Marquee

"...the heat inside the small towns
of their bodies,
for which they have no words;
obedient to the voice inside which tells them,
'Now. Steal Pleasure.'"

From "Summer in a Small Town" by Tony Hoagland

¡Vamanos!

"...knowing I had everything I wanted,
but like Midas was silent and stiff with the gold I had touched,
felt always as if I had been buried under a ton of diamonds,
still feel the dust of them glinting on me as I drive across country..."

From "The Hitchhikers" by Diane Wakoski

Bamboozled

"...hooked themselves—bamboo diviner
Bent their way
Vigorously nodding
Encouragement..."

From "The Pier: Under Pisces" by James Merrill

***

Hi, everyone!
Slept almost all day.
One more road trip (this week, to Kalamazoo) and then a less intense schedule, or so I hope.

Tiny Hubble

"...causing great sections
of his nervous system—distant galaxies hitherto unsuspected (now
added to International Galactic Catalog)—to LIGHT UP."

From "The Preface" by Philip Whalen

(un)bound

"...she loved worms,
blackening the moon of her nails
with mud and slugs,
root gnawing grubs,
and the wing case of beetles."

From "The Woman Who Loved Worms" by Colette Inez

***

The. Semester. Is. Over.
Am off in San Jose at a trade show, the Mur abides, the cats need more petting.
But beauty is walking in the world...

Dreaming

"For such a man, art is an act of faith:
Prayer the study of it, as Blake says,
And praise the practice; nor does he divide
Making from teaching, or from theory.
The three are one, and in his hours of art
There shines a happiness through darkest themes,
As though spirit and sense were not at odds."

From "The Painter Dreaming in the Scholar’s House" by Howard Nemerov

***

The cat naps, but I can't yet.

Finished (for now) with Preziosi, up to my eyeballs in Poussin's Seven Sacraments, leaving for a business trip tomorrow at 5am, and traveling to work conferences about every other week through late May.

I have until the end of April to write my final research paper, and digest/recall canonical works of art from the Renaissance on until the present moment.

I then have a scholarly conference in May, and need to get that presentation into shape.

So through until at least the beginning of June, my weekends and weeknights are spent studying/looking at paintings and trying to think, and then trying to write; my weekdays and weeknights are spent wrangling business doings.

I miss my playtime, I look forward to time to dream.

Interstitial

"...snow

melts midair
to rain.
Abbreviated..."

From "The Months" by Linda Pastan

***

Well.
I'm slightly back, and I definitely need more play time.
I decided to grab five minutes just outside our front porch to catch the small trees, and I need hours more like that.

School? The professor seemed to think my historiography journal redo was sufficient, as was my last journal entry, although I have no confidence that will continue to be the case. So I continue to split the logs of others' thinking with my dull axe and write/chop cordage as best I can. Michel Foucault has been reduced to firewood; Craig Owens is in progress.

Work? Well, here's a synopsis of March:
Go to Atlanta to work an industry trade show.
The next week go to London and manage a conference for my company.
And somehow get caught up on work and schoolwork when, the week after, I go to Corpus Christi to present a paper on Donatello's Penitent Magdalen.

The Mur is still not quite back to feeling right, but "the Dude abides".
And he is making pot roast for Valentine's Day, that sweetheart.

Okay, time to get back at that pile of logs I need to chop...

The wind died down

"...we stroked to her bones a cadenced droning,
and took back from her absence, our
amber, half-literal method of sight."

From "Windows" by Linda Bierds

***

Distractions from my pixel-catcher include:
1. Work (lots, oh my)
2. Schoolwork (a massive pile o' reading and writing; but my first essay is done, set sailing into my professor's inbox)
3. The Mur (non-trivial surgery again, later this week)

All reasonable distractions, but I'm not feeling very reasonable.
Go and have some fun for me, would you?

