Put down your shopping bags this Thanksgiving weekend and climb aboard the Holly Trolley, a special run of the Como-Harriet Streetcar feature Santa Claus, carolers, hot cider, and plenty of Christmas cheer!
The trolley runs from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Friday (no concession stand this day), Saturday, and Sunday, November 27 to 29 and Saturday and Sunday, December 5 and 6.
The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line, operated by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, operates three historic Minnesota streetcars. The Holly Trolley, decorated in lovely garlands and wreaths and featuring Santa Claus, leaves from the Linden Hills Station, Queen Avenue South and West 42nd Street, on the west side of Lake Harriet. It’s a charming reminder of the days when Minneapolis and St. Paul had one of the most extensive streetcar systems in the country.
For complete details, including directions and fare information, please visit the Museum online.
Do note that the line runs as weather permits; the Museum has done a great job restoring the cars and tracks to their full glory, but they don’t have the resources to keep them clear of snow and ice the way the proud workers of the Twin City Rapid Transit Company did before 1954.
A happy St. Patrick’s Day to all! If you’re of a more pensive nature than the average pint-hoister, you might want to take a look at another project of mine: I’ve been translating a collection of poems by Michael Davitt from Irish (a.k.a. “Gaelic”) to English. Remember that even though Irish is a strange and parochial language, it is the native tongue of God and His angels, so you might want to learn a little verse in the event that you should show up at the Pearly Gates and need to bluff your way in without benefit of native blarney skills.
Now that we are all dead, no matter.
Snow recedes from the trees,
hulls of hemisphere where the trunks go in,
and we’ve come back to the den where we spent our
children’s lives playing games that were extinct
in foreign languages we’d forgotten how to speak.
What could you be thinking at this moment?
How lovely and strange the gangly spines
of trees against a thickening sky
as you drive from the library
humming off-key? Or are you smiling
at an idea met in a book
the way you smiled with your whole body
the first night we talked?
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows
the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.
who cut the string
that sent the white sheets falling?
Nothing but the long
scissors of the sun
unwraps such thunder. Even
a modest A-frame
in a muffled instant sheds
its wrinkling roofs of snow:
black butterfly below.
As if to make
one more clean break above,
the sky—seconds ago
one continent of cloud—
follows the drift of Spring,
splits and refits like Ming
porcelain. The plate
tectonics alternate:
white and blue, blue and white.
I’m on auto pilot this week, while we visit the Grand Canyon; I’m sure that it will be Spring not just astronomically but meteorologically by the time we get back. Meanwhile, here’s a series from the Dowling Community Garden: it was past the vernal equinox, but that’s hardly a deterrent to Old Man Winter . . .
I’m on auto pilot this week, while we visit the Grand Canyon; I’m sure that it will be Spring not just astronomically but meteorologically by the time we get back. Meanwhile, here’s a series from the Dowling Community Garden: it was past the vernal equinox, but that’s hardly a deterrent to Old Man Winter . . .
I’m on auto pilot this week, while we visit the Grand Canyon; I’m sure that it will be Spring not just astronomically but meteorologically by the time we get back. Meanwhile, here’s a series from the Dowling Community Garden: it was past the vernal equinox, but that’s hardly a deterrent to Old Man Winter . . .
I’m on auto pilot this week, while we visit the Grand Canyon; I’m sure that it will be Spring not just astronomically but meteorologically by the time we get back. Meanwhile, here’s a series from the Dowling Community Garden: it was past the vernal equinox, but that’s hardly a deterrent to Old Man Winter . . .
I’m on auto pilot this week, while we visit the Grand Canyon; I’m sure that it will be Spring not just astronomically but meteorologically by the time we get back. Meanwhile, here’s a series from the Dowling Community Garden: it was past the vernal equinox, but that’s hardly a deterrent to Old Man Winter . . .
Old snows locked under glass
by last night’s ice storm left
curatorial Winter, in
whose hands alone we’d hope
to find the keys,
jangling them in the trees—.
