Things can change so suddenly

Thinks sure took a turn since April. Not with the program even yet though I guess I will eventually be okay.

In May, we found out Mom was at the end stage of one of her conditions. Only 19 days later, under the gentile  in home care of hospice, she died just the way she had wanted to go - at home. Not many get that wish. It was the hardest, saddest month of my life and June was a close second to it.

We didn't have a service right off. To accommodate various folks who wanted to attended but had some problems with timing, Mom's graveside memorial service wasn't for another month, finally held in the middle of June.  It was a service full of difficult poems, thoughtful metaphor, woven together by Master Integral Coach Reggie Marra who officiated. My cousin Jim did a really stellar job on the eulogy, commemorating Mom, not as she was most recently - but as she was in her hey day.  And then there was music by fellow poet and songwritter, Shijin member, former director of the CT Folk Festival - Alice Anne Harwood Sherill. Amazing Grace and Simple Gifts. I cried and cried.

I am doing okay. Finding out what I have to do. Frankly when nobody is around my face is still stuck in deadpan - even when I am not feeling badly - it seems to be the underlying condition for now. I take little steps. I carry little boxes. I breathe in. I breathe out. One foot follows the other. And so it goes.

Can't say enough good things about Regional Hospice and Home Care. I couldn't have lived through May without them. Hugs to everyone.

Staying home and not driving is GREEN

I have a new double rationalization for being a recluse.

Because of Facebook (which I am not on right now) and other internet connections, I get invited to a lot of events by poets and musicians I know.  As a family caregiver, if I don't get out sometimes, I have only a mostly deaf 80 year old for company. And that can be daunting. So I have to go out as much as possible for my own sanity.

Yet somehow, for me getting out is always tricky. A) I am reclusive, and by nature tend to stay home and putter. B) I have family caregiver duties and getting out requires timing, setup and/or advance planning for outside help.  C) Conserving resources is a priority. E) Often despite my efforts and intentions, some last minute problem keeps me home anyway.

Increasingly, the merits of driving far seem doubtful. The news about methane, fossil fuels, sea level rise, and the slow march we are making to possible oblivion is not the cheeriest. And the economy is pretty bleak from my point of view.

So now, whether  I stay home by choice, necessity or purely by accident, I have this new comforting rationalization: I think, well, at least I am not spending money on, nor burning fossil fuel to get to some near but far location.

As a part time recluse, I enjoy many solitary pursuits. painting, drawing, writing poems and songs, taking walks, blogging, tweeting, thinking, yardening, reading, watching netflix, music practice etc etc.  None of these require driving.

Balance is the thing though. Like everyone else I need to see other humans and so I do go out, though I try to make it local. So to all you promoters of far-flung events - I  appreciate the invites and heartily wish your events flourish. That said -- I am so sorry to miss your bit, but these days I am often to be found closer to home.

After saying all that I suddenly have an intense desire for a road trip :)

Location location location

 A cactus has been lurking silently in the backroom of this residence for as long as we have lived here. It was a gift from a former friend just before moving here. The damn thing lived on and on - longer than the friendship which gave way and finally collapsed under the weight of unfulfilled expectation. I rarely do the expected thing, or the polite thing. Some people want me to conform

 It didn't bother the cactus though at least not for many years. But even a cactus requires attention in the form of light and water once in a while. The blinds were opened, The pot was behind a pile of books. It didn't get water and the sun shone on and on. I forgot it to death. It happens. I just watered it though it is pale and brown. Just in case there is a tiny spark left. You never know.

.

Philosophy from my past - a 1982 journal entry

I found an old journal of mine in the basement - a book in pen on paper. Some entries I think I will post. :)

This is the very first, from January 4, 1982 -- long before blogs, before cell phones, before I had email, or even a computer.   I was fighting sadness:

     There are no whys.

     There are only nows,
     spanning eternity end to end,
     like points in a line, infinite,
     yet each in strident isolation.

     I am sick of whys.
     Whys stink of pain.
     Give me distraction: the eternal present.
     The kingdom of contentment is "NOW."

     Life needs no reason.
     Life is reason enough.
                   
