Mississippi Delta

There are some things that never happened, even though many people say they happened and built tremendous stories around them happening whether they really happened or not. 

Did Robert Johnson really sell his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Hwy. 61 and Hwy. 49?  

Most probably not. 

Probably the story that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil was made up by people who thought the blues was devil music and that Robert should have been singing spirituals in church instead of singing the blues.

And if Bessie Smith had been a white woman rather than a black woman would she have survived that terrible car crash on Hwy. 61-very near the place where Robert Johnson had, a few years earlier, sold his soul to the devil-that took her life?

Maybe.

An eyewitness, one of two white men who who were at the scene (the one who bandaged Bessie Smith as best he could, the other one walking to a nearby house to call for an ambulance) said, "there's no way a ambulance would take a colored person to a white hospital." Bessie Smith died the next morning in the colored hospital in Clarksdale, Mississippi. 

Then again, some things really did happen as some people say they happened, and there's proof they happened, there's 'evidence' in the form of written records and other public testimony.

Concert Poster, Delta Blues Museum, Clarksdale, Mississippi, June 9, 2017. 

Meditation at 66

If my life has a pattern, and I can't be sure that it does, there is a blue line at the bottom of it and a yellow line at the top.

One line represents who I am, and the other represents what's wrong with me. If I look hard enough at the lines I can see that one is my baby face and one is my death mask.

And what are the words for, the words that can be seen on the other side of the paper the blue and yellow lines are drawn on? To tell me what's good about my life, and exactly where I'll drown in Aegean waters.

Lines drawn with a yellow and a blue Sharpie by the author on a piece of previously used paper, May 31, 2017.

Poetry snob

Amazing how fantasy adjusts to reality, and vice-versa. How the pinecones that have fallen from fir trees in central Oregon look like failed actors, fired by the theatre boss for not knowing their lines. The people, if there is such a thing, are sitting in big new pick-up trucks named for national parks, scratching off lottery tickets they've just bought at Circle K. It's amazing how gradually the men and women of this country have become reverse pioneers; that is to say, they no longer wish to tame the wilderness, they only want to stay somewhere very near themselves and what they already know, fire up the barbecue and dine on red meat and wine, then watch tv. And there's nothing wrong with that, there really isn't, so long as they've made provisions for the little bird outside the window at four in the morning, digging its own grave with a song.

Manuscript, novel by Thomas Fuller tentatively titled, "The Autobiography of Poetry."

Sunriver

Where can you go to get back what you've forgotten?

The Deschutes River, Bend, Oregon, sunset, May 26, 2017.

Early Koons, seminal Monique Prieto

The Roddan Foundation announced today that its internationally recognized collection, thought to be the largest holding of suburban conceptual art in the world, has relocated to San Francisco.

In addition, the foundation announced a new acquisition: the Jeff Koons sculpture "Furious Vacumn" (foreground) purchased recently from the original owner in Portland, Oregon, price undisclosed; and the restoration and re-hanging of LA artist Monique Prieto's painting, circa the late 1990's (background).

Hallway, house, 614 28th Ave, San Francisco, toward the end of remodel, May 21, 2017.

Abstract postmodernism

If you knew you were seeing something for the very last time would you look at it differently?

By the way, is there still such a thing as experimental art? Maybe there never was. Besides, what could be more experimental than riding a horse through the High Plains 150 years ago and being so hungry you'd take a chance on eating something you see growing on a tree without knowing what it really is.

Ordering a salad at McDonald's 5 minutes before closing time and requesting that it be, "fresh," is bold, but to actually make the salad is revolutionary.

The salad's good, the price is right, the people who work in this McDonald's are kind to one another and hardworking. All my previous assumptions about fast-food and the nature of corporate enterprise are exhausted, as well as my tired old cynicism that thinks 'how dare they call this a restaurant.'

Seeing that it's almost quitting time, I eat my postmodern salad with gusto, then get up and leave.

Empty booth, McDonald's, Lander, Wyoming, 10pm, May 11, 2017.

Happy birthday June Lee Roddan

Most people have very little consciousness of their own, and what consciousness they do have is what they think other people think of them–which is either good or bad or a mixture of both–proceeding from this outlook to make up what they think constitutes their own unique consciousness.

My mother wasn't this kind of person; for the most part she had her own mind, and when she didn't, when she used someone else's mind, she didn't feel good about herself. June Lee Smith was a very sweet, honorable person; she actually believed everything broken could be made whole.

Camera malfunction while thinking of my mother on her birthday, Wapiti, Wyoming, May 9, 2017. 

Trump sign near Yellowstone

Last night I flushed a Donald Trump tweet down the toilet. I watched the water swirl and swirl until I was sure Trump had disappeared, though I couldn't be sure if he went head first or feet first. 

Handmade Trump sign, Hwy. 14, Wapiti, Wyoming, May 7, 2017. 

Haydn, modern master

Before I walk down to the studio to write, I listen to Franz Joseph Haydn (Pandora, Bose speaker). Listening to Haydn, almost every anxiety, worry, fear I have about my writing disappears, so much so that I often feel I don't need to go down to the studio to write, that I'm better off staying where I am, up in the cabin, in the big chair where I like to sit, listening to Haydn.

There is no scientific proof that time exists, but there's always time to listen to Haydn.

Tree on China Wall, Wapiti, Wyoming, April, 2017. 

Barthelmebeckett

Interesting how Barthelme gobbled up Beckett once he found him, reading every thing he could find, and then went out and started writing like Barthlmebeckett.

