As I continue to crank away at solving another batch of Website perplexities, Lee and David sent a picture from our recent cabin time. I was able to pause and revisit a relaxing moment with my pup.
Archive for June, 2005
Everybody needs a Yorkie
Wednesday, June 8th, 2005
Website Makeover™ Man
Tuesday, June 7th, 2005Sprinting toward Thursday—target date for launching the new Chamber of Commerce Website. (Somebody just might get biffed on the head before then…)
Vinyl hair rush vs sable hair brush
Monday, June 6th, 2005As if getting one step closer to being in the Plastic Mullet Series wasn’t treat enough, I got an early look at the Speed’s Berthe Morisot exhibition, and since I tend to possess that “painterly eye” for 24 hours or so after visiting the finest museums, it was fortuitous to have packed my Karat pencils and sketchbook so I could study a sunny treetop during our brief stay at Simpson Knob.
Day of Clan
Saturday, June 4th, 2005All of a sudden the visited links color has switched from violet to black. Hmm… maybe it has something to do with Brendan fixing the style sheet so that my entries don’t look like a single, continuous line. Speaking of Brendan, it was good to see him yesterday. He turned us on to “Pirate’s Cove,” perhaps the coolest board game I’ve ever played (gotta try “Ticket to Ride” next). It was also fun to be with Alyx on her big day. I really think she liked the “Arts & Crafts Companion” we got her, plus my photorama (number two). A huge “thanx” to the Keepsters, who always throw an enjoyable bash. Marty and I headed up to one of our knobs and kicked around until sunset, then we took some pictures of the evening mist sliding through the Valley. I’ll feel stupid if I end up getting poison ivy.
Oldenday IX
Friday, June 3rd, 2005By adolescence, our collection of evolving characters and plot-lines had detached itself from playtime notions or other childhood limitations. We made an effort to shed not only elements of fantasy, but anything out of conformity to the “historical accuracy” of our invented world—the land of “The Pirates.” We used the term in its broadest sense. The band of half-brothers central to our story were not the classic “Howard Pyle types,” but true corsairs from the standpoint of their disregard for societal constraints or prevailing authority. Their adventurous conduct was governed by a common code of mutual survival and respect for each other’s keen abilities. That our story had no fixed beginning or end was well accepted by us all, and we felt free to add new personalities, ethnicities, and anecdotes, as long as they seemed to fit within a narrative continuum that was constantly pushing forward and backward in time. Revisions in service to coherence would pass muster and shape the new legacy. It’s hard to describe the shared excitement and the satisfaction of knowing that we could never be bored if we were together, because the joy of adding to our open-ended chronicles was just a collective daydream away. A mere suggestion could trigger a new layer of creative integration. I’m not sure when it happened, but we started to document a few things here and there, and before long it was apparent that there was no end to the depth and richness of the mosaic. I can’t say it was clear to us at the time that it would prove to be a lifelong pursuit, but we did appreciate its staying power and understood that it was certain to continuously improve. It’s no surprise to any imaginative individual that youth is often fertile ground for an enduring artistic vision. I just recently listened to Ron Howard explain that the premise of how he’d create his motion picture about the Great Depression derived from ideas he had in high school. By the time the oldest of us were settled into college life, we had quite a head of steam with our own story project, but we didn’t anticipate the explosion of development that was about to take place in “The Legend.”