                           -- Mad Mar (Mistryel) Walker

Seeing through the haze of actions and reactions

This digital abstract represents something for me today, namely - how hard it is sort through what is actually happening between humans.  Sometimes a person wants something from you - but it isn't obvious what that is. Sometimes you answer a question with what you think is your fairly simple reaction and step out into a mine field of replies.

It's hard to know what to make of it all. It feels like this picture, as if you were trying hard to see the simple line drawing or pattern through all this colorful and busy fog.

And in this technological world, sometimes technology allows people access to you at all hours, in a way someone you weren't particularly close to would never have had only a decade ago. Electronic communications can arrive when you are tired or half asleep or ill. They might seem to alternate between mild friendliness and something bordering on an aggressive insistence.  I have to learn not to check my mail so much and not to reply to email after say, 10pm. or before 8am. I really have to learn that. Like I had to learn not to pick up the phone and let it roll to the answering machine so I can deal with whatever it is at a later time when I have recently counted all my marbles and know where they are located.

Technology can also complicate things. Right under the "To" field in Google's webmail there is a line that says "Send also to:" which is followed by a list of people you might often email at the same time as you email the address in the "To" box.  If you have an oversensitive trackpad on your laptop (as I have on my Chromebook), you might hover a fraction of a second too long on the way to the Send button and find you've wisked an extra recipient into the "To" box.  Ah well. The kaffuffle is on - it always is I guess. Maybe life is just an extended kaffuffle.  hmmm.

The picture was created and edited on a phone, and then in enhanced Picnik back when that was available.

2011 - my personal year in review

When 2011 arrived I don't think I made a single resolution. There's just no point, as I break them all

, and if I say let it be a year of ___ inevitably it turns into a year of something else. So instead of my resolutions for 2012 (of which there are exactly none), I am thinking about what I accomplished in 2011.

A year without New Year's Resolutions is not an emply year. I finished a whole bunch of paintings in the first four months of 2011. That's the time of year when the sun comes right in the front window and the light is really fresh.

I did a lot of poetry slamming this year for the White Plains Slam team beginning with a regional 4-way slam at the Bowery Poetry Club in January and another in July. I did a short featured performance before the first ever  slam in June at the Veterans Memorial Center in Harrison NY.

Twice this past year I read poems at Free Poets Collective events - art-based poems written specially for the events. One was in April at the New Britian Museum of American Art another was in October at Broad Street Books in Middletown for a Celebration of Women Beat Poets/Writers/Artists. Thank you Colin and Yvon.

In July I started playing out at open mic nights again. I won a nice gift certifiace at the Tuesday Night Open Mic in New Milford. (still have to use it....) I did this on and off again all year, at Hideaway, Molten and one more in New Milford.

In August 2011 I officially became a National Slam Poet. I went to the week-long National Poetry Slam in Cambridge as a competitor on the White Plains Slam team. It was more fun than I expected.

The 2011 White Plains National Slam Team

Being at a National slam makes you a witness of sorts. You hear poems from all sorts of people, widely varying circumstances on all sorts of difficult topics. You become a witness to their stories and many were stories i had never heard first hand.  After this experience I find I am much more likely to look with friendly inquiring eyes and not look away. When I see strangers I am always wondering now - what's your story? What's hidden inside you?

I also got some great pictures of wild archetecture on and near the MIT campus, some crazy scuptures and paintings, got to see the MIT museum which is filled with intricate amazing robotic mechanisms.

So Thanks Zork, LV, Jonathan, our coach Bram and of course to the nameless guy who arbitrarily quit the team because he didn't want to be on NPS's favorite good-spirited losing team. This kind of brings things full circle for me as I quit the CT team as alternate in 1997 and Victoria Rivas went as alternate instead. Sometimes you get a second chance.

In September I read my comic erotic story Lipolt and the Amazons at the Erotic Literary Salon in Philedelphia, where two of my fellow Shijin also read. Thanks Erobintica for setting that up.

In November 2011 I finally finished my second chapbook Tabernacle of Bees (which I had been ignoring since 2009 when I began the project. ) I have printed out the first 25 copies and more are on the way.

