Trout Fishing in Minnesota

Signing off...

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:49:00 +0000

This is the 197th and final post on this blog. I could have stretched it to 200, but it seems fitting to fall just short of a milestone.

It also seems fitting to end with a selection from Richard Brautigan's seminal book "Trout Fishing in America." We've featured lots of Brautigan stuff, but nothing from this blog's namesake work. This will be followed by one of my own short poems and a picture of one of my recent pots.

And that will be that.

The Kool-Aid Wino
Richard Brautigan

When I was a child I had a friend who became a Kool-Aid wino as the result of a rupture. He was a member of a very large and poor German family. All the older children in the family had to work the fields during the summer, picking beans for two-and one-half cents a pound to keep the family going. Everyone worked except my friend who couldn’t because he was ruptured. There was no money for an operation. There wasn’t even enough money to buy him a truss. So he stayed home and became a Kool-Aid wino.

One morning in August I went over to his house. He was still in bed. He looked up at me from underneath a tattered revolution of old blankets. He had never slept under a sheet in his life.

‘Did you bring the nickel you promised?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s here in my pocket.’

‘Good.’

He hopped out of bed and was already dressed. He had told me once that he never took off his clothes when he went to bed.

‘Why bother?’ he had said. ‘You’re only going to get up, anyway. Be prepared for it. You’re not fooling anyone by taking your clothes off when you go to bed.’

He went into the kitchen, stepping around the littlest children, whose wet diapers were in various stages of anarchy. He made his breakfast: a slice of homemade bread covered with Karo syrup and peanut butter.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

We left the house with him still eating the sandwich. The store was three blocks away, on the other side of a field covered with heavy yellow grass. There were many pheasants in the field. Fat with summer they barely flew away when we came up to them.

‘Hello,’ said the grocer. He was bald with a red birthmark on his head. The birthmark looked just like an old car parked on his head. He automatically reached for a package of grape Kool-Aid and put it on the counter.

‘Five cents.’

‘He’s got it,’ my friend said.

I reached into my pocket and gave the nickel to the grocer. He nodded and the old red car wobbled back and forth on the road as if the driver were having an epileptic seizure.

We left.

My friend led the way across the field. One of the pheasants didn’t even bother to fly. He ran across the field in front of us like a feathered pig.

When we got back to my friend’s house the ceremony began. To him the making of Kool-Aid was a romance and a ceremony. It had to be performed in an exact manner and with dignity.

First he got a gallon jar and went around to the side of the house where the water spigot thrust itself out of the ground like the finger of a saint, surrounded by a mud puddle.

He opened the Kool-Aid and dumped it into the jar. Putting the jar under the spigot, he turned the water on. The water spit, splashed and guzzled out of the spigot.

He was careful to see that the jar did not overflow and the precious Kool-Aid spill out on to the ground. When the jar was full he turned the water off with a sudden but delicate motion like a famous brain surgeon removing a disordered portion of the imagination. Then he screwed the lid tightly on to the top of the jar and gave it a good shake.

The first part of the ceremony was over.

Like the inspired priest of an exotic cult, he had performed the first part of the ceremony well.
His mother came around the side of the house and said in a voice filled with sand and string,

‘When are you going to do the dishes?...Huh?

‘Soon,’ he said.

‘Well, you better,’ she said.

When she left, it was as if she had never been there at all. The second part of the ceremony began with him carrying the jar very carefully to an abandoned chicken house in the back. ‘The dishes can wait,’ he said to me. Bertrand Russell could not have stated it better.

He opened the chicken house door and we went in. The place was littered with half-rotten comic books. They were like fruit under a tree. In the corner was an old mattress and beside the mattress were four quart jars. He took the gallon jar over to them, and filled them carefully not spilling a drop. He screwed their caps on tightly and was now ready for a day’s drinking.

You’re supposed to make only two quarts of Kool-Aid from a package, but he always made a gallon, so his Kool-Aid was a mere shadow of its desired potency. And you’re supposed to add sugar to every package of Kool-Aid, but he never put any sugar in his Kool-Aid because there wasn't any sugar to put in it.

He created his own Kool-Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it.

----

This version is from the 2nd UK edition, published by Vintage in 1997. The first UK edition was published in 1970 by Jonathan Cape Ltd. Original copyright Richard Brautigan 1967.

Curiously, one of the reviews quoted on the jacket cover is from The Financial Times. The Financial Times called Brautigan "A master of American black absurdism." What?

