Card models

This pic of Chateau de Belcayre on the France’s Vezere River is the first in a slideshow from a travel article about canoeing in the lovely Dordogne Valley region of France by Christopher Shaw*, in today’s NYTimes.com (click on the pic to see it full-sized).

When I saw it, I suddenly recalled when my son and I used to assemble card models of Loire Valley chateaux in some of our scanty spare time.  We did Chamont, Chambord and Chenonceau.  My son was four or five when this started.   It’s kind of amazing that we did it.  Chenonceau was hard!

me

my spirit is spread thin
to the wind
my soul is scattered
like the dust of stars
my data disseminated
throughout cyberland
i am still brought back
to me

derek

The Umbrellas of Harlem

This past Thursday in NYC, it rained.  It was the first rainy day since last autumn that was warm enough so people weren’t bundled up.

The vernal equinox was only a day away.  The light was lovely — warm and deep, despite the wet and the dark clouds.  There was almost no wind.

Bittersweet

Of the two marmalades I made this weekend, the grapefruit was the more bitter.  The clementine marmalade was lovely to the nose and succulent on the tongue, but the grapefruit felt good in my tummy – it was refreshing and cleansing.

The Magic of First Love

He could not have asked for a better start to this birthday.

Walnut-love

Almonds are sweet,
but walnut-bitterness is sweeter.

Why I love newspapers

Or is it newscreens, newswebs or newsnets?  I haven’t bought a paper paper in more than a year.  One of my fav’s, TOI, isn’t available at my local newsstand. What’s the newsstand guy going to do when we’re all reading digitally?

Today at NYTimes.com…

• …there’s this challenging Op Ed piece on Japan’s attitude towards living by Masaru Tamamoto.
• …and a pic, taken in NYC’s Central Park, of the unrelenting quality of today’s US east coast snowstorm, which reminded me of the fight scene set in a real blizzard in House of Flying Daggers, which I once referenced in a truly bad (but heartfelt) poem called Snow in August: whiteout conditions.
• …and this photo of one of the flour wars in Greece that celebrate the end of Carnival and the start of Lent, which startled me into realizing that Carnival and Holi may be related,

Is the truth out there?

I use to watch the X-Files, religiously. There was the poster in Fox Mulder’s office…..The Truth Is Out There. Is there truth? Is there a truth that is absolute? Can there be a truth that is unchanging?

One could say, it is a truth that the Sun will always rise, but will it? Scientists say that it will some day die and before it does, it will consume most of the inner planets. If humans are still around, then the statement about the Sun rising will no longer be true.

It seems to me that the more we learn the more our “truths” change. A flat earth becomes round, we are no longer the center of the universe or even the galaxy and what happened to Zeus?

As we slip into what seems like a new era of human understanding our ‘truths’ and ‘realities’ will be challenged.
We may even have to write new ones as we go, or even let go of the concept of truths all together. Yo.

derek

Its all about Money, Honey.

Read a strange story in the papers to-day. Michael Clarke, the highest paid Australian cricketer and his fiance, a leading model, have had to put off their marriage, slated for Oct 09.  The reason, he has a very tight schedule playing cricket.

Certainly not compassionate capitalism eh Heath?!

Dara

The Power of One

 ”But what can I do on my own?” A frail old lady at a wayside railway station just taught me.

We were at this small railway station at a coastal fishing village. There were a few urchins hanging around,  some begging to earn a little something, some just playing and  running around and being kids. If any of us gave these grubby looking kids a thought it was perhaps to shake our heads and mutter  ” how sad. I wish I could do something, but what?”

Along came this little lady, held out her hands to the nearest kids and hand in hand they walked  off to the tea stall.  She ordered them cups of tea and told them to call all the rest, perhaps less than a dozen. The look of amazement on their faces and the glee which they had their tea and buns was worth travelling miles to see.

Now I know.

Dara

The Gift of Nothingness

The Gift of Nothingness.

Born into nothingness

I placed a mirror before me

That I should be lord of all I saw.

But dreary years of reflection

Left ME broken,

Disillusioned by the illusion.

Toad Times

There used to be tiny toads in the lawn at the parental home, from spring through fall.  The house was a few hundred feet from an estuary on Long Island Sound. 

They were like little living stones. We didn’t touch them.  We’d lie in the damp grass on our stomachs, watching.  We’d fall asleep, and wake later.  And they’d still be there, but someplace else. 

After waking, cheeks and calves, and if we’d fallen asleep with a palm pillowing a head, the back of one hand, would show grass-textured pressure-patterns. 

The Amateur

Calling someone an amateur is a common insult in the USA.   But did you know that amateur comes from the French word for lover?

Blog or comment?

Thinking about our invitations for people to join Grafetti… and the why’s of the no-responses, the not-right-now’s, and the acceptances-that-haven’t-been-activated…

Maybe there’s a perception that commenting is easy, but posting a blog is hard.  So what’s the difference between a comment and a blog post?

Not much, for me — these days…