jdr1066

Repeat 10,000 times:

I must always remember that whatever I do, I will never have the approval of my parents.  I am an adult.  I must learn  to accept that.

For some reason this afternoon, I am thinking about the hot summers when I was little.

I remember the smell of hot dust in the summer.  Periodically a large yellow road grader came  to work on the gravel road on which we lived.  The yellow paint on the metal skin of the machine was blurred and flattened by the red clay dust as it scraped away at the river gravel which, (as I now know from excavating for a basement addition) could not have overlain the hard bedrock by much.  I did not know then how shallow the soil there was.  Perhaps that is why there was on those summer days such a ponderous feeling of gravity - not enough soil between the human soul and the terrible solidity of that rock.

I remember being interested even then in the spidery shape of the machine, with the blade under its arching belly and front wheels inexplicably tilted (I don't know even now why they do that - I could look it up, but Google already takes so much mystery out of the world).  I understood even then (and I must have been four or so)  that the steering wheel attached directly to the long rod which ran above the whole length of the machine to the front wheels, and that this was a very direct mechanical system for steering.  I was strangely impressed that my mother knew the name of the guy who drove it (I know now that in a town of about 300 people, the one guy who was employed to do whatever maintenance or odd jobs the town requires is generally known...).  The engine of the machine, while shockingly loud when in front of the house, faded quickly as it moved on down the road to a monotonous drone which nicely meshed with the lassitude of a heat-tranquilized brain.  To be clear, I speak not of physical lassitude, but that of the mind.   I mention the road grader above because the drone as it moved into the distance somehow matched the particular reddish orange light of the sun which almost seemed to paralyze my mind.  I mention the bedrock above, as the mind seemed anchored to the bedrock, weighed down with red clay.

On those hot summer days, wasps seemed to be the only living things capable of action.  Even other insects seem to await the dusk for action, larger animals were nowhere in evidence, and people spoke slowly if they could place words together at all.  Only the wasps seemed unaffected by the heat, the orange light, and the drone of lethargy.  In those days, during the summer, in an old wooden farmhouse in rural MIssouri (Rural Route 3 was the address, to be exact)  wasps (of all kinds) were constant companions.  There were always at least one or two in any room of the house, and always a few more buzzing around outside.  I once told someone (many years after those hot summer days when I was a child) that a minor injury of some kind was "about like a wasp sting" and was amazed by the reaction of shock, horror and running for medical help.  Now, I know some people are allergic and a wasp sting is a real danger for them (nobody involved in the situation was), but for an average person a wasp sting is a momentary pain.  When did they become serious?  When I was little (back to the four year old we started with here) a wasp sting got me an ice cube on it and a "Shh, you'll be fine" and the expectation that I would be in a minute or two.  Only a couple of years ago, I managed to get stung by twelve wasps while up on a ladder.  It hurt for a while, but I was fine.  It seems to me that people today lack a tolerance for wasps, and once again, to be clear, I mean by that not a physical one, but a mental kind of live and let live tolerance.  After all, the lazy drone of a wasp is the smell of hot dust in orange light as one's soul feels the pull of bedrock.

I haven't posted on here in a long time, but it was on my list of things to do today, so here is something.  A list:

1.  It was General Sedgwick who was apparently larger than an elephant
2.  I want to go to Estrella this year
3.  I think the Vinland map just might be real.
4.  I just don't like any of the candidates for president/vp. this year.  I really wanted to.
5.  Elasait should email me, I am really curious...
6.  I really don't like sourdough bread.
7.  I really do like mushrooms.
8.  I was really disappointed in the movie Burn After Reading


I just can't develop any narrative flow today.  I guess I should keep writing - that kind of thing apparently doesn't bother other people - like the Coen brothers any more. 






Ok, that was a cheap shot - the movie had problems, but that wasn't really one of them.  It was more the pacing.

Neil Young would totally kick Steven Stills' ass in a fight.

