Category: Environment

Posted on

A Walk After Goulash With Brillat-Savarin, Blackpink, Walt Whitman And Tomas Tranströmer.

After a meal, a walk helps aid digestion, at least, that’s what I’ve been told repeatingly, and as Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin writes, ‘Man lives not on what he eats, but on what he digests,’ says an old proverb.  We must therefore digest to live: rich and poor, king and shepherd are equal in the face of … Continue reading A Walk After Goulash With Brillat-Savarin, Blackpink, Walt Whitman And Tomas Tranströmer.

Posted on

Spring Lamb With Roasted Vegetables, Agnus Dei, William Blake, the Tenebrae Choir, Broadway And Seventeen Years Of Therapy.

Spring lamb.  First born and first kill.  Three to five months old and now on our table, well one of its legs.  An offering for new growth and warmer days.  Flesh and sign of a flayed god and his ascendance into blue skies.  Once upon a time a celebration at the end of fasting. The … Continue reading Spring Lamb With Roasted Vegetables, Agnus Dei, William Blake, the Tenebrae Choir, Broadway And Seventeen Years Of Therapy.

Posted on

W.S. Merwin And A Walk Into The Deep

Still a ring of water, a mirror for the sky amidst the ice, but more and more melts each day now and shadows have the sun to thank for shedding its grey veil.  A shadow now has its rock. In reading W.S. Merwin’s “The Widow” from The Lice, the first lesson is humility. How easily … Continue reading W.S. Merwin And A Walk Into The Deep

Posted on

March Dust: W.S Merwin And The Precariousness of What We Haven’t Done.

The end of March juggles winter and spring, often choosing both.  Ice and melting ice, snow and melting snow, bare branches and first blooms, and over all blue, blue sky and marshmallow clouds.  W.S. Merwin’s poem, “It Is March” from The Lice muses on appearances and disappearances, revealings and vanishings. It Is March It is … Continue reading March Dust: W.S Merwin And The Precariousness of What We Haven’t Done.

Posted on

What The Boys Said To Homer: W.S. Merwin’s The Lice And Our Fragile Place In The World.

Rock, shadow, hole in ice, ring of trees, sky.  W.S. Merwin passed from this life into the further reaches of Hawaii last Saturday.  Certainly one of the great poetic voices through the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st, Merwin captivated readers with his consummate literary skill, knowledge of literary traditions ranging through … Continue reading What The Boys Said To Homer: W.S. Merwin’s The Lice And Our Fragile Place In The World.

Posted on

Traveling Through Winter Dark and Light With Samuel Beckett And Assorted Food Options.

Hours from now I’ll look at my aisle window and believe it’s Venice instead of Stockholm, eighteen-hundred and forty-six instead of two thousand and nineteen, and I’m navigating channels on a gondola in the “City of Water” on my way to a ball in ‘Going to the Ball (San Martino)’.  Also, my name is Joseph … Continue reading Traveling Through Winter Dark and Light With Samuel Beckett And Assorted Food Options.

Posted on

Vinter Och Glögg Or Post-Impressionistic Impressions of Ice-Jacketed Branches And Sideboards Or What Happens in Sweden On Christmas Eve.

Winter is here. Frozen, snow-covered branches and needles fill windows round the house.  Winter as my eyes, memory and all those ice-covered roads masquerading as neural networks fashion winter.  Cold on the outside?  Well, then drink a glass of glögg, mulled wine heavy on the allspice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and on and on. After a … Continue reading Vinter Och Glögg Or Post-Impressionistic Impressions of Ice-Jacketed Branches And Sideboards Or What Happens in Sweden On Christmas Eve.

Posted on

Cooking the Bog. Day Two With Rust Cohle And Bosnian Rainbows. Darkness In The Wetlands.

Outside the winter wetlands of Sweden continue to breakdown animal and vegetal matter into a rich loam feeding tree, deer, duck and wandering humans.  Inside, I continue to enhance the decay of the world in a pot. A crucial step in the final bog, that rich gumbo broth, occurs with the making of a roux, … Continue reading Cooking the Bog. Day Two With Rust Cohle And Bosnian Rainbows. Darkness In The Wetlands.

Posted on

A Walk Through Leaves Then Snow Then Vinglögg Or Seventeen Ways Of Looking At The Svecofennian Orogeny.

Trees branch across land, sea and sky here in the northern fall as you walk leaves floating in front of your face and those already at your feet; all that crumples, all that pushes upward. Lakes rustle in northern light trying to stretch and warp; roots and trunks bending like a bow. Indefinite set theories … Continue reading A Walk Through Leaves Then Snow Then Vinglögg Or Seventeen Ways Of Looking At The Svecofennian Orogeny.

Posted on

Smoking Houston

Fire, wood, smoker and flesh equals Smoking Houston, and smoking I have done with and for family and friends while sitting in the backyard at 2408 Cortlandt.  A favorite has been pork belly marinated in apple cider, brown sugar, honey, molasses and herbs seasonings. Smoking the inner organs of animals like this cow heart brings … Continue reading Smoking Houston