ports in our country, separated by nearly twenty-five hundred miles of terrain that looks from the air like the spine of some antediluvian monster. The southern port is called Calidad, or Quality. Both are what I imagine the great bazaars of Northern Africa and the Middle East to have been in the time of Marco Polo or Rommel, percolating caldrons of sin and plenty, where anything known to man could be had for the price of a haggle. But there was a catch, of course. While you could purchase anything you liked in El Puerto Libre or Calidad, to bring it back to the city, you had to pay duty -- the same stultifying duty merchants were obliged to pay. And why then had the government set up the free ports in the first place? In order to make digital audiotapes and microwaves available to themselves, of course, and to set up discreet banking enterprises for foreigners, by way of generating cash flow -- and ultimately, I think, to frustrate the citizenry. To remind us that the government is unfriendly.

At any rate, I was to go north on the afternoon plane, take a room under the name "Chilly Buttons," and await Uncle Dagoberto's instructions. Fine. For me, the trip was nothing. I relaxed with a Glenlivet and Derrida, the film Death Wish VII, and the flight attendants were small in front and, well, substantial behind, just the way I like them. On arriving, I checked into the hotel he'd arranged for me -- the girl behind the desk had eyes and shoulders like one of the amazons of the North American cinema, but she tittered and showed off her orthodonture when I signed "Chilly Buttons" in the register -- and I went straight up to my room to await Uncle Dagoberto's call. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot; he'd given me an attaché case in which there were five hundred huevos -- our national currency -- and a thousand black market dollars. "I don't anticipate any problems," he'd told me as he handed me onto the plane, "but you never know, eh?"

I ate veal medallions and dry spinach salad at a brasserie frequented by British rock stars and North American drug agents, and then sat up late in my room, watching a rerun of the world of cockfighting championships. I was just dozing off when the phone rang. "Bueno," I said, snatching up the receiver.

"Tomas?" It was Uncle Dagoberto.

His voice was pinched with secrecy, a whisper, a rasp. "I want you to go to the customs warehouse on La Avenida Democracia at 10:00 A.M. sharp." He was breathing heavily. I could barely hear him. "There are shoes there," he said. "Italian shoes. Thirty thousand shoes, wrapped in tissue paper. No one has claimed them and they're to be auctioned first thing in the morning." He paused and I listened to the empty hiss of the land breathing through the miles that separated us. "I want you to bid nothing for them. A hundred huevos. Two. But I want you to buy them. Buy them or die." And he hung up.

At a quarter of ten the next morning I stood outside the warehouse, the attaché case clutched in my hand. Somewhere a cock crowed. It was cold, but the sun warmed the back of my neck. Half-a-dozen hastily shaven men in sagging suits and battered domestically made oxfords gathered beside me.

I was puzzled. How did Uncle Dagoberto expect me to buy thirty thousand Italian shoes for two hundred huevos, when a single pair sold for twice that? I understood that the black-market dollars were to be offered as needed, but even so, how could I buy more than a few dozen pairs? I shrugged it off and buried my nose in Derrida.

It was past twelve when an old man in the uniform of the customs police hobbled up the street as if his legs were made of stone, produced a set of keys, and threw open the huge hammered-steel doors of the warehouse. We shuffled in, blinking against the darkness. When my eyes became accustomed to the light, the mounds of unclaimed goods piled up on pallets around me began to take on form. There were crates of Crescent wrenches, boxes of tupperware, a bin of door stoppers. I saw bicycle horns -- thousands of them, black and bulbous as the noses of monkeys -- and jars of kimchi stacked up to the steel crossbeams of the ceiling. And then I saw the shoes. They were heaped up in a small mountain, individually wrapped in tissue paper, just as Uncle Dagoberto had said. The others ignored them. They read the description the customs provided, unwrapped the odd shoe, and went on to the bins of church-key openers and chutney. I was dazed. It was like stumbling across the treasure of the Incas, the Golden City itself, and yet having no one recognize it.

With trembling fingers, I unwrapped first one shoe, then another. I saw patent leather, suede, the sensuous ripple of alligator; my nostrils filled with the rich and unmistakable bouquet of newly tanned leather. The shoes were perfect, insuperable, the very latest styles, au currant, a la mode and exciting. Why had the others turned away? It was then that I read the customs declaration: Thirty thousand leather shoes, it read, imported from the Republic of Italy, port of Livorno. Unclaimed after thirty days. To be sold at auction to the highest bidder. Beside the declaration, in a scrawl that betrayed bureaucratic impatience -- disgust, even -- of the highest order, was this further notation: Left feet only.

It took me a moment. I bent to the mountain of shoes and began tearing at the tissue paper. I tore through women's pumps, stiletto heels, tooled boots, wing tips, deck shoes, and patent-leather loafers -- and every single one, every one of those thirty thousand shoes, was half a pair. Uncle Dagoberto, I thought, you are a genius.

The auction was nothing. I waited through a dozen lots of number-two pencils, Cabbage Patch dolls, and soft-white light bulbs, and then I placed the sole bid on the thirty thousand left-footed shoes. One hundred huevos and they were mine. Later, I took the young amazon up to my room and showed her what a man with a name like Chilly buttons can do in a sphere that, well -- is this the place to gloat? We were sharing a cigarette when Uncle Dagoberto called. "Did you get them?" he shouted.

"One hundred huevos," I said.

"Good boy," he crooned. "good boy." He paused a moment to catch his breath. "And do you know where I'm calling from?" He asked, struggling to keep down the effervescence in his voice.

I reached out to stroke the amazon's breast -- her name was Linda, by the way, and she was a student of cosmetology. "I think I can guess," I said. "Calidad?"

"Funny thing," Uncle Dagoberto said, "there are some shoes here, in the customs warehouse -- fine Italian shoes, the finest, thirty thousand in a single lot -- and no one has claimed them. Can you imagine that?"

There was such joy in his tone that I couldn't resist playing out the game with him. "There must be something wrong with them," I said.

I could picture his grin. "Nothing, nothing a all. If you're one-legged."

That was two years ago.