Oldenday VIII
Friday, June 3rd, 2005When Brendan spoke of “building a narrative out of noncontiguous events,” it was as if he was talking about the tapestry of stories that my brothers and I have been weaving all our lives. Stories… they’ve been part of my creative identity from the beginning. Wanting to tell them was as natural as drawing. First it was with chalk and blackboard (my artistic genesis), and then it expanded to comic strips, “scrips,” and my early childhood writings (the Summer family’s life on a farm and the adventures of Gordon Antent, leader of shipwrecked souls). But whatever artesian well of infatuation might emerge and run its course, there was always a distinct narrative world that continued to evolve at the pace of my maturing regard for the human condition, and there was never any doubt about the fact that this was a story project that was meant to endure. As is typical with any creative momentum that has an origin in early life, it’s difficult to define how naive concepts gain an inertia that survive childhood play. And it was always a collaborative enterprise from the start, involving a sibling give-and-take of ideas that would find enough consensus to mold the stories and character profiles in a semi-permanent fashion, until the next burst of development. It all grew out of an activity that, for us, was a powerfully stimulative pastime—playing with little plastic men. Current hobbyists and collectors would refer to them as “playset figures.” The next generation would know them as “action figures.” But most families like ours wouldn’t expend limited resources for the elaborate playsets on the market, with their carefully planned and crafted groups of figures, buildings, props, and accessories (few would dispute that the Marx Toy Company was the high-water mark in the genre). We fit into the merchandising strata at a level called “dimestore toys,” cheap, simple bags of men (rarely women) with few if any accouterments. We envied the friends and cousins who had Marx
playsets (WWII Battleground, Blue and Gray, Fort Apache, Alamo, Ben-hur, and TV spin-offs like Davy Crockett, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, and The Rifleman), but we could make do. We had imagination to spare and we had each other, but most of all, it really wasn’t about the toys. It was about the dramatic stories, and the heroic personalities, and the exotic homelands, and the interactivity of brotherly minds, and the continuity of our boyhood traditions, and ultimately… the fascinating nonlinearity of it all.
One of those ~bbBOIIINNG~ moments
Thursday, June 2nd, 2005Something Brendan said yesterday really got me fixated on a line of thought. For some reason I don’t consider myself a writer (perhaps a diarist or “journal-ist” at best), and yet telling stories has been a part of my imaginative side for as long as I can remember— whether illustrative, oral, or written. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer may have been the first nonlinear story, but I didn’t read Homer (just the condensed juvenile versions) until long after my brothers and I had begun to create a rich oral/written tradition that’s almost 50 years old now. It’s nonlinear nature is one of its strongest suits. It’s been called various things over the years, but now we generally refer to it as “The Legend.” If I keep thinking about this I’ll have the ingredients for another Oldenday segment.
Various & Sundry, part eighteen
Wednesday, June 1st, 2005— Month of May workout totals: Swim-6; Bike-0; Run-2; Lift-0.
— I won’t even try to elaborate on the sad state of my fitness program. At least I continue to swim, although I need to boost that monthly total to a minimum of eight workouts. On the bright side, I had a decent session yesterday and was only a second off my all-time fastest 4-lap sprint. Now, when am I going to get back on my bike?
— In the past 24 hours or so, my niece Caitlan (sister of
Brendan) successfully winged her way to Europe. Her mom’s advice: “Have the time of your life!” I’ll second that motion.
— I spoke to Josh Sunday when he called during the Clan gathering. I really didn’t know what to say to him. I’m terrible on the phone in those situations. Always have been, I guess. We talked a little about his current assignment, until he goes back out on the road, and whether his area was in danger of any mortar attacks. I told him how much I support what he’s doing, but it didn’t sound as strong as I feel about it. You know, if I had to make my log entries with a telephone I’d never do it. I’d just scrap
this whole thing.
— Bruce has dodged another bullet, enabling him to fight onward toward the day he gets to go home. Frankly, I don’t know what a home life is going to be like for him when it’s restored, but I’m certain he looks forward to it with an abiding desire that provides a strong source of fortitude. I’m aware that I haven’t mentioned his wife much in this log. Perhaps I’m not confident enough in my own kindness to put thoughts in writing. At this point I’ll just describe a funny New Yorker cartoon that seems apropos: A man is lying in a hospital bed, appearing totally down and out. Tubes, cords, and medical technology are everywhere. A doctor with a somewhat forlorn expression is standing beside a woman dressed in pearls and a fur wrap. Her expression is one of exasperation. She says, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”