I’m on auto pilot this week, while we visit the Grand Canyon; I’m sure that it will be Spring not just astronomically but meteorologically by the time we get back. Meanwhile, here’s a series from the Dowling Community Garden: it was past the vernal equinox, but that’s hardly a deterrent to Old Man Winter . . .
Washburn Water Tower, Tangletown neighborhood, Minneapolis, MN.
My visit was during the last (I hope . . .) snowfall of the season; I caught a glimpse of airplanes descending over the tower through the clouds, and waited in the snow for more to come; but, alas, the sky was too low–I could hear the engines rumbling, but I couldn’t see the planes.
They say it is waiting for more, the snow
Shrunk up to the shadow-line of walls
In an arctic smouldering, an unclean salt,
And will not go until the frost returns
Sharpening the stars, and the fresh snow falls
Piling its drifts in scallops, furls. I say
Snow has left its own white geometry
To measure out for the eye the way
The land may lie where a too cursory reading
Discovers only dip and incline leading
To incline, dip, and misses the fortuitous
Full variety a hillside spreads for us
I wonder how many old men last winter
Hungry and frightened by namelessness prowled
The Mississippi shore
Lashed blind by the wind, dreaming
Of suicide in the river.
The police remove their cadavers by daybreak
And turn them in somewhere.
Where?
How does the city keep lists of its fathers
Who have no names?
By Nicollet Island I gaze down at the dark water
So beautifully slow.
And I wish my brothers good luck
And a warm grave.
The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.
The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.
The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.
The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.
The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.
It’s been so cold here lately that I’ve neglected the poor dog’s walking needs, and I’ve also neglected my old box cameras, so last weekend I gave both the mutt and the Sawyer’s Nomad a big outing through the neighborhood. Here’s a bench at Brackett Park, looking forlornly out at the ball field, waiting for spring.
Along the West River Road, in Minneapolis, are several modern houses of the stark and low style, quite a contrast with the bungalows of the ‘teens and ‘twenties that fill most of the neighborhood’s streets.
Four pictures today (click the “Anticipation”, “Anticipation 2″, “Anticipation 3″ and “The Catch” links to switch from one to the next).
As much fun as launching our hot air balloons was (and it was a blast), catching them was the real attraction; the scouts scrambled after them and tried to stand under their uncertain downward trajectories as the hot air slowly cooled. That the balloons survived for more than one launch each is a little bit of a surprise–Cub Scouts aren’t exactly gentle with descending balloons…
I note, with much delight, that Jason Sanford at storySouth expects to have the 2008 Million Writers Award gearing up in the next week. This is, for those of you who don’t know, a fabulous opportunity to find all of the great short fiction happening in the on-line world; though started in a bit of a pique (the big players–the O. Henry Awards and Year’s Best …–still tend to ignore the on-line space, even though so many university and independent journals have moved there with the increased cost of print publication), it has become a celebration of short fiction in its million and more shapes.
Four pictures today (click the “Bivouac 1″, “Bivouac 2″, “Bivouac 3″ and “Bivouac 4″ links to switch from one to the next).
At our recent Cub Scout Winter Camp, the hardy Webelos slept out in this tent for two nights; we younger scouts slept on the cabin floor, though with the heating system that sounded like someone flinging ball berings into a pie tin I don’t know that we slept any better than the shivering gang in the tent.
The Saarinen (Eilel and Eero) Christ Church Lutheran church, Longfellow neighborhood, on a recent chilly snowy night (the dog and I were on our way to retrieve the car after Kelly had retrieved her recently-repaired bicycle from The Hub).
An interesting e-mail came over the transom today:
It’s my pleasure to invite you to my Father’s 70th Birthday Thanks giving service which is going to take place at Geneva United Methodist Church Geneva, Minnesota,united States on May 30th 2008, please Let us know if your compnay will be available on that day to take the Photography service for us and any other necessary things at the event,And get back to us with your package for like 5 hours, presently am not in the state but it’s my duty to take care of this part that’s why, I have to contacted you myself. Let me know if you can receive your payment with a CHEQUE from my client in the states.
