Skipping reels of rhyme

Somebody asked Bob Dylan what his songs were about one time . . .

His answer was, "Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve."

Books!

Kathryn wins the grand prize, although I don't suppose I have anything to give her except a library pass to come and read any of them whenever she wants to.

Yes, I have 570 books, on my shelves, out on the landing, stacked on the floor, laying on my desk, next to my pillow . . . I sit in here surrounded by them all the time, so it finally popped into my head the other day to see exactly how many of them there were. I was surprised. Actually, the number should've been 577, because I found a few more today that I had missed. I love my books, from my beautiful one-volume Lord of the Rings even down to my Uncle Tom's Cabin that I keep turned backwards on the shelf.

Papa thinks it's excessive, but what can compare with a good book? You should all come and read them sometime. After all, reading maketh a full man . . .

570

I counted all the ones I could find yesterday-- can anyone guess what that is the number of? (anyone besides Evan, that is, with whom I have already discussed this.) I don't want to say anything else, for fear of giving it away-- good skill!

Bobby Dylan Rides Again

well he actually is still riding...

Anyway, I thought I might take this opportunity to mention how wonderful it is to listen to the music of Andy Hedges. Last Tuesday I saw him play at a local shop and it was a great experience. Here is a picture:

It has been a pleasure re-aquainting myself with him and his roommate, my old partner in crime, Brent Hastings. Not suprisingly, Brent also is a very nice singer.

Brent and I are on a mission to introduce as many people as possible to his music. Mostly by word of mouth, though I have used my Photoshop skills a little. My whole family already listens to his CD and they love it. If you are inclined to listen, three of the tracks on his CD "City Boys" can be heard at Pure Volume and three different ones are at his myspace page- if I were you, I would listen to the title track on the first and "Dust and Horns" on the latter.

Look around
The grass is high
The fields are ripe
It's the springtime of my life.


What a fun time I have been having! I suppose I am the exception to the "dating" rule...but it doesn’t worry me.

(What I am referring to is the fact that up until 2 weeks ago I had never really gone on a real "date.")

My first was fun. The young man (my fiancé of course) picked me up at my house at 6:00pm. We both dressed up -- he was in black from his neck to his ankles (boots were brown), and I got to wear my heels. He took me out to Abuelo's - a good mexican food restaurant. It was a bit of a chilly night, but as the car heater was working well, we were warm. We got out of the car and went into the restaurant, he gave them his name and we sat down to wait for a table. As we waited we visited about different things, joked about lots of things, agreed on other things, but then it was time to sit down and we did. Ordering was easy-he got a beef quesadilla and I got enchiladas. It was good food, but alas, I could not finish mine! So we got a doggie bag and left the place (we did pay first). After dinner we went to Barnes and Noble where we got Starbucks, then went into the store and looked at the movies, music and some books. It was a good time of walking and looking. Then he took me home. We have wonderful times together. ;)

...Friends I'll Never Forget...

so back in November, some crazy people that many of you know were at our house. while there, we filmed a music video (which I still don't have a copy of)... and these were some still shots of the preparation beforehand. wish yall could come down again :)

Good Day...

Beat your swords into ploughshares

"Where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet and good tilled earth.

For all Hobbits share a love of things that grow."

As many of you may know, we are in the midst of a very warm winter and a drought here in Texas. (It was 80 degrees one day earlier in January.) So I decided Saturday to take advantage of the beautiful weather to start getting the garden ready for the many hopeful plans I have for it this year. (We shall see what comes of them.)

So I brought out our little tiller, expended much effort trying to make it start, (made my shoulders very sore with pulling on the cord), got Papa's advice on which was the proper setting to put it in, (choke, and all that-- I really know nothing about motors), made sure that it was actually turned on, tried a few more times, and finally it sputtered to life for me.

But then, I hadn't reckoned on how hard the ground was-- So, after consultation with Mama, I sprayed the area with the garden hose. (see below)
(By the way, don’t be fooled by the green grass– there isn’t any anywhere other than under the spigot.)

The water helped greatly. But still, the machine . . . you wouldn’t think that something so small and innocent looking as that tiller could be such a trouble. But I suppose it was more the ground’s fault. What is it that Derek says? ". . . a broken back from the ground fighting back at me . . ." It really is the curse of mankind. Well anyway, the end result, on that Saturday, was that I got half of the garden tilled before I had to go in to help get ready for company. I woke up the next morning hardly able to move, my hands and arms were so sore.

But then came the rain. It was absolutely lovely– it rained all day Sunday; steady rain, and very wet. Just what we needed. (I wished all day that I was in Lubbock so that I could go walk around the Tech campus in it with my flip-flops and my red coat on . . .)

So on Tuesday, when I had gotten some more gasoline-and-oil (since the other gas can, with a broken spout, no less, had been left out in the rain and therefore ruined) I put my overalls back on and went to work again. And oh, the rain made such a difference! I was so much more at peace with my piece of machinery– I felt like I was its master, instead of it mastering me. But I suppose it was the ground that changed, not me.

And here, my friends, is the good tilled earth that resulted– this is at the end of Saturday– now the plot is three-fourths done. There’s something poetic about earth, don’t you think? Course you have to see it in person, perhaps even till it in person, to appreciate it fully. But dirt is truly amazing in some way. So is gasoline, by the way. They complained all evening that I was smelling up the house with it, (maybe I did get a little on me when I spilled it that one time– I told you I don’t know anything about motors, or new-fangled gas cans, for that matter), but it’s and honest smell, really, and I’ve always liked it.