----

Step back
-- Jim Haas

I watch you go again.
It never gets easy even though it has become familiar
A commonplace

Can I tell you this?
"Don't be silly," you'd say.

But every day seems an opportunity lost
Every parting another small step away

-----

This vase was made some time ago and sold at the Northfield Arts Guild shop. It's not my best work, but is representative.

See you around town or around the ol' blogosphere!

Truth is stranger than....

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:53:00 +0000

Today's court calendar included this entry: "Forfieture. State of Minnesota v. 1997 Red Geo Metro."

Forfieture cases (where the state is siezing a vehicle or other property used in a crime -- usually a drug crime) aren't all that common in the county where I work. We should all be glad that the heavy artillery of the criminal justice system has been fired up in this case, eh?. That nasty person will no longer be able to enjoy the use of his 1997 Red Geo Metro! Ha! Take that!

(On 2nd thought, instead of taking it away from the miscreant, the court should make him drive it for the next ten years.)

End of the Line

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:17:00 +0000

In a week or so, this little blog will shut down. I plan to keep up with my favorite blogs and may post a comment now and then on those blogs. And I'll keep writing, maybe even submitting some essays and poems for publication. But I have grown weary of the blog thing.

The final post will feature one sublime Brautigan piece, one amazing drummer video, one mediocre poem of my own, and a picture of a nice pot. That should pretty much sum things up.

Thanks for reading and commenting during the short life of this blog. I appreciate it.

Have a wonderful 2009!

I'll Grant You That (Part VI)

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:49:00 +0000

The following announcement appeared on Grants.gov last week:

HHS
Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
Optimization of Small Molecule Probes for the Nervous System (R21) Grant

My question: What function does the word "small" serve in that sentence?

Plowing right along

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:58:00 +0000

Penelopedia and other local bloggers have noted the unusual amount of snow we've had hereabouts so far this winter. At the same time, local governments are scrambling to find ways to spend less in the face of dire economic news. The Governor -- he's so charming, with that cute grin of his -- has 'unallotted' about six months worth of state aid payments to local governments, and that's just the first of many such cuts to come.

Here's my idea: stop plowing snow. Seriously. I wonder why snow removal is assumed to be the responsibility of the government. The quickest way to privatize this function is for government to simply stop doing it. And our Governor, not without justification, believes that the private sector is more efficient than government at most things, so relying on the private sector would presumably improve snow removal, right? I would happily join my neighbors in contracting with a private vendor who would plow our street. I'd even pay a small premium if that vendor would promise in writing not to leave heaps of snow at the bottom of my driveway.

Maybe the private company that hauls garbage could equip its trucks with plows. Maybe all those grain trucks that sit idle during winter could become snow plowing and snow hauling trucks. In any case, I trust that the market -- that great engine of innovation and opportunism -- would quickly meet the demand. You live in Northfield and it snows, you either remove the snow yourself (from the place where you live or work and from the portion of the public right-of-way that abuts it) or hire somebody to do it.

What say you, Timmy? Mayor Mary?

Too Cold for Baseball?

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:24:00 +0000

Everybody's talking about the cold. Y'know, it does get cold in the winter in these parts, but I understand why it's still newsworthy. It got really cold really fast (see the graph on Rob Hardy's blog, it's...umm...chilling). And it's the first nasty cold snap this season, which, though inevitable, still takes one by suprise.

Here are a couple of poems by Gail Mazur that I think are apropos.

Ice
Gail Mazur

In the warming house, children lace their skates,
bending, choked, over their thick jackets.

A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy
it’s hard to imagine why anyone would leave,

clumping across the frozen beach to the river.
December’s always the same at Ware’s Cove,

the first sheer ice, black, then white
and deep until the city sends trucks of men

with wooden barriers to put up the boys’
hockey rink. An hour of skating after school,

of trying wobbly figure-8’s, an hour
of distances moved backwards without falling,

then—twilight, the warming house steamy
with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs

aching. Outside, the hockey players keep
playing, slamming the round black puck

until it’s dark, until supper. At night,
a shy girl comes to the cove with her father.

Although there isn’t music, they glide
arm in arm onto the blurred surface together,

braced like dancers. She thinks she’ll never
be so happy, for who else will find her graceful,

find her perfect, skate with her
in circles outside the emptied rink forever?

Gail Mazur, “Ice” from Zeppo's First Wife: New & Selected Poems (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005). Copyright © 1995 by Gail Mazur.

