monday 15 December

 lost all the precious stuff put into yesterday's post this morning oh well 

"In any case, he thought, a person with a face like that should keep quiet.  With such a mug you've got to have your nerve with you even to carry on conversations with yourself."  33  Handke 

"He was in the mood to underscore every line."  39  I could look up Handke on YouTube for his most recent interview, see what he looks like and sounds like, see how he appreciates me for reading him now.

"At a bookstand Keushnig bought three diner's guides.  He would read them from cover to cover.  One more thing to go by, he thought."  46

Snow Sun Day

All morning, more than we had expected.  Saw the kids on Rock U.  Eliot singing, on bass and on drums, Emma singing and on bass with her group, The Internet.  What a difference in development for each in the year.  Both on stage presence superb, Emma even more graceful.  Nice voice, pre-lanadelrey, hope the fam sees that as praise.  

Bela finishing Sound of Music.  

I am back to A Moment of Feeling, which I love, line-by-line.  Amazing in each paragraph.  The sound of water flowing in the gutter of the street---"It gurgled over an occasional jutting stone, and the longer he listened the more his vision expanded; the flowing water turned into a brook, whose gurgling flow related to an almost forgotten event. The pencils . . . and suddenly Keuschnig couldn't remember his own name. . . out of danger . . . . yet always come back to this place . . . . an embodied wish . . . or a long-outgrown memory a present emotion. . . .as if it were somewhere high in the sky. Ecstatically Keuschnig closed his eyes to keep from crying, but also to relish his tears the more." 22

ugly suffering  but if someone were to understand him silently then he would feel disgraced.  !!!!

Panoramic coward with the eyes of a glider pilot.  

Saturday 5:26 pm

 Fosse's A Shining  a remake of Jack London's To Build a Fire? but with surprise at the end: "we walk barefoot out into the void, breath by breath, and suddenly there's not a single breath left but only the radiant, shimmering presence that lights up a breathing void, what we're breathing now, with its whiteness."  

Sleepy day all day after cold morning waiting for the oil truck and heat to come back on.  Temps now back to usual.  Chatter on news tv about shooting at Brown.  

Bela sleeping all evening, even though we put on The Sound of Music.  Heavy cream clam chowder calcium?  Stress of the morning meltdown and cold house?  

A Shining----really seems as if I did read it before!  Only two years old but still.  I think I read it along with starting the Septology as was too impatient or something at the time to give myself fully to it.  

Berkshire Fir

 thin tree, 4.5 feet.  Will disappoint perhaps but much easier and cleaner.  Balsalm Hill artificial tree.  Calling the shuttle soon.  Plan to leave the tree in place all year, lights off or on.  Kids leaving on the 1st so be here six nights, five take out the arrival night and factor jet lag.  Great chat online with them yesterday. Tomorrow the big rock u concert all day long.  

Still reading Antunes, two pages a day.  Now to start Handke's A Moment of True Feeling, 1975. Written in Paris in 74.  For Fosse am going to leap ahead and start A Shining and put the Septology on back burner.  A Moment is from 2023, after all the prizes but before the Nobel?  Le Monde blurb on back cover calls him the Beckett of the twenty-first century.  Guess we will go out to walmart later this morning.  Xmas photo cards all addressed and stamped.  

"; I can't conceive of continuing to live as I've lived up until now, but no more can I conceive of living as someone else lived or lives."  8 "Keushnig had always been curious, though he disliked involving himself in things."  

Great line.  My whole view of things.  That paragraph, that page, the whole book, that is how I coulda/woulda/shoulda written some books about our travels.  One book for each two week stay in all of those places.  

Now Saturday morning.  Sure enough, no oil and only enough hot water for my shower, gave out during Bela's shower.  Then I melted down.  Headaches now, after breakfast.  Called Irving after checking the oil tanks.  So want to switch to dead river and see if their service would be any better.  This no oil happens every year at this time or so it seems.  Seems like the familiar pattern year after year.  That was what the meltdown was about.  Mostly.  Rock U concert tomorrow not today.  Parkinson's caused more by water supply contamination than genetics, new theory.  Headaches mostly from dry air, allergies.  dehydration.

Guzzling fluids to test out.  Even drinking Mormon tea.  More peace of mind to switch from Irving to Dead River in the summer rather than in the winter!! Before the next fixed price contract gets inked again. How do I know if Dead River having same problem with supply brought about by this cold spell showing up earlier and for longer than algorythmic history predicted?  Still my Intuitive sense always kicks in at this time of year.  That might be much more reliable than algos which are mechanical-electro and not nearly as connected to the universe as is the human body divine.    

