Our little haven, this remote little town of wonder, is getting a dog park. Who knew? It took outsiders, yup, those folks who move here from *somewhere else* and who have *weird accents* to push the populace into approving such a thing. The best news is - it’s a couple blocks from our house.
All my dogs will benefit from dog park excursions and exercise with other canines.
Good deal.
Whoa Nellie. Got the new Mule fiction loaded at last. The Dead Mule issue for June will have 1/2 its fiction on the 5th and the other half on the 15th. Just finished adding photos, including a nice bunch for Kevin Blankenship’s hauntingly beautiful chapbook. Now it’s time to move on back to the Art House Coop projects and to my own assemblage art.
Have begun a “sketching” class. Invited Next-door Peggy to start going with me but don’t know about her summer obligations elsewhere.
Will load photos of latest work in a bit. Rob and I are anxiously awaiting the ginormous box of ephemera we won on a recent ebay auction. It’s coming from Canada, so we’re trying to be patient. Read about it here on the Assemblagist site.
So, now I’m keeping up The Mule on Facebook and LinkedIn, writing the Assemblagist blog, this blog, reading/editing/accepting and publishing Dead Mule writers AND training El Roxanne the Amazing Puppy, all the while keeping existing Jack Russells content and exercised, working on 3 projects for Art House Coop, creating assemblages out the wazoo, helping Rob scrape and paint the exterior of our house, playing with grandsons,
and
working on a new fitness program with Rob.
That’s about it for an update, ya’ll. Read the new Mule tomorrow. Great Fiction. Pleasant Essays. Kick-ass Chapbook by Kevin.
Becoming annoyed with Cash in the Attic because the geegaw auction is proving unintellectual, I peruse the Guide and find
oh yes, it’s true
The Blue Dahlia is on TCM. It’s a fine morning visit with Veronica Lake. Mother never liked Alan Ladd. She had the oddest reasons for her approval. Hated Sinatra (he was a thug, Daddy said he had “small man syndrome”), thought Alan Ladd was a “pansy” (this from a woman born in 1917- to Mom, “feminine” men were not gay - they just weren’t rough and tumble John Wayne-ish characters), and Spencer Tracy was a gentleman, despite his affairs of the heart.
She absolutely adored Jimmy Stewart and Danny Kaye. In the early 1950s (pre-me), she and Daddy ran into Kaye in the O’Hare airport. He was gracious, kind, and even spoke with Ann. Mom said he had the largest hands, but he was so gentle when he shook Ann’s hand.
Rambling on to chance meetings - a few years later, some other airport - my parents fielded me, brother John, and Ann through waiting area. Story goes - Richard Nixon was there. Shook my hand.
Airports just ain’t what they used to be. There’s a whole series of posts waiting in the back of my mind about airports, my brother and Daddy, and how it was, then. Airports were like train stations. Romantic. Now they’re just annoying.
Re-read Rob’s blog post from a couple years ago on my failed attempt to fuse plastic bags. It made me smile - the memory of it all. I’d copy/post it here but grabbing the images and recreating the spacing would be a pain in the blog… so read it here.
Poet Losse has a marvelous interview published today on Very Like a Whale. It is a wonderful thing, having a poet as one of your best friends. I would wish such a fate upon everyone.
I plan to keep publishing as many and as diverse a group of poets from the south as I can until we decide we’re ready to archive the present Mule. I’m not sure when that will be. I think when our ten years are up, we may decide to put the Mule out to pasture. I’d like our April 2017 Dead Mule to kick butt like a donkey, jackass and a mule combined. But that’s just dreaming. In other words, I want to go out with a bang! I want it to make the Washington Post. Big Washington. Not Little Washington. At least Silliman’s Blog.
Late Sunday afternoon I took 3 small boys for a walk “in the swamp” across the street from the river house Matt rented for Mom’s memorial weekend. Bayview, NC.
That’s one story, but telling that part of it is the set up to this - extremely muddy upon return, Ollie (age 4) takes off everything but his Bob the Builder big boy underpants. I created a fishing pole for him with a bubble blower wand and fishing line and a plastic geegaw. (a MacGruber-Nana moment)
He stood on the sea wall looking out over the wide expanse of the Pamlico Sound, watching the sun go down, swinging the pole so the line wrapped around him and the toy slapped him, then unwound and repeated in opposite direction.
All the while playing a kazoo with the same “zoooot zoot zooooot” song.
One hand with the “fishing pole” and another on his butt, scratching a bug bite.
A most excellent child moment. I don’t need a photo to “see it” again.
New work online at my assemblagist.org site. I kinda’ like it, but it’s just a peek into Dr. Eckart Finial’s work…
I learned no one gets to stop for death.
When someone is dead, only the body is buried
or burned.
I can listen to Winter only so many times before it loses
effectiveness
or the dogs demand out or the cat cries for a morsel,
anything
just please goddammit feed me
and turn off the fucking Vivaldi for crap’s sake,
the record is scratched and skips.
Momma, she signed her cards Momma.
Daddy signed Valentines with EL.
Cleaned out Momma’s books today, a card fell out,
and there he was.
Ever Loving.
Daddy screamed at me for the first time in my life.
Momma kept a journal.
9/18/1981
“Hearts do not break,” my mother said. “That is a silly and dramatic fallacy.”
But I know they do.
The sound of breaking is very soft –
It is like the breaking of a butterfly’s wing - almost a sigh
I heard it for the first time on August 12, 1928 when I looked at my brother getting off that train from Birmingham.
And I heard it again on May 5, 1975 - inside me.
What I want to know is this
After 365 days fill with sorrow,
do I have to start all over again or can it be finished?
Valerie MacEwan: Writer, Artist, Possum Aficionado, and All-Around Neat Person