“Maps, they don’t love you like I love you”

When I first heard the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs sing this line as I drove down the Jersey Turnpike out of NYC early this June I thought, ”damn straight.” Without the map, I would have ended up in Perth Amboy like the time before. No need to repay the visit, thanks. Even if Einstein showed that space is curved, I take a deep pleasure in surveying the two dimesions of space all layed out in mulit-colored and broken lines. I do believe there is such as thing as an intimacy to geography, and I've always had a excellent sense of physical direction; maybe that's the left-handedness throwing me a bone.

...
And maps have insinuated themselves in every corner of my consciousness this week, one almost every day. Thursday I saw a huge aviation map of North Carolina and eastern Tennessee taped across an acquaintance's dining room wall, lifting and falling by the propellered breeze of the fan on the table. All these altitudinal routes traced out among the radio towers and taller hills on the landscape. Headings of determination.

If I could fly, would I bother with a map? Probably not. The sensation almost always strikes me when my eyes are closed, so really no need.

...
This morning this fellow Jim and I were given Mapquest maps of a Durham neighborhood, with the names and addresses of potential swing voters for Kerry/Edwards. We both actually knew that particular neighborhood, and that really was the only saving grace given that few of any of these maps coincided with the addresses. Deterrence not, slowly we decoded misinformation and found our way to the 30 or so houses we were supposed to call on. Even then, nothing is guaranteed. L. Barlett doesn’t live at 6B Carson Circle anymore, K. Libby apparently is in the Philippines right now. And Old Post Road? Well, that doesn’t even exist… a development paved that one over, come to find.

Technology sometimes does get it right, in peculiar ways. Now you can find out about the distribution of campaign contributions on the internet – in some cases block by single block (FundRace). For example, in Boston we see that indeed the Democratic causes have the Donkey’s share of contributions (blue dots), bleeding heart liberals they are -- God bless them.

And what about that one conspicuous red circle at 55 Hayden Ave. in the Suburbs? Seems like the Watkins’ household has some change to spare this election year. Must have been that tax cut. Should I know this? Do they want me to know this? Is it worth knowing? Probably not $76,500 worth, but if me and Mrs. Watkins ever have lunch together I think I’ll let her pick up the check.

The city-by-city map of the FundRace site has a thing of local interest: A lonely blue patch in the center of North Carolina amidst the predominance of red: the city of (Old Bull) Durham.
...
And The Magnetic Fields are playing in the background and there is this lyric I can’t get out of my head these last couple of days--

And your eyes are the Mesa Verde,
- big and brown and far away,
and your eyes are Kansas City,
- in Kansas and in Missouri…

And if the eyes don’t tell?
Well a map always might.

2 out of 7

Weekends are islands of time. And there is so much to do.
It's recommended that you:

(1) Stay away from the news.
.....
(2) Bash pinatas to shreds at a birthday party (thank you, K. and L., for the "eyeball").







(Lo and behold, knock a pinata open and it might be filled with all sorts of fascinating surprises, like chocolates in the shape of severed fingers and ears, day-glo condoms, and of course little snack boxes of "Dots" hmm...)



.....
(3) A potluck southern-fried vegetarian style is also a good idea. See just how kool-thang you might look in Sammy's cobalt sunglasses. (Naturally, Sammy looks best in them; upper right corner).



.....
(4) The weekend is also that special time for working on home improvements. Buying random tiles to fill in the gaps in your kitchen floor makes any Sunday that much better. Art lives in the everyday but-don't-you-know.

"Monument"

We know that the "body count" of US military deaths now exceeds 1000. Of course we have only estimates of how many civilians -- those who wanted no part -- have died. some say 13,000 while other claims have been upwards of 40,000 people.

I heard a song today that is a kind of choral reading of the names of some of the thousands known to have died, "Monument" by the Heavenly States.

Listen here: Monument

No Lucy, no Linus

Yes, clouds. I have been working on how to draw clouds lately. When I'm bored waiting at a cross-walk, they are the most beautiful, ubiqituous and changeable thing around to stare at. It's been particularly so here in Carolina this fall, you know, with the hurricanes.

And of course, we see THINGS in clouds. The proverbial rabbit, or dog. Why is it that it is in clouds, vegetables and planetary surfaces seem to be the places we spot things like profiles of Nixon?

Once my friend laughed and yawned at the same moment and the wrinkle in her chin was the spitting image of Meg Tilly. These things happen. Then again, there was a time some cirrus clouds an acquanitance told me looked exactly like the wiring diagram of a 1983 Sony Beta-max player. Hard to know what to make of that kind of observation.

The other day I looked up, and what did I see? Gander at the photo, I'll let you be the judge...



ps: the US postal service is releasing a new line of stamps, just announced: cloudscapes.

Yellow-shouldered, pin-striped, purpled-crested...