***

A brief update, for all y'all (and apologies for the lolcat fiesta, but sometimes lolcats happen):
1. Lather, rinse, repeat.
2. After spending every weekend since I got the course syllabus working on my first essay, upon my first meeting with my professor I was told "no, that's not what I assigned". Surprise! :-( I asked for permission to do it over, which was given, and validated what (I hope) my professor wants. I spent the last week sweating through Kant, Hegel et al again (lather, drink from the firehose, repeat), hopefully to serve up what will be accepted. And, after burning every spare minute I could find on the task, I lobbed my fresh 40+ pages of reading-the-assigned-text-with-my-comments into the professor's inbox tonight -- wish me luck.
3. The Mur is on the mend, but not quite spunky yet.

Opaque

"Late in the cold night wakened, and heard wind,
And lay with eyes closed and silent, knowing
These words how bodiless they are..."

From "Night Images" by Robert Fitzgerald

***

I dreamt there was a tornado coming, one so large I couldn't see it except for its effects -- the beautiful spectrum-laced cloud top, ice-crystal cloud tails making arcs in the stratosphere. My family was visiting, and of course I could not find, and then could not start, my car.

Mini-mes

"I am imagining this world but I’m inviting you in
So I can join you."

From "Museums" by Dan Beachy-Quick

***

It was windy, cold day when I saw that wreath on the storefront. And it is a windy, cold day today.

I'm going out to get gingerbread pancakes -- then back to trying to braid Kant, Hegel, Preziosi, tiny images of enormous Assyrian figures, and Peter Greenaway (among others) into a net within which I can catch my thoughts.

There's much going on, too much to type up here.
But I am glad you stopped by, glad for the invisible company -- I hope you have a wonderful, happy New Year.

Gifts

"I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give."

From "I Am Offering this Poem" by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Back-roads Christmas

"A small pine tree in the red soil
is all the company I have."

From "Mythistorema" by George Seferis

Nameless

"...these are rotten — I ask their pardon —
And we've the sun on rock and garden..."

From "Queens" by J. M. Synge

***

Starting into the next semester's reading.

In the first two weeks, I'm time-traveling from 30,000 BCE to 337 CE while digesting Winckelmann, Kant, Baxandall and Hegel among others.

*burp!*

Let's just call it "the turducken semester" -- hope I have enough Tums on hand.

Cinderblocked

"It seems like nothing
could change its color although
we couldn’t tell what color it was..."

From "He Said Turn Here" by Dean Young

Patched

"...times I can taste the iron in the air, the gray wash like exhaust, smell the burn-off,
my eyes begin to tear..."

From "The Foundry Garden" by Stanley Plumly

Leftovers

"I looked around, I thought of the lower wisdom,
spirit held by matter..."

From "Little Furnace" by Brenda Hillman

***

I have a few more tasty pixels left over from the Thanksgiving weekend to share, like the one above. Again, time-crunched until next weekend -- am heading out to work another conference tomorrow. But next weekend...ah, maybe more wandering.

I did meet with my next Directed Study professor, and am anticipating a groaning board of tasty art-related readings and much writing next semester.

Roped in

"...it is too easy to get lost in abstraction,
as if smoke, and dream, and quantum ersatz-states
are our proper environment..."

From "Stomackes" by Albert Goldbarth


***

Back to making more fruitcakes today (how could I have run out of butter?) and the regular chores and stuff.

No more wandering for pixels until next weekend -- I need to keep an edge on that appetite.

Master lock

"A lock of hair from a famous seventeenth-century poet.
The disintegrating bible wishing it was another book."

From "Adult" by Ray Gonzalez

Hill Country enso

"... It’s not that the angle
of reflection equals the angle of incidence,
but there’s exultation, pleasure, distress, death, love. ..."

From "Streamers" by Arthur Sze

***

And how to translate a few hours spent wandering here, picking up some goodness to take home after sitting elbow-to-elbow with happy, red-cheeked strangers at a shrine to smoked and honored meat?

No real way to do so, except to share a little of what I saw: above, and to come.

Thanksgiving

"...Leon Battista Alberti says,
Some lights are from stars, some from the sun
And moon, and other lights are from fires.
The light from the stars makes the shadow equal to the body. ..."