Here is my list  (with comments) 

bold = read
italic = owned but not read
$ = read long ago because I heard there was sex in it
CF = couldn't finish
* = standard star rating system
DL = didnt like
H = hated it

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell  CF
Crime and Punishment  (didn't Poe write this story better in The TellTale Heart?)
Catch-22  ****
One Hundred Years of Solitude *
Wuthering Heights  DL
The Silmarillion *
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose ***
Don Quixote
Moby Dick ** (i dont know what people bitch about...)
Ulysses  DL
Madame Bovary  DL
The Odyssey - the Illiad is better
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities  (I thought it was A Sale of Two Titties by Charles Dikkens, the well-known Dutch author)
The Brothers Karamazov  $
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies  ******
War and Peace  **(also, I don't know what people bitch about)
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad  ****
Emma  $
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods  ***
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius  (not really, but readable)
Atlas Shrugged  HHHH
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West  (is this a feminist thing?  I wasn't too into it)
The Canterbury Tales  (admit it - have YOU really read all of it?)
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  DL
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead  HH
Foucault’s Pendulum  DL
Middlemarch
Frankenstein**
The Count of Monte Cristo *****
Dracula ***
A Clockwork Orange ****
Anansi Boys  **
The Once and Future King  ****
The Grapes of Wrath ****
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel  **** (But Dont Lets Go To the Dogs Tonight is better)
1984
Angels & Demons  HHHHHHHHHH
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles  $
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables  ***
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay  ***
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune **
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces  ******
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five  ****
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon  it was OK....
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed  (Guns Germs and Steel was MUCH better)
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita  $  DL  really felt cheated on the sex angle on this one
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye  DL $
On the Road  DL $
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything  (pretty cool actually - abort the criminals!)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values *********************
The Aeneid  - not as good as the Odyssey
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit - possibly better than LOTR
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences  $
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers  ***

 A poem I like (I don't remember the source):

How hard it is to turn ahead
to step forward
when your heart pulls you back

Your head is always turning
even as you go,
your memories too heavy to pull

The past has a gravity for the mind
even as the body steps
into the inevitability of the future.

While Ulysses' purpose may hold,
 to sail beyond the sunset, 
your mind cannot forget Penelope.

How then, to have the memories
which are all there is of life 

without their chains?

I am bored, it is late, I have to get up early for work in the morning, and I am really sore.  Yesterday, I did 21 shovel tests, and each of them went to a whole meter deep.  Today I did 16 - also all to a meter.  My shoulders are tired.  On TV, Bill Maher just said "You know who is bitter in America?  I am.  Because shit kickers voted twice for a retarded guy they would like to have a beer with, and we all have to suffer the consequences".  I am not sure I can really disagree.  The most clever thing the Republicans ever did was convince working class redneck America that they were somehow on the same side as wealthy Americans.  
Enough politics.    Now I can't think of anything else to say.  I could talk about the Nazi Pope.  But maybe that isn't fair - I guess if everybody was joining....

I am not sure what to talk about today.  It seems to me that as near as I can tell, nothing at all interesting happened to me today.  I worked pretty hard, and I am pretty tired, but I can't think of anything interesting.  One of my co-workers told me this morning that I am probably the smartest person she knows.  I told her that she must hang out with a low bunch and she should have seen me before all the head injuries.  i am kind of looking forward to going home this weekend, even though it is a long drive.  There are several things I want to do there, including working on the chicken coop, and remodeling the bathroom.  

