protean beauty

Beauty in art is an evolving value for each of us, despite its being reified by us as a people and anointed absolute. Our individual conciousnesses are forever charting new ground with our lives, during which the vantage on beauty is ever-changing, tied to the flow of time and our experience. This is the basis of sophistication in art, for better AND worse. And where the gulph widens between novitiates and tyros. Which causes many to lapse back into mawkishness--strident feelings for a beauty they USED to sense and advertise to the young vibrant world that they still do. By contrast some retreat deliberately into the esoteric as a refuge from that threat of youth. Better to stand by one's experience and continually coax out the vitality there. If anything is unchanging it is this ongoing debt to art.

Dempsey's Session

The Ash Plant
Banish Misfortune
Geese in the Bog
Christmas Eve
Kitty's Wedding
Jackie Coleman
Lark in the Morning
Drowsy Maggie

sedimental

I've had to deal with such humorless people. I feel like saying to them, why not just lie down on the ground now and become sediment? Why wait? In 50 or so years you'll be blending back in the earth in some fashion. Your lack of humor displays your unblinking sobriety before that fact. If you can't bring a little music to our lives then you'd do better to return to the earth the goods you've sequestered; something good might be made of the elements of which you're composed, and the sooner the better. So go on now, lie down and submit to this process, we'd be much obliged.

concert in Rutland, VT--main street park

Spread our blanket and ate wraps and sesame noodles, Sevi visited a tanned alcoholic in a lawn chair with a large blue parrot named Savannah, aged 10. "Just a baby," said the man with sharp blue eyes, slack and tan. "They live to be 125, longest of any animal." What does she eat? "Just about anything that we eat. She loves pizza, doesn't matter what topping. Whatever, it's all good for her, you know wheat and whatnot. I guess maybe not the cheese. All she drinks is water. You know Man is the only animal that drinks anything else?" While I nodded, entertaining exceptions in my mind, it struck me that this question of humanly predilection for beverages was something this nervy man wrestled with. Back on the picnic blanket, Sevi running across the lawn for a hug. Lots of kids running about; some girls with their legs crossed like arms toddled around as if on their legs' elbows--strange and painful looking to one who was never that flexible. The band in the cement gazebo wasn't objectionable, just nondescript background quasi-rock folk fare, original I guess. Everybody had lawnchairs, but a woman on the built in park bench who went out of her way to claim her friends were coming so we wouldn't take up their spaces beside her. Warm evening, cloudless, lay down with Sevi looking up through the skimpy tree to the blue sky the sun was leaving. Tired, content. Sugi went looking for ice cream, was sent on a mission to find a Ben and Jerry's that didn't pan out. We all shared a raspberry torte. Drove home in the dusk, moist grassy air, passed some bikers with no lights on, some cows.

Crave

explore every shade of meaning of that word in a film. The genesis: the buddhist citing as release from craving as the only true freedom. One at odds with the notion of freedom as predominantly understood in this country

the glitter odyssey

follow the life of a speck of glitter, a LA RONDE structured movie. Start with a girl applying it before heading to a nightclub-via about 12 others--end up on the forearm of a southeast asian farmer 3 days later

some tunes from East Durham

Brian Conway on fiddle with others, honoring Jack McGann: The Coolan, Lord Gordon's, ~Lad Aleash, First Month of Summer

He referred to these as "New York" tunes, very popular here: The Luck Penny, ~The Quiet My Love

The fiddlers did an encore: Lord McDonalds', Ballinsloe Fair

Deirdre Connolly with Mary Rafferty, Mary Reilly, Donna Long and a humorous bodhran player: ~Pipe on the Hub, ~Cones'

A very nice flute air, don't know the name of the player: Paddy's Ramble Through the Park

some others:
Jack the Britches (Polka)
Jack Reardon's Reel
~Bonnie O'Kate
Jennifer's Chickens

Saw a lot of Mary Bergin. Ran into Suzanne Grossman, former next door neighbor, who was up there for the week taking fiddle classes with Brian Conway. She says she's come a long way.

