MAPP (Mandatory Annual Pet Pic) - Cecil 2024

 

 

 

          Still loving, living, but showing/feeling his age, Cecil has become thin and rangy at 16 years of oldness.  He still very-much enjoys a pile of firewood (as he did as a juvenile kitten and young adult).  My hopes are that this isn't his final annual picture, but that last month's move is-and-will-be the last move required of us all.

 

          Grooming him and enjoying her elder's company, Pearl is but a mere 2 years of youthfulness.  She is wiley and adept at learning, but still only obeys the commands 'stop' and 'come' when it suits her.  My hopes are that "Pearly-girl" eventually becomes less sensitive to odors; because she compulsively scratches to "cover" anything with a smell, which includes her own food. 

 

 

  

On Topic:

Pearl - 2023 - 1 yr

 

Cecil - 2011 (a solid cat)

Station Skepticism

 

        Alone, with no external encouragement or assistance, a toddler does something novel.  New neuron connections are electric-vibration-ally "made".  With repetition, the toddler's memory causes neuron-pathways to become "strengthened".  Since this toddler exists in the constantly new moment where every thing is a first thing; they, consequently, spend no time congratulating themself for stumbling their first step or mumbling their first word because they'd intended to walk across the playpen or ask to be taken out of it.  So—from their perspective—they failed to accomplish their goal.

 

        Spin that smallish human's odometer.

 

        Everyday becomes every week.  Months turn into years of almost or just-barely accomplishing the goal-at-hand while continually doing something novel.  On your own.  With no direction or help from others.  And then you stop.  And ponder the 'no instructions' label.  Is the reverse side of the label a space for you to scrawl notes to your future self? 

        Can you recall deciding to explore what the no-path direction had in store for you?

        When was your first foray into breaking brush?

        How soon did you teach yourself to only advance in a safe, terrain-hugging, instinctual manner?

        Where was your punishment training self delivered and self enforced?

        What made it become (eventually) self desired and self endorsed?

        Who's eventuality caused your inundating disdain tsunami to ripple, falter, and fall apart?

 

        This bench was installed on the side of the path, facing in this direction, by some one (or group of someones) who considered there would be others—future others—who would appreciate a rest at some point during their hike.  The bench installer(s) decided this location would be optimal for that.  Assuredly, they-themself(ves) once sat here (or still sit here).  And.  Even if the bench was built by conservation corp students, the benefactor(s) and the builder(s) must-have all sat here, for at least a few relaxing seconds to mentally congratulate themself(ves) on their just-accomplished goal.

 

        A different goal became an accomplishment for you, today, because you successfully climbed walked all the way to this bench without having to stop and catch your breath.

 

        This only feels like an memorable accomplishment from your perspective.  To you.  Not to the zen-hiker ahead, who's never had one un-synchronized breath go awry.  No, not to them.  And.  Never to the hoard of beyond ear-range delivery-drivers, unaware of their unawareness, streaming along the congested highway far below.  That contented multitude never thinks about the motivations of the odd few who catch up to their breath.  On a bench.  Along a steep path.  Out of earshot.  Surrounded by birdsong, tree-breeze and slowing heartbeats.      

 

        Still.  The reverse-side of the manufacturer's no-instructions label, belonging to the aged human with the still-spinning odometer, now bears a few handwritten notes.  Cryptic ones (except to yourself).

 

        Countless believe their odometer measures solar or lunar cycles.

        Some claim everyone's odometers will keep clicking even after they roll-over.

        Many still advocate for traditional ancestral beliefs—that odometers just measure distance travelled—because spacetime is not a concept their ancestors were aware of.

        You're pretty certain your odometer measures breaths.  Because you've learned to watch it slow.   And you've taught yourself to catch it.  At times, on a path bench. 

 

 

⬒ Mark Rothko ⬒

 

The magnitude—on every level of experience and meaning—of the task in which you have involved me, exceeds all my preconceptions and is teaching me to extend myself beyond what I thought was possible for me.  For this, I thank you. 