Baseball
Gail Mazur (for John Limon)

The game of baseball is not a metaphor
and I know it’s not really life.
The chalky green diamond, the lovely
dusty brown lanes I see from airplanes
multiplying around the cities
are only neat playing fields.
Their structure is not the frame
of history carved out of forest,
that is not what I see on my ascent.

And down in the stadium,
the veteran catcher guiding the young
pitcher through the innings, the line
of concentration between them,
that delicate filament is not
like the way you are helping me,
only it reminds me when I strain
for analogies, the way a rookie strains
for perfection, and the veteran,
in his wisdom, seems to promise it,
it glows from his upheld glove,

and the man in front of me
in the grandstand, drinking banana
daiquiris from a thermos,
continuing through a whole dinner

and the young wife trying to understand
what a full count could be
to please her husband happy in
his old dreams, or the little boy
in the Yankees cap already nodding
off to sleep against his father,
program and popcorn memories
to the aromatic cigar even as our team
is shut out, nearly hitless, he is
not like the farmer that Auden speaks
of in Breughel’s Icarus,
or the four inevitable woman-hating
drunkards, yelling, hugging
each other and moving up and down
continuously for more beer
sliding into the future,
and the old woman from Lincoln, Maine,
screaming at the Yankee slugger
with wounded knees to break his leg

this is not a microcosm,
not even a slice of life

and the terrible slumps,
when the greatest hitter mysteriously
goes hitless for weeks, or
the pitcher’s stuff is all junk
who threw like a magician all last month,
or the days when our guys look
like Sennett cops, slipping, bumping
each other, then suddenly, the play
that wasn’t humanly possible, the Kid
we know isn’t ready for the big leagues,
leaps into the air to catch a ball
that should have gone downtown,
and coming off the field is hugged
and bottom-slapped by the sudden
sorcerers, the winning team

the question of what makes a man
slump when his form, his eye,
his power aren’t to blame, this isn’t
like the bad luck that hounds us,
and his frustration in the games
not like our deep rage
for disappointing ourselves

the ball park is an artifact,
manicured, safe, “scene in an Easter egg”,
and the order of the ball game,
the firm structure with the mystery
of accidents always contained,
not the wild field we wander in,
where I’m trying to recite the rules,
to repeat the statistics of the game,
and the wind keeps carrying my words away

Gail Mazur, “Baseball” from Zeppo's First Wife: New & Selected Poems (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005). Copyright 1978 by Gail Mazur.

"...the mystery/of accidents always contained..." Sweet music.

Enjoy the cold!

Offseason Acquisitions

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:52:00 +0000

Major league Baseball, Inc. is having its annual winter meeting in Las Vegas. Sometimes teams make player trades during these meetings, but there are always more rumored trades than actual trades, especially for the Twins. It’s something for baseball writers and baseball fans to talk about during the long winter months.

In the Star-Tribune, one story from the winter meetings said that the Twins are looking for “a shortstop who can play defense and hit a little.” Read that phrase again. It raises a couple of questions, one of which might be: As opposed to what?

Some other useful things a shortstop can do if the shortstop can’t play defense and hit a little:

Help the umpires rub mud on the baseballs before each game.
Hang plastic sheets over the lockers to prepare for the victory celebration.*
Make sure there are plenty of paper cups in the bullpen so the relievers can play flippy-cup.
Make up elaborate and funny rules for bullpen flippy-cup.
Learn calligraphy and put really fancy numbers on the knobs of the bats and on batting helmets and batting gloves, giving the dugout some class.
Be a manager on the field.
Play with grit and hustle.
Make a festive centerpiece for the post-game buffet out of broken bats, dugout spittoons, an Ace bandage, and the rosin bag.
Start a blog.

---
* If the shortstop truly can't play defense and hit a little, he will pobably have to hang the plastic in the visitor's locker room.

Show Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:18:00 +0000

Two gallery exhibits at the Northfield Arts Guild will include some of my work. The first is the annual members' show. It opens Thursday, December 11, 2008. I will have one, maybe two, pots in that show.

The next will be my very first ever solo! Yowks! On February 11, 2009, I will have the small gallery (known as The Other Room, though I dislike the Biblical allusion*) all to myself. The show runs through the end of February, I think. As soon as that show is mounted, I will bore you with some photos (Pictures From an Exhibition?). The challenge will be to make a dozen or so gallery-worthy pieces between now and then using some new glazes and a rebuilt kiln that won't be test-fired until this weekend. Those sounds you hear are my creative gears grinding and my artistic steering mechanism locking up and my visual esthetic fluttering away like a frightened sparrow. **

Some day, I may write about the bizarre and embarrassing tale of buying and repairing that kiln. Imagine a home improvement project involving many trips to the hardware store and many calls to tech support and many "oh, shit" moments. Then multiply that by a factor of three. Add a couple zeros to the initial cost estimate, too.