Paul Klebnikov

was murdered in Moscow on July 9.

traffic confiture

a montage of people yelling bloody murderous threats at eachother in a traffic jam, but substituting the words they say only (not the hateful tones) with the most gushy endearments. "I want to make you happy." "I want to snuggle with you." "I want to have your child." "I want to grow old with you." "I want to feel your pain."

the preponderance of trinkety ideas clustering your brain, a good sell, a clever turn, like Judy Filere's book of weaselly little observations made before she knew love or felt another soul. I caught her in some surreptitious cribbing or other and just felt here was a craven ghoul who knew no better.

At the sound of a shot
they all flew together
and huddled as one.
Thus
the self is plural,
illusory,
born of flight,
cast solid in fear.

Dempsey's Session

My first participation in a session. Very relaxed and enjoyable, wasn't particularly keyed up over it actually, as I might have expected to be. And here of all places the pressure isn't particularly on--they frown on no one. 3 fiddles, 1 mandolin/bouzouki?, 3 bodhrans (one also played bones--I think Ginny Brooks' husband), 1 guitar, a banjo, a very good whistler, an excellent concertina player came late, and an old welcoming accordian player and his wife. I played my turn in several rounds.

1) Killavil Jig - most knew it and joined in.
2) Banish Misfortune - ditto
3) The Joy of My Life - played on flute (my new Dave Copley!) - the good fiddler knew it
4) Paddy Carty's Favourite/O'Sullivan's March - from John Creavan's "The Story So Far" - most didn't know the first, several joined in on the second.

Of the tunes played by others I knew maybe 10%. I grabbed a napkin and wrote down some of the names:

Father Kelly's
Golden Keyboard
Jerry's Beaver Hat
Mountain Road
The Banshee
Apples in Winter
Barrel Burn Reel
Staten Island

Stopped by Swift's on 4th Street off the Bowery on the way home. A tight clutch of mainly guitar players, one singer, and a fine flute player (looked like a keyed boxwood)--beautiful playing. Stayed for 5 minutes.

email to GH on alcoholism

Quitting drinking is a fine idea. It’s destroyed many good people. My sister never knew what hit her, from party drinking in college til the end at age 43, her entire adult life. To encounter people who knew her only as a drunk—by and large a convivial and goodhearted drunk (drinking amplified on her gregarious and animated personality) but a drunk nonetheless...was hard to take. They never knew the thoughtful and engaging and capable person she intrinisically had been before the alcohol made inroads, the memory of which she knew I still was in possession of and clung to. The last words she spoke to me in person were “You know me, I can beat this.” And I answered her, as often before: ”Of course I know you can, I know you have it in you.” And I did know this. Unfortunately time ran out.

I’m just thankful that her kids knew some of that good, something to remember and put in the balance against all the countless memories of binges, hospital trips and DTs etc. She was very susceptible to alcohol from the first; unfairly so, I’d say. And worst, she had a husband who, criminally, kept alcohol always within her reach til the end. Anyway, people call it failure of the will, but for some it’s a whole other order of magnitude. I wish our family had gotten it together to intervene sooner than we did, by which time much of our support was lost on her.

Anyway, you get me on this subject you get digressions like this... I know you don’t have a chronic problem, but best all the same to take a break and step back from it. You do feel better and get more done after all...

the forgetful mom

"You push out half your brains giving birth and then they suck out the other half"