 

⬒

 

        Mark Rothko is the name of an artist whom I chose to admire after my eye discovered his frames in combinations of colors on the walls of some museums where my professors worshiped.  This was while I was attending classes (paying these professor's salaries) because everyone I'd trusted, watched, read or obeyed said, "better humans were graduates and the best graduates matriculated."  So, after college, when I chose to wring my income from the other lobe of my puzzle-solving grey matter, I succeeded in failure.  A mark I branded onto me at the behest of everyone I'd . . . except I today-now know how to no longer see things as a main quest and side quests.  I'm this currently-held collection of values.  Still, one of the artists I admire:

        Mark Rothko wrought a living creating colored panes of light while his life spanned world wars and he weighted his involvement in both American industry and the boom in commerce that it caused (and deserved) against the autumnal strife of his personal theosophical coda . . . is quite a sentence.  And, if I failed to italicize the 'Mark...coda' portion of this meta-paragraph: my apologies; but, you understand (or you should—by now) what I'm attempting to accomplish here, don't you?

 

        Mark Rothko is the open, opening, closing or closed window between my best friend and I [she loves him] and that's an opinion people are allowed to possess, is what I re-iterate.  She sees the size of blocks of colors which inform her of the type of instrument used to impart that color onto the surface and the deliberate strokes of fluid which must have dried into a slightly lighter tone near the edge where the collection of tones is more direct but not brighter and thinks about how this type of dissociation is leaving another comfortable impression in the after-image when she blinks.  While I admire other artists who communicate with more visual complexity, which translates into requires more time (both, for me to fully appreciate the task accomplishment, and for the artist to create it) she derides me by asking, "What it-is about . . ."

 

        Mark Rothko marked his logo in your ego and labelled it the happy baby.  Remember?  When you watched the ceiling while listening to now become then and then remain now until someone said by bye or nite night and then the streetlights washed the ceiling thru the window's shadow with your contentment of what this all, really, was about.  And, was still happening with every prenatal breath?  preternatural-questioning breath?  conscious breath?  We no longer think about the times anchored by tears; those buoys are easy to locate.  There were years of happy and decades of content spent inside closed colors shadowing ideas returned to tackle the successes and delineate what exactly the satisfaction sense "felt like".  Try this.  While keeping in mind the over-arching decision to compare or equate-to cashmere:  Imagine being relegated to the chore of picking up all the spilled pumice and putting their fragments in burlap coffee-bean sacks.  Now.  Create a cashmere equivalent which holds a specific forceful feeling that stands in opposition to that of the gravel-grit abrasion. 

 

        Mark Rothko's "magnitude thank-you note" quote was him trying to relate thanks to the art patrons who afforded his ability to find the desire to become [insert word which means best version of one's self]. And he accomplished what he did not know he wanted to accomplish when he started, thru self motivation into experimentation and toward existential realization.  Because nothing else matters (a stanza from a Metallica song).

 

Vermont Car Show (people watching)

 

    "What's class number twenty-six?"  asked the man who had just read the official 66th Annual Vermont Antique Car Show document, displayed on the dash of my 2015 smart fortwo.  (The card read: Class #26: Display Only, special interest groups 1989-2023, not judged.)  I did not stand up from my lounge chair to greet him.  Instead, I merely said, 'not judged' from the comfort of the portable screened gazebo I'd put in the back of my stall, behind the tiny car.

 

    He walked with a stiff posture, carried around some permanently crinkled face muscles, and talked with a bully's 'searching-for-someone-who-deserves-it' demeanor.  "What's with this snapperhead?" he indicated towards my license plate.

 

    "That's related to my artwork."

 

    His sneer-scoff was just noticeable as a nose-twitch-lip-curl as he came towards the gazebo's zipper-door and said, "You're an artist.  What kind of art do you do?"

 

    I got up and said, "Like this image." As I exited the shade, patting my chest, he stared at me too long because (I think) he couldn't tell if I was holding eye-contact, because I was wearing ultra-dark mountaineering sunglasses with side-shields (which relaxed my Asperger-desire to look away from faces).  He could, however, read my smile, easy attitude, close-trimmed full-white beard, and colorful hat.

 

    He glanced longer than necessary at the abstract splash-type of shape (the color of faded-blood) on my hoodie.  "Some weird shit.  Don't get it.  I guess it's not..."

 

    I intentionally cut him off:  "New England.  It's the outline of New England."

 

    "Bullshit."  He batted my statement down with a waist-level flap of wrist.

 

    I tipped my head to the left and said, "Not everyone can see it."

 

    "Oh, I see it.  It's just.  That's not art."

 

    "Not everyone likes what I create.  That's their prerogative."  I said, turning and zipping myself back inside my bug-free shade.