From "A Short History of the Shadow" by Charles Wright

***

Hey, all y'all! I'm back, sort of!
Happy Thanksgiving for those who are celebrating.
I have a lot to be thankful for, including you.

Here's what I've been doing:
* Too much work-work -- multiple conferences with significant time commitments and more work after.
* In all my spare time, school-work -- I'm now saturated with Nicholas Hilliard and the circle of poets around Sir Philip Sidney; I am in the finishing/polishing stages on the big paper, and made what I think is a pretty interesting case. However, others will be the judge of that.
* Lining up the next independent study -- am hopeful it will be on art historiography (try to say that three times fast!)

Had to give up Italian lessons for now. Just not enough time to study as much as I'd need amid plumbing mishaps, a random virus or two, and the Press of Commerce.

And so, finally, happily, I got out with my camera today. Snagged eight images and then the !@#$%! battery ran down, and my spare was devoid of juice. I took it as metaphor: Nature's way of telling me to go home, nap some more, and get teased by the hubbie for not checking my gear before I went.

More to come...

Was here

"...fold
and turn the paper,
guiding the scissors with care..."

From "Four and a Half Dancing Men" by Anne Stevenson

Slow posting again

The Excuses for No New Pix:

1. The Business Trip -- Two and one-half full days in San Mateo; productive, but not of art.
2. The Plumbing Excitement -- Just before The Business Trip, my bare feet told me our carpeting was wet. Fortunately, the good new plumbers we found helped quickly, but still.
3. The Press of Commerce -- Work work work work work.
4. The Academic Path -- Writing, researching and getting prepped for presentations at TEMA and Kalamazoo (woo-hoo!!!)
5. The Italian lessons -- troppo studio.
6. And so, no time out for wandering.

Ajar

"...The late afternoon tugs
At a gold thread you can hear fraying
When you close your eyes..."

From "Angels Grieving over the Dead Christ" by Gjertrud Schnackenberg


***

Random bits: First, still getting energy back post-surgery, but recovery has been fine and on track, as are my Italian lessons. Last, thanks for stopping by.

Burn ban

"...those hitchhikers,
burning by the side of the road,
burning
like the berries of the beautiful mountain ash..."

From "The Hitchhikers" by Diane Wakoski

Vault

"...And at the still center
of summer it starts; cowboys ride out out
of another life, old cars get up
from the dead and dance
like cripples hired out for a tent meeting. ..."

From "The Delta Parade" by Susan Stewart

Frostie

"...All night I wander alone, searching in vain for the irretrievable.

In the night I will drink from a cup of ashes and yellow paint. ..."

From "Nights on Planet Earth" by Campbell McGrath

***

First full week back at the office (whew), and now need to get caught up on schoolwork. Oh yes, also reaching out for Italian tutoring, among other bits of trouble-making.

If I'm not too punk tomorrow, will wander some with a camera in hand. (Yay! Fresh pixels!)

Worn ol' sun

"All our stones like as much sun as possible.
Along their joints run both solar access and decline
In equal splendor..."

From "Forecast" by Josephine Miles

Behind the shed

"...The opera of. Hummingbirds. MOVE,
an optimum crow and spider sparkle newly. ..."

From "Many Colored Squares" by Philip Whalen

***

Move? A little slow and difficult post-surgery, but we do what we can. Hope all y'all like the free stuff I found.

Dreams with bees

"...The last memory I have
Is of a flower that cannot be touched,

Through the bloom of which, all day,
Fly crazed, missing bees. ..."

From "Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock" by Galway Kinnell

***

I have had at least two recent dreams with bees in them.
I'm going in for some surgery Tuesday, and will come back and post as soon as I can. Stay well and happy, and thanks for stopping by!

Flower ladder

"...Nor do I like the mathematicians who tell me
I cannot say, 'The zinnias are counting on their
fingers'..."

From "My Dog Practices Geometry" by Cathryn Essinger

Mid-summer

"...isn’t it so
we’re merely vessels given in grace, in mystery,
just a little while, our fleet streaked moments?..."