What was the meltdown?  Just as well to call it a Visit from Pan.  A gift of the gods, divine energies terrorizing us, remarking our lives.  

Fosse and Handke counterbalancing.  Wandering Paris meaning lost.  Drive into the forest no idea where or why.  

"It was so cold

that no sooner had the clouds of smoke rising from the fire left the shelter of the boulder than they dispersed into wisps and vanished."  53   Is there a German song called The Left-Handed Woman or did he make it up?  Nope.  American blues singer Jimmy Reed sang it in 1964.  Must be on Youtube then.  Well, it is cold today, super bright sun on snow.  Wind picking up and will more so later.  I hope we can stay home.  Colin canceled piano because school canceled, carbon monoxide problem with the heating plant. 

Handke's slight novel is just wonderful.  So hard to describe exactly why, how.  Poetic not the right word because that has too much universal baggage with it, that word.  Surprising line after line, paragraph after paragraph.  Intriguingly so, a kind of fascination with the scene and characters and what exactly is going on that is just unusual, idiosyncratic.  Again, too ponderous a word.  They are hiking in the cold on a mountain side.  She recalls an abstract painting exhibit by an American of the stations of the cross and the effect on her vision of blurring after image of moving from the black painting to the white painting, from descent to tomb/resurrection.  

Fall in the garage

just now as Rachel and Bela set off to swim.  We picked her up, put a bandaid on the scraped left hand.  All seems ok.  Fingers crossed.  Super cold this morning in the house.  Thermostat had the glitch message on it.  Bela wants me to check at Harris furniture on the missing part so I suppose that will shape part of my day.  Why not.  Do we need more caffeine?  Or just water?  

Dec 10 Wednesday

No significant bumps from the fall.  Visible bruise on Bela's left temple.  They had a good day swimming and lunching.  Took a good snap of Rachel and Bela.  I dined at the gas station on pizza and pizza and chocolate truffle square.  Two guys lunching I guessed to be high school teachers at one of the charter schools in the area.  Assorted other visitors.  Stocked up on everything we need to get us to departure.  Sure love the notion of departure soon.  This weather hangs heavy.  Gray skies again this morning, yesterday was sunny at very cold.  Warmer this morning.  Meredith dental visit and then pcp visit in late afternoon.  Thought I would try to figure whether we need drug insurance for Va's drugs.  Soon as you look into it lightly it becomes a dizzying whirl of options and coverages none of which are clear to figure out.  Forget it.  Signing up with Humana to replace Cigna.  Why?  Who knows.  

In Left-Handed  "A man came into the snack bar; he was bent almost double and had his hand on his heart.  He asked for a glass of water and gulped it down with a pill."  33  Sounds like John Sitter might have this condition, the one Paul Estes had.  Hope not but his email the other day said Legs are actually OK. Something neuro-muscular seems to be affecting my back and neck, so that after standing or walking a few minutes I bend forward uncomfortably. We see the voice doc tomorrow and have another MRI* on Thurs.    Hope to know more (something) soon.

  John

* old joke:

     A:   I had a brain scan.

     B:   Did they find anything?

     A:   No.

     B:   I thought so.

-----

"There's a delicate beauty about it that moves me deeply."  H 34  

Long slow drive home on icy roads from Meredith in steady snow much more than predicted, still going. So good to be snug again in our mountain cottage and have canceled the 4 pm appointment at Boulder Point.  

earlier to Phil 

Hi  Snow/rain mix today in NH.  Always fun.  At Va's dentist now, just canceled her annual pcp visit for 4 pm today because of the snow and it will mean night driving home.  I don't need either of those.  

Day off yesterday.  Va had a fall in the garage when the helper came to take her swimming.  Bruise but no other hurts and they enjoyed their swim hot tub and take out lunch.  I managed to "shop" at our three stores, two grocers and one walmart.  Saw people.  No chats.  Had lunch at a roadside diner, perched on one of those damned high stools, schlurping down a bad pizza and junk cherry drink.  Watched people in and out of the gas station.  Two guys in their forties talking intently over burgers.  Later when by himself guy pulled out a red pen and went through a stack of papers.  Math teacher at an online high school or charter school with flex hours?  

After 3 pm we watch an endless flow of ok tv.  Mostly murder series from all the euro countries and usa.  All follow same patterns.  Royal Flying Doctors in Australia a good exception.  Hospital show that flies around desolate land.  This season Va insists on tacky xmas romances so I go to the den and browse internet nonsense or read a few pages and quiz myself.  Lately I ask AI--in this novel I'm reading, who exactly is Bruno again?  Our family comes Dec 26 to Jan 3.  We go to NM Jan 7 inshallah!  Helps me to have that carrot.  