Today, Uncle Dagoberto is the undisputed shoe king of our city. He made such a killing on that one deal that he was able to buy his way into the cartel that "advises" the government. He has a title now -- Undersecretary for International Trade -- and a vast, brightly lit office in the president’s palace.

I've changed, too, though I still live with my mother on La Calle Verdad and I still attend the university. My shoes -- I have some thirty pairs now, in every style and color those clever Italians have been able to devise -- are the envy of all, and no small attraction to the nubile and status-hungry young women of the city. I no longer study semantics, hermeneutics, and the deconstruction of deconstruction, but have instead been pursuing a degree in business. It only makes sense. After all, the government doesn't seem half so unfriendly these days.

Look Homeward Angel

A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.

Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; from the prison of her flesh we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost!

Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When? O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.

Thomas Wolfe

The Rat Faced Boy

Places to Eat in Northwood, North Dakota

The rat-faced boy had a dog-faced sister so we came to the conclusion that they had different daddies but that neither was fathered by the man currently married to their mother. That man looked like a weasel, and besides he was as gay and effeminate as a man can be. His was a marriage of something like convenience to the small town heiress of Larry's Restaurant. Her true love was the town's mortician.

The man and his wife ran Larry's which was one of two places to eat in Northwood, North Dakota and was frequented by farmers and townsmen for the daily breakfast and lunch specials.

The rat-faced boy's ancient, arthritic grandmama worked in the steamy scullery. She washed dishes and could always be heard clinking, clattering and banging around. I never saw anyone speak to her except in clipped commands. She muttered a constant stream obscenities that no one ever responded to.

The pancakes served at Larry's weren't poisonous like lead but did have other similarities. They were thick and heavy and served with two wide, greasy slabs of limp bacon and oily hash browns. Returning for the lunch time special didn't really give a person's stomach a chance to get the bacon fat and pancakes a chance to half-digest.

The only other place to eat in town was the drive-in which was run by a man who was as pale and wan and white-headed as a ghoul. In fact, that's what he went by, The Ghoul, a name bestowed in youth. It wasn't known whether The Ghoul was a genuine albino or not but the subject was the cause of much speculation.

The Ghoul smartly avoided the sun and drove a long white Cadillac with darkly tinted windows. He had a wife who bore no children but instead rather a dissatisfaction with existence.  Bear witness every stride she took and every word she spoke. She had once been vigorous and athletic, a cheerleader in fact, and a member of the renowned all-blond Jumpin' Go Goes gymnast group which performed at pep fest rallies and halftimes in places as big as Fargo and Minneapolis and as far away as Grand Island, Nebraska.

Mrs. Ghoul's glory days were long over. In the drive-in she snapped orders at waitresses, flipped burgers, and made malted milks.

The menu of the drive-in was on a big billboard that depicted a smiling pompom girl standing with legs crossed and pompoms in the air. The model for the billboard was Mrs. Ghoul in her younger days. She had been pretty and talented by local standards but was unpleasantly vain and arrogant. She married The Ghoul because she mistakenly thought he had money and promise.

Truck drivers and the locals called the drive-in the "Pomeranian" derived from the pompoms, the quality of the food, Mrs. Ghoul’s promiscuity and other attributes.

...to be continued

Rewrite

I'm workin' on my rewrite, that's right
Gonna change the ending
Throw away the title
Toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
... All the time I'm spending
Is just for workin' on my rewrite
Gonna turn it into cash

I been workin' at the Car Wash
I consider it my day job
'Cause it's really not a pay job
But that's where I am
Everybody says "The old guy
Workin'at the Car Wash?"
Hasn't got a brain cell left
Since Vietnam

Chorus
But I say
Help me, help me
Help me, help me
Thank you!
I'd no idea
That you were there

When I said help me, help me
Help me, help me
Thank you
For listening to my prayer

I'll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm
Gonna substitute a car chase
And a race across the rooftops
Where the father saves the children
And he holds them in his arms

Yeah I'm workin' on my rewrite, all right
Gonna change my ending
Throw away the title
Toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the Time I'm spending
Is just for workin' on my rewrite.
Gonna turn it into cash

Chorus
I said
Help me, help me
Help me, help me
Thank you!
I'd no idea
That you were there


Paul Simon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UygiBWXTO0

Positive Thinking and Loathing

I planned on spending today whining and moaning and complaining and crying like a fool and thinking about what shoulda woulda coulda been but then some A-hole Facebook friend of mine said,

"Perhaps one of the secrets to a long and happy life is, when faced with adversity, you are able to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and move on without dwelling upon the negative."

What to do with my day now that my plans had been ruined by advice from a magical thinker.

The only reasonable alternative to self pity is shopping. I went to the department store where I am working and spent my holiday earnings. I bought a couple Christmas presents for my kids and one for myself. I got a great discount on a previously used Wusthof precision forged chef's knife. It was still blood stained. Remember the rude customer whose organ donor card I took literally on Black Friday?

At home when I unboxed the knife I almost sliced my little finger off and walked around the house clutching a wadded up paper towel. I did not whine or moan or dwell on the negative. I screamed in pain.

Unfortunately the paper towel was super absorbent, as shown on TV. It sucked up enough blood to make me sit down and wish I had health insurance.

Enough of this. I'm headed to 501Spin.


Post script: I blew my knee spinning, spent the remainder of the day icing.

Midnight in Harlem

Well, I came to the city
I was running from the past
My heart was bleeding
And it hurt my bones to laugh
Stayed in the city
No exception to the rules, to the rule
He was born to love me
I was raised to be his fool, his fool

Walk that line, torn apart
Spend your whole life trying
Ride that train, free your heart
It's midnight up in Harlem

I went down to the river
And I took a look around
There were old man's shoes
There were needles on the ground
No more mysteries, baby
No more secrets, no more clues
The stars are out there
You can almost see the moon
The streets are windy
And the subway's closing down
Gonna carry this dream
To the other side of town.