From "Rivers into Seas" by Lynda Hull

Support

"...Somewhere in Oceania they added mermaid elves."

From "Finnish Opera" by Barbara Guest

Bardo

Artwork by Max Gimblett
Australia by Moonlight, 2004
22 x 30"
Pencil, acrylic polymer, Swiss gold leaf / Arches watercolor paper

***

Resorted to someone else's creative energy since I am flat out of fresh pix and running on fumes.

In this in-between-seeing-and-catching time, here's what's on my preoccupied mind:
Hubbie's post-surgical recovery.
The subject of my Fall schoolwork.
Tattoos, and tattoos that aren't tattoos.
Work work, and being behind thereof.
Hopefully visiting a New York friend who has a song by these guys for a ring-tone.
My upcoming surgery.

If all is well at Chez Witzel today, I may go wander tomorrow. Meanwhile, we're all going back down for naps.

P.S.: A shout-out to those krazy kids who've posted Birthday Greetings on my seldom-seen Facebook Wall. You all made me smile!

Framing

"...its shell as rusty
as a camp dish,
as fragile as a pagoda
on a stone..."

From "Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound" by Anne Sexton

***

Back from the biz trip, and foo -- caught a summer cold. Lost my voice during Day Two of the trade show (or rather, gained a weirdly squeaky croak.) Still feeling punk, although drinking ginger tea and petting the cats helps.

I'm glad you stopped by, but don't get too close -- I might sneeze, and I'd hate for you to catch what I have.

Here and there

"...The map in the shopping center has an X
signed 'you are here.' A dream is like that. ..."

From "A Happy Childhood" by William Matthews


***

It hasn't rained, but I did have a splendid Saturday involving a long-time friend, some ancho-blackberry jam, and BBQ at this place.

Too much for my friend and I to talk about, to stand under the white-hot sky and look for things my camera would like to snack on. (Sometimes things are for the looking and not the catching.)

Another business trip this week and more family health matters to wrangle, but there's jam in the fridge reminding me of happy things.

Ice cream later

"...The fourth child wonders: What makes poems poems?
The fifth one asks: Which of them is your favorite?
The sixth one asks me: Is there ice cream later?
The seventh child asks: Is a poem dreaming?..."

From "Reading to the Children" by Herbert Morris

Rx: More light

"...As when the meteor passed
In the early morning, and, fading, threw
A sudden glaring into my room like a flash from a hunter’s firepan. ..."

From "The Heavenly Doctor" by T.R. Hummer

Divided

"...all I really do besides write these poems
is allow my mind to wander while I drive.
There it goes, down the arroyo,
through manzanita and Mormon tea. ..."

From "Cruising 99" by Garrett Hongo

Run away

"At night we will set our poems
adrift in ginger ale bottles
each with a clamshell rudder
each with a piggyback spider..."

From "Running Away Together" by Maxine W. Kumin

***

It's hot. About 101 degrees in heat-stroked Austin, Texas.

And I am underwater on the "things to do and things to handle" list.

But, as ever, I'm glad you stopped by.

It smelled like rain

"...Home where I walk out on the thin page
of night, without waving or giving myself away,
and return with my words burning like fire in the grate."

From "Home Fire" by Linda Parsons Marion

***

Am off to work a trade show, then back to work in Austin and back to present for my art history class, then off to work a different trade show, then back to work in Austin and on to finish my art history course. (The class ends June 30.)

I long for time to do nothing but drive around with a camera next to me...but it won't happen for at least two or three more weeks.

I hope all is well with you and yours, and I'll catch you ASAP.

Whichever one

"...the evening reverses itself, we’ll push out
onto the pond,
or onto the reflection of the pond,
whichever one is eternal"

From "Time Problem" by Brenda Hillman

Before a storm

"...just after supper,
Unseasonable hail in huddles across the porch,
The dogs whimpering,
thunder and lightning eddying off toward the east..."

From "Looking Around" by Charles Wright

***

And so it did.

Slept most of the day, entangled in dreams of Hunan-flavored Moon Pies.