There are a few things that are tip-offs here that something’s not on the up-and-up: the payment by “CHEQUE” (not how it’s spelled in Geneva, MN …), the stilted English, the suggestion that I might be an event photographer (take a look at the blurry Holga pictures and strange night pictures, and tell me if you’d really want me anywhere near your father’s birthday “Thanks giving” party…). But I find this almost touching in its lack of ambition: no crown prince of Swaziland, no royal family of Ghana, no lottery winnings from Spain or Ireland, just some guy at the United Methodist church in a little town near Albert Lea. Have the scam artists given up on their dreams and decided to settle down in Lake Wobegon?
A similar trick is outlined here: Scams on Artists, mnartists.org. The trick usually involves a cashier’s check that turns out to be bad, though after you’ve deposited it into your account, and a portion of that bad check being sent back to the miscreant (I’ll pay you $4,000, you keep $950 and send me the change . . .). And since it plays on the dreams and aspirations of someone with an artistic bent, it’s particularly cruel and nasty. Over at Daily Dickinson I pointed out another scam artist put to shame, this time by Emily Dickinson, or someone rather like her. It’s this sort of stuff that sucks the fun right out of the Internet.
It’s cold here; like, “it will warm up to -1 degree Farenheit” cold; like, your breath doesn’t just fog, it freezes into ice crystals that shatter at your feet. No one around here needs air conditioner service today . . .
I’ve been a sort of snowshoe evangelist for the past several winters, and especially this incredibly snowy one (we got more snow on Christmas than we have any year since 1950!). Of all the winter sports, this is the one that requires the least skill and the least investment: if you can walk, you can snowshoe, and a pair of shoes that set you back less than $100 (far cheaper than most skates, skis, and snowboards) will take you into wintry places you’d never get to by yourself. And you can do it pretty much anyplace with good snow cover: around the block, through the park, across the yard. Our favorite spot is the oak savanna preserve on West River Parkway, a few blocks from home.
Sledding, I suppose, is a cheaper winter sport–a decent saucer sled shouldn’t cost more than $10, and you can get a few runs out of a piece of cardboard before it disintegrates–but you need a hill to do it. And hills are sometimes hard to come by here on the plains.
The day after Christmas, the boys and I headed out about 10:00 AM for a sledding hill near Minnehaha Creek. We were surprised and delighted to find that we had the hill to ourselves: no dodging people who insist on climbing up the middle of the slope, no waiting in line for the big icy bump, nothing but fresh powder all the way to the bottom.
About a half hour into our sledding, a white truck pulled up and two cameramen from KARE-11 News (they have snazzy blue ski jackets) arrived and started filming the boys in flight. The boys were unphased by the cameras; if anything, they seemed a little annoyed–they were like a couple of surfers looking for the big wave, and didn’t have time to be pestered.
Other sledders arrived, and a few hammed it up for the cameras, but we continued in our serious sledding. We finally broke for lunch at about noon (and scheduled the TiVo to record all the KARE-11 news shows). Our piece played at 4:00 PM (opposite Oprah) and at 5:00 AM; but you can see it here: we benefited from good editing (I especially like the “whoosh” of Peter’s sled going over the jump).
This was a completely unintentional triple (or more?) exposure; the sprocket holes on the film tore, and it took a few frames for things to slide back into place. Still, I like the serendipity of it.
A couple of bits of Christmas cheer in case you’re looking for help getting your spirits in the right mood:
Six funny stories from Kevin Kling: this whole broadcast from MPR is fabulous, but of particular interest today are his story of making a friend at an Uptown bar and how to ask God to ask Jesus to tell Santa that you need a squirrel monkey. And if you need a last-minute gift, grab the book.
Christmas Past: Dick Gordon talks to illustrator and author Tomie DePaola about Tomie’s Christmas adventures, from a 1940s childhood full of magic fireplaces and war-time blackouts to Gregorian chants at a New England monastery to a San Francisco apartment festooned with a dwarf forest. There’s a great book behind this one, too; I picked up the last copy at the East Lake Street library, but no doubt it’s floating around elsewhere . . .