Walk that line, torn apart
Spend your whole life trying
Ride that train, free your heart
It's midnight up in Harlem

Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Band

http://youtu.be/7ubH7dLJJiE

Grandma Dorothy's Tater Tot Hot Dish Recipe

Tater Tot Hot Dish

Dictated by Grandma Dorothy
Transcribed verbatim by Bededo Bedado

Layer in casserole dish as followed:

1 lb hamburger (put in bottom of pan and salt and pepper) draining grease is optional

layer chopped onions

1 can of french cut stringed beans (drained)

other vegetables are optional

1 can cream of chicken, cream of mushroom or cream of whatever soup

One bag of (or to taste) frozen tater tots on top

Bake uncovered at 350 for an hour.

The Nonconforming Sparrow

Lessons from Gramps

Once upon a time there was a nonconforming sparrow who decided not to fly south for the winter. However, the weather soon turned so cold that he reluctantly started to fly south. In a short time ice began to form on his wings and he fell to earth, landed in a barnyard, almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on the little bird. The sparrow thought it was the end but the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy, able to breathe, he started to sing. Just then a large cat came by and heard the chirping, investigated the sounds, cleared away the manure, found the chirping bird and promptly ate him.

This story contains three lessons:

1) Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy.
2) Everyone who gets you out of the shit is not necessarily your friend.
3) If you are relatively happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.

Having to Believe

Having to Believe
from Tales of Power
by Carlos Castaneda

I walked towards downtown on the Paseo de la Reforma. I was tired. The altitude of Mexico City no doubt had something to do with it. I could have taken a bus or a taxi but somehow in spite of my fatigue I wanted to walk. It was Sunday afternoon. The traffic was minimal and yet the exhaust fumes of the buses and trucks with diesel engines made the narrow streets of downtown seem like canyons of smog.

I arrived at the Zocalo and noticed that the cathedral of Mexico City seemed to be more slanted than the last time I had seen it. I stepped a few feet inside the enormous halls. A cynical thought crossed my mind.

From there I headed for the Lagunilla market. I had no definite purpose in mind. I walked aimlessly but at a good pace without looking at anything in particular. I ended up at the stands of old coins and secondhand books.

"Hello, hello! Look who's here!" someone said, tapping me lightly on the shoulder.

The voice and the touch made me jump. I quickly turned to my right. My mouth opened in surprise. The person who had spoken to me was don Juan.

"My God, don Juan!" I exclaimed and a shiver shook my body from head to toe. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" he retorted as an echo.

I told him that I had stopped in the city for a couple of days before venturing into the mountains of central Mexico to search for him.

"Well let's say then that I came down from the mountains to find you," he said, smiling.

He patted me on the shoulder several times. He seemed to be glad to see me. He put his hands on his hips and swelled his chest, and asked me whether or not I liked his appearance. It was only then that I noticed he was wearing a suit. The full impact of such an incongruity hit me. I was dumfounded.

"How do you like my tacuche?" he asked, beaming. He used the slang word 'tacuche' instead of the standard Spanish word 'traje' for suit.

"Today I'm in a suit," he said as if he had to explain, and then pointing to my open mouth he added, "Close it! Close it!"

I laughed absent-mindedly. He noticed my confusion. His body shook with laughter as he turned around so I could see him from every angle. His attire was incredible. He was wearing a light brown suit with pin stripes, brown shoes, a white shirt, and a necktie! And that made me wonder if he had any socks on, or... Was he wearing his shoes without them?

What added to my bewilderment was the maddening sensation I had had that when don Juan tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around, I thought I had seen him in his khaki pants and shirt, his sandals, and his straw hat.

And then as he made me aware of his attire, and as I focused my attention on every detail of it, the complete unit of his dress became fixed as if I had created it with my thoughts. My mouth seemed to be the area of my body which was most taxed by the surprise. It opened involuntarily. Don Juan touched me gently on my chin as if he were helping me to close it.

"You certainly are developing a double chin," he said and laughed in short spurts.

I became aware then that he did not have a hat on, and that his short white hair was parted on the right side. He looked like an old Mexican gentleman; an impeccably tailored urban dweller.

I told him that to have found him there was so unnerving to me that I had to sit down. He was very understanding and suggested that we go to a nearby park.

We walked a few blocks in complete silence and then we arrived at the Plaza Garibaldi; a place where musicians offered their services; a sort of musicians' employment center.

Don Juan and I merged with scores of spectators and tourists, and walked around the park. After a while he stopped, leaned against a wall, and pulled his pants up slightly at the knees. He was wearing light brown socks. I asked him to tell me the meaning of his mysterious apparel. His vague reply was that he simply had to be in a suit that day for reasons that would be clear to me later.

Finding Don Juan in a suit had been so unearthly that my agitation was almost uncontrollable. I had not seen him for several months and I wanted more than anything else in the world to talk with him; but somehow the setting was wrong and my attention meandered around. Don Juan must have noticed my anxiety and suggested that we walk to La Alameda, a more quiet park a few blocks away.

There were not too many people in the park and we had no trouble finding an empty bench. We sat down. My nervousness had given way to a feeling of uneasiness. I did not dare to look at don Juan.

There was a long unnerving pause. Still without looking at him, I said that the inner voice had finally driven me to search for him; that the staggering events I had witnessed at his house had affected my life very deeply, and that I just had to talk about them.

He made a gesture of impatience with his hand and said that his policy was never to dwell on past events.

"What's important now is that you've fulfilled my suggestion," he said. "You have taken your daily world as a challenge, and the proof that you have stored sufficient personal power is the indisputable fact that you have found me with no difficulty whatever at the precise spot where you were supposed to."

"I doubt very much that I could take credit for that," I said.

"I was waiting for you and then you showed up," he said. "That's all I know. That's all any warrior would care to know."

"What's going to happen now that I've found you?" I asked.

"For one thing," he said, "we won't discuss the dilemmas of your reason. Those experiences belong to another time and to another mood. They are, properly speaking, only steps of an endless ladder. To emphasize them would take away from the importance of what's taking place now. A warrior cannot possibly afford to do that."

I had an almost invincible desire to complain. It was not that I resented anything that had happened to me but I craved solace and sympathy. Don Juan appeared to know my mood and spoke as if I had actually voiced my thoughts.

"Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge," he said. "A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges."

His tone was dry and severe, but his smile was warm and disarming.

"Now that you are here, what we'll do is wait for an omen," he said.

"What kind of omen?" I asked.

"We need to find out whether your power can stand on its own," he said. "The last time it petered out miserably. This time the circumstances of your personal life appear to have given you, at least on the surface, all the necessaries [* necessaries- things indispensable] to deal with the sorcerers' explanation."

"Is there a chance that you might tell me about it?" I asked.

"It depends on your personal power," he said. "As is always the case in the doings and not-doings of warriors, personal power is the only thing that matters. So far, I should say that you're doing fine."

After a moment's silence, as if wanting to change the subject, he stood up and pointed to his suit.

"I have put on my suit for you," he said in a mysterious tone. "This suit is my challenge. Look how good I look in it! How easy! Eh? Nothing to it!"

Don Juan did look extraordinarily well in a suit. All I could think of as a gauge for comparison was the way my grandfather used to look in his heavy English flannel suit. He always gave me the impression that he felt unnatural; out of place in a suit. Don Juan, on the contrary, was so at ease.

"Do you think it is easy for me to look natural in a suit?" don Juan asked.

I did not know what to say. I concluded to myself, however, that judging by his appearance and by the way he conducted himself: it was the easiest thing in the world for him.

"To wear a suit is a challenge for me," he said. "A challenge as difficult as wearing sandals and a poncho would be for you. You have never had the necessity to take that as a challenge, though. My case is different. I'm an Indian."

We looked at each other. He raised his brows in a silent question as if asking for my comments.

"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge," he went on, "while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or as a curse. The fact that you're here today indicates that you have tipped the scales in favor of the warrior's way."

His stare made me feel nervous. I tried to get up and walk, but he made me sit down.

"You are going to sit here without fretting until we're through," he said imperatively. "We are waiting for an omen. We can't proceed without it because it isn't enough that you found me; as it wasn't enough that you found Genaro that day in the desert. Your power must round itself up and give an indication."

"I can't figure out what you want," I said.

"I saw something prowling around this park," he said.

"Was it the ally?" I asked.

"No. It wasn't. So, we must sit here and find out what kind of omen your power is rounding up."

He then asked me to give him a detailed account of how I had carried out the recommendations made by don Genaro and himself about my daily world, and my relations with people.

I felt a bit embarrassed. He put me at ease with the argument that my personal affairs were not private because they included a task of sorcery that he and don Genaro were fostering in me. I jokingly remarked that my life had been ruined because of that task of sorcery; and recounted the difficulties in maintaining my day-to-day world.

I talked for a long time. Don Juan laughed at my account until tears were rolling down his cheeks. He slapped his thighs repeatedly. That gesture, which I had seen him do hundreds of times, was definitely out of place when it was done on the pants of a suit. I was filled with apprehension which I was compelled to voice.

"Your suit scares me more than anything you've done to me," I said.

"You'll get used to it," he said. "A warrior must be fluid, and must shift harmoniously with the world around him; whether it is the world of 'reason', or the world of 'will'.

"The most dangerous aspect of that shifting comes forth every time the warrior finds that the world is neither one nor the other. I was told that the only way to succeed in that crucial shifting was by proceeding in one's actions as if one believed.

"In other words, the secret of a warrior is that he believes without believing. But obviously a warrior cannot just say he believes and let it go at that. That would be too easy. To just believe would exonerate him from examining his situation. A warrior, whenever he has to involve himself with believing, does it as a choice as an expression of his innermost predilection. A warrior doesn't believe. A warrior has to believe."

He stared at me for a few seconds as I wrote in my notebook. I remained silent. I could not say that I understood the difference, but I did not want to argue or ask questions. I wanted to think about what he had said, but my mind meandered as I looked around. On the street behind us there was a long line of automobiles and buses, blowing their horns. At the edge of the park perhaps twenty yards away directly in line with the bench where we were sitting, a group of about seven people, including three policemen in light gray uniforms, stood over a man lying motionless on the grass. He seemed to be drunk or perhaps seriously ill.

I glanced at don Juan. He had also been looking at the man.

I told him that for some reason I was incapable of clarifying by myself what he had just said to me.

"I don't want to ask questions any more," I said. "But if I don't ask you to explain, I don't understand. Not to ask questions is very abnormal for me."

"Please be normal, by all means," he said with feigned seriousness.

I said that I did not understand the difference between believing and having to believe. To me both were the same. To conceive that the statements were different was splitting hairs.

"Remember the story you once told me about your friend and her cats?" he asked casually.

He looked up at the sky and leaned back against the bench, stretching his legs. He put his hands behind his head and contracted the muscles of his whole body. As it always happens, his bones made a loud cracking sound.

He was referring to a story I had once told him about a friend of mine who found two kittens, almost dead, inside a dryer in a laundromat. She revived them, and through excellent nourishment and care groomed them into two gigantic cats, a black one and a reddish one.

Two years later she sold her house. Since she could not take the cats with her, and was unable to find another home for them, all she could do under the circumstances was to take them to an animal hospital and have them put to sleep.

I helped her take them. The cats had never been inside a car. She tried to calm them down. They scratched and bit her, especially the reddish cat, the one she called Max. When we finally arrived at the animal hospital, she took the black cat first. Holding it in her arms and without saying a word, she got out of the car. The cat played with her Pawing her gently as she pushed open the glass door to enter the hospital.

I glanced at Max. He was sitting in the back. The movement of my head must have scared him, for he dove under the driver's seat. I made the seat slide backwards. I did not want to reach under it for fear that he would bite or scratch my hand. The cat was lying inside a depression on the floor of the car. He seemed very agitated. His breathing was accelerated. He looked at me. Our eyes met and an overwhelming sensation possessed me. Something took hold of my body; a form of apprehension, despair, or perhaps embarrassment for being part of what was taking place.

I felt a need to explain to Max that it was my friend's decision, and that I was only helping her. The cat kept on looking at me as if he understood my words.