It wasn't pretty, though I certainly hope the results will be.

* The Last Supper was in The Upper Room, which of course is different, but to my ears they just sound too much alike.

** Also, this simile gun seems to be misfiring.

Beer/Brautigan/Brendon

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:22:00 +0000

The blogger who calls himself Bleeet posted a list expanding on the Biblical 'inherit the earth' theme. You can read it here.

This little blog has had frequent posts about beer.

In a rather forced attempt to bring these disparate references together, here is one of Richard Brautigan's first published poems.

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth's Beer Bottles

When we were children after the war
we lived for a year in a house next
to a large highway. There were many
sawmills and log ponds on the other side
of the highway. The sound of the saws could
be heard most of the time and when there
was darkness trash burners glowed red
against the sky. We did not have a father
and our mother had to work very hard.
My sister and I got our spending money
by gathering beer bottles that had been
thrown along the highway or left around
the sawmills. At first we carried the
bottles in gunny sacks and cardboard boxes
but later we found an old baby buggy
and we used that to carry our bottles in.
We took the bottles to a grocery store
and were paid a penny for small beer bottles
and two cents for large ones. On almost
any day we could be seen pushing our baby
buggy along the highway looking
for beer bottles.

-----
from Four New Poets. Ed. Leslie Woolf Hedley.
San Francisco: Inferno Press, 1957.

Poetry Crush

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:17:00 +0000

Lisa Olstein is my new favorite poet. I hope I get a bunch of her books* for Christmas this year. And if I don't I'll buy 'em my own self.

Here's a sample.

That Magnificent Part the Chorus Does about Tragedy
--- Lisa Olstein

There is a theory of crying that tears are the body’s way of
releasing excess elements from the brain. There is a theory of
dreaming that each one serves to mend something torn, like
cells of new skin lining up to cover a hole. I’m not one to have
dreams about flying, but last week we were thirty feet above the
bay—this was where we went to discuss things, so that no matter
what we decided it was only we two out there, and we’d have
to fly back together. I’m not one to have dreams where animals
can speak, but last night a weeping mare I’d been told to bridle
wanted me to save her. We discussed what was left of her ability
to take children for rides—how much trot, how much canter—
but I wasn't sure I could do it, having already bridled her and
all. I was once very brave. Once I was very brave. I was very
brave once. I boarded a plane before dawn. I carried all those
heavy bags. I stayed up the whole night before folding the house
into duffel bags. I took a curl from the base of your skull and
opened the door to the rusty orange wagon and weighed those
heavy duffel bags and smiled at the airport official. I boarded
a tiny propeller plane and from a tiny window I watched you walk
back to the rusty orange station wagon. They say the whole world
is warming by imperceptible degrees. I watched the rusty orange
wagon go whizzing by.

Lisa Olstein, "That Magnificent Part the Chorus Does about Tragedy" from Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon Press, 2006). http://www.coppercanyonpress.org/

I think her re-phrasing of the sentence about being brave is brilliant. This is one to be savored.

* So she has just one published collection. That doesn't change my wish.

100th post in 2008; Robert Creeley

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:48:00 +0000

Don at Issa's Untidy Hut posted a verse by Gary Snyder, whom I've always enjoyed. That sent me running to an old collection that includes some Gary Snyder poems. I had planned to call Don's Snyder and raise him a Creeley. But then I found the Creeley I was looking for and decided to stop there (for now).

Here it is, from "Contemporary American Poetry," part of the Penguin Poets series, 1962.

I Know a Man
---- Robert Creeley

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,
drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.

----
For the 100th post on this ol' blog this year, I think the poem is somehow fitting. Especially that last warning.

A Culinary Rubicon

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:50:00 +0000

On Sunday, I ate my very first matzo ball. I’ve had hamantaschen. I’ve enjoyed borscht and blintzes and babka and bagels with lox. I’ve had latkes and kugel. But never matzo ball soup.

Digging through a kitchen cabinet, I unearthed an old box of Manischewitz matzo ball soup mix. Don’t know where it came from. Hey, it’s a sunny but cool afternoon, not much going on – what the hell, let’s make some matzo ball soup.

