Ars Longa, Angst Longior

One day when I was working for Social Security, I interviewed a guy who was a professor, or some type like that who knows everything. The interview turned into a conversation, and he asked what my hobbies were. I said painting and writing. He said, "The writing doesn't matter. The painting does." Maybe he was right. Maybe I took the wrong road. Maybe the world needed a painting of Walt Whitman instead of a poem about him. Unfortunately, I never saw him close up enough to paint him.

I did try to paint him from a photograph. Got as far as a pencil sketch on the canvas and gave up in disgust with myself.

I think, if I had to paint Walt Whitman, I would just paint some tall grass with a wolf or a coyote gnawing at some carrion. I think that would please Mr. W.

Fairhope, Alabama

The winnahs--my baby sister and me! No, that's not Mary Ramey on the right, it just looks like her.

Beautiful fountain in the park beside the Bay.

Beautiful roses.

Beautiful tree.

Beautiful people. Ramey and Jed.

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Not to mention the beautiful birds--Pelicans, little black birds and their houses up on poles, and the prettiest seagulls in the world, I'll bet. I just couldn't get good photos of them.

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The event was the spring awards meeting of the Alabama State Poetry Society. I won a first prize, a second prize, two third prizes and two honorable mentions. Ramey won a first prize and an honorable mention. If she had entered more poems, she would have won more--I don't just think so, I know it.

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My Walt Whitman poem won second prize in its category. It contains the best line I've ever written: "I [Walt Whitman] will give  you antidotes to fear and loneliness."

Earth my likeness

Walt Whitman was a wild soul. His love of wild nature and the sensual experiences of life are felt in everything he wrote. ...The beauty of Roderick MacIver's... watercolors creates a grand tribute to this sensitive soul.

As I have walk’d in Alabama my morning walk,

I have seen where the she-bird the mocking-bird sat

on her nest in the briers hatching her brood.

I have seen the he-bird also,

I have paus’d to hear him near at hand

inflating his throat and joyfully singing.

And while I paus’d it came to me that what

he really sang for was not there only,

or for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes,

But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,

a charge transmitted and gift occult for those being born.

— Walt Whitman

Picture and text from Heron Dance, A Pause for Beauty 321, Oct. 1, 2009

Painting: Autumn Portage, by Roderick MacIver

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Added about 9:15 p.m. - Curiouser and Curiouser

On HGTV, there's a program called "If Walls Could Talk." I watched it last night, and part of it was very strange. The featured homeowners had bought a house formerly owned by astrologer Linda Goodman, in Cripple Creek, Colorado. The house still had all of Goodman's furniture and furnishings, drafts of all her manuscripts, personal possessions. Weird.

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The couple who bought the house said that the reason the house was left "as is" and eventually put up for sale was that Linda disappeared. Wikipedia says she died in 1995 from complications of diabetes, but that she had a daughter who disappeared in 1973. I couldn't find any details online about her later life and the circumstances of her death, but apparently she was born in 1925.

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When my children were teenagers, we enjoyed reading Linda Goodman's Sun Signs, and I have read (and own a copy of) Linda Goodman's Relationship Signs, published posthumously and edited by Crystal Bush. The latter book says that she died in 1995, that Crystal Bush and Carolyn Reynolds worked with Goodman until shortly before her death.

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The whole house is decorated with the theme of Alice in Wonderland. It has stained glass windows with scenes from Alice, decks of cards with scenes from Alice on the backs, plates with Alice scenes (a la the Tenniel drawings). All the furniture in the house is antique, and a lot of the pieces are rather funny-looking antiques.

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I don't believe that astrology can predict anything or "foretell the future." But the types of people born under the signs of the zodiac do seem to match the astrological descriptions.

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Sometimes my blog won't leave spaces between paragraphs. I put asterisks between paragraphs when this is happening.

Day Of the Slow Soaking Rain

This morning I did laundry, and listed and repriced a bunch of books. I also washed and froze a HUGE sale package of chicken tenders, in eight smaller packages. Now the freezer has steak, pork ribs, chicken, whole wheat burger buns, and an unopened sack of blueberries. So I'm all set for Great Depression II, as long as it doesn't last more than 2-3 weeks.

This afternoon I WILL finish the Hallowe'en thing, and work some more on the painting. That reminds me of a poem, "Walt Whitman's Nose," only I haven't written it yet. Why do old people's noses get so big? Well, of course. It's because of all the lies we've told. Lies turn into cartilage (sp?).

Wednesday was the deadline for mailing the Hallowe'en swap packages. Can't wait to get mine. Hope it has some candy corn in it. The one I mailed didn't have any candy of any kind, so I probably won't get any either.

Tomorrow the LHS Class of 1953 will have its year 55 reunion. I hope she never reads this, but whoever wrote the invitation said that we will also meet Sunday morning for breakfast at the "Crackle Barrel."

"Wait a minute--It's stopped hailing!"

Susan tagged me and Andy to post five songs we're embarrassed to admit that we like. I've put mine in a list (in the left column). Susan's own list is great; my favorite is "Goodbye, Earl." My first song in the list, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," isn't embarrassing except that it's a kid's song, but I couldn't leave it out, as I like it so well.

The embarrassing part about "Hello, Darlin'" is that I get tears behind my nose when he says, "Goodbye, darlin'." The others--well, just listen to them. If someone asked you, "Do you really like that song?" would you say, "Uh, HUH!" Or would you just slink away?

Nose, get back to the grindstone (shoveling out the house for the meeting on Friday).