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
From his couch arose the artist,
From his couch of stone, the blacksmith,
And began his work of forging,
Forging Sun and Moon for Northland.
Kalevala, Rune XLIX, translated by John Martin Crawford
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Thought awhile, and well considered,
How to kill the mighty oak-tree,
First created for his pleasure,
How to fell the tree majestic,
How to lop its hundred branches.
Sad the lives of man and hero,
Sad the homes of ocean-dwellers,
If the sun shines not upon them,
If the moonlight does not cheer them
Is there not some mighty hero,
Was there never born a giant,
That can fell the mighty oak-tree,
That can lop its hundred branches?
Kalevala, Rune II, translated by John Martin Crawford
Young and aged talked and wondered,
Well reflected, long debated,
How to live without the moonlight,
Live without the silver sunshine,
In the cold and cheerless Northland,
In the homes of Kalevala.
Long conjectured all the maidens,
Orphans asked the wise for counsel.
Kalevala, Rune XLIX, translated by John Martin Crawford
Come bedecked then to thy chamber,
Thus return to this thy household,
To the greeting of thy kindred,
To the joy of all that know thee,
Flushed thy cheeks as ruddy berries,
Coming as thy father’s sunbeam,
Walking beautiful and queenly,
Far more beautiful than moonlight.
Kalevala, Rune IV, translated by John Martin Crawford
These night pictures pose a few more challenges than usual: the traffic on West River Road isn’t heavy, but sneaking in a longer exposure between headlights takes some luck; the metering is bad guesswork at best; the mirror on the Spotmatic often gets stuck in bulb mode, which means I can’t see anything through the viewfinder; and the dog doesn’t understand why she has to wait 30-90 seconds while I stand behind the tripod and try to keep her from tangling up the shot. And it’s cold. Really cold. Hasn’t been above freezing in Minneapolis since Thanksgiving.
I am tall, and sound, and hardy,
Have no flaws within my body;
Three times in the months of summer,
In the warmest of the seasons,
Does the sun dwell in my tree-top,
On my trunk the moonlight glimmers,
In my branches sings the cuckoo,
In my top her nestlings slumber.
Kalevala, Rune XVI, translated by John Martin Crawford
Young Kullervo has not perished,
Has not died among the branches
Of the oak-tree where we hung him.
In the oak he maketh pictures
With a wand between his fingers;
Pictures hang from all the branches,
Carved and painted by Kullervo;
And the heroes, thick as acorns,
With their swords and spears adjusted
Fill the branches of the oak-tree,
Every leaf becomes a soldier.
Kalevala, Rune XXXI, translated by John Martin Crawford
Three pictures today (click the “Image One”, “Image Two”, and “Image Three” tabs to switch from one to the next), for largely geeky reasons:
Between my neighborhood and the Mississippi stands an oak savanna, a tiny piece of the kind of land that existed before the Europeans arrived. It’s a fascinating chunk of land, perfect for my current experiments in night photography. Maybe too perfect–my little audience doesn’t need to be subjected to a whole roll of pictures of oak trees in the snow in the dark.
The contractor I’m working with at the day job mentioned the YUI JavaScript framework; lately I’ve been pushing paper instead of writing code at work (and loathing every second of it…), so this was a chance to take a look at this framework and try it out in a new context. It’s pretty easy to use, and I may tinker with it a bit more in coming weeks.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Northland’s old and toothless wizard,
Makes the Sun and Moon her captives;
In her arms she takes fair Luna
From her cradle in the birch-tree,
Calls the Sun down from his station,
From the fir-tree’s bending branches,
Carries them to upper Northland,
To the darksome Sariola;
Hides the Moon, no more to glimmer,
In a rock of many colors;
Hides the Sun, to shine no longer,
In the iron-banded mountain
Kalevala, Rune XLVII, translated by John Martin Crawford
Loan to me the strength of oceans,
To upset this mighty oak-tree,
To uproot this tree of evil,
That again may shine the sunlight,
That the moon once more may glimmer.