a list of random things:
1.  It is a great annoyance to me that there is just nothing on Ebay that I really want to bid on.
2.  Based on preliminary experiments, I seem to be mostly immune to fire ants.
3.  I am on a big dinosaur kick at the moment.  I think it is because I have been reading a book about  the big fight between Cope and Marsh.  I am ready for my nephew Sam (who is also on a dinosaur kick) to get a little older so we can go to Mongolia, to see the Protoceratops fossils.
4.  I want some good Chinese food.
5.  I liked the movie The Good Shepherd.  Watching the protagonist look on passively while giving up nearly every aspect of his life was chilling, and the ending complemented that theme perfectly.
6.  I saw a donkey with one ear two days ago.  The experience, while itself relatively unremarkable, has had the effect of causing me to examine all the other donkeys I see carefully for similar injuries (even though I know perfectly well that it is unlikely that there are all that many one eared donkeys in Rusk county, although there do seem to be rather more than the average number of donkeys in general).
7.  Speaking of donkeys, I used to know the number of asses in Taney county Missouri in 1860.  I don't know that now.
8.  Also speaking of donkeys, if you want to see something really strange, google "Poitou Ass".
9.  I am going to bed.
10.  One person with nine fingers who sings the theme from the Brady bunch at about 8 AM can really screw up brain function for a whole field crew for going on 14 hours now....
 

      Today  I saw a big wild pig that had been torn to shreds on the highway.  I imagine a big wild pig would be a pretty shocking thing to hit on the road, as they are both large and solid.  Apparently, this area is infested with them, and people can't really even shoot them fast enough (they breed fast).  If I see another one in the woods, maybe I'll take a shot at with my shovel.  I have been sharpening it assiduously every morning, and feel fairly confident I could behead almost any animal but a pig with it without too much trouble.  Pigs, of course are tough, mean, hard to kill and have shockingly heavy bones protecting most vital stuff.  Why do these journal entries always go south on me?  I set out to write a nice little account of my day and the next thing you know we are attempting to club pigs with a razor sharp shovel.  Some people write nice sensible journals.  Sigh.
       I spent all morning fighting my way through dense brush and greenbriars.  I was very glad I had my machete (i think I may have to start calling it a 'corn knife' - it has a nice rustic, East Texas feel) with me, or I might still be out there.  At one point, a branch grabbed my glasses off my face and flung them in a random direction.  It took me quite a while to find them.  When I finally got out, there was a big thorn sticking out of the side of my nose that I hadn't noticed.  Archaeology is a charming job.
     

Babies stare at me.

      I realize that that statement sounds insane, but they do.  If I am in a room with a baby (even if there is an elephant and a marching band in the room too), there is a better than 50% chance the baby is looking at me.  I am not kidding.  Some people who might read this know what I am talking about, and that I am not just crazy.  I have no idea why this is.  I am not beautiful, nor am I hideous (I think).  I don't think I resemble either a popular cartoon character or a giant breast (on the theory that they might be thinking about lunch).  Many little kids are intimidated by big guys with beards, but mostly the response seems to be positive (I often get a smile, only very rarely do they cry).  Generally, I get this from kids from about the age at which they become aware of their surroundings up to about 2 years old.  I like babies, so mostly I like this phenomenon.  A nice smile in a grocery store can really cheer me up, but sometimes it is just creepy - I want to scream "What? What do you little creeps want?!!  Stop being creepy!!"  (I doubt many of the two of you who will read this like people to stare at you silently all the time).  
      Anyway, today I was in the WalMart.  When you are working in a small town in Texas, going to WalMart and buying random things has more entertainment value than a normal person might expect.  This was a trip to buy a tube of Neosporin (Linda!), some socks, a plastic box, and some thread.  I was standing in the check out line when I saw a kind of chubby little girl with red hair in the baby seat of the cart ahead of me.  She had one of those topknot kind of ponytails that people think (why am I ridiculing this? I think it is cute too) is cute on babies.  Her mother was a kind of sausage in polyester casing, of slightly unpleasant but unremarkable countenance, who is not terribly pertinent to the story. She (the baby) was of course staring right at me, silently, but with a certain open-mouthed intensity.   What made this experience weird, is that this baby was somehow the saddest baby I had ever seen.  I tried smiling and making faces, but she did not respond at all.  I am not sure why i had this reaction, but she was just so sad, that I actually felt weak and vaguely nauseous (I do not accept this "nauseated" business).  To be clear (and fair), there was nothing in particular to indicate why i got this feeling of sadness.  I was not sure what was happening to me, when another cashier opened up and I went to his line.  I checked out, and looked back.  The mother was giving the baby a drink of Dr. Pepper.  I still felt really discombobulated, and as I was walking out, another little girl, also about one year old, pierced me with her gimlet eye.
     This one, Mexican (I suppose I ought to use another term, but that is the way it is down here), had jet black hair (a lot of it) and a pacifier.  She was sitting on a mans lap who was sitting on one of the benches they sometimes have outside the checkouts at WalMart.  He was an older guy, probably about my weight, but much shorter.  His age, and her evident contentment suggests grandfather.  He was right out of central casting for 'aging Mexican farm worker'.  His hands, which were each about the size of her torso, were gently stroking her head.  I was really struck by the impression of strength in his hands.  She was busy with her Grandpa and pacifier, but she did sort of sparkle her eyes at me as I walked by.

