Because pigs. That’s Will, the runt of the litter born as we arrived. He died the next day, alas. In the middle is cubed bacon for the beans. On the right, still life with pork roasts and banana.
Archives for July 2012
The Legend of John Back’s Death
July 30, 2012 by at 11:50 pm
As legend has it, whether true or
Perhaps a tallish tale, John Back
Was dry and needed more hard liquor
Than what he’d hid beneath his sack.
He barged aboard a tied-up steamer
And found a case of gin, some creamer,
A loaf of cheese — that was enough:
John grabbed the gin and other stuff —
As much as his poor arms could mule —
And would have left the ship, but that
Was not his fate; instead a rat
Appeared and challenged him to duel,
Produced a tiny pistol, fired:
John Back lay dead, wiped out, expired.
Gerasene: Still the ONLY Writer’s Conference Featuring Target Practice with an 8mm Mauser
July 30, 2012 by at 9:56 am
Moran Calls For Help
July 29, 2012 by at 10:06 pm
The fire had crossed Second Avenue, and was heading up to Third. Smoke could be seen in Tacoma, and the roar of the fire heard for miles. Help had been called in from Tacoma, Portland, and even Victoria, B.C. …
Realizing their geoduck was cooked,
Moran raced into the offices of the Sunset
Telephone-Telegraph Co. and unhooked
the contraption himself. “Get
me Tacoma!” And Portland and Victoria,
B.C., and then, remembering a noria
he’d seen on the faraway Kickapoo
River, put out a call for someone he knew,
had heard legend of, anyway—a Wisconsin
firefighter by name of Paddy or Mick
O’Somethingerother, who with a single lick
and a little spit could put out the fire in
Hades itself. “The name? People are dyin’
here! Wait; I got it … Get me O’Brien!”
Kipling Haunted by the Ghost of Pushkin
July 27, 2012 by at 12:45 am
No one, not even the Government, knows the number of islands in the Sound. Even now you can get one almost for the asking; can build a house, raise sheep, catch salmon, and become a king on a small scale.
When Kipling left Seattle’s ashes
Behind and navigated north
Toward Vancouver, gentle splashes
At prow and rocking back and forth
With island views at every turning,
The ghost of Pushkin, spirit yearning
To flow again in blood and ink,
Appeared to him and bade him think
About the island kingdom every
Moran or Murphy might create
From fire of love and ash of hate
Away from worldly woe and thievery —
But only to flame up like hay
When lightning strikes on Judgement Day.
From the YouTube Music Video Archives: Hey by The Pixies
July 27, 2012 by at 12:41 am
Bob Dylan has a new album coming out in September, and he’s going on tour! Potter told me, and so I told my friend, who said, “What about the Pixies? I wish they would go on tour again. Do you remember the Pixies?”
Oh yes, I remember the Pixies …
Disillusionment at Four O’Clock on a Thursday Afternoon
July 27, 2012 by at 12:01 am
By four o’clock, most residents knew
downtown Seattle was finished.
After crossing First and Second Avenue,
billowing and bellowing, undiminished,
the towering inferno climbed to Third.
The roar of the fire could be heard
for miles around, and smoke was seen
from as far away as Tacoma. Between
the heckling crowds and their abecedarian
abilities, some of the volunteers dropped
their buckets on the spot, stopped
by their own worthlessness. Marion,
Madison, and then Spring were consumed
in a matter of minutes. All doomed.
Cheever Redux
July 26, 2012 by at 9:26 am
If you’re going to wrestle with despair, do it in style…
“Light and shade, pleasant and discordant noises, the singing of the cleaning woman and the thumping of the washing machine are dealt like a series of blows. I cannot think of the stories I have to write without a sharpening of this visceral pain. I cannot invent terms or images of repose. I grant myself all the privileges of a liar, but there is no heart in my lies and inventions. There is nothing. There is neither ecstasy nor repose, there is only the forced illusions of these things. The span between living and dying is brief and anguished, and the soul of man is reflected not in snug farmhouses and great monuments but in fourth-string hotel rooms, malodorous and obscure. This is all there is. There is nothing. Tired but sleepless, lewd but alone, hopeless, drunk, sitting at the window on the airshaft in some other country: this is the image of man. I remember those midtown hotels, the Carlton in Frankfurt, the Eden in Rome, the Palace in San Francisco, hotels in Hollywood, Innsbruck, Toledo, Florence. Here is the soul of man, venereal, forlorn, and uprooted. All the rest of it – the cheering lights of morning, sweet music, the towers and the sailboats – are fantastic inventions, evasions, lies, vulgarities, and politenesses poorly invented to conceal the truth.”
I’m a sap, so my favorite thing here is the juxtaposition of Toledo and Florence.
July 25, 2012 by at 3:17 pm
Worlds collide, heads explode, film at eleven…
The two had lunch, says Bryan A. Garner, a lexicographer and legal-writing consultant from Texas who arranged the encounter.