Kalevala, Rune II, translated by John Martin Crawford
The Kalevala is, of course, Finland’s national epic. It figured in a small way in my story Sunshine Over Helsinki, published in 2004 at failbetter.com. Northern epics are the perfect reading material for our chilly winters here in Minnesota.
All summer, the alley on our block is busy with kids on bikes and skateboards; it’s the main highway between the blocks, and the surest place to find the short family members when it’s time for supper or baths. In the winter, though, it’s an eerily peaceful place, the silence broken only by the soft scrape of snow shovels.
Yesterday was all about scrambling to find boots and scarves and hats that have been put away since last winter, getting the shovels and sleds out of the garage, and re-learning the Minnesota winter driving skills we’ve forgotten during our too-brief summer (like judging your stopping distance when it’s not clear what’s between your wheels and the road). A good start to winter, all in all.
This picture was actually taken during the last blast from the winter of ‘06-’07; this pair of scarecrows stand in a yard at the corner of 46th and Lyndale, and change their outfits with the season.
I’ve got some color film at the developer’s, and a couple rolls of black and white in the basement, so more seasonally-appropriate pictures are on their way … Meanwhile, a couple things to note this weekend:
Merlin’s Rest grand opening: the Irish-Scottish-Welsh-what-have-you pub on the corner of 36th and Lake makes it official today, Saturday, April 28, 2007. There will be music, Irish dancers, a ribbon cutting, and good beer.
World Pinhole Day is this Sunday, April 29, 2007: dust off your box and expose it to a little light. It should be a bright, sunny day here in Minnesota, ideal conditions for pinhole pictures, so I’m looking forward to taking out the modified Hawkeye. Last year was rainy and overcast, and I managed to get just one blurry tulip shot in the alley.
Choo Choo Bob’s Train Movies at the Riverview Theater: there’s still time to run over to the Choo Choo Bob’s and get a ticket for the 11:00 showing today, April 28, of another collection of train films for the young and young-at-heart.
Despite the spate of snowy pictures, it really is spring at last here in Minneapolis. One of the sure signs of spring in these parts is the sudden explosion of weekend activities; if you’ve got time on your hands and kids in your care, here are a few things over the next few days to help get the sap flowing after a long winter’s sleep:
A Washburn Water Tower LEGO model will be constructed at Fuller Park, 48th and Grand, in the shadow of the Henry Wild Jones landmark (and my favorite Twin Cities building); Peter is deathly afraid of the “guys” who ring the tower, but he’s a LEGO freak, so there will be some interesting push and pull getting to this event…
Next Saturday, April 28th, Choo Choo Bob’s Train Shop is sponsoring a series of short train movies at the Riverview Theater. For the film and train buff of a certain age, this is a nice outing. Tickets are free, but have to be picked up at Choo Choo Bob’s on Marshall Avenue in St. Paul.
There are backflows of broom and mayweed,
coal rillets
slick on the mine path.
And the bulrush reeds stretch up from the marsh pond
like the stiffened tails of lions.
We’ve had a run of late winter weather, with a couple of snowfalls well into April. It’s as if snow and winter have come disconnected, with the former starting and ending later than it should. April snow can be pretty, I suppose, but it’s not much fun; the snow pack that made it possible to trudge across the pond on snowshoes is long since gone.
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible -
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben’s back
And had the livelong summer day to spend. The Tower, William Butler Yeats
The same spot and day as yesterday’s photo, but a different eye to look through–this time, the Brownie Hawkeye Flash with its lens flipped around.
I pace upon the battlements and stare
On the foundations of a house, or where
Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;
And send imagination forth
Under the day’s declining beam, and call
Images and memories
From ruin or from ancient trees,
For I would ask a question of them all.
The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,
winter’s scraps and leavings lowered
to a common level. A sudden jolt
of weather pushed us outside, and now
this larger world once again belongs to us.