 

፨  ፨  ፨

 

     "I would like to thank you so much for being here today.  I love-love-love that you've displayed it all.  And done it this way.  I love it so much!  It looks almost like the car might fit inside the pop-up?  Is it one of those tents that goes up in seconds?"  The energetic lady, comfortably dressed, comfortable in her middle-age, asked as she took out a phone and photographed the black-on-grey trademark logo [Quick-Set by Clam].

 

    "Thank you.  Yes, it does only take a couple minutes to put up.  The car might fit inside, but the front-end will stick out a foot or so because this is the six-foot gazebo."  As I talked she leaned inside the top-down convertible and said/asked what everyone says/asks: ...Didn't know they made a convertible; more room inside than imagined; thought all smart cars were electric; are highway-speeds safe; how much would a used one cost; is winter driving feasible... et cetera.  I answered questions and thought I recognized a fellow-Asperger's by her obvious non-conformist streak.

 

 ፨  ፨  ፨

 

    Not all of "us" are intentionally non-conformists.  Some of "us" are unaware of certain types of "unspoken" societal or cultural norms (pertaining to behaviors, dress, attitudes, or appearance).  "We" can't choose to intentionally not conform with something in "our" blindxpot.

 

    As an example:  I was in the National Gallery of Art in DC when a distinguished professor (whom I had previously recognized as one of "us") laid down on the floor next to a series of Giacometti sculptures being displayed on several large, shin-to-knee, coffee table level pedestals.  He then raised his voice to a shout, proclaiming that the curators were idiots to have made it impossible to see these tiny, thin, bronze artworks without sitting or lying on the floor.  Docents descended on the shouting man dressed in crumpled disheveled as if he were a member of the unhoused-population.  He calmly explained himself and was steered towards a suggestion box.  Professor Carmody's protest was not rude non-conformity; it was just that: "how to behave in a museum" occupied a blindxpot.

 

፨  ፨  ፨   

 

     Before displaying my smart subcompact vehicle at a car show, which predominantly contained trucks, muscle cars, racers, hot-rods, and museum showpieces, I thought it would be admired as something very few people here, in Vermont, were familiar with.  I was parked not far from a pristine '91 Nissan Figaro (also a class #26; even though it looks like it's from the 1950s).  My blindxpot:  I had no idea there were so many people (predominantly male) who hate the idea my subcompact car suggests by its existence.

 

    I was booed with thumbs-down and middle-fingers up.  More than one person exclaimed they thought it was visually ugly.  A man my age (red hat with four white letters) shouted as close to my face as tent-screen permitted, "WELCOME TO THE 21st CENTURY!!" (confusing; maybe he meant 20th).  It was referred to as a "nostalgia buzz-kill."  A child said, "we don't like this, do we Daddy?"  I received more than a handful of: "Well, don't you look comfy?" (oddly demeaning, but I was very comfy).  Another said in my direction (while pretending they were talking to the person they were with): "...more like a seedling-hugger, 'cause it's too small to hug a whole tree!"

 

    That last one was so good I intend to print a version of it on next year's hoodie.  Because (as regular readers don't need reminding) I am an intentional non-conformist.  While I enjoy exchanging ideas with the intellectually curious, I'm especially proud when my lack of conformity hits a nerve in conformists and their incurious comrades.

 

Don't get too comfy:

 

cute or ugly?

 

shirt:  artists are terrible

Mark The Date: Monday, 8 April 2024

    "Be somewhere in the path of totality with me."

 

    The next total solar eclipse is going to be almost 4 minutes in duration (according to NASA).  It will possibly be witness-able, in the afternoon of April 8th, during next year Vermont's Mud Season.  This means it has about a 50% chance of being hidden by clouds and/or rain here.

 

    This is something I would travel to witness.  It was so overwhelming in 2017, I am willing to travel to see it unobstructed; if weather forecasts, as the date approaches, indicate it would be more-probable to see in:  Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, or Indianapolis. 

 

 

 

For Consideration:

 

Reminiscence Bump

 

a song I fuckin hate

 

Why Conscientious Vermonter's Have Five Seasons

 

          There is a distinction (a valuable one) to be made between a Starling and a Grackle.  Many, who maintain a bird feeder between stick season and mud season, know what I mean.

          Starlings are aggressively-assertive or assertively-aggressive bullies, and are—relative to most other songbirds—unattractive, in their tweedy speckled brown; but their unique quality of songs and calls are both distinct and wonderfully melodious.

 

          Grackles proudly glide thru branches to gracefully wait their turn, and they are beautifully sleek with iridescent blue-to-black sheen (visible close-up in direct sunlight); but they only possess a limited and unimaginative volley of calls without melody.

