downstairs looking at the paper just
before going off to church... waiting for them... and the phone
rings but dom gets it upstairs... minutes and minutes pass and
i'm wondering if beth is awake yet... i should go knock... then
dom comes down & says so you got beth out... huh i say... her
door he says... her door is stuck... so we go to her room i knock
and she says... it's the upper corner... i push and the door opens...
she had called on her cell phone to say she was stuck in her room...
me... i would've pounded cussed & yelled... she... the subtle
high tech solution... we better fix that door
posted
at 10:56 AM
my sister beth says... i want a shade
garden so i blow off the dust & give her my book... she wants
to see how photoshop works... and how i make my pictures so i
pull it out and we play... she was in chicago today... now she's
here rocking in my lazy-boy... reading
post road 8 and
my exceptionally fine gatsby index... but she says she's not ...
she's actually just looking at the pictures... because there are
just too many words in the world...
you
should have seen the cat's expression when we burst in on her...
cat does not... as you and i as well do not... enjoy being burst
upon...
posted at 9:12 PM
a view of lake county's current development
issues... from the
Daily
Herald | 16 June 2004...
Improve
towns before building out
Through
the western window of my house, you could once see a fertile marsh
abundant with the sights and sounds of animal life. Cattails blowing
in the wind and coyotes howling at the moon once echoed throughout
the swamp then out over borderless acres of farmland and forest.
Besides the occasional farmhouse, open land stretched out for
miles everywhere you looked, eventually disappearing into the
horizon.
Today, in that same
line of vision, a couple dozen carbon-copy homes line up in the
shadow of an ever-growing iron and concrete skeleton, soon to
be a Target Supercenter. Most of the trees have been felled, probably
converted into 2-by-4's. The cornfields have been stamped out,
freshly glazed with a few hundred tons of black pavement. The
lakes and ponds are reduced to lifeless ditches and mudholes soaking
up the excess polluted water from parking lot storm sewers, and
daily one can't help but notice the gruesome carcasses of deer,
raccoons, rabbits, geese, opossums and coyotes that litter the
shoulders of roads.
Without
hesitation, new developments are constantly being constructed.
Traffic keeps getting worse, and Lake County is slowly transforming
into a single, massive, mega-suburb.
Do
we realize the possible ill effects this unrestricted development
could have? Do we give any effort in maintaining nature outside
of mowing our lawns? Do we recognize the many other human necessities
that will need to be created with the rapid population growth?
We are falling behind on the growing demand for road expansion,
enhancement and expansion of schools, nearby medical care or law
enforcement, etc. that will require more construction in rural
areas where hundreds or thousands soon plan to build new homes.
Before we unearth more soil and
clear more trees, solutions should be planned out. Why not enhance
the existing towns rather than spreading new structures out so
far into the country? Semi-high-rise apartments, condos and improvements
of downtown business districts, as in Highland Park or Deerfield,
could ease the rural outbreak of homes and strip malls. Better
public transportation and the creation of more bike routes would
help lessen the traffic pollution within these country villages,
that are growing as large as cities but still resemble sparsely
populated vacation stops. Lake County communities need to stop
and formulate rational solutions to expand and thrive without
destroying the natural integrity and environmental value of open
land in our area.
Mike Garamoni
Mundeleinposted
at 7:39 PM
i drove south from springfield mainly
off the interstate... passing through raymond... butler... hillsboro
(with real hills)... greenville... carlyle... new minden... to
i-64... which was interstately... until hoosier national forest
which is real pretty and scarey... the way the road twists up
down and around... if you stare at the hills you'll fly off into
valleys... i kept my mind on the driving business... entered new
albany and got myself suitably confused and lost for half an hour
or so trying to find jeffersonville... checked in, rested, cruised
j-ville, ate, showered and headed back out to the big event...
that panel discussion on land use related to a new bridge for
clark county...
posted at
6:59 PM
on a trip alone you don't get to make
many pictures... because the car is moving and you are moving
it... the impulse to keep moving overrides the one to stop and
make a picture... there's a general safety factor... but something
else, as well... a commitment to get to the end... which gets
you to the end without pictures... well maybe one... once the
car is parked and yr up in the room... with some luck there will
be a view...
water and a bridge usually make
a view... from a certain height... some of louisville in the distance...
posted at 6:46 PM
off to points south for a couple days...
posted at 9:01 AM
and yes... i'm still goofing on erdrich's
last report... good stuff.. look at this moment...
Four times a day -- on rising,
at noon, late afternoon, and before going to bed -- Agnes and
Father Damien became that one person who addressed the unknown.
The priest stopped what he was doing, cast himself down, made
himself transparent, broke himself open. That is, prayed... She
began to address the trinity as four and to include the spirit
of each direction -- those who sat at the four corners of the
earth. Wherever she prayed, she made of herself a temporary center
of those directions. There she allowed herself to fall apart.
Disintegrated into pieces of creation, which God might pick up
and turn curiously this way and that to catch the light. What
a relief it was, for those moments, to be nothing, a smashed thing,
and to have no thought or expectation. Whether God picked up the
fragments and stuck them back together, or casually swept them
aside was of no consequence to either Agnes or Father Damien.posted at 2:43 PM
how a text becomes itself in time...
i'm reading the first couple chapters of
the sound and the
fury... again... maybe the fifth time... this in preparation
for the ap lit institute next week... the benjy chapter is as
tough as ever now... but knowing certain things after previous
reading study discussion makes it easier to note the sad fabric
of the whole piece... i'm not thrown so much by the doubled names...
(what a hellish region for first-time readers)... but still have
trouble charting the moment of each piece...are there seven or
eight? wish faulkner's publisher had gone with the idea of color-coding...
i wonder what the quentin chapter will do to/for me... this time...
posted at 2:33 PM
so it looks like i'm committing self
to this trip...
on the sunny
side... i need an adventure... which for me almost always comes
in the form of a road trip... tomorrow i will drive to petersburg...
then on thursday i'll drive to jeffersonville in... for this land
use panel in the evening... one-fifth of which will be mr. wendell
berry... and i will... i hope... get to meet a most excellent
member or two of the wberry list...
on
the shadey side... it feels goofy to drive hours & hours down
there to attend a discusssion of a topic... in which i am not
wildly entangled... i mean... i care about what happens to land
and people when bridges get built... but it's not my neighborhood
& i don't know this land (living 11 months in louisville back
in 73-74 doesn't much qualify me as a native)... but we do have
important land use/development issues here in lake county... not
bridges so much as highways, housing, commerce... so maybe this
will help me think about that... somewhow... but...
well... it's all about mr. berry... he's the reason
for the trip... but... i'm feeling... if not like a stalker...
maybe some kind of old groupie... and i always get really stupid
in the presence of...
posted
at 10:24 AM
one path to j-ville from springfield...
but there are many many... take i-55 south to 16 east at LITCHFIELD...
to 127 south at HILLSBORO... to i-64 east at ADDIEVILLE... i love
those names... wouldn't you like to live in addieville?
posted at 10:07 AM
speaking of evocative flower pictures...
take a look at
this
one in A Glinting Web... is it the flower... the light...
the camera... or the eye/mind/spirit... that clicked...
posted at 9:44 AM
the problem with contests...
posted
at 9:27 AM
