cudless blue

bloodless coup

Yellow Teeth

A few nights ago, while getting her teeth brushed, Sevi informed me
that mine were yellow. "The better to threaten you with if you don't
brush!"

Spoon Runner

Hart had a spoon-running operation going while I did dishes and mama
and Sevi read "On the Banks of Plum Creek" in her bedroom. Hart
would take a spoon from the dishwasher (after I vetoed forks and
knives) toddle down the hallway with it, offer it to Sugi and Sevi,
then bring it back and put it in the dishwasher, clap, leave the room
for a second, then come back and repeat, sometimes taking more than one.

Day in the Park

Fun time with Gia and Alexander on his 6th bday at Wagner (?) Park on
the water by West St. near the Battery. 2nd year in a row, and Tom
Chapin was there this time, as well as the Klezmatics, and then
Beausoleil.

Casino copy

you find yourself saying "my horseshit is much better than their
horseshit"
....reminder: it's all horseshit.

p.s. - 14 Wedges to Fight Global Warming

Kolbert also good at communicating the concept of the various 14
wedges that must work in concert to make any kind of meaningful dent
in carbon emissions.

Book: Field Notes from a Catastrophe

Compelling, though takes a different tack than Boiling Point. Less
constructive on solutions. Writing is serviceable but a bit gray--I
don't know how many times Kolbert introduces a character with a
summary description of merely his/her eye and hair color. Probably
the most useful, and which Gelbspan didn't really characterize so
succinctly, was the idea of what it means to upset the climate
equilibrium that our civilization has enjoyed since its birth.
Kolbert adduces the beginnings of evidence that, yes, the earth will
always find climate equilibrium according to the laws of physics, but
that we shouldn't confuse that with the equilibrium that happens to
work for us. An expert metaphor she applied to this was that off
rocking the boat. You rock it one way, then another, it always sort
of settles back, but eventually the rocking will cause it to tip, and
the new state is equilibrium is the boat overturned. No one really
knows what overturning the boat will mean for us, but plenty of
evidence points to the fact that rocking has begun.

Hart's questions

For the last month or so, Hart points ALOT and says "ISH?" "IZ?"
"IZ DAT?" a lot, as well as his old standby "DI-POO"

Hart walks for real

Hart started walking, cautiously, but definitively, while we were up
at Camp about 2 weeks ago. The rugged variety of terrains up there
were so challenging that I think they gave him a lot to work with.
Upon returning to Brooklyn he's toddling around on two feet probably
more than crawling and grabbing onto things less and less to support
himself. He's basically got it now.

Brain Rental

poem or something about the fact that you're given a body and a brain
for only a little amount of time before it all degrades. about being
tasked with something to do with them. how do you know what's best?
the indeterminacy of Wm. James....

p.s. on Monk

wife is not nor ever has been Judith, but Nena--no idea where that
wrong info came from...

The Monk in the Guideboat

Saturday September 2, 2006, 11:15am. Was sitting by the boathouse at
the Lower Lake somehow feeling uncharacteristically at ease with the
world and hopeful, and then the bus rolled in and onto the porch
stepped Robert Thurman. I recognized him inside of about 5 seconds.
We exhanged hellos. It got me fairly buzzing with excitement, though
too shy to acknowlege that I knew who he was and had followed his
thoughts some time ago. Too many of my own thoughts elbowing in all
at once, and not wanting to spoil the candor. Heard him ask if the
club boat they were shoving into the water was a guideboat. Then he
and his wife (Judith I'm guessing, the writer, straight grey hair,
spoke with an accent I couldn't identify) made their way out in the
water. He was pretty hapless with the oars at first, but as they
pulled out in the distance I saw him adopt some coordinated strokes,
both oars at once. Two sons (I think) followed them out in another
boat. Something very momentous about the whole thing for me. It
really brought back in a huge rush all the things I'd been thinking
about when I was reading Thurman, watching his lectures on DVD etc
about 5 or so years ago (or longer?)--like a spore leaping to growth
with the right conditions. Made me want to think here was a real
boddhisatva... Not a day or so earlier I'd been wondering to myself
on the trail whether so and so was a "hungry ghost", or whether I had
become one...