Glad you have that lake walk.  Go to a gas station, get a cup of soup and sandwich and imagine which people you see you might ask how do you like this weather or what line of work you in? 

------

we both slept in long naps after a pizza around 3 pm.  Waved hello to Arlyn as he pulled in to plow the drive around 7.  Did we get about 4 inches?  There's an app for it -- Precip.  so far we got 3.4" in past 24 hours

 

Saturday hospital call

 PT on the phone 10:12 am .  Slight stroke?  Details later.  She had a scare, in her voice.  

Cliff showed up on facebook the other day with a short clip of his walk-through part in Celine Song's great movie Materialists.  That got him an hbo invite to the season wrap party for Gilded Age at the Plaza---Cliff's old stomping grounds for when he was a sommelier there. 

Still seems some strange thing---three of my friends were in Skopje at the same time, same few months.  Although I've never pinned down whether they all three had tea together.  Cliff Rames, Nicholas Colloff, Dick Mertens.  New Jersey, UK, and Wisconsin/Chicago.  

Gray morning, heavy.  No snow but maybe some tomorrow.  Cold.  People running by the street window while we had breakfast.  

those skinny little branches with no roots or stalks coming out of the rocks with a drive for eternity 244 Antunes 

Sunday late afternoon  Going to put Melancholy II aside for now.  Start the Septology and stay with Handke.  Do I need to order another book of his?  In Left Handed Woman.  Moment of True Feeling ready for next.  

PT's news next day was all is ok.  Monday now.  Judith and Jim here to clean.  She seems a bit shakier, don't know if there is any health issue he is helping her with.  My guess.  Colder today but sun out so far.

We were deep into two series the past few days.  Royal Doctors Flying Service from Australia and Murder in a Small Town set in Gibsons BC.  Star of that show is a younger son of Donald Sutherland.  Very sensitive actor.  Co-star who plays Cassandra a great match.  The Australian team is a different hospital show, flying male nurses and a British doctor all over a vast region around Adelaide.  Where is that?  Is that on the southern rim?  Yes where the other big cities are.  

Ok in Handke's book, Left-Handed---I did not expect this!  "'Do you know what she says you are?  A private mystic.  She's right.  You are a mystic.  Damn it, you're sick.  I told Franziska a bit of electroshock would straighten you out.'"  Bruno tells her this, after just having tried to hit her.  Electroshock bit of a meme on here of late.  Thought I would put Fosse down for a rest but here Handke is stepping in to fill out the void.  Maybe need to pick up Melancholy II after all.  

Marianne is a translator from French to German.  Brussel sprouts are the one vegetable children like.  

glyphdar

 thought I had already posted that genius invention but it doesn't show up in search so here it is.  After yesterday's melancholy rant you would think today I would line up endless instances over the past eighty years, seventy years, of light flashes, intuitive mystical leaps and jumps, highs and ecstasies of every sort to counter balance counterstate the depression brought about or enabled by Fosse's dangerous book.  Well danger in the eyes of the readers.  

Dec 5 Friday

Mertens called last evening from cold Chicago, walking in deep snow.  Went to 1 degree here last night.

Finishing Journey to Serbia. Still not successful at pairing the bed remote, the second remote.  

the great Yugoslavian idea once proceeded from there---Croatia 79  But who knows? What does a stranger know?  art as the essential diversion 

the suicide note of Slobodan Nikolič, 8 October 1992   Handke's letter finished 19 December 1995

It was so detailed and immediate I doubt I understood much of it at all.  And yet at the end very briefly he makes very clear and powerful his point---the artist must try to defeat the machinery, the automatic responses, the fossilized rhetorics of journalism, of media in order to put us in touch with our commonality, our common childhoods.  Apropos of the item today from new yorker about Beckett's early years with the psychiatrist Brion.  The struggle in Jung's terms of everyone to be fully born.  

Colin coming to play piano with Bela.  We think.  Had no text exchange beforehand.  Yes he came.  William, seven, having trouble at school, poking kids with his pencil.  Colin thinks he's jealous of his younger sister, Caroline, 5.  Wants to get him outside more, burn off energy in the snow.  He thinks he needs more time with him, attention.  I agreed, suggested he do a little roughhouse with him.  

Now into Handke's Left-Handed Woman.  And Melancholy II.  Did I try to read that one before?  Perhaps.  

Marrianne and her son Stefan.  On their own.  Bruno visiting.  Wenders movie but not able to find it.  

Oline will have nothing to do with the idea of a water closet.  Sometimes she takes the fish into the outhouse built of driftwood when she is tired of the walk up hill.  Both brothers have gone on.