Hey, remember Reagan? There was a Saturday Night Live sketch that showed him (played by Phil Hartman) as a kindhearted and slightly off-kilter goofus, absently showing a girl scout around the Oval Office. He waved goodbye, nodding and muttering to himself, and then, as soon as the door shut behind her, he spun on his heel.
"BACK TO WORK!" he shouted at his staff, instantly transforming into a steely and efficient getter-of-things-done. Ha ha!
It's back to work for me too, as I have unsealed the Cheerios box containing -- no, not the Ark of the Covenant, though I'm an absolute nut on the subject -- but Draft 1 of my book. Finally!
Criminy, this thing is long. So far, however, I have found no apocalyptic, clothes-rending errors. In fact, and in saying this I'll probably jinx it, it is largely tolerable. A great leap forward, in other words! Ordinarily my exploratory drafts are as palatable as giraffe saliva, but this one seems to be an exception.
I'm halfway through, which means that any day now I'm going to come across some irreconcilable error and have to turn the whole thing into a fleet of paper airplanes. Hey, gotta stay positive.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Aaaand pictures
I had planned on posting a handful of Cornwall pictures here, but I took too many. Thus, a sampling:
Typical view of the narrow streets of St. Ives, with the harbor peeking through beyond.
Clouds and sea and a surprising burst of sun on the far shore.
Houses of the living cluster around the graveyard. Let us in! Oh, we will, we will....
Big foggy sea; small optimistic surfers.
Typical view of the narrow streets of St. Ives, with the harbor peeking through beyond.
Clouds and sea and a surprising burst of sun on the far shore.
Houses of the living cluster around the graveyard. Let us in! Oh, we will, we will....
Big foggy sea; small optimistic surfers.
Monday, July 6, 2009
I have come from Cornwall
After a hiatus from blogging I am back from a tiny town on the Cornish Coast, where a tiny room at a B&B made me want to hold out my hands in a don't-panic gesture and cry, "People of England! Do not fear me! I am not a giant!"
I'm used to the long and marshy beaches of the U.S. east coast, with smooth sand shading to dune grass and curving lines of breakers drawing out the shape of the land into the blue water. But Cornwall is altogether different.
The land is a green quilt of fields fallow and ripe, squares edged with centuries-old stone walls now overgrown with gorse, thick and impenetrable. These arc and swoop into hills and valleys of surprising steepness, coiled with tiny narrow roads ("Do not fear me!") and ancient-looking stone farmhouses.
When we were there the weather was unseasonably good: blue skies and high distant clouds, and the clear seawater shone turquoise in the rare sun. The shore is scalloped into headlands and detached islands, knife-edged ridges dipping down into the vertical as they become cliffs above rock-strewn coves. A few sand beaches stretch out, particularly at low tide, and everywhere there are seagulls crying.
St. Ives is a warren of stone streets and stone buildings clustered like barnacles on one of these sloping hillsides, fronted with a natural harbor which, at low tide, is dotted with fishing boats grounded on the wet sand.
And oh the town must have secrets. Smugglers, pirates, revolutionaries, adulterers, criminals, honest laborers, fishermen, mad artists. I looked at the buildings, many of them painted a blinding white through which the rough-hewn stones stood clear, and imagined basements and secret passageways, sea caves, minnows darting like silver light through long-submerged skulls.
Where people have lived for thousands of years, where their bones fill the ground and the strength of their faith built churches that still stand, green-shouldered with moss, over the town; where gulls call and the high wind bends grass over the edges of cliffs; where sailors and fishermen tend nets and feel the rough waves slide under their patched boats ... there are stories.
I'm used to the long and marshy beaches of the U.S. east coast, with smooth sand shading to dune grass and curving lines of breakers drawing out the shape of the land into the blue water. But Cornwall is altogether different.
The land is a green quilt of fields fallow and ripe, squares edged with centuries-old stone walls now overgrown with gorse, thick and impenetrable. These arc and swoop into hills and valleys of surprising steepness, coiled with tiny narrow roads ("Do not fear me!") and ancient-looking stone farmhouses.
When we were there the weather was unseasonably good: blue skies and high distant clouds, and the clear seawater shone turquoise in the rare sun. The shore is scalloped into headlands and detached islands, knife-edged ridges dipping down into the vertical as they become cliffs above rock-strewn coves. A few sand beaches stretch out, particularly at low tide, and everywhere there are seagulls crying.
St. Ives is a warren of stone streets and stone buildings clustered like barnacles on one of these sloping hillsides, fronted with a natural harbor which, at low tide, is dotted with fishing boats grounded on the wet sand.
