Photo of the Week 6/6/10

Cambridge, Idaho Town Water Tower, with clouds

Saturday afternoon, June 5th

Please check out today's post at The Days of Wine & Roses; it's the next poem in the A Few More Fold-Out Postcard Sonnets series.

Sepia Saturday 6/5/10

Good morning & a happy Sepia Saturday to one & all.

In a continuation of my mother’s photo album, today I’m featuring my maternal grandmother, Inez Atkinson (née Putnam). Inez was the only one of my grandparents I ever knew—in fact, she lived with us since before I was born in 1956 until her death in the summer of 1967. I have strong memories of her, but I was a child—less than 11 years old when she died, & she was in a hospital for some time during the spring & summer of ’67. What do I recall?

Inez liked to walk; before the feebleness of old age really took its toll, she would walk along the highway that ran past our house. It was not so much traveled in those days; I actually remember when I was very young running to the window to see cars passing—interestingly enough, not unlike the road I currently lived on (& I believe the Saxtons River Rd also was unpaved when I was a toddler). She also loved to collect rocks—she kept part of her colelction in a wooden box in her bedroom. In fact, she would even patrol our unpaved driveway with her stout hickory cane in hand, looking for more specimens. I still have her Golden Nature Guide of Rocks & Minerals.

She liked to visit antique shops—there was one in Westminster Station that we often frequented—it was run by an older gentleman named Graham, & it had the most delightfully musty odor. I don’t know what she purchased—I actually think Mr Graham may have sold some rocks—but I know there were old postcards there & I was fascinated by them—another old postcard connection relating to my mom’s side of the family.

I remember too that she used to recite “Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross” while dandling me on her knee. On the other hand, she often seemed remote, & I seem to recall she had a temper. Of course, she was elderly when I knew her & for the last few years, in poor health that eventually degenerated into a form of senility that seemed quite frightening to a child.

What was Inez like as a young woman? I know very little about her younger life. I know she married a man much older than her; she was born in 1881, while my maternal grandfather, Joseph Atkinson was born in 1868. My mother doesn’t speak of her too much—I sense there was conflict, & that my grandmother may not have been “maternal” in a traditional way. I do know she spent all of her life in Massachusetts, except for the years she lived in Vermont toward the end of her life—& even then, she often spent summers in Quincy, Massachusetts with my Uncle Joe; this continued until she couldn’t travel.

She seems well put together in these photos, if a bit stern of aspect. Yet there’s a warm smile in the picture below with a young Vera to the left & her husband, Joseph to the right. Based on similarities to other pictures, that snapshot may have been taken in 1913—it was almost certainly taken before my mother was born in early 1916.

Inez was very Victorian in her morals—I believe my mother & Uncle Joe had quite a strict upbringing, & I know Inez was not altogether keen on my father—he was from a lower class, Irish in large part, & born Catholic—all strikes against him, I believe, in her book. Truth be told, he was also quite a hell-raiser in his youth, so perhaps some of Inez’ misgivings can be forgiven!

Hope you enjoyed the photos; I should note that I have a gig today, so I may be late in catching up on Sepia Saturday comrades. However, please be sure to check out other Sepia Saturday participants here.

Photos:
Inez
Inez (L) & Joseph (R) with a stringer of fish; don’t know the man in the middle, nor did my mother
Vera, Inez, Joseph & ?, probably 1913

Homegrown Radio with Earl Butter: 6/4/10

Happy Friday all! Here we are with the very first edition of Homegrown Radio. We’re all pretty jazzed about this new ongoing series, & we hope you’ll enjoy it too!

In case you missed our teaser post about the series, Homegrown Radio will appear each Friday morning with a home recorded song from one of our musician friends. These days home recording can be sophisticated or basic or lots of things in between, & we’re up for pretty much anything just as long as it wasn’t recorded in a professional studio setting. One musician will be featured each month, & this month we’re very fortunate to have Earl Butter as our inaugural Homegrown Radio music-maker.

If you lived in the Bay Area in the 1990s, there’s a good chance you’ve heard, or at least heard of, the Buckets. There were a lot of talented bands in San Francisco & environs at that time, but none could rock the house any better than the Buckets, with frontman Earl Butter. Earl wrote the songs & sang them & also held forth on his Telecaster. If you’re into cowpunk, alt-country, Americana or just plain good music, you really ought to consider the fact that you could own one or more Buckets’ cds. Two recent releases, Sod & Silo are available on CDBaby, while their self-titled debut album is still available on Amazon at bargain prices. I’d give all three very high recommendations.