 

          Vermont's Stick Season begins after all the colorful leaves have fallen and ends with the first Autumnal snowfall (usually between mid-October and early December).  Snow-melt combined with Spring rains causes Mud Season, which ends when Spring's flowers begin to bud; timing varies with ground thaw, but usually it begins late-February or March and ends mid-April (occasionally as late as May).

 

          The reason for the regional seasonal distinctions are simple:  In the mind of many Vermonters—Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring are all beautiful—however, Mud Season and Stick Season are less-so or not at all.

 

          I take down bird and critter feeders after Mud Season and put them back up when Stick Season arrives as the seeds, bugs, and natural food sources become scarce.  The exception is a Hummingbird feeder, which goes out after the last night-freeze of Spring and comes down before the first night-freeze of Autumn.

 

          In a similar-but-different routine:  I remove the MEDITATION sign from my front door after I finish.  Although—because of headphones—I wouldn't hear a Grackle ring the bell or a Starling shout, pound, and rattle the knob.  I do it to be conscientious of those who might-possibly, "see a car, know I'm home, don't find me in the yard with the cats, and become unnecessarily concerned". 

 

more:

 

critter story (squirrels)

 

critter story (bear)

 

conscientiousness (in detail)

(mandatory annual cat pic) Pearl, 1 year old

 

Concrete grey on raw-pine brown

Pearl they say with never a frown

Fixed jade gaze near-silent clown

Cecil unfazed, by new kit in town

|| a poem for the common cat ||

 

 

 

eventually the phenomenons your senses 

combine to assume it is experiencing 

catapult you toward choosing between

flotsam or jetsam—but before you do

 

smile at the opportunity this affords that

whom once assumed antagonists loved

to antagonize and wonder now about

how amazing—never another frustration 

actually exists in those who seize their

recalled memories and cease planning for 

every eventuality and realize how as if

this were but a daydream—time is figment

semblance of balance

 

  

    I don't know the name of the piece, or the artist, if that's what you mean.  If you meant to say, why'd I pay to stare at it - I think it's because it encourages me to try to understand visual tension.  

 

    What artsy-fartsy site have you been reading?

 

    The kind that you're lifetime blocked from commenting on.

 

    Ok, k, how'd you say it?  No.  Really.  Sincerity, now.  If you can explain that collection of pixels to MY brain, and I'm willing to giveit a try, why not?   Don't scowl.  I know I'm an asshat.  So, why not prove I'm an incurable one?

 

    Because explaining what happens in my brain when I interpret Portuguese into English requires the person I'm explaining the translation process to, to be capable of thinking in - in, analogies.  Which you're about to prove with a question.

 

    I didn't know you could speak a foreign language!  You speak Portuguese?  Ohh.  Z'a joke.  Now wha'd I say? 

 

    The background contains a smudge of clouds, tree branches in varied states of fall, and a shadowed window frame above a rain-stained sill.  Close-up.  Jewelers block behaving as pedestal for an onyx sculpture, all balanced upon a white near-sphere.  The gravity is being. . .

                                            . . .Being shown!  These real pixels show, in an abstract concept selfie way, what the abstract concept of 'gravity' looks like to my Portuguese-to-English translation subprogram.

 

    And the me you're talking to right now, understands it so well, that it thinks,"It's so obvious, of course it's gravity!"  That vibration causes tension behind my eyes because I think, "nobody understands gravity," and then I see this picture depicting gravitational results and I think to myself, "Cept this artist who hates, probably hates, the phrase artsy-fartsy."

 

 

 

graduate to the next level:

 

transliteration (of art) to granular

 

memory tool for master's

Can pareidolia be taught?

 

            vaguely misplaced tin

            brush painted red, twenty-three

            hike hike hikin me

            some believe it in

            pairs of chromosomes, they see

            like like likin thee

            tip my head and grin

            pareidolia blessed, two lucky he

            cowgirlin th' three

tappin into a similar sap:

paper versus digital

 

pareidolia apophenia

Mandatory Cat Pick - Cecil Halloween 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

        When I Say

        'I hear you'

 I mean that  

   I hear every 

   paddle swish

       of blood as

         it sloshes 

       all syrupy, 

as well as   

   the lickslap

 eyelids make     

   when closed.