And oh the town must have secrets. Smugglers, pirates, revolutionaries, adulterers, criminals, honest laborers, fishermen, mad artists. I looked at the buildings, many of them painted a blinding white through which the rough-hewn stones stood clear, and imagined basements and secret passageways, sea caves, minnows darting like silver light through long-submerged skulls.
Where people have lived for thousands of years, where their bones fill the ground and the strength of their faith built churches that still stand, green-shouldered with moss, over the town; where gulls call and the high wind bends grass over the edges of cliffs; where sailors and fishermen tend nets and feel the rough waves slide under their patched boats ... there are stories.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
It's the smell
If there is such a thing.
I took a semester off from college to -- you guessed it -- backpack through Europe. One of the things I remember so clearly from the green wilds of northern Scotland was a distinctive smell.
It was tarry and dark, slightly burnt and slightly sweet, and I always assumed it was burning peat. Later I suspected it was the distinctive tang of a coal fire. Once in Albuquerque I walked past a building that was receiving new hot tar on the roof, and smelled the smell.
Another time (more recently, though not this week) in London I walked out of the British Museum and through a cloud of steam from a hot dog vendor on the sidewalk. The steam had the smell! Or almost did: he can't possible have been running a coal-fired hot dog cart. I hope.
Anybody have any idea what this smell is? I come across it so rarely that when I do I'm instantly transported back to Scotland, and a host of other memories come crowding in.
I took a semester off from college to -- you guessed it -- backpack through Europe. One of the things I remember so clearly from the green wilds of northern Scotland was a distinctive smell.
It was tarry and dark, slightly burnt and slightly sweet, and I always assumed it was burning peat. Later I suspected it was the distinctive tang of a coal fire. Once in Albuquerque I walked past a building that was receiving new hot tar on the roof, and smelled the smell.
Another time (more recently, though not this week) in London I walked out of the British Museum and through a cloud of steam from a hot dog vendor on the sidewalk. The steam had the smell! Or almost did: he can't possible have been running a coal-fired hot dog cart. I hope.
Anybody have any idea what this smell is? I come across it so rarely that when I do I'm instantly transported back to Scotland, and a host of other memories come crowding in.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
In London
Night falls late here, in the high latitudes, but fall it does: the last of the golden light licks from the buildings and all is shadow and blue. The buildings sparkle with white and yellow lights, sodium arc, halogen, blue-white headlights and high twinkling jets coming into Heathrow, thirty miles west.
I had just finished a "thank you" contest with a nodding room service steward.
"Thank you, have a good evening."
"Thank you, you as well."
"Yes sir, thank you."
"Yes, thank you."
"Thank you."
"Thank you."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you." With this barrage of gratitude he stepped backwards out into the hallway and was gone. I went to the window to close the blinds against the night; hours of work and laptop and typing remained.
But there was something. A shadow like a splot of black paint, or a cloak, wrapped around the corner peak of one of the high buildings. I had to stand in the corner of my room and even then crane my head sideways against the window to see.
It was too dim to see: not yet dark, no longer twilight, and blue shapes and after images swam in the air as I tried to squint at the thing on the building.
It fell, or detached. Or released. That I saw. I know I saw it let go. I saw.
And it fluttered a story, two stories, a flapping rag, a car-sized flutter of darkness. And it broadened and the plunging fall slowed into a low swooping curve.
Wings.
The window rang when my head jolted against it. Suddenly I felt exposed: a bright-lit hotel room looking onto a dark city, and I reached behind me to switch off the light. When I looked back I could see nothing for a moment, and then far movement against the blue-dark sky. Long wings flapping, heavy wingbeats like a vulture or a heron, though no feathered thing ever grew this big.
Close the curtains. Make sure they're closed. The phone still works. Turn on the lights. Turn on the TV.
Do not look out the window.
I had just finished a "thank you" contest with a nodding room service steward.
"Thank you, have a good evening."
"Thank you, you as well."
"Yes sir, thank you."
"Yes, thank you."
"Thank you."
"Thank you."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you." With this barrage of gratitude he stepped backwards out into the hallway and was gone. I went to the window to close the blinds against the night; hours of work and laptop and typing remained.
But there was something. A shadow like a splot of black paint, or a cloak, wrapped around the corner peak of one of the high buildings. I had to stand in the corner of my room and even then crane my head sideways against the window to see.
It was too dim to see: not yet dark, no longer twilight, and blue shapes and after images swam in the air as I tried to squint at the thing on the building.
It fell, or detached. Or released. That I saw. I know I saw it let go. I saw.