It was a little salty, and I think I made the matzo balls a bit too large (didn’t realize they would plump up while boiling). Pretty good, though. Enough left over for lunch today, too.

So…cross that culinary achievement off the list!

Here's a Brautigan poem from "The Octopus Frontier" (1960).

The Winos on Potrero Hill

Alas, they get

their bottles

from a small

neighborhood store.

The old Russian

sells them port

and passes no moral

judgement. They go

and sit under

the green bushes

that grow along

the wooden stairs.

They could almost

be exotic flowers,

they drink so

quietly.

----

What kind of wine goes with matzo ball soup?

Columnists (Part I)

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:05:00 +0000

Little Debbie Nutty Bars.

I do not believe I have ever eaten a Little Debbie Nutty Bar until today. They would probably be considered pixifood*, but something told me to buy a package from the vending machine today and eat them for desert.

Al Sicherman wrote a food column for the Minneapolis daily newspaper for many years. Just about every day, he would find a way to mention Little Debbie Nutty Bars in his column. I liked Sicherman’s column, which I guess was a victim of the deep cuts which have become common in the newspaper business**. Many columnists have repositioned themselves as bloggers, but not Sicherman. His columns have been collected in two volumes: “Caramel Knowledge” and “Uncle Al’s Geezer Salad.” He still contributes to the food section now and then as Mr. Tidbit, but it’s not the same.

Al Sicherman was the Mike Royko of the food beat. I hope he still enjoys the occasional Little Debbie Nutty Bar.

-----

Review: Little Debbie Nutty Bars taste like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup that has been in your kid’s Halloween treat bag since 1994.

* Pixifood: a noun invented by Joe Posnanski. It is a food that you loved as a kid but cannot stand now that you're a grownup.

** These cuts could be termed 'paper cuts' yes?

An Undisclosed Amount of Cash

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:08:00 +0000

Why is the booty from a bank robbery always described as “an undisclosed amount of cash?” Surely, the bank knows exactly how much cash was stolen. But the FBI apparently doesn’t want us to know.

A newspaper reporter I knew worked in a medium-sized town in northern Indiana. As a reporter, he felt an obligation – a burning obsession, really – to get all salient facts into the story. He wanted to know, among many other things, how much money was stolen. It drove him to distraction when the authorities (whom he naturally mistrusted anyway) wouldn’t tell him. This gnawed at him for some years until he finally decided to just make it up. Ethics aside, it worked brilliantly.

His story would be a straight ahead factual account but for one detail.

Late Monday evening, a tall man in an orange hunting vest walked into the First Regional Bank branch on 33rd Avenue and handed the teller a note. The type-written note said he had a hand grenade and would use it unless the teller emptied the cash drawer. She did and the robber ran to a waiting motorcycle, with which he made his getaway. The robber made off with approximately $5,780.00 in cash and coins. No one was injured and the money was found in a pillow case stuffed into a culvert near where the suspect
was apprehended.

Police captain John Ettinger said “Officers were able to intercept the suspect just a few miles away in River Ridge Park. He did not resist. We are thankful that the teller and customers remained calm and officers acted quickly.” Police and the FBI are continuing their investigation. No weapon has been found.

The suspect will be arraigned in federal district court Friday.

An altogether routine story. Except that the amount of stolen money is entirely fictional. My reporter friend did this repeatedly. If the FBI complained to the paper, the intrepid reporter would say he got the figure from a confidential source. The FBI had a Hobson’s choice: Give the paper the correct number or remain silent. They chose the latter, allowing our reporter to have the last word.

I am not defending the reporter – it’s probably a journalistic no-no to, you know, make stuff up. But I think it’s funny that he could stick it to the FBI. I mean, it was the FBI, the FBI led by J. Edgar Hoover! They did not like the press, and I’m sure this particular reporter made ‘em crazy.

Famous People I Have Kind Of Known

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:57:00 +0000

Thirty-some years ago, I read in Esquire magazine a humorous piece by Ed McClanahan entitled “Famous People I have Known.” I’d like to get my hands on that essay again, just to see if it’s as funny as I remember it being. This week, Joe Posnanski described on his blog some awkward encounters he has had with celebrities. It reminded me of the McClanahan piece. *

And of course Mr. Posnanski’s blog post touched off a flurry of comments in which his brilliant readers described their own brushes with the famous or infamous. This naturally led me to make my own list, with which I now proceed to regale you. These are not in chronological (or any logical) order.