I looked to see if she was coming. I could see her through the glass door. She was talking to the receptionist. My body felt a strange jolt and automatically I opened the door of my car.

"Run, Max, run!" I said to the cat.

He jumped out of the car, dashed across the street with his body close to the ground like a true feline. The opposite side of the street was empty. There were no cars parked and I could see Max running down the street alone the gutter. He reached the corner of a big boulevard and then dove through the storm drain into the sewer.

My friend came back. I told her that Max had left. She got into the car and we drove away without saying a single word.

In the months that followed, the incident became a symbol to me. I fancied, or perhaps I saw, a weird flicker in Max's eyes when he looked at me before jumping out of the car, and I believed that for an instant that castrated, overweight, and useless pet became a cat.

I told don Juan that I was convinced that when Max had run across the street and plunged into the sewer his 'cat spirit' was impeccable, and that perhaps at no other time in his life was his 'catness' so evident. The impression that the incident left on me was unforgettable.

I told the story to all of my friends. After telling it and retelling it, my identification with the cat became quite pleasurable.

I thought myself to be like Max; overindulgent, domesticated in many ways; and yet I could not help thinking that there was always the possibility of one moment in which the spirit of man might take over my whole being just like the spirit of 'catness' took over Max's bloated and useless body.

Don Juan had liked the story and had made some casual comments about it. He had said that it was not so difficult to let the spirit of man flow and take over;. To sustain it, however, was something that only a warrior could do.

"What about the story of the cats?" I asked.

"You told me you believed that you're taking your chances, like Max," he said.

"I do believe that."

"What I've been trying to tell you is that as a warrior you cannot just believe this and let it go at that. With Max, having to believe means that you accept the fact that his escape might have been a useless outburst. He might have jumped into the sewer and died instantly. He might have drowned or starved to death; or he might have been eaten by rats. A warrior considers all those possibilities and then chooses to believe in accordance with his innermost predilection.

"As a warrior you have to believe that Max made it; that he not only escaped but that he sustained his power. You have to believe it. Let's say that without that belief you have nothing."

The distinction became very clear. I thought I really had chosen to believe that Max had survived; knowing that he was handicapped by a lifetime of soft and pampered living.

"Believing is a cinch," don Juan went on. "Having to believe is something else. In this case, for instance, power gave you a splendid lesson but you chose to use only part of it. If you have to believe, however, you must use all the event."

"I see what you mean," I said.

My mind was in a state of clarity and I thought I was grasping his concepts with no effort at all.

"I'm afraid you still don't understand," he said, almost whispering.

He stared at me. I held his look for a moment.

"What about the other cat?" he asked.

"Uh? The other cat?" I repeated involuntarily.

I had forgotten about it. My symbol had rotated around Max. The other cat was of no consequence to me.

"But he is!" don Juan exclaimed when I voiced my thoughts. "Having to believe means that you have to also account for the other cat. The one that went playfully licking the hands that were carrying him to his doom. That was the cat that went to his death trustingly; filled with his cat's judgments.

"You think you're like Max, therefore you have forgotten about the other cat. You don't even know his name. Having to believe means that you must consider everything, and before deciding that you are like Max, you must consider that you may be like the other cat. Instead of running for your life and taking your chances, you may be going to your doom happily; filled with your judgments."

There was an intriguing sadness in his words, or perhaps the sadness was mine. We remained quiet for a long time. Never had it crossed my mind that I might be like the other cat. The thought was very distressing to me.

A mild commotion and the muffled sound of voices suddenly forced me out of my mental deliberations. Policemen were dispersing some people gathered around the man lying on the grass. Someone had propped the man's head on a rolled up jacket. The man was lying parallel to the street. He was facing east. From where I sat I could almost tell that his eyes were open.

Don Juan sighed.

"What a magnificent afternoon," he said, looking at the sky.

"I don't like Mexico City," I said.

"Why not?"

"I hate the smog."

He shook his head rhythmically is if he were agreeing with me.

"I would rather be with you in the desert, or in the mountains," I said.

"If I were you I would never say that," he said.

"I didn't mean anything wrong, don Juan."

"We both know that. It is not what you mean that matters, though. A warrior, or any man for that matter, cannot possibly wish he were somewhere else; a warrior because he lives by challenge; an ordinary man because he doesn't know where his death is going to find him.

"Look at that man over there lying on the grass. What do you think is wrong with him?"

"He's either drunk or ill," I said.

"He's dying!" don Juan said with ultimate conviction. "When we sat down here I caught a glimpse of his death as it circled around him. That's why I told you not to get up. Rain or shine, you can't get up from this bench until the end. This is the omen we have been waiting for. It is late afternoon. Right now the sun is about to set. It is your hour of power. Look! The view of that man is only for us."

He pointed out that from where we sat we had an unobstructed view of the man. A group of curious bystanders were gathered in a half circle on the other side of him opposite us.

The sight of the man lying on the grass became very disturbing to me. He was lean and dark; still young. His black hair was short and curly. His shirt was unbuttoned and his chest was uncovered. He was wearing an orange cardigan sweater with holes in the elbows and some old beat up gray slacks. His shoes, of some undefined faded color, were untied. He was rigid. I could not tell whether or not he was breathing.

I wondered if he were dying as don Juan had said; or was don Juan simply using the event to make a point? My past experiences with him gave me the certainty that somehow he was making everything fit into some mysterious scheme of his.

After a long silence I turned to him. His eyes were closed. He began to talk without opening them.

"That man is about to die now," he said. "You don't believe it, though, do you?"

He opened his eyes and stared at me for a second. His look was so penetrating that it stunned me.

"No. I don't believe it," I said.

I really felt that the whole thing was too easy. We had come to sit in the park, and right there, as if everything were being staged, was a man dying.

"The world adjusts itself to itself," don Juan said after listening to my doubts. "This is not a setup. This is an omen; an act of power.

"The world upheld by reason makes all this into an event that we can watch for a moment on our way to more important things. All we can say about it is that a man is lying on the grass in the park, perhaps drunk.