Not only did I finish it - I sent a copy of Tabernacle of Bees along with a copy of my 1998 chapbook Inverse Origami the art of unfolding to Poets House . On Dec 23 I recieved word back that both would be added to the inhouse collections there and that Tabernacle of Bees will be on display this summer along with other chapbooks published in 2011.

In December I officially retired as Wednesday Night Poetry's web mistress and email update sender. I had been webmistress for most of the last five years and I think that is enough typos and photo changes, and governance committee discussions for anyone. I have passed the torch and the secret handshake or whatever to Derek, Lisa Marie and Christine. I will still maintain the new archve site at wedpoetrypast.wordpress.com. (regular updates are not required....)

Late in the year organizers asked if I would donate some music performance to the Molten Java send off bash on December 18. (The Cafe is moving from 102 to 213 Greenwood Ave). So I played a 1/2 hour gig of my own original songs for the event which went fairly well - despite me being in less than good voice.. I also got to see some fabulous acts -  Michel Rae, Marc, Joey, the Molten Jazz Trio, Burnkit2600, the Hip Replacements and many more during that event.  And  I'd like to take this space to thank the nine people who came out just because I invited them. Thank you all so much - seeing your smiling faces made it so much easier to do!!  As a consequence of video from that performance - I cut my damn stringy hair into a very short punkisk cut.

Finally - I have to note that for the fifth year running I weigh a little bit less than at the start of the year.

So,  bring on 2012.  What will happen? Don't know -  but I'm pretty sure something will!

Duct Tape Improvisations

From the Archive:

A few weeks ago, on a rural/suburban road I noticed a pitiful mailbox that had been hastily repaired. It’s a simple, stubborn fix, born of a determination not to let the wreckers win. That’s a sentiment my father would have appreciated.

We lived in the middle of a long dark stretch of woodsy road, and our mailbox often fell victim to the excessive exuberance of youths with unsafe levels of testosterone and beer in their veins. Once, a family who lived four miles away called to say they had found our mailbox, crushed to sheet metal, and tossed onto their lawn in the middle of the night. It was the fourth time that summer our mail box had been assaulted. Once it was blown to shreds with an M80.

In response, my father fell to clenching his teeth and muttering down in the basement. He had something more substantial than duct tape in mind. For weeks he worked to construct an impenetrable mail box fit for the great age of the vandals. He added steel plates to the ends of a heavy gauge steel pipe. One plate was mounted on a heavy spring so the Mailman would have to pry it open to insert the mail. What my father had in mind was Roadrunner and Coyote. In particular, the scene where Coyote raises his baseball bat, but the Roadrunner suddenly steps aside. Coyote, swinging for all he’s worth his a big rock instead of Roadrunner. Cartoon shock waves travel up his arms until his whole body shakes. My father planned a stealth execution of this script. He intended to wrap the steel pipe with a regular, vulnerable-looking mail box to lure the villains. Unfortunately he died before he could put the thing up. I often wondered if the extra stress contributed to his early death.

In Dad’s reckoning, making needless work for someone else, was a theft of their time and effort. “Don’t make work for you mother,” he was always telling me sternly. We put up the steel mailbox for a few months without its stealth covering. As fate would have it, a plow knocked it over. Though the plow driver apologized, the original vandals were never found. Now, twenty-five years after the great steel mailbox caper, I wonder if somewhere, somehow our vandals have mailboxes of their own, and a baggy-pants, spiky-haired teen with ear buds dangling is unknowingly getting even for Dad with a quart of green slim or a quarter-stick popper.

---- Mar Walker, 12/3/2006

Earthquake? Tree Sculptures?

I was minding my own business yesterday, sitting at my desk/worktable dabbing a brush at a painting. And I heard this rattle. First I yelled at the cat. Then I thought there must be a large squirrel or two in the attic. Then I noticed the desk itself was in motion and I looked over at the back of my computer stand and the cords were swaying as if a strong wind was blowing past them.... I was sure a huge truck must be backing slowly in to the house without realizing it, so I ran outside to stop them before they knocked it off the foundation.