I am feeling pretty low at the moment.  I have many projects to work on, but I just can't seem to get going on any of them.  I am applying for a contract job in Texas as soon as I finish updating my CV.  I haven't fought in a long time.  I talked to some people over the weekend who kind of reminded me that I liked that, but it does seem like a big project to actually put on my armour.

Enough whining for today.  Things are not so bad.

Trivia Question: What do Sarmatians have to do with the Arthurian legend (according to one theory)?

Follow Up Trivia Question:   Where are the (probably) most famous depictions of Sarmatians?

Follow Up to Follow Up Trivia Question:  What does this depiction reveal about its creators (hint), and  possibly about their material culture (another hint) and world?

I am sitting in a bar at the Kansas City Airport.  My flight to Chicago is delayed by weather in Chicago.  There is some chance that this will cause a storm to arrive here about the time we are now scheduled to leave. Who knows.  Am feeling pretty good, but terribly sunburned.

It is late and I am leaving for home tomorrow.  I am sad about that, but jubilant over Linda's and my triumph over the forces of evil - in the persons of Ian and Deann.  The British and American fleets destroyed the bulk of the German and Italian navies with the loss of only a light cruiser and a squadron of American Devastator torpedo bombers.  Nelson would be proud, if disapproving of the Yanks.  Admiral Linda did point out that I seem to be "Oversexed, Overpaid, and Over here."  Two out of three isn't bad.  Who would have suspected Linda of an interest in WWII naval wargames?

Trivia question: Blazon the arms of Sir John Chandos, and explain why his death reveals the importance of staying abreast of trends in fashion. (extra points for getting the oddity with the arms)



Well?

The Iliad begins with: "Sing oh muse, of the wrath of Achilles...."  Hildegard von Bingen is always depicted in medieval art with the divine fire of inspiration shooting into her head.  Voodoo practitioners believe that during rituals the are "ridden by the loa".  All of these things kind of describe the mood I am in.  I sometimes feel the need to create something so strongly that I feel my body twitching, and can imagine my skull breaking apart as the muse bursts out.  However, I cannot paint, or draw, or sculpt, really.  I type so slowly that writing is excruciating.  I got no art, baby.  I must figure this out, first, so that I can assume my rightful place as an internationally famous artist, or best selling author, etc.; and second, because it is a damn unpleasant feeling to have that drive, but no outlet.  Anyway, that is what I was thinking about in the shower this morning.
Since I am on the topic of frenzy, I include a quote from the Tain bo Cuailnge, about the battle frenzy of Cuchulain:

The Warp-Spasm overtook him: it seemed each hair was hammered into his head, so sharply they shot upright. You would swear a fire-speck tipped each hair. He squeezed one eye narrower than the eye of a needle; he opened the other wider than the mouth of a goblet. He bared his jaws to the ear; he peeled back his lips to the eye-teeth till his gullet showed. The hero-halo rose up from the crown of his head.

—Thomas Kinsella (translator), The Táin

This frenzy caused him to turn about in his skin; his sinews bulged with knots the size of a baby's head; a poisonous black mist rose above his head; and he snapped his jaw shut with enough force to kill a lion, showering sparks. In this fearsome state he could not tell friend from foe, killing in front and behind alike.