Come, come thou bleak December wind,
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!
Flash, like a Love-thought, thro’ me, Death
And take a Life that wearies me.
Soft as a shadow on fur
The filling places
Where his footsteps were;
Lost without shape or grime
His path through the level spaces.
How can we certainly know
If this is time
Falling, or snow?
Our own sure winter is surely on the wane here in the upper Midwest–the snow is turning to fog today, and with temperatures near 50 degrees predicted for next week it looks like Spring is on the way. I probably only have one or two more days where there will be enough snow for my snowshoes.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
We’re in the bicentenary year of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, best known now, perhaps, for his narrative poems–”Song of Hiawatha”, “Evangeline”, “Paul Revere’s Ride”–but no slouch in the lyric category, either. The Maine Historical Society (Longfellow was born in Portland) is sponsoring a Responding to Longfellow project if anyone is so moved to participate.
The predicted snow arrived a little earlier than predicted yesterday, with good accumulation by about noon. There’s ample opportunity for snow shoes and sleds!
From our January snow tubing event: the piles of innertubes at Green Acres in Lake Elmo. Our trips down the hill were characterized more by mud than by snow; it sounds like things will be a little whiter there this evening, though the near-blizzard winds might make tubing more of an adventure than most people are willing to brave.
From our January snow tubing event: the bus boarding.
Another round of snow is on schedule for the rest of the week; the local Fox affiliate predicts 12-20 inches (of course, these are the folks who love to predict disaster); Paul Douglas over at WCCO predicts a more modest 8-14 inches; the National Weather Service appears to predict about 13 inches if I read their graphics correctly.
In any event, I’m glad I swung by REI on my way home last night to pick up a couple pairs of starter snow shoes for Jack and Peter. We tested them out on the boulevard, zipping down the block and leaping the treacherous sidewalk chasms. Should the streets be impassible to automobiles, I’m confident that we three will be able to brave the elements and come back to base with freeze-dried victuals, water-purification equipment, and toilet paper to get us through the storm.
The predicted snowy armageddon was slightly less than apocalyptic–Friday’s predicted snow turned out to be mostly sleet, and it took a while for things to turn over to the white stuff on Saturday. But it was still a good sledding opportunity.
No pictures yet of our recent blanket of snow, though–no time to play with chemicals after spending the day at Auntie Betsy’s house, sledding, playing hide & seek, and discovering the wonders of Dance Dance Revolution. So instead here’s a rather more bare picture from a January snow tube trip we took with the boys’ Minneapolis Kids gang. It was more mud tubing than snow tubing, but no one complained.
We’re anticipating a winter storm this weekend–5-9 inches or so, according to the National Weather Service, but the local news outlets are pounding the drums for 12-18 inches of snow, the biggest in many, many years. In any case, we’re looking forward to testing the new sled from Auntie Kathleen and taking Granddad (visiting from western Maine–I think we can blame him for drawing the blizzard down on us) to our favorite hills.
Sledding consists of hours of uphill trudging punctuated by seconds of crazy mad terror and delight.
The Twin Cities being mostly flat, there aren’t a lot of secret sledding hills around that are worth the trudge; you end up having to navigate the good slopes with a dozen or more fellow sledders who are also hurling themselves downhill on bits of plastic with no stearing apparatus. Collisions are a necessary part of the Minnesota sledding experience.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
The cold earth slept below;
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around,
With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.
In the dregs of the year, all steam and rain,
In the timid time of the heart again,
When indecision is bold and thorough,
And action dreams of a dawn in vain,
I saw high up over Bloxham vale
The ploughshare tilt to the next long trail,
And, spying a larder in every furrow,
The wagtails crowd like a dancing hail!
A second wonder there on the hill:
Beneath the hedge, I saw with a thrill
The budding primroses laugh good-morrow
From a deep cradle rocked by a rill!
Wagtail smart in his belted blue,
Primrose paying her gold ere due,—
(Out upon Winter! Down with Sorrow!)