 It was a beautiful bright day. The mailman was talking special delivery with the neighbors, no trucks in sight anywhere. "Did you notice anything odd, just now," I asked. "I think I heard a large truck go by," the mailman said, handing me the mail as he does everyday.  hmmm. Of course, an earthquake (5.9 on the Richter Scale) had occurred just then, its epi-center in Mineral, VA. Today, I asked him, "How bout that large truck we heard yesterday?" He just laughed. "And to think it came all the way from Virginia!" he said. You just never know.

The photo shows a giant tree-trunk sculpture called Smoke Jumper by Joseph Wheelwright which stands outside of the Katonah Museum of Art. Mr. Wheelwright does amazing things with natural materials. Somehow this giant "ent-like" tree man looks like the earth shifted under his feet, and he has momentarily lost his footing.  (Though as a smoke jumper, maybe he is walking between the flames or just touching down to earth.  Still, he's perfect for an all natural earthquake post.) Five of these giants will remain on display at the museum until May of 2012. Remember the Ents? They were tree people from the Lord of the Rings. Anyway be sure to visit Joe Wheelwright's website and check out his amazing work. (http://joewheelwright.com)

Unexpected sights: wild mix & match

The other day, a drab day, I saw a wonderful eccentric sight in the grocery store, that cheered me immeasurably. It was like I had moved to some  Caribbean island nation on perpetual vacation. Or as if the sun had suddenly emerged from deep fog. What I saw, was a pre-occupied grey haired gentleman (or perhaps rascal) with a beard and sandals who was sporting a wild wild shirt. I loved the sight so much I had to take a picture, though I took pains to not show his face to preserve his privacy. Thank you so much dear sir, you made my day so much better.  I left the store humming.

2010: art shows R us

In the beginning of 2010 I wrote - "Let is be a year of music!"  Instead for me 2010 was a year of Art. It was the first time in decades I showed my artwork in a Gallery.

,First I showed  a drawing called Aspects of the Self one drawing at the Frieght Street Gallery during their May Day Festival show: This was an amazing thing. No one had seen my work, except digitally, in years!

Later in May I showed one of my polymer faces during the Artwell Rocks show in Torrington. I was on a roll whoohoo!   The work was called "The British Invasion: 40 Years Later."

During the summer, at the request of Victoria Munoz, I brought three works to hang at Freight Street during one of her poetry Salons there. I brought my Dancing Poems collage, Hair's on Fire (an oil pastel) and  Water & Fire, a digital painting.

For Artwell's Landscape and Still Life in Septemeber, I brought three works I had finished recently, all oil paintings on canvas board: Between the Darkness and the Deep, Rural Free Delivery, and River of Sky.

I created a special work for Artwell's DaDa show in November. New Era: the Eagle Egg Shell Breaks, and a found art peice  called congress which consisted of twisted spring wires from an old couch.  It's been a good year!

Going WAY back here - my first oil painting

I have always been a fan of brown in all its zillion permutations with raw and burnt umbers and siennas rich as compost.

This is my first oil painting. This was painted during a Painting I class with Robert Alberetti at Western CT State U - decades ago. The actual painting mildewed and was tossed out. All I have is this rather blurry snapshot - which I scanned into the computer and digitally signed in Picnic.  The wonderful thing about Mr. Alberetti's still life setups was that the objects were all so beautiful and compatible. My rendering of them is forgettable but forgivable considering it's a first attempt.

P.S  - the blurry snapshot does it a service in my opinion, i.e. it looks nicer in the photo.

Box-o-phobia

Sometimes I feel like I am caught in a box. There are certain aspects of my life that I cannot change right now and I fully accept that and embrace that fact. But something somewhere in my world needs to change to ward off the building comatose stagnation in my personal air..
.
My immediate reaction has been to change things that can be changed until I feel that I am out of the box. So lately, I have been changing my blog names and url addresses in a Kaleidoscopic manner. That hasn't really been satisfactory - though I am pleased with the results. Other things may begin changing as well. Everything I am involved with is up in the air with me at the moment.