I feel that this work is underappreciated these days, and more people ought to read it.  Incidentally, and even more circularly within the context of this journal entry, the Tain and the Iliad are different versions of the same ancient (Proto?) Indo-European story, and Cuchulain and Achilles are different versions of the same mythic hero.



Enough for now.  I may do another entry later today, though.  I am feeling opinionated.

I am not sure what the hell I was thinking about yesterday.  I hate the modern trend for soft-core vampire porn for chicks.  perhaps my protagonist should be a werewolf (no, that is worse, maybe having him be an archaeologist is exotic and powerful enough - it is in real life...).  I am feeling sort of irascibly optimistic today, which should bode well for relations with those about to come home from work.  I want to do stuff (fix window screen, install threshold, fix shingles on roof, plant tomatoes, play naval wargame)  I promise I will try to be understanding of some peoples need to relax after work.  

I am excited - we found some table legs out by the curb outside a house in Linda's neighborhood, which I think will turn into an excellent SCA table.  We were treated as if we were members of the lower classes by some passersby while we were scavenging in their trash.  I made sure they heard me say "Be careful Dr. Moore, if you cut your hand on that nail, all five surgeries you have scheduled for tomorrow will have to be postponed." - And if their stupid dog they were walking had come closer I would have kicked it.

Second:  Contrary to the opinions of certain grocery store checkout women, a single blue rose is an acceptable substitute for a beef lung (in her defence, I guess this is not true for cows, but is so for [human] girlfriends.  I do not understand why people keep acting like I am out of my mind when I try to make friendly conversation  with them in stores.

Third:  though often the victims of erroneous nomenclature, the little shovel-like garden implement is not a trowel.  Many people prefer a Marshaltown #6, but I like a #5 myself.

Fourth:  Linda, though wonderful in many ways, lacks a full appreciation of the $149 router table and router on sale at the harbor freight sidewalk sale (I know what you are thinking, but I went to look at it, and for as often as I use a router table, it might be OK).  Anyway, it is really just a stalking horse for when I buy the 14" abrasive saw.  Or is it the other way around?...?  A Harbor Freight Haiku:

Router table now?
Or abrasive saw today?
instead, solar lights!

Fifth,  I think I need to write either more or less like Allen Ginsburg - either would be OK

I am not sure what to say today.  It is raining, which I am in favor of, since it means no fighter practice.  I am not sure why I am so disinterested in fighting at the moment.  I feel guilty about it.  I even look forward to fighting in the morning of the day of practice, but that feeling gradually wanes all day, until it is time to go and I force myself, only to take any excuse not to fight once I get there. I guess I should just accept that fighting is not where my interest is right now, and that it will come back in time.  
On another topic all together, I am thinking about writing an article about the use of lungs in medieval cooking, as well as starting a series of novels about an incredibly sexy archaeologist who is smarter than everybody else who becomes a private detective and goes around solving crime and doing all the women and is secretly a vampire.
I need to just stay in the shower all day, because that is where I have all my good ideas. 

OK.  Here I am.  Mentally stressed for various reasons, and with Friend of the Devil stuck in my head (the original Grateful Dead version, which is nice if you are on acid, I guess - but for most purposes Lyle Lovett does a much better version [he turns it into a slow mournful dirge that just works better than the drug inspired instrumental flourishes that the Dead used].  Note to self, Linda needs a copy of Lyle's Pontiac CD.  Why am I talking about music?  I hate music, mostly.
I just found online a pdf of Giraldus Cambriensis'  Topography of Ireland, which (as far as I know) is the period source for the Irish (and possibly more pan-Celtic) custom where at his coronation a king is required to have sex with a horse.  I have been meaning to look up the original source for that for a while, and just now found it while looking for something else.  It does not seem to be a good translation, though.  Of course, I do know using Gerald of Wales as a source for anything is problematic.
It is now about 5:30, so soon Linda willl be home and the evenings activities can begin.  What willl it be?   Woodworking?  Movie?  Naval wargame?  Drinking on the porch?  Apparently new people have moved in next door, so my vote is loud drinking on the porch, including high volume bluegrass-rap fusion music.  Gin and Juice anyone?