And it fluttered a story, two stories, a flapping rag, a car-sized flutter of darkness. And it broadened and the plunging fall slowed into a low swooping curve.
Wings.
The window rang when my head jolted against it. Suddenly I felt exposed: a bright-lit hotel room looking onto a dark city, and I reached behind me to switch off the light. When I looked back I could see nothing for a moment, and then far movement against the blue-dark sky. Long wings flapping, heavy wingbeats like a vulture or a heron, though no feathered thing ever grew this big.
Close the curtains. Make sure they're closed. The phone still works. Turn on the lights. Turn on the TV.
Do not look out the window.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Vines of Neglect
Last night I dreamed that I went to the garage to look at the boatbuilding project. Not to work on it -- there was no time -- only to look at it. Dust and mildew had coated everything, and I couldn't remember how long it had been since I bent over the plywood and bronze screws. Days? Years?
So much time had passed that thumb-thick creepers had twined in through the doors and were growing around the building jig, the frames opening like pleading arms, around the legs of the dusty workbench.
Old. Forgotten.
I'll get back to it, but there is work to do elsewhere yet. Revisions of Book 1. The lying fallow of Book 2. Patience, I tell myself. Patience.
This latest revision of Book 1 was fairly hefty, with a few thousand words added, and a subplot firmed up and made, I hope, more relevant. I'm starting to forget about Book 2, which is good.
What were those characters' names again? What happened when? Perfect.
With any luck I'll finalize the Book 1 revisions this week, and can then turn my attention to Book 2. And the boat.
Patience. Patience.
So much time had passed that thumb-thick creepers had twined in through the doors and were growing around the building jig, the frames opening like pleading arms, around the legs of the dusty workbench.
Old. Forgotten.
I'll get back to it, but there is work to do elsewhere yet. Revisions of Book 1. The lying fallow of Book 2. Patience, I tell myself. Patience.
This latest revision of Book 1 was fairly hefty, with a few thousand words added, and a subplot firmed up and made, I hope, more relevant. I'm starting to forget about Book 2, which is good.
What were those characters' names again? What happened when? Perfect.
With any luck I'll finalize the Book 1 revisions this week, and can then turn my attention to Book 2. And the boat.
Patience. Patience.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Somewhere
Somewhere there is a tree bending in a wet gale, under a sky strewn with racing clouds and the bad light of a lunar eclipse. Somewhere a road limns halves of the horizon, rising like a hawk's trajectory until it disappears in the shimmering heat. Somewhere things that look like men squat in caves and clack their yellow teeth at the sun.
Somewhere a spider clamps its bony arms around a moth; the fluttering of the moth slows to a beat and is picked up by the fluttering glow in far storm clouds.
Somewhere an oak tree has grown around a fist of bones. Clutched in the fist is a tiny wooden doll, and painted on the doll's white face are two dots and the thin line of a mouth.
Somewhere on a marshy beach, under the singing air, the sand dimples, cracks, and falls in on itself to reveal a smoking hole that smells like wet wool.
Sometimes, when you're not looking, the stars twitch into new positions, just for a moment. Bats and night frogs blink and go about their business.
Somewhere a wagon filled with rugs lumbers to a stop on the side of a rock-strewn road and under a sky that is so blue it would make your teeth ache. A crow is released into the air. A rabbit is released across the plain. And after a moment, a gloved fist emerges from the swaying wool curtains. Gripping the worn leather with yellow, lizardlike feet and hooked talons is a hooded falcon. The hood is released and the bird climbs into the bright sky, watching both crow and rabbit.
It dives.
Somewhere a spider clamps its bony arms around a moth; the fluttering of the moth slows to a beat and is picked up by the fluttering glow in far storm clouds.
Somewhere an oak tree has grown around a fist of bones. Clutched in the fist is a tiny wooden doll, and painted on the doll's white face are two dots and the thin line of a mouth.
Somewhere on a marshy beach, under the singing air, the sand dimples, cracks, and falls in on itself to reveal a smoking hole that smells like wet wool.
Sometimes, when you're not looking, the stars twitch into new positions, just for a moment. Bats and night frogs blink and go about their business.
Somewhere a wagon filled with rugs lumbers to a stop on the side of a rock-strewn road and under a sky that is so blue it would make your teeth ache. A crow is released into the air. A rabbit is released across the plain. And after a moment, a gloved fist emerges from the swaying wool curtains. Gripping the worn leather with yellow, lizardlike feet and hooked talons is a hooded falcon. The hood is released and the bird climbs into the bright sky, watching both crow and rabbit.
It dives.
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