iChat with Sugi

AIM IM with hudjumama
9:59 PM
hi
howdy
i think i talk to you more when we're not togther
i'm living a nightmare
she's insane
what's up
after her nap everything seemed to be fine
we made a smoothie
then packed for an adventure to take toby for a walk in a place we had to drive to
and we got back and i wanted to bone the chicken
but ed was in the back working so we stopped to talk for him as short as possible
which was a long time
meanwhile, all day she had been playing this cinderella game
where she was cind. and sevi was another person
on our walk, for instance, she said sevi was still sleeping in the car,
and we talked about how she might get out when she woke up and catch up to us
then suddenly she said, here she is, and she took "sevi's" hand
but at various points she would lash out at me if i got the game wrong, i.e., by mistake called her sevi instead of cinderella
so as i was boning the chicken she decided to watch instead of go play
and she wanted to play cinderella and it was all about how she was going to take sevi away from me to cinderella land and not bring her back, etc.
so kind of provocative in itself, but ok
so it happened again that i made some mistake and she shouted at me.
so i said, ok, this is not a good game for me, i can't play it, b/c i don't know the rules, and you change the rules, and i don't like you shouting at me and then crying, etc.
but then she got fixated on the fact that she wanted ME and me alone to play this game w/ her
so i got her to agree that or understand that it was hard on me and that while she protested that she "promised" she wouldn't yell at me i had her understand that if she did that i would have to quit
in other words i gave her one more shot
well of course it didn't pan out
eventually she took my advice and left the room and got some distance until we could be nice to each other
and after that she was
but in a weird way, too, in that kind of guilty way, overly affectionate, as if she were worried that she were going to make me angry
you there?
yep
she's getting complicated
the game thing
yes, and it's too much
is something we have to work on
i'm at my wit's end, as they say
most games I play with her
"WE"????
she likes to initiate the game
it's just me here, flying from a flagpole
twisting in the wind
but whenever there's any element that doesn't go her way
she throws a tantrum
it stands to reason
games are frustrating
it's that, and that's a good observation, but it's not just that
she has to learn the ups and downs of them
we had a problem going to bed, too. i was concerned that she would have trouble falling asleep
so i made the choices clear
go upstairs and ablutions and to bed
or stay down here some more while i do dishes and then do all that
she said emphatically, even after i questioned it, that she wanted to go up
well, of course, came time to say g'night and she flipped
wasn't tired.
you could say that i should have just gone w/ my own instincts and not let her have the choice
but i think she's old enough to have choices
sure
choices make her feel empowered
but i have to say i was upset when she pulled that on me, and further started CRYING rather than talking
she's almost worrying me that she's bipolar or something
may sound extreme
but i don't know
i don't know what's "normal"
I don't think that kind of thing manifests itself at 3-4
no, but could have incipient signs
don't worry about it
or even if not, it was a taste of what terror it could be if it were to happen later
i'm just becoming consumed w/ the thought that this was a bad, bad, BAD idea and i'm stuck, stuck STUCK
10:15 PM
I think you're being overly dramatic
your in a beautiful little town in Vt
in a nice little house with a garden
i think you don't have enough hormones zinging around your body
that's true too
yes, and i haven't had a chance to READ ONE WORD
my fantasy was to spend time reading teh parenting books
and get better at it
ha
just at the moment i most need it i can't
i've given up on the idea of the guitar altogether
don't you EVER piss and moan to me again about how little whistle time you get
how could i do any of that if i'm still so behind on my work?
couldn't
can't
won't
10:20 PM
well goodbye then
you have 1 problem
no free time
no
i have two problems
not "enough" owrk time (none until tomorrow)
and no free time
it's the same problem
no it's not
i would not be so flipped if all i lacked was free time
and it could've or might still be solved by finding the resources that you imagined would be there fore that
that would feel like a luxury
I don't know what happened to them
or why this didn't pan out as anticipated
part of it was fantasy
the playdate switching -- ppl have lives
already established and it's hard for an outsideer to work into them
Aren't there teenagers looking for this kind of work
can't the gardener recommend any
the other part was fantasy b/c i thought "oh well, at worst i'll stay up for 3 hrs each night after she goes to sleep and get done what i need to even if i can't find babysitting"
or anyone else recommend any
well, no go on that
is there no one in Rutland or any outlying community
yes, i'm sure i'll get some babysitting, even maybe as much as 2 hrs/ morning
and that will help
that's not enough
but that's nothing close to what i need
5 hours/ day
would be a start
it just doesn't seem right that nothing can be found
but I guess we may be spoiled
living in the city
i didn't say nothign can be found
where everything's available for a price
but i think this is what i'm going to find
teenagers who can do up to 2-max 3 hrs
alright, i'm tired
i'm wigged
im yuck
going to go
good night
besos
just feel so fucking compromised. i'm doing absolutely NOTHING well. NOTHING. and that pains a perfectionist
i'm not even doing anything mediocre
i feel like i'm in one of those helpless traps
kind of like the end of the semester
when you have all these finals and crap to wrap up
and if you had more time you know you could do it well
but everything comes out like shit b/c you are shit b/c you didn't plan and you're not smart enough
i've had this feeling a few times before in my life -- real paralysis -- and i hate it
hate it
stop beating yourself up
you created a stunning essay
yeah, that was then
you're going to do tremendous work on the show