  Good thing I 

like dry food

Happy Anniversary Autumnal Harvest Halloween Night and Day of the Dead 2022

 

stick with funnybone theme:

 

half-century old story

overheard convo's are Funny

Coincidental Synchronicity

yestereve,

naïve

whachamacalit

(pallet)

now y'll recall it

 

Whatz The Story Behind That? 2

         
          This faded, chenille-stem dancer with long yellow hair, a ribbon-tamborine, and a basket of flowers—most-probably born from the hands of a craftswoman in late 1940s-occupied Japan—caught my eye in a Montpelier antique shop because someone had painted PORTLAND, Ore, on the base of the 2½ inch (65mm) tall figurine, which tickled my coincidence-button since we've both been faded by life (the pipe-cleaner statuette and I) and we both once resided in Oregon but now live in Vermont.  Together. 

          The phrase: occupied Japan causes me to ponder an unhappily married couple.  They no longer fight.  She succumbed for the well-being of her children and then patiently tolerated his choices and changes, walling her own desires away with as much fortitude as it took to not forget past mistakes (made by both) all-the-while resigning herself to a hopefully better future.  When people ask her why, she answers: Shikata ga nai (仕方がない) It can't be helped.  During both the war and the occupation, he acted as he always had: intentionally blunt and indignantly non-nuanced internment camps, fire-bombs, and hydrogen bombs, followed by pretending to have no knowledge of the magnitude of his actions, the availability of better options, and the mantra: she started it.  He has not changed (if anything, he is worse today) while she has changed for the better (a lack of totalitarian-fascism will do that), but it took too many decades and her self-image is still less than positive.

          I am intrigued by the figurine's label because in 1963, US state abbreviations were standardized as two-letter postal codes—Ore. became OR—which means the figurine was created between 1945 and 1952 (US occupation in Japan), spent some time before 1963 in Oregon and then ended up in Vermont by 2019.

• Select an item from your environment.
• Provide a picture, sketch, or other form of visual presentation.
• Tell its backstory (explain what it is, why you selected it, etcetera). 

continue reading about stuff:
Whatz The Story Behind That Series (ongoing)

Limestone Sphere (BK Germany)

WTSBT (Vermont maple syrup can)

Whatz The Story Behind That? 1

          My neighbor gave me this amazingly thought provoking, rectangular, antique, rusted-metal gallon-sized can, which I currently display on my bookshelf.  It has no date, no brand, no location details (other than Vermont) and—besides the name and logo for the Vermont Maple Syrup Maker's Association—no other words besides these:

VERMONT

PURE

MAPLE SYRUP

Sealed in Accordance with Vermont Law

NATURAL  MAPLE  COLOR  and  FLAVOR

Nothing  Added  —  Nothing  Deducted

                              The maple syrup in this can was carefully

                              packed to retain the original flavor under

                              all ordinary storage conditions.

                              After seal is broken, and part of the con-

                              tents removed, refrigeration of the remainder

                              in the original can is recommended.

                              If a quantity left in a once opened can will

                              not be used for a month or more, this re-

                              mainder will be best preserved by repacking

                              in small jars and heating to a near-boiling

                              point in a water bath.

                              Mold found on stored syrup is harmless. Heat-

                              ing in a saucepan and skimming will restore

                              the syrup to a usable condition.

       
          I love the wording.

          Vermont.  The state, which has never had a building code to guide those constructing single-family residential structures towards a safety standard, allegedly* had a law governing how maple syrup should be sealed.  I don't know how long ago, but my best guess is this can is pre-1950s (there is a crudely drawn image of men pouring sap from maple trees into a large container on a sled, being drawn by a horse thru the forest).

          Today's "Refrigerate after opening" originated from within a 20-word sentence 70+ years ago.

          Today's "Best by" originated from the most convoluted 40-word sentence.  Which actually only advised not using the metal can more than a month, because the last paragraph states it never goes bad.  Not ever.

          The last paragraph is the piece de resistance.  It's statements like this which probably prompted the creation of the 1966 Labeling Act.

          *Allegedly because, to print false statements on containers was common practice a century ago.    

• Select an item from your environment.
• Provide a picture, sketch, or other form of visual presentation.
• Tell its backstory (explain what it is, why you selected it, etcetera). 

Some more very unique Vermont-isms:
Good Day to Be a Crow
Before Driving Your Smart Car to Vermont
The Lazy Witch Coffin Windows of Vermont
Before Looking for an Apartment in Vermont
Whatz The Story Behind That Series (ongoing)