"The world upheld by will makes it into an act of power which we can see. We can see death whirling around the man setting its hooks deeper and deeper into his luminous fibers. We can see the luminous strings losing their tautness and vanishing one by one.

"Those are the two possibilities opened to us luminous beings. You are somewhere in the middle still wanting to have everything under the rubric of reason.

"And yet, how can you discard the fact that your personal power rounded up an omen? We came to this park after you had found me where I had been waiting for you. You found me by just walking into me: without thinking, or planning, or deliberately using your 'reason'; and after we sat down here to wait for an omen, we became aware of that man. Each of us noticed him in our own way. You with your 'reason'. I with my 'will'.

"That dying man is one of the cubic centimeters of chance that power always makes available to a warrior. The warrior's art is to be perennially [* perennially- repeatedly] fluid in order to pluck it. I have plucked it, but have you?"

I could not answer. I became aware of an immense chasm within myself, and for a moment I was somehow cognizant of the two worlds he was talking about.

"What an exquisite omen this is!" he went on. "And all for you. Power is showing you that death is the indispensable ingredient in having to believe. Without the awareness of death, everything is ordinary; trivial. It is only because death is stalking us that the world is an unfathomable mystery. Power has shown you that.

"All I have done myself is to round up the details of the omen so the direction would be clear to you; but in rounding up the details, I have also shown you that everything I have said to you today is what I have to believe myself because that is the predilection of my spirit."

We looked each other in the eye for a moment.

"I remember a poem that you used to read to me," he said, moving his eyes to the side. "About a man who vowed to die in Paris. How does it go?"

The poem was Cesar Vallejo's "Black Stone on a White Stone." I had read and recited the first two stanzas to don Juan countless times at his request.

I will die in Paris while it rains,
on a day which I already remember.
I will die in Paris - and I do not run away -
perhaps in the Autumn, on a Thursday, as it is today.
It will be a Thursday, because today,
the Thursday that I write these lines,
my bones feel the turn,
and never so much as today, in all my road,
have I seen myself alone.

The poem summed up an indescribable melancholy for me.

Don Juan whispered that he had to believe that the dying man had had enough personal power to enable him to choose the streets of Mexico City as the place of his death.

"We're back again to the story of the two cats," he said. "We have to believe that Max became aware of what was stalking him and, like that man over there, had enough power at least to choose the place of his end. But then there was the other cat, just like there are other men whose death will encircle them while they are alone, unaware, staring at the walls and ceiling of an ugly barren room.

"That man, on the other hand, is dying where he has always lived, in the streets. Three policemen are his guards of honor. And as he fades away his eyes will catch a last glimpse of the lights in the stores across the street- the cars, the trees, the throngs of people milling around- and his ears will be flooded for the last time with the sounds of traffic and the voices of men and women as they walk by.

"So you see, without an awareness of the presence of our death there is no power, no mystery."

I stared at the man for a long time. He was motionless. Perhaps he was dead. But my disbelief did not matter any longer. Don Juan was right. Having to believe that the world is mysterious and unfathomable was the expression of a warrior's innermost predilection. Without it he had nothing.

First We Take Manhattan by Leonard Cohen

(Radio announcer's voice)
Was die Attentäter betrifft, die in Berlin den Anschlag auf die Deutsch-Arabische Gesellschaft verübt haben, ist die Polizei einen Schritt weiter gekommen. Die jetzt nach dem Anschlag...

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I don't like your fashion business mister
And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin
I don't like what happened to my sister
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'd really like to live beside you, baby ...

And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now I'm ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I am guided

Ah remember me, I used to live for music
Remember me, I brought your groceries in
Well it's Father's Day and everybody's wounded
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

***

Jennifer Warnes and Stevie Ray Vaughn recording of Leonard Cohen's First We Take Manhattan.

http://t.co/t5g4vv3 via @youtube

Take Me Home Country Roads

I rediscovered my good old Navy buddy Mike on Facebook. I had lost contact with him 30 some years ago. He now lives in rural West Virginia with his lifelong partner whom he originally met on a gay phone sex line.

He has invited me to visit him in his rural home in West Virginia.

When I knew him he looked like this.


I lived on this ship with him for three years but didn't know until now that he was gay.

Here he is today. He has offered me a good time should I decide to switch teams.

This is his partner in the ballerina costume, who would also be willing to show me a good time.

I would be allowed to stay in this room. This is Mike's brother. I'm not sure if he's part of the package.


This photo is Mike's most prized possession, an 8x10 glossy.


Recently Roger Ebert posted an image of a dressing recipe hand written by Marilyn Monroe. I sent the image to Mike.

Mike responded, "THANKS! This is the coolest thing ever! I will copy it into my picture gallery and cherish it. I will also make it this Thanksgiving..."


I can't wait until Thanksgiving!

Perdition

I have been to Naples a few times. When I was in the Navy we were homeported there on Mediterranean deployments.

Once upon completing a meal in a restaurant in Naples my friend Mike let loose a huge belch. The waiter exclaimed, "Saluté! Saluté!"

We were under the impression that he had complimented the chef because someone had told us, "That's the way it is in Italy."

We took that to heart and complimented chefs all through Italy, Sicily and even Capri. We belched our way through Naples, Pisa, Rome and places I don't even remember.

Was that the way it was in Eat Pray Love?

***

Innocent's Abroad
by Mark Twain

Here in Milan, in an ancient tumble-down ruin of a church, is the mournful wreck of the most celebrated painting in the world—"The Last Supper," by Leonardo da Vinci. We are not infallible judges of pictures, but of course we went there to see this wonderful painting, once so beautiful, always so worshipped by masters in art, and forever to be famous in song and story. And the first thing that occurred was the infliction on us of a placard fairly reeking with wretched English. Take a morsel of it:

"Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left hand side at the spectator,) uncertain and doubtful about what he thinks to have heard, and upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ and by no others."

Good, isn't it? And then Peter is described as "argumenting in a threatening and angrily condition at Judas Iscariot."

This paragraph recalls the picture. "The Last Supper" is painted on the dilapidated wall of what was a little chapel attached to the main church in ancient times, I suppose. It is battered and scarred in every direction, and stained and discolored by time, and Napoleon's horses kicked the legs off most the disciples when they (the horses, not the disciples,) were stabled there more than half a century ago.