Stuff on the fridge door

Today, I thought I'd catalog the refrigerator door. There are other items up there but these are my favorites:

"Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand."
"I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!"
"Trust everyone but brand your cattle."
"There are two types of people in the world: Those who leave a mark and those who leave a stain."
"Show me a day when the world wasn't new!" - B. Hance
"You can touch the dust, but please don't write in it...."
"I don't mind sit, but you can forget roll over, fetch and beg."
The text of a poem, Reality TV
"Life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself."

Offline, life is better

Though I am unemployed, I am not unoccupied. My life has taken on a certain friendly rhythm.. I get up in the morning, get coffee and study my current row of unfinished paintings. I ponder them, and what needs to be done to them in the beautiful morning light. Besides daily tasks and occasional errands and things to take care of,  for the last few weeks, I have basically been painting all day from 7 to 3 pm. as if it were my job.

Only then -- after 3p.m. do I  allow myself to go online. I used to be on all day -- let me repeat ALL DAY!  I would CHURN in that endless internet way -- where by you feel like you are working at something, yet afterwards you realize you have actually done nothing and taken all day to do it..... I am not twittering, nor facebooking, nor chasing down endless email items all day.  Not that those are not interesting - but they need to be balanced with something physical and real. They need to be contained by limiting the time spent on them. I don't know about you, but I need other things in my world. I have stopped joining various membership sites online as well, and unjoined a few.  You can't be everywhere....

Now at the end of the day, I can look and see what progress has been made. That is, what concrete physical changes have been made to the paintings at hand.  It has made life more simple and less stressful, and made me a bit quieter at heart. In this crazy world, that can't be bad.

Tinnitus - these ubiquitous bells

This quiet morning, with a low sun and odd grey sky, I clearly hear the roar of highway and also a ninth chord of bells inside my head.

For many years I've had a common and incurable phenomenon known as tinnitus - which is a ringing sound in your ears, often related to hearing loss, blood pressure, allergies, or sometimes brought on by dozens of different medications.

I think of it as the hum of the universe. I guess more properly it is the hum of the "innerverse."  I find it comforting to  know everything is circulating and my inner machineries are on with their usual whirl .  On most days  this ever-present accompaniment fades to the background, becomes unnoticed. Today I am noticing it more than usual, though  I don't find it unpleasant.

Not everyone is amused by this malady. It drives some people crazy and they go to great lengths to find a cause and to mitigate the sound, sometimes with electronic devices that make still more static sounds. For me, as for many, the cause is unknown.

It's funny how what one person finds comforting, drives another to distraction. Life is like that I guess, what with all the little preferences we hold.

The photo is a reflection of a patron at the Blue Colony Diner in Newtown. The overall effect of each tiny light, with its reflection in the double-paine glass, reminded me a little of the layered ringing sound. She also appears to be covering an ear.

Comments are welcome.

-- Mar Walker

Terrifying realities

It must be frightening to live in a world where you are positive there are no muffin cups and baking muffins in one of those things you love to do.... And in the store your hair-brained ditzy daughter says "but we have several boxes at home." And you say, "No, we don't have any, I know what I am doing! You can be sure of that!"  And you get home with the new box of muffin cups, and when you go to put it away, you open the cabinet door and lo -- there are three unopened boxes. That must scare a person right down to their slippers. Enough to push all four boxes behind the olive oil spray and close the cabinet door and never mention it again. At least until the next time you think there are none.

At the Monday J-Cherry Open Mic

Went to Middletown Monday night to check out the J-Cherry Anything-goes Open Mic at the Buttonwood Tree. I found at least one person I know there -, that wildman beataphile poet Sympetalous. He gave one of his energetic type 60's style poetry performances.  The posting below which I found on YouTube is not the performance I heard. But it gives you the idea....

hhttp://www.youtube.com/v/ZJdcEGBFBnM&hl=en&fs=1&

  As you can see from this video, one really fine feature of this open mic is the music folks will sort of jam behind the poets, so Stan had a backup band more or less.   This also happened behind a poetess who's name I am not sure of. It worked out fairly well both times.  They have congas, and some chime style percusion, sometimes someone has a keyboard or a guitar etc.  You really don't know what will transpire here. Once a musician named Tom who had improvised an a capella  song, got up and tap danced!