Kevin Kline, the actor. He and I were theatre majors at IU. We were in a couple of classes and one production together – a radio play based on the Apollo I launching-pad disaster in 1967. Kline was dashing and smart and funny but not yet famous.

Jack Teagarden, the musician. His quintet played a concert in my home town when I was in high school. My mom knew the piano player from their time in the Army together, so we got to go back stage. I shook hands with Mr. Teagarden, but was more interested in meeting Barrett Deems, the drummer. Mr. Deems wasn’t too keen on meeting me.

Quincy Jones, the music legend. Jones was a judge at the Notre Dame jazz festival (1969 or so). My ticket was one of the winners in the drawing for some records, so I got to meet the pianist Billy Taylor and Quincy Jones and take home a couple of their LPs. I think those old records are still in the basement.

Jimmy Carter, the President. Carter visited St. Paul in about 1979 and took a riverboat cruise. A friend recruited me as a crowd control volunteer (she knew somebody who knew somebody in the Secret Service, I guess). Somehow, I got assigned to help check press credentials at the entrance (the companionway?) to the boat. Sam Donaldson, the reporter, just about knocked me aside as he hurried by. The President and his wife said hello (from behind a phalanx of secret service guys and reporters) as they boarded.

Rudy Giuliani, the political dilettante. I went to a conference (1982 or thereabouts) in Denver sponsored by the Department of Justice. Mr. Giuliani was at that time a high-level functionary at DOJ. He gave a very boring speech one morning. Because I was on the discussion panel for the session following his speech, we shook hands as he left the stage.

Rudy Perpich, the Governor of Minnesota. Governor Perpich signed some kind of grand proclamation related to my profession. I and about a dozen others each received a signed and sealed copy of the proclamation and each had our photo taken with the governor. I gave my picture to my mother-in-law, who had been a high-school classmate of Rudy Perpich. She thought that was pretty cool.

John Volpe, the Governor of Massachusetts. My grandmother gave Volpe some money during his campaign so she got invited to a reception at his house. She dragged her darling little grandkids along, which the Governor’s staff clearly did not appreciate.

Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett, baseball players. At the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, my eldest son and I got to meet Mr. Winfield and Mr. Puckett. Just a handshake in an impromptu reception line, but it was pretty fun. Some years later, I was walking through the Los Angeles airport when Winfield strode past in the other direction. I waved and yelled “David!” About an hour later, I realized that Winfield was flying back to Minneapolis to attend the public memorial service at the Metrodome following Puckett’s untimely death.

Tony Oliva, baseball player. Walking along the Metrodome concourse before a game, my youngest son and I ran (almost literally) into Tony O, who must have been on his way up to the broadcast booth (Tony does commentary on the Twins’ Spanish-language broadcasts). I introduced my son and they shook hands. Tony is one of my all-time favorite players. He is such a gracious gentleman.

Tony Bouza, cop and erstwhile politician. Bouza is a minor Minnesota celebrity, having been a very colorful and entertaining chief of police in Minneapolis. He once threw me out of his office. After he retired and was running for something (governor?), we played on the same charity softball team for one game. Dude could not hit a lick.

My daddy. Ok, he’s not famous, but he’s my favorite character. He’s a very kind, very modest, very smart guy. The epitome of control and class. He rarely swore, preferring some euphemism. If another driver did something dumb, dad would mutter “you hamburger” under his breath. If one of his kids did something dumb, he might say “Judas priest!” Working on getting a stubborn bolt unbolted or hammering a nail into an especially hard board, he’d say “that thing is tougher’n whang leather!” His strongest general-use epithets were “sonofabuck” or “well...hell.”

* The interwebs are so amazing. Ed McClanahan, I learned with just a few mouse clicks, turned his essay into an autobiography with the same title. The sonofabuck even has (surprise) his own web site, where you can get free samples of his writing. He’s wobbling toward geezerhood, but some of you might enjoy his stuff.

Election Returns

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:35:00 +0000

This is from Richard Brautigan's "Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork." It's one in a long series entitled "Group Portrait Without The Lions (Available Light)"

Morgan
Part 12

Morgan finished second in his high school
presidential election in 1931.
He never recovered from it.
After that he wasn't interested in people
any more. They couldn't be counted on.
He has been working as a night watchman
at the same factory for over thirty years now.
At midnight he walks among the silent equipment.
He pretends they are his friends and they like
him very much. They would have voted
for him

-----
I am distressed by the public's seeming lack of trust in the recount process (in the senate race between Franken and Coleman). The law is clear, the procedures are spelled out, the responsible officials (county auditors, election judges, the Secretary of State) are for the most part not political hacks, the process is transparent (both parties have observers), and the courts provide a fallback. What's not to trust?

