0823

August 23, 2033

 In bed at 9, up at 4:20, 3 pss, no vino.  My back is still sore, mostly way down low but also some higher.  Sunrise at 6:06, sunny day expected.

        I read Michael Gerson's op-ed in WaPo this morning, writing about the novelist Frederick Buechner.  Struck by: " “Pay attention to moments,” he said, when “unexpected tears come to your eyes and what may trigger them.” He was talking about those sudden upwellings of emotion we get from the sublimity of nature or art when we see a whale breaching or are emotionally ambushed by a line in a film or poem. We are led toward truth and beauty by a lump in the throat."  It made me think of the times, all in my old age, when I've had my eyes well up by some sublime piece of music.  When it would happen I would wonder if I was 'losing it.'  Mostly it's music that brings on the physical reaction, the tearing up, but so many times I've been 'emotionally ambushed by a line in a movie or poem.'  Actually, I can't think of that kind of reaction to a film, but I need to give that some thought.  Poems, on the other hand, can grip me by the throat.  "For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." "Responsibility so weighs me down  . . . and not a day but something is recalled, my conscience or my vanity appalled." "Come up from the fields, Father, here's a letter from our Pete." "But one day I know it will be otherwise." "I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular." "When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose."  "The old lie: dulce et decorum west pro patria mori."  And Maggie Smth's "Good Bones:"

 " , , , , Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right?  You could make this place beautiful."

. . . . 

And many of William Blake's, especially

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight,

Every night and every morn 

Some to misery are born.

Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.

It was the question that Monika asked Harry on their blissful island-hopping in "Summer with Monika:" Why do some people have all the luck and some are miserable?

 . . . . 

Even "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy." Will it scan?

They were careless people,

Tom and Daisy.

They smashed up things and creatures

And then retreated back

Into their money or their vast carelessness

Or whatever it was that kept them together

And let other people clean up

The mess they had made.

Different enjambment, different feels:

They smashed up things

And creatures

and then retreated

back into their money , , ,

[I haven't figured out how to format these notes.  Rats.]

 . . . . . 

Even words from scripture:

'vanitas vanitatem et omnia vanitas'

'mene mene tekel upharsin'

'if it be possible, let this cup pass from me'

'my god, my god, why have you forsaken me'

 . . . . . 

    I spent some time messing around with glazes again this afternoon.  On the Modigliani nude, a thin patio blue glaze followed by a burnt sienna glaze softened the bright, dazzling alizarin crimson underpainting.  Then I tried the burnt sienna glaze over the terrible blue hue I created on the Munch Madonna and also on the Jeanne Hebuterne which seemed too red or pink and on the Young Woman with Black Tie, too yellow.  I think the glazes helped but I need to withhold judgment for a while.  

   [ I have looked up and read the difference between "awhile", the adverb, and "a while", the noun.  I still don't get it.😡]

    Made an appointment at Field Volvo for a 'regular maintenance' visit, on September 7.  10,000 miles put on the car since the last maintenance, about 8,000 by Andy this year in the months between the theft of their Kia minivan and their vacation trip to Canada last week.  The last 'regular maintenance' was in January at @ 31,000 miles, odometer now in excess of 41,000.  This will be the first time I bring the car in for 'regular maintenance' based on mileage rather than simply the passage of one year since the last maintenance.

    Two years ago today Jacob Blake was shot in the back 7 times at extremely close range by a Kenosha police officer.  Riots followed, leading to the famous/infamou Kyle Rittenhouse double murder trial.