After a recent stint with Joel Murach & the Low Rollers, Earl Butter is doing some home recording; very much in the miniature vein, but short or long, Earl's tunes are always catchy. In fact, this month, we’ll get a “two-fer" of Earl Butter's music each Friday because the songs are short—double your pleasure, double your fun.

Earl tells me he’s “creating up a storm,” & goes on to tell us about today’s two songs:

These were all recorded on my macbook, in garageband, either with an sm57 or the pinmike. Pork Sandwich was the first one I recorded. These songs are all unwritten. They are songs I found myself spontaneously singing either to myself or my cat, usually right as I got up and was getting ready for my day. Pork Sandwich is probably a little earlier than that. I remember, I had written it in my head, and taught Dani Leone to help me sing it so I wouldn't forget it. When I went to record it, I couldn't figure out the chords, and had Joel Murach come over to help me. That one has a mike to it. Although it is the first night I used garageband. I did the verses just a few minutes before, but the words were still sort of coming to me as we recorded it.

My Happiness is the most recently recorded, but it has an earlier demo done on the same night as Pork Sandwich. That one's biggest idea is that I wanted to hear the percussion from Magic Bus, but couldn't find any claves. Once I got them, I found they are hard to play. I used the claves, and an egg shaker. But put them through a bunch of garageband effects for fun, and I think it is funner because of them. I bought the stylophone recently when I couldn't afford the keyboards I really wanted. I said, I'm buying something! $19.99 or something. It's a fun little retro-synth.

Enjoy the tunes!

My Happiness



Pork Sandwich

"O Hell"

Good morning! Here it is, the first Thursday of the month, & as such, time for a featured poem by this month’s featured poet—who is Mina Loy.

“Wait a moment,” you say, “this is like déjà vu all over again. Wasn’t Mina Loy last month’s featured poet?” Of course you’d be absolutely right. However, I’ve decided that two poems by a featured poet just isn’t enough. On the other hand, I like only having two featured poems per month because it frees up space for unscheduled posts. The solution? Each featured poet will have a two-month run, so those of you who enjoyed Loy’s poems last month (& in her earlier appearances on Robert Frost’s Banjo) will have two more to enjoy in June. Once again, I’d encourage anyone interested in Loy’s work—& to my mind she is one of the truly great 20th century poets—to look into The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy, edited by Roger Conover. Loy’s poems were out-of-print for years, & we are very fortunate that this lamentable situation has been rectified.

“O Hell” was first published in William Carlos Williams’ journal Contact in 1920. Loy could be a very sensual poet—in fact, some of her work, including the great poetic sequence Love Songs to Johannes, was considered shockingly graphic in its day. This short but intense poem gives some suggestion of Loy’s focus on the corporeal.

Enjoy! & be sure to come back tomorrow for the kick-off of Homegrown Radio!


O Hell

To clear the drifts of spring
Of our forebears’ excrements
And bury the subconscious archives
Under unaffected flowers

Indeed—

Our person is a covered entrance to infinity
Choked with the tatters of tradition

Goddesses and Young Gods
Caress the sanctity of Adolescence
In the shaft of the sun

Mina Loy

The image is a drawing by Loy titled “Consider Your Grandmother’s Stays”

Sailing at Night

Good afternoon, friends! This post is somewhat in the way of a test in preparation for Friday’s new series, Homegrown Radio. If you’re seeing the post, it most likely means the test was successful.

& if you’re curious, the embedded mp3 is something I came up with a couple of years ago when Eberle & I were writing music for a dramatic production of Tove Jansson’s novel, Moominpappa at Sea. It’s a simple thing played on the baritone uke—two chords (as I recall, & for those who care about such things)—C, in several incarnations, & D minor (ditto). It was literally a case of having those chords & 3/4 time in my head & turning on the recorder. I think it worked out ok. Can’t recall if I’ve used this music as a slideshow backdrop—if so, my apologies to long-time readers!

Hope you’re having a nice day.