ULEV and baseball

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:58:00 +0000

Before last week, I'd never heard of a ULEV. It stands for "Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle." Shopping for a fuel efficient car, I settled on the Honda 'Fit.' In the first week of ownership, I've used it on the regular daily short commute (25 miles round trip) and one longer drive (just over 100 miles round trip). The results: 42 and 47 MPG respectively. That's even better than expected. Fuel economy and low emissions? Nice.

I do not generally get excited about cars, viewing them as a necessary evil. This one certainly is less evil than most.

----

The end of the baseball season is always an uncomfortable time. For me, baseball is part of the rhythm of summer. Following the standings and my favorite team and players is a pleasant ritual. It always takes a while to adjust to the short, dark days with no box score, no game summary, no baselball blogs to check for highlights and funny stories.

Reading baseball books is one way to fill the off-season days. One of my favorites is "You Gotta Have Wa," about American ballplayer Bob Horner's experience playing in Japan. It's fascinating. I'm re-reading it in light of my new-found interest in Haiku and my son's studies on Buddhism. Look for a review soon.

In the meantime, think about spring training. I wonder if President Obama will wear his White Sox hat in the White House. I hope not, but won't get all worked up if he does.

Voting and a poem

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:27:00 +0000

There were long but very orderly lines at the polling place this morning. I hung out with Carl, a neighbor, who arrived just ahead of me. We talked about motorcycles as we waited in line. Carl drives a big Harley on his daily commute between here and Red Wing, which is a lovely drive most of the year. I saw lots of folks I know and hundreds I didn't. It was a pleasant way to experience direct democracy.

I'm not sure why, but the scene reminded me of this Brautigan poem, from "The Octopus Frontier" (his 2nd collection, published in 1960).

The Fever Monument

I walked across the park to the fever monument.
It was in the center of a glass square surrounded
by red flowers and fountains. The monument
was in the shape of a sea horse and the plaque read
We got hot and died.

Spare Parts Poem

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:55:00 +0000

Some of R. Brautigan's work feels to me like it's made of bits and pieces that he had lying around the shop.

Here is one of my own made of mostly spare parts. I say 'mostly' because I think it does have some structure and adhesion to it.

How to make autumn

Where are all these people going? Isn’t
it wonderful and amazing that there
are so many different styles of automobile?

Freedom of choice!
Choose your poison.
Put the top down.
Turn the radio up.

Do all these people really need or want
to be someplace else?
As soon as we arrive, we start planning to leave.

-------
I'm pleased the Phillies won the World Series, though watching it on the Fox network was painful, and not just because of the nasty weather. Tim McCarver continues to make odd statements and just plain stupid observations.

For example: One of the pitchers threw two changeups in a row. Timmy described this as unusual, saying that it's OK to throw two fastballs in a row or two curveballs, but a pitcher would have to have lots of confidence to think he can throw two changeups in a row. Timmy did not explain why this is so. He simply said it, as if the truth of it were obvious to everyone. His broadcast partner did not respond in any fashion at all, which usually means his broadcast partner has realized that Timmy just laid another one. But I really do want to know why. I thirst for more baseball knowledge, and Timmy did not even try to quench my thirst!

Do any readers of this blog (this means you, Rob) have any idea why a pitcher should never throw two changeups in a row?

Save the buckthorn! (Part III)

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:26:00 +0000

According to the Minnesota Historical Society, the first official pheasant hunting season in Minnesota began on October 16, 1924. The ring-necked pheasant was introduced to Minnesota in about 1905. It isn’t native to these parts. In fact, the Historical Society says it was brought here from China. China!

Why aren’t environmentalists and historic preservationists falling all over themselves trying to rid the state of pheasant? Like the zebra mussel, purple loosestrife, and buckthorn, pheasant don’t belong here!

Pheasant probably pushed the native prairie chicken population from Minnesota into the Dakotas, so pheasant could be considered invasive. The species has only been here for a century or so, which is pretty recent considering that most animals began to populate this region ten thousand years ago, as the ice receded.

If you aren’t willing to eradicate pheasant, then I’m not willing to join the fight against buckthorn.