I recognized the old picture in a moment—the Saviour with bowed head seated at the centre of a long, rough table with scattering fruits and dishes upon it, and six disciples on either side in their long robes, talking to each other—the picture from which all engravings and all copies have been made for three centuries. Perhaps no living man has ever known an attempt to paint the Lord's Supper differently. The world seems to have become settled in the belief, long ago, that it is not possible for human genius to outdo this creation of da Vinci's. I suppose painters will go on copying it as long as any of the original is left visible to the eye. There were a dozen easels in the room, and as many artists transferring the great picture to their canvases. Fifty proofs of steel engravings and lithographs were scattered around, too. And as usual, I could not help noticing how superior the copies were to the original, that is, to my inexperienced eye. Wherever you find a Raphael, a Rubens, a Michelangelo, a Carracci, or a da Vinci (and we see them every day,) you find artists copying them, and the copies are always the handsomest. Maybe the originals were handsome when they were new, but they are not now.

The colors are dimmed with age; the countenances are scaled and marred, and nearly all expression is gone from them; the hair is a dead blur upon the wall, and there is no life in the eyes. Only the attitudes are certain.

People come here from all parts of the world, and glorify this masterpiece. They stand entranced before it with bated breath and parted lips, and when they speak, it is only in the catchy ejaculations of rapture:

"Oh, wonderful!"

"Such expression!"

"Such grace of attitude!"

"Such dignity!"

"Such faultless drawing!"

"Such matchless coloring!"

"Such feeling!"

"What delicacy of touch!"

"What sublimity of conception!"

"A vision! A vision!"

I only envy these people; I envy them their honest admiration, if it be honest—their delight, if they feel delight. I harbor no animosity toward any of them. But at the same time the thought will intrude itself upon me, How can they see what is not visible? What would you think of a man who looked at some decayed, blind, toothless, pock-marked Cleopatra, and said: "What matchless beauty! What soul! What expression!" What would you think of a man who gazed upon a dingy, foggy sunset, and said: "What sublimity! What feeling! What richness of coloring!" What would you think of a man who stared in ecstasy upon a desert of stumps and said: "Oh, my soul, my beating heart, what a noble forest is here!"

You would think that those men had an astonishing talent for seeing things that had already passed away. It was what I thought when I stood before "The Last Supper" and heard men apostrophizing wonders, and beauties and perfections which had faded out of the picture and gone, a hundred years before they were born. We can imagine the beauty that was once in an aged face; we can imagine the forest if we see the stumps; but we can not absolutely see these things when they are not there. I am willing to believe that the eye of the practiced artist can rest upon the Last Supper and renew a lustre where only a hint of it is left, supply a tint that has faded away, restore an expression that is gone; patch, and color, and add, to the dull canvas until at last its figures shall stand before him aglow with the life, the feeling, the freshness, yea, with all the noble beauty that was theirs when first they came from the hand of the master. But I can not work this miracle. Can those other uninspired visitors do it, or do they only happily imagine they do?

After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that the Last Supper was a very miracle of art once. But it was three hundred years ago.

It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of "feeling," "expression," "tone," and those other easily acquired and inexpensive technicalities of art that make such a fine show in conversations concerning pictures. There is not one man in seventy-five hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended to express. There is not one man in five hundred that can go into a court-room and be sure that he will not mistake some harmless innocent of a juryman for the black-hearted assassin on trial. Yet such people talk of "character" and presume to interpret "expression" in pictures. There is an old story that Matthews, the actor, was once lauding the ability of the human face to express the passions and emotions hidden in the breast. He said the countenance could disclose what was passing in the heart plainer than the tongue could.

"Now," he said, "observe my face—what does it express?"

"Despair!"

"Bah, it expresses peaceful resignation! What does this express?"

"Rage!"

"Stuff! It means terror! This!"

"Imbecility!"

"Fool! It is smothered ferocity! Now this!"

"Joy!"

"Oh, perdition! Any ass can see it means insanity!"

Expression! People coolly pretend to read it who would think themselves presumptuous if they pretended to interpret the hieroglyphics on the obelisks of Luxor—yet they are fully as competent to do the one thing as the other. I have heard two very intelligent critics speak of Murillo's Immaculate Conception (now in the museum at Seville,) within the past few days. One said:

"Oh, the Virgin's face is full of the ecstasy of a joy that is complete—that leaves nothing more to be desired on earth!"

The other said:

"Ah, that wonderful face is so humble, so pleading—it says as plainly as words could say it: 'I fear; I tremble; I am unworthy. But Thy will be done; sustain Thou Thy servant!'"

The reader can see the picture in any drawing-room; it can be easily recognized: the Virgin (the only young and really beautiful Virgin that was ever painted by one of the old masters, some of us think,) stands in the crescent of the new moon, with a multitude of cherubs hovering about her, and more coming; her hands are crossed upon her breast, and upon her uplifted countenance falls a glory out of the heavens. The reader may amuse himself, if he chooses, in trying to determine which of these gentlemen read the Virgin's "expression" aright, or if either of them did it.

Any one who is acquainted with the old masters will comprehend how much "The Last Supper" is damaged when I say that the spectator can not really tell, now, whether the disciples are Hebrews or Italians. These ancient painters never succeeded in denationalizing themselves. The Italian artists painted Italian Virgins, the Dutch painted Dutch Virgins, the Virgins of the French painters were Frenchwomen—none of them ever put into the face of the Madonna that indescribable something which proclaims the Jewess, whether you find her in New York, in Constantinople, in Paris, Jerusalem, or in the empire of Morocco. I saw in the Sandwich Islands, once, a picture copied by a talented German artist from an engraving in one of the American illustrated papers. It was an allegory, representing Mr. Davis in the act of signing a secession act or some such document. Over him hovered the ghost of Washington in warning attitude, and in the background a troop of shadowy soldiers in Continental uniform were limping with shoeless, bandaged feet through a driving snow-storm. Valley Forge was suggested, of course. The copy seemed accurate, and yet there was a discrepancy somewhere. After a long examination I discovered what it was—the shadowy soldiers were all Germans! Jeff Davis was a German! even the hovering ghost was a German ghost! The artist had unconsciously worked his nationality into the picture.