Adams County Makes the News - Council Leader #12

The Council Leader
Published Every Thursday by the Council Publishing Company
Fred Mullin, Editor

December 13, 1912
EDITOR ROBERTS TAKEN TO TASK

To Frank M. Roberts, Editor, New Meadows Tribune
My dear Mr. Roberts—
What a pity that Governor Hawley did not know of your wonderful ability to figure at the time he was appointing officers to look after the affairs of the new county of Adams, for had he known of your peculiar ability along those lines he could have appointed you to look after the whole thing, and thus obviated the necessity of any further appointments. But I don’t suppose, come to think of it, that one with your recognized ability along that line would have the time to spare to look after a little thing like the county’s affairs except as a sort of side line in connection with your voluminous business.

Let’s see, first I believe you said the county was $10,000 in debt, then when you found that could hardly go through, I believe you figured the county $10,000 behind and thought surely that magnificent brain of yours would be exhausted by that time, but in that I find I had greatly underestimated the amount of figuring the gray matter in your cranium was capable of, and in this issue I have before me now, I find you have figured the chairman of the board and the county clerk Mr. Holmes are just plain ordinary liars, and have gone yourself $5,000 better and now have the county either behind or in debt $15,000. Don’t you know that if people who don’t know you should read these articles they might be foolish enough to believe them?
Just a hint to the gentle reader as to why all this tempest in a teapot, which has been stirred up by our friend Roberts. Misrepresentation as to county finances must be scattered throughout this county in order that dissatisfaction may be engendered so that when the legislature convenes it will be easier to get a good portion of the people of this county to consent to another county division scheme, in which they will be asked to trade their birthright for a mess of pottage. A word to the wise is sufficient. Look before you leap and be sure you know where you are going to land.

Geo. S. Mitchell
Chairman Board County Commissioners

February 8, 1912
NEWS FROM BEAR

P.L. Gaarden, who has been working in his mine at Deep Creek, spent a few days last week with his home folks at Bear.

Wallace Matheney and Frank Whitcraft each delivered a load of posts to Billy Wilson on Hornet Creek the middle of the week.

R.M. Barbour of the Crow’s Nest passed through Bear Saturday on his way home from the county seat where he had been on matters of business.

Archie Bardmas of Bachelor’s Flat attended the literary at Bear on Saturday.

Frank Whitcraft departed Wednesday for Brownlee where he will look after some horses he has there, and do a little trapping in the meantime.


Prof. Grant spoke to a small appreciative audience at the Bear schoolhouse Sunday evening. Preaching next Sunday evening at the usual hour. Everybody come out and hear him, it will be well worth your time and trouble.

April 18, 1912
LOST BROTHER

Postmaster, Council, Idaho
Dear Sir:
I am trying to locate my brother, Pat Carroll, who left his home in the town of Elbridge, New York, 28 years ago and went to Fargo, North Dakota, worked there as a farm hand for ten or twelve years, going from there to Montana, and from there to some big valley in Idaho, the name of which I never heard. He was in this valley twelve or fourteen years ago and may be there yet, as I have lost all trace of him. He was about 5 feet 11 inches tall, with black hair and, I think, black eyes. He would now be forty-nine years old. Will you please let me know if you ever knew him or if you can give me information concerning him. Please give me any information you can.

Sincerely,
Charles H. Carroll
Auburn, New York

August 27, 1915
APPRECIATE THE LEADER

Every week when the Leader comes there is a wild scramble among us home folks to learn the latest about our dear brother and son, Frank Galey. We are tickled to death to learn that he has a girl in Caldwell, for we are awful anxious for Frank to get married. He sure needs a wife. We learn from the Leader that he has gone to the big show at Frisco and in your columns we are more or less able to keep track of his movements. A couple of months ago we got a brief note from him written on a small square of tissue paper and we got the idea from that that he was still in the valley. Please put a special reporter up Mill Creek and give us lots of dope about Frank. Thanks ever so much for the favor.

His Family,
Pittsburgh, Pa.

compiled by Eberle Umbach

"Dating Poems" (installment #4)

[Another of L.E. Leone's Dating Poems - enjoy!]

JOE

No, I didn’t like the way
you touched my face,
first date, at the counter and
without tenderness. More like
testing
a piece of fruit.

I’m sweet I’m soft
I’m bruised I’m ripe
I’m hard I’m furry
sticky crunchy juicy,
I have a hole in me
from another piece’s
stem, the sticker will
be hard to peel if you
wash me first, and

there might be a worm
in there. True, I’m

nutty buttery bananas
to your waffle, Joe,
but I ain’t fruit,
fuck you.

L.E. Leone
© 2010