Off to join some friends for fajitas -- and if you're in the US, have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Snagged

"...The inward gates of a bird are always open.
It does not know how to shut them.
That is the secret of its song..."

From "On a Raised Beach" by Hugh MacDiarmid

***

I almost forgot what being outside looked like.

But some grit in my shoes and vegetative snags later, I found sunlight filigreed by a mockingbird's song.

Window sill

"...Neither inside nor out,
neither lost nor home, no longer
a shape or a name, I’d pass through

all the broken windows of the world. ..."

From "Hunger for Something" by Chase Twichell

***

What a wild roller-coaster ride, whip-sawed from the land of commerce into a world overrun with medievalists and back again in time to start another class.

I slept most of the weekend, and am just beginning to remember my name.

More to come, I'm sure of it.

Baling wire

"...I ain't confessing nothing.
On mornings when I hope you forget my name,
I walk through the high wet weeds
that don't have names either. ..."

From "Selected Recent and New Errors" by Dean Young

***

Holding the runny minutes together with baling wire and bubble-gum, until I get time for fewer words and more pixels. See you as soon as I can.

Gone out

"...replaced by a
rabbit skittering across a yard,
a void you yourself fall into.

You could make this beautiful,
but you don’t need to..."

From "Over and Over Tune" by Ioanna Carlsen

***

Work. Schoolwork. Other stuff.

Get in a lather, rinse, repeat.

Today I got out for a quick drive for BBQ and pixels -- the first time in too dang long.
Glad to see you stopped by!
More to come, as I can.

Slow posting, slant brickwork

"...This light is brittle,
old pale hair kept in a letter. ..."

From "Louisiana Line" by Betty Adcock

***

More business conferences pressing, more research paper work to do, more art history paper refurbishment ahead, and so ever-slower posting.

When I posted daily, I'd spend four or five hours wandering with a camera both weekend days, and some weeks a lunch time or three thrown in -- that's what it took to get fresh goodness for the sharing.

Now that I'm working through lunches and spending my weekends with schoolwork (or, this year, spending more time on misadventures than normal)...ah well.

That's all a long way of saying this too shall pass, but right now posting will be at a slow-poke pace until it isn't. And for those folks who wander by -- thanks. I'll surface again with pixels to share in a few.

Yellow tube

"...My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells..."

From "Night Thoughts" by Carl Rakosi

Seen and unseen

"...My mind’s eye opens before
my body is ready..."

From "Adding It Up" by Philip Booth

***

My last two trips took me to places where you'd be sharing in some of the oxidative delights I saw, had I chosen to pack a camera.

Hot Springs, Arkansas, poised damply on a haunch of the Zigzag Mountains; New Orleans, Louisiana, pentimento'd on the alluvial exhalation of the Mississippi River.

But some things are for the seeing, not the catching -- and I knew a camera in hand would pull my attention away from other demands.

Home, at last, trying to shake a nasty respiratory virus, looking forward to those next things seen and unseen.

Thanks for coming back by.

Slivers of time, with bonus update

Not much time for much in the way of a post, as I'm now en route here.

That said, here are some of the people I met, and the treats they shared, there:

My co-panelist, whose witty, pithy presentation was a very tough act to follow.
A passel of art history professors, not all shared here, who made this newbie feel immeasurably welcome.
Some treats -- feasts for the eye and mind.

(Oh, turn the sound down when clicking on that last link -- it's a bit loud.)

Now, off to the airport...

***

Addendum from the road (mostly for Marly):

* The paper was very well received -- had a great Q&A session which will further strengthen it before Kalamazoo; one gent said the part about Boccaccio blew him away. (Wow!)

* And I now have a reload of the cold/fever/virus thingie that bit me a little while ago. Less than fun to work a trade show with such, but we're on track to meet business goals despite it.

Picture: window

"...A window to the east will serve as well
As window to the west..."

From "Part for the Whole" by Robert Francis


***

I'm on the road again -- first here to present a paper, then there for business.

And so not much new in this pixelated place for a week or so.

Dang.

Well, thanks for coming back by -- and I will, too.