before i was pregnant, before i was here
you're a great mom
i'm not
present doubts notwithstanding
Of course you will
Don't know what those things have to do with it
10:30 PM
what you need to do is sleep
because clearly you're not getting enough
and nothing will work unless you get more
fuck everything else
and particularly fuck the newsletter
i have fucked the newsletter
good
and myself in the process
probably
no
you're pregnant
you feel awful
too bad for them
they can wait for it
you've waited countless times for others
who have missed their deadlines REPEATEDLY
and now YOU feel bad?
i feel bad about sevi
she deserves better than me
oh horseshit!
stuck here w/ this nightmare
parenting is hard
poor kid has turned herself into cinderella who escapes to cinderella land and takes sevi there away from me
and without all the problems encountered the kid learns nothing, makes no progress
Yes, well we all want to go to Cinderella-land
at times
and this is her first way of figuring out its possible
it's actually very empowering
to control your reality that way
Eventually you come to grips with what the imagination offers and where it falls short
I'd be more worried if she were just a stolid little drone
doing all we said
QUESTION AUTHORITY
--Thoreau
yes i know and it worries me sometimes when she IS too obedient
but i wish she would figure out a nicer way to be disobedient
if you knwo what i mean
What I'm trying to figure out is some zen kind of way
to use her opposition
to arrive at a solution
without bringing my opposition into the equation
a pipe dream admittedly
but maybe something in that direction
also, grappling with the attempt to embody
the things we want to teach her
rather than simply telling her
she also needs to understand certain bottom line behaviors that are acceptable and not acceptable
which always rings horribly false
Well that's harder
She can be told
i.e. she needs to talk, not yell or cry, to get across her opinion
but bottom line is she really needs to experience why they're unacceptable
for it to sink in
10:40 PM
lessons like driving people away
one thing i said to her today was "have you ever seen an adult cry?" meaning when something minor didn't go her/his way
or losing friends
etc
I'm not sure that's the best thing to say
well, that was tonight's lesson -- she drove me away form playing that game w/ her that she so wanted me to play w/ her
SHe's already hung up enough on the kid/adult dichotomy
the point is, we TALK to her
I think it troubles her
and she can talk back
not yell or cry
those are not viable means of communication
that's all that meant
"troubles her"?
I think it makes her feel deficient to be a kid
I'm going to start to de-emphasize that
I think it should be more
x makes me so much happier than y because...
where x is good behavior
concrete things
like the book says
and not placing some criterion of value on it
which
because she can't understand it
just alienates her
and makes her feel deficient
and possibly want to be at some remove from herself
as in Cinderella-land
now look who's getting dramatic
the point is
she adores herself
if the criticism makes sense to her
I think it's less scary
thinks she's the cat's meaow
in fact we had a discussion about "humble"
than if she perceives it as wrong in our eyes but doesn't get why
And you of all people are 90% of the time sensitive to this
yes, that's all good and you've read well
i'm more like 30% these days
well
I don't know of anyone so sensitive to it
Like you
she's hard on herself maybe
she has a real touchiness
about her dignity
wow, i'll say
and her control of situations
jon played a game yesterday of pushing her off-balance when she was squatting
and she looked at him in mistrust, but not doing anything
so he thought he should keep trying w/ this joke
and you can imagine, she ended in hysterics
the only breakdown she had yesterday
I guess I can't tell from the description
but it does sound a bit malicious
yeah, it wasn't artfully crafted
but she really didn't need to take it so badly
she's not into that kind of thing
SO badly
that too
unless she really knows the person
and even then it's dicey
she's not physical -- doesn't like to be rough-housed
of which this was a mild form
I suppose if I'd run around the apt with her like a torpedo
as Matthew and Leo do every day
she'd be inured
10:50 PM
speaking of them, maybe you can catch a movie w/ one or the other while you're there.
i feel a rift
perhaps
only there's really nothing playing
that might be bridged by that
or not a movie -- something
I saw The Corporation, which I highly recommend
but not w/ the kids
I don't know about a rift
we had a great picnic
and haven't seen em since
i saw beth on t he street after -- i told you
you should get to bed
what'd she do
and showed her the sono
and i felt some coolth
kind of trying to get out of there
kind of fidgety eyes
well it's the exact same situation
as when she came up to tell you she was pregnant
now reversed
i'm guessing it really did hurt that comment i made, "you guys really have the life"
sure she didn't want to be
NO not at all
she didn't want to be
she has 2 kids
she's not trying
it doesn't matter
you're fixating on that comment
i never would have told her if i knew she was trying and ESPECIALLY if i knew they were having difficulty
I doubt either of them remember it
just go see one or the other of them
and that will plant a nice seed
I'll try calling
how did the adk invite end up
did they say no
or did you have to say it's no longer extended
she said i messed up the dates, and instead of correcting them i just said that it wasn't really going to work out anyway
kind of got lost in static, which is fine
on both sides
they wouldn't have come
i think that's correct
anyway get to bed
yet
yep
10:55 PM
nice talkin'
soignedoroetcolorati
even tho i made myself cry
i so much prefer writing
besos
who ever said writing wasn't as intimate as talking
especially since you can save a copy of the conversation
for posterity
just go to file save copy
oh, pls do -- i havne't any idea how
you do it
we don't need two
fine
night
oh ok. smooch
come back soon
wildew
miss you
misew
you lots
miss
do I
hug me to sleep...
hudge!
hudge!
'night love dove
you get the last word (that last one -- this doesn't count, just protocol)
hudjumama has gone offline.