These are the things that I know are true.
Firstlings (January 7, 1915), by Louise Imogen Guiney
It was 35 years ago today — January 7, 1972 — that John Berryman flung himself from the Washington Avenue bridge; Minnesota winters will do that to sensitive souls. I had planned to read some of The Dream Songs this weekend, but the poetry shelf at the Merriam Park Library had a gaping hole where Berryman should have been, even though the catalog said they should be there. Perhaps the ghost whose footsteps are sometimes heard on the bridge hides these books once a year. I had to schlep over to the Highland Park Library with Jack and Peter for the collected poems, which doesn’t include The Dream Songs (and for some Curious George stories, also sans Dream Songs).
But I did stumble across a Berryman poem about a little corner of my neighborhood, near Cedar on Lake Street, which has given me some ideas for a project. The only question now is which camera? Will the Holga’s rough edges, the Hawkeye’s eerie blur, or the Nomad’s simple purity best capture Berryman’s Minneapolis?
I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.
Skating at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. I’m on auto-pilot for a few days while we head to Chicago for a nerd fest (museums!) and to Wisconsin Dells for a winter splash.
Skating at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. I’m on auto-pilot for a few days while we head to Chicago for a nerd fest (museums!) and to Wisconsin Dells for a winter splash.
Skating at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. I’m on auto-pilot for a few days while we head to Chicago for a nerd fest (museums!) and to Wisconsin Dells for a winter splash.
This is the same tree featured in Lace, one of my favorite pictures from the end of last winter; we finally got measurable snow, though it will be touch and go if it has the fortitude to stay until Christmas Day — it’s been a weirdly warm and dry winter for these parts.
I have a few flowers in the hopper still, but somehow those didn’t seem appropriate for All Hallow’s Eve. So instead, here’s a tombstone, from a wintry afternoon at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery on Chicago Avenue.
I love the way old grave stones give the person’s age in great detail, as if every day wrung out of life was an accomplishment and full credit should be given.
Happy trick-or-treating to all (or good luck in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin, depending on your denomination…).
I’m a little behind in processing film–I’ve got a Holga black & white to toss in the toxins tonight, four miscellaneous rolls (I think some from May Day…) that have gone off to the developer, a few other 35mm rolls floating around (including some early morning pictures from this weekend in the woods) and unfinished rolls in the Holga, Argus, and Nomad. Which leaves me scrounging for pictures, like this one of Peter on the last snowy day in March when we went sledding at Longfellow Park.
Our trip to the woods was a bit of a bust. The first night it was bug city; not wimpy little gnats and mosquitoes, mind you–these were flies that would make small birds nervous. The lake and playground were a two mile hike through forest and marsh (across a portage boardwalk–I hope those shots come out…), after which the rest of the camping party demanded that I run back to the site and get the car. Which I did–took me just 30 minutes, with a couple of photo-op stops on the way.
Though it rained a bit on Friday night, we stayed dry, and it was nice to lie in the tent reading ghost stories by flashlight while everyone slept and the rain pattered on the roof. I love reading Victorian ghost stories–the purpler the better–when camping, having discovered M.R. James by firelight at Moose Lake some years back.
Saturday started off nice enough–we did a little canoing, and I think I got some Holga shots of a pair of loons–but when we stopped for another playground break it started to rain. And rain. And rain. We played Old Maid and Go Fish, pondered the state of the runoff ditches, and waited for the rain to stop. It did not.
Then when Jack woke up from a nap, we were greeted by a little face that looked more like the Elephant Man than a preschooler. His eye was swollen almost shut, and his forehead was bulging. He didn’t seem bothered, but we didn’t think we should stay in the woods with him in this deformed state. Peter wasn’t impressed with our stamina.
So we spent Father’s Day at urgent care, while the doctor tried to figure out what was wrong with the boy–he looked like he was suffering from orbital cellulitis, but he didn’t act it; he acted like Jack–goofy and charming and unbothered by the swollen head. He was, though, greatly bothered by the two shots of antibiotics and the two pokes into his arms for blood. Now a day into antibiotics and antihistamine, Jack’s looking a little more like himself while continuing to be a little charmer. Kids are incredibly resilient.
