Morning Dog-Walk

Morning Dog-Walk
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

(from Lauren)

Begin forwarded message:

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After the Camp Out

(Norah and I coming down for the morning)(picture by Shawnee)

Another splendid school campout last night at Les and Allison's place on Sparrow Farm Rd. A chilly, chilly night, though. But lovely in the morning as the fog began to burn off.



(Here Libby walks by as I pack up our tent, Les' unfinished sugar house in the background)

My favorite time of year in Vermont.

The Other Kind of Vermont Landscape

Good Morning.

A Big Week for Univ. of Washington Poets

When I was a neurotic MFA-fiction student at the University of Washington, the poetry faculty included David Wagoner and Heather McHugh. One the students I knew there was Martha Silano.

This year, David Wagoner is guest editor of the Best American Poetry 2009 anthology (to be published at any moment), and this week Martha Silano is flying to New York to read alongside Billy Collins, Mark Doty, John Ashbery and the other poets included in "Best". And Heather McHugh has just been awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award.

National Public Radio:

Poet Heather McHugh mines words for contradictions and double meanings, offering the reader an expansive, fresh perspective on themes like love and mortality.

McHugh was recently rewarded a MacArthur fellowship for her efforts. The so-called genius grant comes with a $500,000 honorarium, which, the poet says, she will use to pay more attention to her work.

"I need to get back to my own work," McHugh tells Robert Siegel. "I've been teaching for 33 years, and to learn to teach has been to learn to pay attention to the work of others. And I've been doing that pretty ardently yea these many years, now and again taking a leave of absence."

The funny thing is, during my brief time in the Fiction program at UW, no one ever seemed to *see* Heather McHugh. She was always on some kind of sabbatical or leave.

Who was she paying attention to so ardently?

Maybe Martha Silano.

Tom's Awesome Adventure With Fergus and Norah

(based on real events from our summer 2009 trip to Seattle)

I've always wanted to be immortalized in art, even as someone with crackpot (though entirely appropriate) fears of Benjamin Franklin. But Tom, Ned, Fergus and Norah are the stars of this show....

This Cries Out For Goat Cheese

This Cries Out For Goat Cheese
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

...Some really creamy goat cheese. Serve with chops baked with local
applesauce/maple mixture and home-dug potats tossed with olive oil and
kosher salt....ahhh, autumn (almost).

Ken Robinson: Schools Vs. Creativity

From a 2006 TED talk (thanks to Soul Pancake for the link).



Full talk Here: "Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity."

Vermont Country Store Details

Vermont Country Store Details
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

I noticed this thermometer (and the notes attached) just now at my local country store--the Adamant Co-op--where I'm hanging out on the porch, writing a letter and sipping coffee.

The yellow note on the thermometer says: "If this reads above 65 degrees you put too much wood in the stove."

The green one reads: "OR IT'S SUMMER."

The woodstove is not fired up today.

But soon.

Dinner

Dinner
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

Not quite as tasty if you haven't just climbed Mt. Rainier.

But eating it from a bowl (rather than from the foil bag you've just cooked it in) helps.

Parents Say the Darndest Things

(Email exchange with my 85-year-old father)

From: Me
To: My Dad

(Re: Euphemism Generator website)Dad, This is a useful website on those days when you can't find just the right euphemism for a given situation....

_______________________

From: My Dad
To: Me

Thanks. I read about 50 of them, and none seemed to fit what i might need at any foreseeable time. However, you might enjoy what i found last week when I tried to find a work written by Benjamin Britten. The work turns out to be named "Hymn to the Virgin". Some very young (I guess) lady posted a note on the site I found which read something like: "I was humping real hard yesterday and after I was done, I found some blood. Does this mean my hymn is broken?" She needs a spelling lesson. Dad

Battling the Movie Crowds in Montpelier

Battling the crowds
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

Montpelier on a Saturday night! We went to see "Extract" at the local 5-plex and the guy in the ticket booth didn't even recognize the title when we tried to pay. I guess Montpelier just loves its Jason Batemans and its Gene Simmonses. He said, ironically. (Two other people were in the audience for this one tonight.)

Falafel Spam Plea Non-Sequitur

Here writes Lady Amanda Williams suffering from canceruous ailment.I have a proposal of Five Million Great Britis Pounds which i want you to use to uplift the down-trodden and the less-privileged individuals as i have no childand my husband relatives are bourgeois and very wealthy persons,i do want the money to be misused.Kindly contact me via my personal email for further enquiry. email address: am.williams05@gmail.com

(Falafel much like this one will be available tomorrow, Sunday 9/6/9, at the Randolph Vermont New World Festival, an all-day, all-weather festival of Celtic and French Canadian music and dance performed on five stages simultaneously. Falafel proceeds benefit my kids' school scholarship fund. Come early, eat up.)

Templeton Farm, 6AM VT

Snapshot taken on the way to work.

Morning, VT
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

TEAGUE

TEAGUE
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

Teague got into something today. Chicken scratch? He had a bit of a problem, but doing better now, we think.

He makes for a beautiful radiograph, I think.