a machine of unreason

Cell phone falls in the sandbox

Missionary at playground gave Sevi the blue balloon--a fish with a little fish inside the tube. Said put it in the freezer and it won't lose air. He was right, 3 months later.

Getting older can be like getting behind at accounting. The crux of the matter, the impression so vital you must never forget it is buried somewhere under a detritus of receipts--uncollected thoughts. You settle for a memory of a memory of a thing. And the removes multiply, getting more grotesque, less pertinent to the real intent vitality in others. You must with all your might fight against this. It will win in the end, but you can certainly fend it off for a time.

When I Saw Thunder

as related by Sugi.

Sevi and I went to a storytelling evening on Tuesday in the renovated barn that some VT neighbors have turned into a magnet for earthy cultural events such as reviving the tradition of storytelling. Sevi was riveted by all three storytellers, and I think it went on for about two hours. At the end, Jan, one of the hosts and storytellers, said that they would like to do it again, and they would like others to tell stories, too, if they wanted. Sevi belted out "I do!"

Last night at dinner we were talking about how you can see the lightning but only hear the thunder. She figured out a way that she could see the thunder by putting on her "fairy eyes." I asked her if she would like to turn this into a story, and she said yes, and that it would be called "When I Saw Thunder." She dictated it (not all at once) this morning. We'll see how she feels about it come the next storytelling, but I think it's too much for her to remember to tell. Perhaps I could read it and she could act it out.

When I Saw Thunder

Everyone said I can't see the thunder. But I wanted to. I put some magic in my throat. I used my fairy wings to fly up to the clouds. I put my fairy eyes on top of my turtle eyes so that I could see inside the clouds. I flied to south and north and then I saw the thunder. The thunder looks like a big cloud. It had the rainbow on it. I see all the rainbow colors. I jumped over the rainbow and into the house. And I walked upstairs and I fell asleep. I didn't take off my fairy eyes and my fairy wings because I wanted to wear them in the morning. So I could do some magic. I wanted to turn Papa's toilet kit into a rat.

The End

Sevi Burget-Foster, July 8, 2004

Sevi's letter to Aunt Sabele and the Kids

(w/ whom she spent an afternoon a
couple of weeks ago)-annotated by Sugi:

Dear Sabele and the kids, (I wrote that and she insisted I scratch it out and instead write:) I love you Sabele and the kids. The gardens here are nicely freshed with flowers in the garden. The house is clean (she tried to get away w/ saying it was dirty, but we talked about it and then she decided it was clean). My room is beautiful. Thank you for me to be with you in Connecticut. I loved seeing you half in Vermont. Toby stands on one foot. Toby eats dog food. I love Toby very much. He's my dog. He likes to have his belly scratched. Today I goed down to the river and Toby swimmed in the water. Mama and Sevi swimmed inside the water.
I love you all the time.
Goodbye Sabele and the kids,
Sevi

he said

But proximity, physical proximity to others with me is a problem. Most moments I am in severe disequilibrium. A ravening soul. What the Buddhists call a Hell Being. To be at one or two removes from people shields me from envy, spite, enmity and brings out the best. Dreams and ideals, the inseparability of souls in the oversoul, warm and fuzzy musings. My magnetic filings are in felicitous disarray, not all lined up for the kill and fidgetting sick with schadenfreude.

proof

It won't be proven that God does not exist
Nor that x caused y cancer
Because there are so many variables aren't there.
The first consideration enlarges our lives with wonder
The second is a space not unlike the first, but in which
The parasites among us gorge and thrive
On the demise of the prolific among us
With a conscience boundless and clear.