The last of the Washburn Tower for a bit, I promise.
World Pinhole Day is this Sunday, April 30. I’ve taken a screwdriver to one of my Hawkeyes–it doesn’t really need a lens anyway–and I encourage everyone else out there to similarly mangle a camera for Sunday’s festivities. Show the world that all you need to take pictures is a box with a hole in it!
The Washburn Water Tower again, taken during Round Two of the March blizzard.
World Pinhole Day is this Sunday, April 30. I’ve taken a screwdriver to one of my Hawkeyes–it doesn’t really need a lens anyway–and I encourage everyone else out there to similarly mangle a camera for Sunday’s festivities. Show the world that all you need to take pictures is a box with a hole in it!
I’m a little tired of the winter pictures, too. We’ll take a break from them starting tomorrow, shall we?
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
Sledders at the Dowling Community Garden, March 13, 2006.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
I found this lovely couple sitting on a snow-covered chair after Round 2 of the winter storm two weeks ago. They were still there, at the corner of Grand and 38th Street in Minneapolis, the next day. We were made of sterner stuff in those days I suppose.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
Another from March 13–Opie Pond, a little bog near my office accessible that day only by snowshoe.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
Another from March 13–birdhouse at the Dowling Community Garden.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
Let us thank God for having given us such ancestors; and let each successive generation thank him, not less fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of ages.
Main Street, Nathaniel Hawthorne
My ancestors–at least a good three quarters of them–were Puritans of the worst kind, the sort who banished Christmas as a too-pagan celebration and flogged Quakers for failing to conform to the Puritan program. They were made of stern stuff, those Puritans, weathering harsh New England winters and carving a civilization out of the wilderness by brute (and brutal) force. They were also the source of our obsession with work, if we take Max Weber at his word–dauntless and intrepid labor is its own reward.
I like to think I’ve travelled a long way from those ancestors some three and half centuries past, that I’m thoroughly post-modern and totally hip. But a big snow like we had last week gets my Puritan blood thumping; getting to work, normally a thankless task that I dread, becomes an adventure, a proof of my ability to stand up to adversity. And probably, in some deep Puritan corner of my heart, a guarantee that I am, despite all evidence to the contrary, among the Elect–for surely God guided my car through the snow drifts.
Jack and Peter are not yet driven to be intrepid. They were excited by the snow, and wanted a snowman, but thought that maybe it would be OK if they watched out the window while Dad made a snowman. Of course, I dragged them out into the blizzard so they could work on the snowman, and they had a good time, but I don’t think they saw the challenge in it. But then, their Puritan blood is diluted by sensible Irishness that knows that when it snows you stay inside.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Top 10 will be posted on April 1.
This picture is available as a notecard at Zazzle.
Slowly easing into color for a stretch–this is from the Monday, March 13, snowstorm.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
The Million Writers Notable Stories have been announced by storySouth! My story Self Defense, published in Pindeldyboz, made the list, as did many fabulous stories from around the web. Set aside some time to sample the stories on the list; you won’t be disappointed.
Nach deas í an tuath
lena cota bog ban
ina codladh go sá¡mh
sa sneachta geal glan.
Sneachta, Má¡ire Nic a’Daird
The first bit of Irish poetry I ever memorized; roughly:
How lovely is the world
with its soft white coat,
sleeping snugly
in the bright, clean snow.
Being able to recite the occasional bit of Gaelic doggerel has won me a few pints of Guinness, and redeems me for the fact that my ancestors were decidedly Cromwellian.
St. Patrick’s Day is the one day a year I’m happy to let everyone else pretend to be Irish. They can have their green beer and “Kiss me I’m Irish” buttons and bad brogues; I’ll sit in tonight with Thai takeout and a movie and leave my favorite bars to the Irish version of Easter-and-Christmas Catholics.
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