Smoke and Mirrors

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:50:00 +0000

There was surprisingly little smoke (and no mirror).

Helped a friend do the inaugural firing of her wood kiln last Sunday. It was fun. She had spent three hours stacking and restacking the ware before I showed up. We spent another hour assembling the lid and putting the chimney extension up through the roof of the shed. The firing itself took about 7.5 hours. I stoked and kept the logbook for about half that time. In exchange for my help, she made room for a couple of my pots.

She is a meticulous potter, and that characteristic extends to her kiln building and firing. She had planned every detail and the firing went off almost exactly as she had laid it out. The only problem was that the damper mechanism jammed up about halfway through. The mechanism involved two small rectangular pieces of kiln shelf (silicone carbide, I think) sliding through vertical openings on either side of the chimney as it came out of the back of the kiln. She had made the shelf pieces fit too well into the slots – they swelled in the heat and got stuck, so we couldn’t adjust them. Because the kiln is made of soft refractory brick, we used a length of thin metal, like a putty knife, to make the slots just a little wider. Worked fine from then on. She was very disappointed at this design problem that she felt she should have anticipated. But the whole thing – from the clever way the removable top section of the chimney stack was designed, to the simple but effective method for keeping that stack from wobbling in the stiff wind, to the extremely precise use of a secondary atmospheric damper – was so well executed, the temporary damper problem seemed to me a minor (and easily fixed) setback.

I have long wanted to build a small gas-fired kiln for my own work and this experience helped me see how challenging that will be!

My pieces turned out poorly, but that had nothing to do with the kiln or the firing. I had grabbed them off a shelf of pots that were in the not-very-good-but-worth-using-in-a-test-someday category. If there is a next time, I'll be prepared with better stock.

New short poem

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:33:00 +0000

Untitled

“Just get in the damn car,” he said
with a resigned sigh.
He spread his hands out slowly
and put them on top of the car.
He hung his head between his outstretched arms
and closed his eyes for a moment,
as if willing himself to be somewhere
else.
I expected anger, so his calm unnerved me.
I hesitated.
He looked up at me and nodded once.
as if to say “OK.”
He drew in a long deep breath,
got in the car,
put on his hat,
and drove slowly away.

--- Jim Haas

Capsule Review

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:50:00 +0000

Saw "The View from the Bridge" last night at the Guthrie. First visit since the new building opened on the riverfront.

The building: Not good, except for the cantilevered walkway with a terrific view of the Mississippi river and downtown. The thrust stage is very nice, too, but that's because it is faithful to Rapson's design of the original Guthrie. The rest of the building is dark, stark, confusing, uninviting.

The play: Excellent. Outstanding. The acting was superb, especially Marco, whose pride was subtle and fierce. An understudy played the part of the lawyer/narrator. He was marvelous. His grief and his sense of responsibility were utterly convincing. And the script, of course, is just amazing, pulling the audience in. The plot is simple but the characters complex. You have to think.

Recommendation: Go! Enjoy! Overlook the stupid pop architecture but savor the powerful theatrical experience.

Let's Cook!

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:32:00 +0000

My lovely wife made a hearty beef stew earlier this week. I was going to bring some of the leftovers to work for lunch today (it tastes even better after a day or two) but forgot.

Ah, well. Just thinking about it makes me smile.

Here's a poem by Richard Brautigan from "The Pill Versus the Spring Hill Mine Disaster." For some reason, I believe it was written in the Fall.

The Garlic Meat Lady from

We're cooking dinner tonight.
I'm making a kind of Stonehenge
stroganoff.
Marcia is helping me. You
already know the legend
of her beauty.
I've asked her to rub garlic
on the meat. She takes
each piece of meat like a lover
and rubs it gently with garlic.
I've never seen anything like this
before. Every orifice
of the meat is explored, caressed
relentlessly with garlic.
There is a passion here that would
drive a deaf saint to learn
the violin and play Beethoven at
Stonehenge.

Note to purists: I am aware that in the original, a number of these lines are indented, which gives the poem a better rhythm. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to make Blogger recognize the indentation. I'm sorry.

A one-game season

noreply@blogger.com (Jim H.) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:23:00 +0000

This may sound like apostasy here in Twins Territory, but I won't be all torn up if the Twin lose tonight. They played some really crappy baseball in September (as did the White Sox), so one last loss would be fitting in a way.

I hope the Twins win. If they do, I will go to every post-season game they play at the Dumpty Dome. But...whatever happens happens.