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Gonzo In 2005

huntersnoteWhen I was younger, pretty much any rebel was my hero. And I can’t honestly say that I’ve changed much. Unfortunately rebels don’t tend to live long, or well as they age. You might say their “use-by” date comes early. Or they go off the deep end like Che, and Trotsky, et.al. Thompson just basically blew himself up. Literally I’d say, with a gun. He wrote a suicide note. I don’t blame him for being bummed about the Super Bowl though; it went to the New England Pats. At least it was Philly they were playing, not Green Bay. And there is a definite vacuum once football season is over. The eternal and existential questions arise. What’s it all about? Is there a God? Is there life after death? Does anything matter?

And then there are all of the wonderful quotes. Hunter sure knew how to sling ’em. I like them to the point that I used more than one in The Fat Man, under chapter headings. (Just like old times—I don’t know why writers quit such a lovely gesture.) Here’s one as an example. “I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”  That’s the lead for Chapter 23—The Hero In Heroin.

So here we are, once again contemplating life, death, and what happens in between. Who better to guide than someone who observed life in all its normal, its glory, and its ugly. And by the way, Hunter, we’re still here waiting for the answers we sent you on ahead to gather. Let us know, huh?

berfrois

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Reflection & Syncronicity

I was reflecting on the old home town, and the photos arrived on Facebook. That is such a lovely gift from the Universe. (Although and until I’m sure that the waters did it—moving from one place to another as is its way.) The view below is of Riverside Park, where so often we went with parents and children and sometimes to eat a lunch and watch the river flow by. The view behind the eagle and the street lights is as the street moves up through the town.

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Bob Good Photography—La Crosse, WI—Riverside Park

 

And below is the photo of the Mississippi with the La Crosse bridge in the background. With the bridge seen from this perspective you can see how the one-way pattern of each blends together to create a lovely picture. That effect cannot be captured when viewed directly with the traffic flow. The photo was taken from the back of a boat so that is the wake from the motor that we see curving out behind the boat, in front of the bridge. Another lovely merging of arcs. Viewed as a whole, it appears to form a circle. The river, the bridge, the sky.

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Bob Good Photography—Mississippi River Bridge—La Crosse

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Oh Boy and What?

The Heck! You say

So I was off for the very long weekend of Memorial Day honorariums. And I traveled in silence, unconnected. How incredibly other-worldly it was. Beautiful and filled with such lovely journeys in mind and spirit and body. Travel on lakes and notes in music. Companionship and dog days—swimming and the joy of chasing sticks. How we swam and explored and drifted.

And then the dog and I returned to this place of our very own moorings.

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Cuyahoga Valley National Park post

And heard what happened in our absence. Withdrawal from the Paris Accord? Ben Carson saying that poverty is a state of mind? Mike Pence saying that climate change is just a leftist issue, not of concern to anyone else. Sometimes keeping your head in the sand, your feet in the water, and your head in the sky are where we belong. That our boats may sail on.

 

 

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About Concentration, and Quotes

Photographer Alan McFadyen estimates that it took him some 4,200 hours and 720,000 exposures before finally capturing this perfect photo of a kingfisher’s riveting dive.

Wired

Posted by “Wired” Magazine

This is why ’tis said a picture is worth a 1000 words. And about that quote, everyone from Confucius to Napoleon has been credited. Indeed:  Ivan Turgenev wrote (in Fathers and Sons in 1862), “A picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound.” So, a whole bunch of people said it. But this photo proves it.

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Words From Bobby

And my aunt Sooky

BobbyDMost people think that only driven artists who don’t work in the public area are truly doing what they want to do. Not so, my aunt Sooky would say. She was a biologist. Yet more (possibly) improbably, at moments in a spiraled upward life, research biology. Yes, in a lab. Dylan’s words reminded me of Sooks, and I’ve not thought of her in years.

When I was very quite young she used to come to our house and stay some weeks in the summer. I loved seeing her, though I never quite understood what it was all about. In retrospect, I do believe she came to recharge, unwind, balance herself. This she did primarily in our back yard on a beach blanket. Whilst holding a Carling Black Label beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. She was tan and wore a boob tube. Her hair was fairly short and curly. Dark, like she was. Of course I adored her. And brought her the beers from the kitchen when she needed one. Periodically she would jump up and run for her travel bag, retrieve a large leather notebook and write something in it. Sometimes that would put an end to the sunbathing and she would spend the rest of the morning or day in the kitchen at the table, writing and sketching. More than once Mother would set the table in the dining room and we would have our supper there, leaving Sooky undisturbed at the table. This, to me, though without the words for it at the time, was the consummate work passion. It invigorated her. It left her smiling.

I don’t know how much relaxing she did, or how restored she was when she left, but she always left smiling. And she said wonderful things that sounded wise, and made me want to be her, to live her life. Sooky said things like the Dylan quote. And, if you’re doing what you want to do, enjoy doing, it’s not work at all. Sometimes they pay you for having fun. Think of it! What joy.