Archive for February, 2010

I don’t like to use the word “pussywillows”, but it would have been appropriate here. Chasing tsunamis, spending time at the coast with nice people.

It has been a hard day. You are probably looking for some happening to illustrate this, an example of something foul that transpired. No: this is, or at least its source is, mostly nuance. All inexplicable fury and typical social retardation on my part.

It is, you see, a miring in my own internal stink. And I never know how to say or what to say or when to say but I know what I am saying is as absurd as the trail of horseshit in the bicycle path in front of my office building today. I don’t know how it got there but it sure is stupid.

Still feeling peculiar, dispirited. But so as the earth awakens for something springlike, so shall I, ultimately, get my stripe of inspiration back. Here is a photo of a tree, emphasizing negative space. I had to adjust my route to work to find something new. So I did.

It’s attention-grabbing and serenely beautiful. Last week the early waxing slice of a young moon cradled a softly glowing, faint disk of the future full moon. I noticed it on my walk home and David burst into my library a quarter hour or so later, insisting that I should “really look at this.”

I was running late to a book club meeting, so I left David with my camera and exhortations to photograph the thing, which he did, admirably.

We know that the brightness of the moon comes from reflected sunlight, and it’s fairly well known that earthshine—sunlight reflected from the earth—can sometimes cause the night side of the moon to be faintly lit.

One of the Great Things I struggle with in life is balance. I get enough exercise, but I never see my friends. I read 75 books in one year, but never write anything. Sometimes I take reams of photographs, in spurts of expression; sometimes I am dry as a summer gully in this respect.

Currently it’s the latter.

About two weeks ago, I came down with photographer’s ennui. Though I still walk the same route to work, with the same, often insane visual entertainments, my camera dangles heavily at my hip.

There are so few flaws in Colum McCann’s National Book Award-winning novel about humanity and grief that it’s difficult to find a toehold for comment. McCann’s agitated, love-hungry characters weave an emotional fabric so dense that it proves tricky to unravel and examine.

It’s tempting to try to find literal ties to events in this book Esquire bills as the “first great novel about 9/11.” Set in New York city in August of 1974, Let the Great World Spin loosely revolves around George Petit’s guerrilla tightrope walk, strung between the barely-completed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The novel’s characters stare up at Petit’s performance awestruck, his bravery (or hubris) impacting their own personal sagas.

I have a habit of, when I travel, absconding immediately to the nearest art museum. I neglect even the most vital tourist activities (various towers, mountain peaks, cathedrals, piazzas, antiquities, Disney parks, stadia, canals, funiculars, and botanical gardens), often at great experiential expense.

Simply put, here is a list of notable (note that I’ve excluded the Portland Art Museum and anything billed as an art collection in Las Vegas, et cetera) art museums I have visited. You will find reading a list of notable art museums I have visited interesting. You will.

And then you will tell me your favorites.

This post is part of my ongoing goal in 2010 to “fix my little problem” with Italian wines. In other words, my ignorance. It’s slow going. Tonight I’m sipping a wine that is startling me: 2006 Felline Alberello Rosso Salento.

This wine tastes like something from California or Australia. Approaching opacity, dense, sugar-plum jam. Why does this wine taste like this? My perception of Italian wines: dusty-dry, sere, almost fruitless, reds that require a certain fortitude and often a whole lot of food to enjoy appropriately.

This wine is nothing like that.

Photo of Negroamaro grapes by Pietro Di Bello

While driving through the Santiam Pass today along highway 22, it occurred to me that I don’t have a favorite. Favorite thing to look at in Oregon, that is. I asked David what he thought the most scenic thing in Oregon was and he was befuddled and had no answers really, either.

Here are a few obvious choices for scenery destinations in Oregon, along with a few personal faves. What are yours?

Winter in the high desert. Juniper trees don’t get berries every year, but when they get them, they are tenacious little guys. Cute and blue-purple, I like the way they smell. Taken at Arnold Ice Cave, Central Oregon.