To tell the truth, I am getting a little perplexed about John the Baptist and his portraits. In France I finally grew reconciled to him as a Frenchman; here he is unquestionably an Italian. What next? Can it be possible that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard in Madrid and an Irishman in Dublin?

***

Check the Gutenborg files for the complete text of Innocent’s Abroad.

This excerpt came from:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/p2.htm#ch14

Isn't It Ironic?

Flaubert wrote:

I really love irony...

British Intelligence Agency Used Semen as Invisible Ink
gawker.com

A new book reveals that a member of MI6, the British spy agency, discovered during WWI that semen makes excellent invisible ink, and often deployed it in the field. The name of the man who discovered this? Mansfield Cumming.

Amirali Raissnia responded:

That's actually coincidental, not ironic. It would be ironic if his name was Girlsford Lamclit.

Flaubert:

Smartass...

BededoBedado:

I didn't know you went to school as Alanis Morissette.

A "black fly in my Chardonnay" is ironic if and only if the black fly preferred Cabernet Sauvignon.

But damn! Amirali beat me to it and said it better.

Flaubert:

...implied descrepancy between what is meant and what is said--but you're both right in this case...it would have had to be purposeful. So, I guess I really love coincidence. And Bededo, irony is a major wine label and I'm pretty sure they make both Cabernet and Chardonnay.

BededoBedado:

That would be "discrepancy".

Lucy's First Song

Lucy has been sitting at the piano for the last couple days working on a song. She wrote and re-wrote the lyrics several times and can even plunk a tune with her lyrics.

On her lyric sheet she wrote an introduction.

My name is Lucy. I was inspired to write this because of my dream where everything is good. I wrote this because I wanted somewhere happy. I write a lot but this is my first song.

Here it is, Lucy's song.

Wake up every morning to a world of peace
Flowers bloom and bees buzz
Birds sing very happily
In my dreamland honey drips from beehives
Fish splash in the pond
Everybody's happy in my dreamland
A rainbow stretches across the sky
Candy falls from the sky

Another Spring

The seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision.
The moon, without taking thought,
Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.

The white moon enters the heart of the river;
The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.

The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
High in the sky the Northern Crown
Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.

O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit waters,
And moments that should each last forever

Slide unconsciously by us like water.


-- Kenneth Rexroth

The Bounty Hunters

Returning from the grocery store, three blocks from home, two cars pulled up and stopped quickly in front of an apartment building across from the Walker Methodist Nursing Home. Approximately eight men and women in blue t-shirts scrambled out.

The first guy out was was carrying a full sized automatic rifle. He was a young guy, looking looking like a fully armed Maynard G. Krebs. All the other blue t-shirts had shoulder or waist arms.

Their t-shirts said U.S. Recovery Team or Fugitive Recovery. I have seen SWAT teams in action but this was no SWAT team. SWAT teams have organization and a plan. These blue t-shirts were more like the Keystone Cops.

One guy was huge, way overweight. Another guy was skinny, had long stringy gray hair and thick white beard. I was wondering if this was a birthday joke about to go horribly wrong.

When I got home I did a Google search and came to the conclusion that the blue t-shirts were private bounty hunters/bail recovery agents.

Wikipedia says only two countries in the world allow commercial bounty hunting, the U.S. and Philippines. Whatda country!

I drove by again on the way to pick up the kids. The motley crew of bounty hunters was out in front of the apartment building, several were smoking cigarettes.

I picked up Jack and Lucy and described the bounty hunters. Jack was very excited. He insisted that the fat guy and the old bearded guy were in disguise. "That's how they do it Dad." Underneath the disguises dwelled really honed muscle guys.

I'd have to say, those were very clever disguises indeed.

The bounty hunters were still out when we drove by on our way home. A police car and a couple cops were now present making the scene seem a bit more legit.

I wish I could have taken a picture of those dingleberry bounty hunters, but I really didn't want to get shot a million times.

I also wish I had an ending to this story, but I have no idea what happened next.

All I can say for sure is that I now want to grow me a mullet and become a bounty hunter.

Levi 501s

Is That a Banana in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

They put me in a little room to remove anything that might contain metal from my body like my watch, keys, hearing aids, belt and glasses. I expected to be issued one of those backward facing blue hospital smocks but you are allowed to wear your street clothes in the MRI.

I pointed out that my jeans had metal buttons but somehow the attendant seemed okay with that. Her smile seemed to say, "What have you got to lose old dude?"

The MRI looked like an early generation Omnidroid sans tentacles. I laid on the attached mechanical sliding bed. My right knee was clamped down. I was told to stay still and was provided insulated headphones with piped in music.

The lights dimmed and the mechanical bed moved me feet first into the Omnidroid. As soon as my hips entered, the powerful magnets caused the button fly of my 501 Levis to rise up to true north.

"Sweet Jesus!"

I hadn't had this look since I was 18.

I needed to lay still for the first 35 minute session. The headphones muted the sound of the MRI. There were whirs, hums, and hammering noises, but mainly I listened to Frank Sinatra.

Thirty-five minutes is a long time to be still. My fingers became stiff. I wondered if it would be okay to wiggle them.

Images of the movie Total Recall came into my head. This seemed like the machine that would take you to your dream vacation or nightmare.

After the first session I was given permission to wiggle my fingers which by then could barely move.

My mind was active. I could write a book on all the things I thought about during those two sessions.

During the second session I began to laugh when I started thinking of some of the antics of my children. I really had to can it to stop my body from shaking.

There was a countdown clock. I watched as the seconds slowly ticked away. When it was all over, it took a few minutes for my fingers to loosen up.

On my way home I stopped at the first burger place I saw for a double burger, fries and onions rings. Laying completely still for 70 minutes made me hungry.

Monday I will visit with my orthopedist for analysis of the pictures.