Chair in cabin, 2 a.m., Wapiti, Wyoming, May 4, 2017. 

Rei Kawakubo: an homage

I too once hoped to be an oracle, but lacked the motor skills of self-promotion. 

Instead I toil ceaselessly in my little studio, coming up with new creations with which to shock the world, while absolutely refusing to talk to the press.

Men's Fly Fishing outfit, tissue paper, paper towel, and J&J antibiotic bandage.

May Day at Gooseberry Creek, Wyoming

Nobody I know has ever done justice to Wyoming, and nobody ever will. The place is at least one million years older than anything a tiny brain could possibly imagine; in fact, Wyoming could be two million years in the future for all I know. 

I had breakfast in the Wyoming town of Worland this morning at Maggie's Cafe, then I started driving for home, stopping at Gooseberry Creek to see how far Wyoming is ahead of me.

Gooseberry Creek, Hwy. 431, between Worland and Meeteetse, Wyoming. Early afternoon, May 1, 2017.

Billie Holiday

There was a restaurant in LA where I used to eat breakfast.  I'd get the corner table and, if I didn't have a business meeting, I'd spread out the morning newspapers just like I did at home.

I didn't have to order, I always ate the same thing. The staff–whoever was on duty, usually a woman named Kathy–knew to bring coffee, orange juice, and a dish they called, Eggs Wolferman.

I ate breakfast there for years. I came to know the staff and they me, each about as much as each of us wanted to be known. 

One morning, I asked Kathy for an espresso instead of my usual coffee. “And would you mind turning down the music,” I asked.

“That's Billie Holiday,” Kathy said. 

“I know it's Billie Holiday,” I said. “I like Billie Holiday a great deal, but not this early in the morning, and especially not at breakfast.”

Snowstorm, Northwest Wyoming, 4 a.m, April 28, 2017. 

Not as bad as it could be

Snow falling off the roof in chunks by 8 A.M  

Headline in The New York Times (on-line ed) 'It Could Be Worse.'

They're hauling the President's new tax proposal up to Capitol Hill sometime this morning, and no one involved appears to see the irony.

The poet Rilke disliked the ironic and refused to employ it in his writing. 

Cabin deck, Wapiti, Wyoming, 8 a .m., April 26, 2017. 

Springtime in the Rockies

First it's snowing, then it's rain, then it's snow again. I've called the office and told them I'm not coming in.

The weather here in upstate Wyoming is not unlike reading a novel by A.Trollope--you realize while reading that all the shit that's happening now and all the 'types' that are making it happen have all happened before. This is oddly comforting for some reason.

Table Mt., otherwise known as The Hall of the Mountain King, as seen from the author's bed chambers, 8 a.m. April 25, 2017.

A line by Stevens

It's supposed to snow today. 

'The imperfect is our paradise.' 

Sunrise sky over Cody, Wyoming. 6:30 a.m. April 24, 2017. 

The Gorsuch era

Could it be worse? I suppose it could be worse but I don't know how it could be, I don't have the imagination, I don't have the requisite dystopian chops of a writer like Atwood, I'm far more Trollopeian.

Literature lately has become more and more of a coping mechanism, but even Whitman doesn't seem to help all that much: 

'I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World, And to define America, her athletic Democracy...'

Wife of Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch packs his lunch, gives him a peck on the cheek, and sends him off to Court. "Have a great day on the bench honey," she says, "make sure to tear down that wall between church and state, stand tall for bigots, Bible thumpers, and the extraction industry. Meatloaf for dinner. See you at 6."

Gorsuch’s had his early morning jog around the suburb. He's full of righteous endorphins, old Eagle Scout pledges, and the strict constitutionalism of his predecessor.

Nominated to the highest court in the land by none other than Donald Trump, his nomination approved in a hijacked Senate, 54-45, Gorsuch now wears the black robe of a Supreme Court Justice: Gorsuch is fitted to a t. 

Article on Simone Weil, from The New Criterion, summer 2010, found in the Wapiti, Wyoming cabin of the author of this minor note, April 20, 2017.

Impeach Putin

Lea Ann, who's much smarter than me, said this morning, "o, I see what they're doing—they're privatizing The Presidency." 

I happened to be reading an article in The New York Times about Ivanka Trump, special advisor to The President, and the expansion of her fashion line: her company's now filed 173 trademarks in 21 foreign countries. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, another special advisor to The President, have an estimated net worth of $740 million.

We shouldn't be afraid of Putin, we have our own little Putin, Lea Ann said.

Clay pot, from the Lea Ann Roddan Spring Collection, April 19, 2017.

Western Lands

A friend asks of a photo I've taken, “is that up or down?”

I don't really know or have forgotten, having sent him the photo a couple of days ago.

He's in Berlin, I'm in Wyoming.

Perhaps the photo flip-flopped on its way overseas. I don't know.

I should say, “it's Heraclitean, Fred, up is down and down is up.” He'd understand.

”And down below on the plain beneath the tree, Fred, is the same river you can't step in twice,” I could have said.

Tree struck by lightening, near China Wall, Wapiti, Wyoming, April, 16, 2017.

The reading list of Ivanka Trump

To the list of novels that can be read in one night–from the sublime (James M. Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice") to the ridiculous (Margaret Drabble's "The Dark Flood Rises")–I add a third, "The Heart Goes Last" by Margaret Atwood. However, Atwood's novel proved to be unreadable and I bailed on it about halfway through, though I'm pleased to say I gave Atwood a try.

Acknowledgements page, "The Heart Goes Last" by Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese, 2015.)