If hormones could talk, what would they say?
I'm a world of my own reason
A meteor shower of products wants a piece of me
Preys on me
But my tongue is graffiti
Unconquerable

A few days ago I asked Sevi if she wanted peanut butter and jelly on her sandwich. "No," she said. "I want peanut butter and jelly IN my sandwich."

in VT on July 4

up the orchard road, scummy pond with a its green floating dock that Sevi called a sponge, a gang of older kids clearing the scum skirt from the banks with their in-plunge and eventual exodus, Sevi fascinated with green translucent frog eggs, playing croquet beside the porch, the whole cow rotissimat (cooked for 11 hours) the whole beast stuffed within this triangular cage matted with dripping grease, the kids group "The Outer Lemmings" with spirited marmish banged leader with hoarse tuning whistle, their singing South African numbers, spirituals, earnest and clear with reserve that slowly sluffed off to reveal earnest striving for notes and style, horseshoes with Ed Marcy the slim older gent in blue and the agreeable young father lassoed into it ever telling me he was half-in the game and half-understanding, after two wins and my compliments as his teammate in the second game, the slim gent told me his secret learned from his father was to flip it with forefinger and pinky out and thumb to flip the spur with so it somersaults in the air--a trick I'd noticed used to great effect by the champ at the Upper Lake last summer--the old gent inadvertently farting a little butt hiccup as he told me this, which I forcefully ignored with a follow-up question, the Neil Young cover band by the paunchy 30 something from across the road really quite moved and moving with muffin cap, the jokey absurdist act by young couple "This is a recording," etc, Sevi running around with other 3 yr olds mimicking their every move, jumping up saying "I got one" after each firework fired from up the hill toward the orchard, the yellow poison parsnip everywhere that the hostess said left cigarette-burn like marks on your skin, her giving Sevi strips of meat, gobbled up eagerly, forgetting my overshirt and shivering when the sun went down til the bonfire was struck up and I stood near, the glowing ember whorls into the crowd swatted out of hair and blankets with unconcern.

If you find yourself in a situation that makes you want the time to pass faster, get out of it. The most insidious kind of harm is visiting upon you.

Reconciled with Roberta.

He was the human equivalent of a scrap of paper burnt along all its edges.

The old lady sat with her caretaker on the bench. Her underlids drooped from the sockets blood pink, and where were the eyes--black pimentos darting around up top. Could she see with those?

End of the Roberta Era?

So Roberta cut me off over our fight about Fahrenheit 9/11. Finally, after 18 years I'm on the outside. Sad and bruised by it, but I suppose if it had to happen (did it?) this was the most worthy matter to split over. Was I addling an old lady? I suppose. Although I also thought to so engage was not to allow that distance, where piety is a falling off. The element of grinning pliant hypocrisy finally here made way for my real opinions, which, if they could not be tolerated by her, at least were acknowledged for their truth.

I'm sad for selfish reasons, largely. Now there is really no one out there with some at least tangential connection to the vital tradition I long to take up and further, who continues to root for me. Her support was always genuine, always curious to me, and I always had a heady feeling of luck, or of my luck about to run out I suppose. Now it has. Now luck, or the blessing, or being "one of the elect" will play no part.

Brando died. Roberta has probably gone into deep mourning, if not shock. I instinctively knew this, but made light of it, would not give it the gravitas I did when Kazan died. My anger. Bad timing for all this, but too late. There is no place for apologies in this world of things.

In a culture of human beings, ours, where the struggle for recognition lodges in every soul, Brando was above recognition, seemingly struggling with whatever lies beyond, or results from it. Seen this way, he was the cultural tent pole that made sense of it for everyone else, but for himself only senselessness.

If this with Roberta has been the last of the surely inadvertent zen lessons, this last is about the break with the urge to recognition. - July 4, 2004. Middletown Springs VT