This morning while eating sliced apples and peanut butter, Kyle placed gold-colored metal tray in front of me.

And what merits such a presentation? Four Saddleback Caterpillars, Sibine stimulea, that he found on his palm tree. When he woke up this morning he saw strange spheres, many and little, on the floor below the palm. Seeds?

No, no dear reader, caterpillar frass.*

*(what is "frass," you may say? Let's ask the Army Corps of Engineers; like average engineers cubed, they know they have an answer for everything: FRASS )



And the caterpillars?
Creatures.
Alien, spiny and bright green.



The USDA guide to “Caterpillars of the Eastern Forest” describes the Saddleback as, “another unique slug caterpillar. Charcoal black or brown, with unmistakable lime green abdominal saddle. Saddle with central patch ringed with white. Dorsum of first and eighth abdominal segments with fingerlike lobes bearing numerous stinging spines. Sting intense and of considerable duration. Food: broadly polyphagous on trees, shrubs, grasses such corn, and other garden plants.”

“Slug” caterpillars lack the overly soft, gasket-like legs of other caterpillars and instead have a set of elliptical suckers, giving them a very slug-like demeanor.

The USDA guide lists some other members of the slug caterpillar group – members of the moth family Limacodidae,—you may find hugging the surface of smooth leaves in your woods if you bother to stare at leaves macro-zoom close. They include such dandies as the:

Monkey slug
.......Red-cross button slug
Purple-crested slug
.........Spiny oak slug
Pin-striped slug
.............Small parasa
Crowned slug
.........Yellow-shoulder slug

that a slug might be so fancy.

Looking down

It is remarkable what patterns show themselves if you bother to let eyes linger at your feet

the colored scraps that fall to the floor



or the marks of what you wear that will wear into you

Chance animals

It’s uncertain what to make of particular synchronicities. Are most coincidences meaningful for the fact they are so unlikely, the substance of them signaling something more significant? Or is it that they are very likely and our expectations are just so askew we aren’t able to see just how natural such occurrences are?

Perhaps the most simple & classic example of the latter, less mystical alternative, is the experience of learning a new word or hearing of some quasi-celebrity for the first time and then hearing the word or seeing mention of that person at every turn (again and yet again) the days and weeks following. My guess is that this is a function our lack of attention to the patterns we aren’t already primed for seeing, but once we a cued-in can’t help but notice in everything (For some reason, I recall Don Knotts –of Incredible Mr. Limpett fame— being such an instance for me).

Anyway, now I’m wondering about the Camelopard.

I was looking up some word in the dictionary yesterday and then got to browsing only to come across the camelopard, the apparent love-child of a camel and a leopard (head of the former, spots of the latter). Pliny makes note of it in his records, and it sounds like the Romans were really thinking about giraffes. Hm.

Later that night I’m reading some random book I’d never opened before. I flip to page 74 and there in its chimeric glory is the picture of a camelopard, as recorded in a book by Gaspar Schott, 1776. (by the way, why wasn’t I named “Gaspar,” Mom?).

Is the fabled “camelopard” going to be another Don Knotts for me? I guess only time will tell. Although I haven’t come across any more camelopards today, there are some concerned whether contemporary hybrid shenanigans such as “ligers” and zeedonks” are really what the Almighty had in mind…


(see also: wholphins, ratacoons, satyrs and GFP bunny)

Asking nice like

As my man Ali G says,

”Respeck: there’s so little of it in the world today, you look it up in the dictionary and it ain’t even there.”

Yo word - true dat. For years friends have made fun of some of my polite & understated tendencies that at times come off absurdly stilted. Perhaps it’s like a kind of social stutter, equal parts self-conscious and intractable? Even so, I'm not sure what's not good about erring on the side of polite, as long as your sincere? I'd reckon most of us get our share enough of getting treated lousy in the daily course of things as it is...

The other day the Neighborhood Watch bulletin appeared folded and stuffed in the screen door, shining with a xeroxed promise of News and Information. On reading the updates of recent goings-on, I came to find that my neighbors are masters of the craft and push the mathematical limit of respectful understatement (and maybe safe neighborly concern)-- see below. Respeck yo, it’s not just a word not in the dictionary.

An excerpt from the NW bulletin:

B. and K. had a pleasant and productive discussion with F. and D.
B. and K. assured them we did not want to infringe on their being in the back yard and having social gatherings with friends, however, yelling at other neighbors making neighbors feel uncomfortable in their homes was totally out of the bounds of being acceptable.

They also mentioned the problem with people exposing themselves while urinating and defecating in the yard. This also being totally beyond the bounds of decency - especially since two small children live just 2 houses away. F. assured B. and K. on both these issues letting them know that the homeless people who had been hanging out were no longer visiting as much and they would keep things under control. F. and D. also said they appreciated being approached in this way. We will make sure F.is invited to the next meeting.