At any rate, I’ll probably finish it up tomorrow, should it prove such another fine day, and then on to other work. I hope, someday, to post pictures of the fruits of my labor, but that is as it may be.

. . . Playing games with the faces . . .

Just thought you might like to see some of the pictures we didn't send to the paper--





We were having a lot of fun that day. As you can see, he fits right in.

...The Papers Print His Picture...

well, so these newspaper type people got a call from the Mother type person, who wanted them to put a picture in the paper news of a certain Sister and her certain intended. pretty good picture, wouldn't you say?

Good Day...

Shall we continue tomorrow?

I was watching Sense & Sensibility the other night, all by myself, and it occurred to me to finally search out the source of the beautiful poetry that Col. Brandon is reading to Marianne near the end of the movie. I've always meant to, you know, but never could keep the thought in my mind.

And so I did look it up. Is not the internet a fearful and wonderful thing? It didn't take long. I was rather surprised to learn that it comes from Spenser, but perhaps I shouldn't've been, since I've loved his work for years now. It's from the Faerie Queen, part of a longer section, and I just had to put the context in here. It reads rather like Job 38, and it's beautiful.

(I thought about modernising the spelling, but I decided it's better the way it was written.)

"Of things unseene how canst thou deeme aright,"
Then answered the righteous Artegall,
"Sith thou misdeem'st so much of things in sight?
What though the sea with waves continuall
Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all;
Ne is the earth the lesse, or loseth ought,
For whatsoever from one place doth fall
Is with the tide unto another brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found if sought. -

"Likewise the earth is not augmented more
By all that dying into it doe fade;
For of the earth they formed were of yore:
How ever gay their blossome or their blade
Doe flourish now, they into dust shall vade.
What wrong then is it, if that when they die
They turne to that whereof they first were made?
All in the powre of their great Maker lie:
All creatures must obey the voice of the Most Hie. -

"They live, they die, like as he doth ordaine,
Ne ever any asketh reason why.
The hils doe not the lowly dales disdaine,
The dales doe not the lofty hils envy.
He maketh Kings to sit in soverainty;
He maketh subjects to their powre obey;
He pulleth downe, he setteth up on hy;
He gives to this, from that he takes away,
For all we have is his: what he list doe, he may. -

"What ever thing is done by him is donne,
Ne any may his mighty will withstand;
Ne any may his soveraine power shonne,
Ne loose that he hath bound with stedfast band.
In vaine therefore doest thou now take in hand
To call to count, or weigh his workes anew,
Whose counsels depth thou canst not understand;
Sith of things subject to thy daily vew
Thou doest not know the causes, nor their courses dew. -

"For take thy ballaunce, if thou be so wise,
And weigh the winde that under heaven doth blow;
Or weigh the light that in the East doth rise;
Or weigh the thought that from mans mind doth flow:
But if the weight of these thou canst not show,
Weigh but one word which from thy lips doth fall:
For how canst thou those greater secrets know,
That doest not know the least thing of them all?
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small."

Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene, Canto II, XXXIX - XLIII

Look out Kid . . .

Ever thought about this?

Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off

Bob Dylan, of course. We were sitting around in Dickey's the other night, thinkin' bout the government, so to speak, and we decided to analyze this first half of the first verse of a rather alarming song. (It happens to be all the words of that song that I know, except for the line where he says something about "eleven dollar bills and you only got ten." It was the way that he said it.)

So anyway, we decided to try and figure out just what he was saying here. The song is obviously about drugs, aren't they all, and Johnny's the one making them, down in the basement. Bob, on the other hand, is standing on the sidewalk outside, looking down at Johnny through the window. It's one of those little dirty ones right down near the ground, but near the ceiling of the basement. Bobby's keeping watch, and contemplating either how many laws they're breaking by engaging in such nefarious activities, or what the feds are going to do if they find out. Or both.

(By the way, this basement - pavement thing keeps reminding me of that Sherlock Holmes story where he goes around tapping on the sidewalk to find the basement where the criminals were going to burrow into the bank vault-- Dr. Watson, of course, didn't know what on earth he was doing.)

But back to Bobby, who is nervously watching over that window. (You'd think they'd pick a more secret place, but I suppose, living in a big city like that, they had to take what was available.) And who should walk up then but the man in the trench coat. He's been hanging around, and they're afraid he knows something, and he might even be "government." Well, turns out he was, but not anymore. He's been "laid off," and for good reason. But he does know what kind of "medicine" Johnny's making down there (points at the window) and he needs some to take care of his "bad cough." But he could also go and tell his former employers all about it (who knows, they might even give him his job back), so if they want to stay in business, they'd better pay him off with some of what they get from other people, you know, just to make it worth his while to be unemployed.

At this point, as Bobby's getting rather worried, Johnny looks up from his work to see the long brown trench coat talking to Bobby's black-and-white hi-tops, and quickly begins to clear away all signs of what he's been doing . . .

Happy Birthday Again Emily!

to Pizza or not to Pizza that is the question

Howdy to everyone in the blog-o-sphere who ends up on this blog. I am the artist formerly known as Pizza. Now known as (>

Just Kidding...

actually, I wonder what my family would thing if I changed my name to a slice of pepperoni, I guess that would be pretty weird. Honestly it looks more like a slice of cheese doesn't it. : )

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