White Shag Carpet

Back in 1977 when I was about 6 years old and living in a mobile home parked on an acre of rural land near Webb, Alabama, I spent a lot of time standing on a straight back chair in my bedroom. I did two things while on the chair and both involved records I was playing on my record player. When on my chair (a.k.a. "stage") I would either practice Spanish using my grandma's Spanish language records (I loved how the guy at the start of the record would announce in a deep, rich, heavily-Spanish-accented voice "Spanish in rrrrrecord time!") or I would pretend I was Elvis. My grandma had every Elvis album ever produced and had drawers full of RCA 45’s and quite a few yellow-labeled Sun 45's, but my favorite album to “perform” was Elvis On Stage. (“ON STAGE” was in Las Vegas lights across the album cover with a photo of a mature Elvis earnestly singing and my small mind was wowed). That same year I remember that I was watching tv with my babysitter Ena (who was kind of hippy and gave me a real mood ring and my first book of poetry and helped me dig exciting but non-functional rabbit traps in the back yard) when the news broke in that Elvis was dead. I remember this being such a shock for me and I’m sure my Elvis-time on the chair increased for a while after that as some sort of 6 year old’s tribute. I catch a lot of flack around here for playing my Elvis Christmas record during the holidays, but it’s just not Christmas until I hear that mellow voice singing “got no sleigh with reindeer…no sack on my back…you gonna see me comin’…in a big black Cadillac”. So a couple of weeks ago I made it to the gates of Graceland at 10pm on a Monday night. I took a couple of pics of the gate and looked at the house for a few minutes and thought back to my Elvis impersonations and living in trailers in rural Alabama and Ena and all the rabbits we never caught. Just like that famous hound dog.

Just for fun, I've included a scan of one of my grandma’s Elvis Sun label records and some photos my grandma took of him at a concert (1956).

Gone

I just realized that I have a lot of photos from around here that are of things that are now gone. The first photo I posted of the dead tree in the field...they cut down that tree this past fall. The photo at the top of the blog of the fall trees in the cemetery...the gray field in the background of that photo is now the home of our new superwalmart. Oh yeah...and that cow is of course several years ago now several someones' tasty dinners. The barn in this photo was torn down last year as well. I was bummed. I loved this barn...had dreamed about living in it...had dreamed about fixing it up as a Nia dance studio (that one's for you Danielle if you ever read this). It was on my back road home and lots of times when I passed by there would be an owl sitting in one of the open upper windows. We take pics of things that we know will quickly change (mostly for commemoration) and we take pics of things that have been around forever and seem like will never change (mostly for aesthetics). The chance and unintended overlap of these two makes these photos more special to me I suppose. So this is a cool old barn and this barn can never be seen or photographed again...unless you look at a picture or take a picture of a picture. I guess which means it will now somehow be there forever.

"But the BARN, sitting lonely in the placid DUST, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a SHUTTER then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have gone before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have gone before.'
Then the BARN said, `Nevermore.'" --Edgar A Poe, with modifications

Not So Nice

Future Shirley Temple dress. KT is going to be Shirley Temple for a school project. If you read this you now more than likely have the burden of walking around for the rest of the day singing either "...animal crackers in my soup..." or "on the good ship lollipop".

The Versatile Stick Man

Random Discovery

You can catch a piece of paper on fire by holding it up to the flash on a Nikon D40X camera and taking 10 consecutive pictures. This should serve as a warning for taking flash photography of an unwatered Christmas tree.

I was taking a picture of some roses on my desk and using a piece of paper for a flash filter. Then I smelled something roasty.

Slow Down!

Ok. Here's one more and then I'm going to start pacing myself a little or I'll run out of things to post by tomorrow. This one was/is for Pete.

Unintentional Haiku
08/10/00

He makes me feel
I'm a field of daisies
He has found

Driving Distracted

It's night time...keep your eyes on the road, ya nut! A haiku below (in freeform...apologies Basho).

Light thru the back windshield
my shadow looks like
I have a mohawk

Sometimes this happens

Last spring I was taking the back road home (the best part about living out of town), and I saw some swallows doing their swoop along the side of the road, and I liked it. Scribbled this.

Along the overwhelmed grasses
the swallows hassle a rain-washed embankment
again and again seeking small joys unending

Cows

I like cows. Sometimes I almost wreck the car looking at cows. Especially when they are looking at me.

Blog Blog Everywhere and Not a Word to Say

Maybe the first post is the hardest. I feel like I need to set a precedent or give this place a meaning or something. But really there is no way to do either thing since this is supposed to be just random stuff. So I may talk about science or a song I like or post a pic or link or talk about a story or poem. I may not post anything at all for all I know. What's dorky is that I have to write like someone is actually reading this or something when in fact I don't really expect anyone to read it and not even really sure I hope someone will. Right now I am wondering why in the world I'm even starting a blog. Dork indeed. Oh well. We'll see.

I like trees.