Got a chance to hear a relatively new duo Spencer and Sparks. Their harmonies worked very well and they sang original material. They are working on a CD to be out soon.

I played three of my original songs,  I Bet It All On You, Love Makes You Free and Wishing Stone. and plugged my myspace page.  I was a little surprised to get up there and find behind the music stand, a tiny olympus digital recorder with its red recording light on.

You can hear one recording of Spencer ad Sparks on the event's myspace page  where some of those recordings end up.  And as you can see from the video above sometimes someone puts it on YouTube as well.

This  did give me pause for thought that anytime you perform in public someone maybe recording you with one these tiny devices or with their phone - and if you are having an off night or just testing something out - well, some one posses it out there.  Maybe without your knowledge or permission.  Anyway its something to ponder in this new world file sharing world. And even before the recording question came up - it's long been a world where  singers and  bands cover their favorite famous performers and never ever credit the actual songwriter......

Finally, a good night of sleep

Focus has always been a problem for me. As a jack of all trades, a casual experimenter with various art materials, technology and software - I find I am always spread too thin to really get into the groove of doing.

I currently have too much raw video
I have been staying up late, fiddling with the Wedpoetry.net website which was moved this week from blogger to wordpress.   I have been staying up late, and rising early for several weeks.

Last night, around 10:30 I laid down, just for a moment and woke up this morning feeling really good. I slept in my clothes, forgot the dog, (who i have to wake up to take out anyway..)   It seems we were both better off after a full night's sleep. Dog investigated the yard this morning, casually, without being in a hurry, and took care of business.  I think maybe I am going to try to get to bed earlier.

Mail Snoopers, Identity Theft, A Locking Mail Box

Monday, I answered the doorbell to discover a visitor with my family’s U.S. Mail cradled in one hand while the other hand flipped slowly through the first class envelopes. This is the second time I have found this nosy individual going through the mail. Getting caught garnered neither an apology or an explanation, not a blush or a fumble on either occasion.

I have done my share of house and pet sitting, and done numerous stints taking in mail. I have retrieved mail for friends and neighbors. I just don’t look at it letter by letter – it’s not my business even when I have been asked to retrieve the mail – unless i have been asked to watch for something in particular.

But this person has not been asked to bring in the mail and it is none of her business. I am very offended by it. And TAMPERING WITH THE MAIL IS ILLEGAL!

And I thought, if this woman is reading the envelopes, what is she looking for? Is she planning on Identity theft? I didn’t think so BUT it did raise the question – who else might be pawing through the mail without ringing the bell?

So I went to Lowes the same day and spent $27 on a locking mail box. You can’t tell it locks until after you lift the lid. Would love to see her face when she realizes….

15 Books that stayed with me over the years

• The Greek Way (Hamilton) I read this in high school, and it gave me the crazy idea that I should try different things. (Try reading my resume...) The ancient Greeks believed in the well-rounded man who could recite a poem, play the lyre, make a speech, etc etc etc according to Hamilton. Jack of all trades master of none, oh well....
• The True Believer (Eric HOFFER) I read this book right after I dropped out of born-againism around 1972. I think it made me wary of other fanatical things I might have fallen into....
• Utopia Minus X (Rex Gordon) Science Fiction, and now out of print - people are codified and some people are classed X because they don't fit. Hmmm . Classifiable folks get to live in Utopia, the oddballs get launched out into space....
• The Adogmatic State (Apostolos N Depastas) This one also reenforced the dangers of dogmatsm in a cultural sense rather than a personal one.
• Working (Terkel) I didn't read this until later in my job-hopping life. Too bad. What a great project.
• Times Arrow (Martin Amis) In this book, time runs backwards which is the only way the life of a Dr. Mengela makes any sense - he takes the dead, broken or tortured and turns them back into whole human beings.
• The Road to Wellville (TC Boyle) OMG. This is the funniest book and makes you not want to take any claim at face value. Oh for a good colonic... haha
• Does Poetry Matter? (edited by ?) This book is a series of essays by different people on the meaning and function of poetry. And yes it does too matter!
• Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) Whitman goes with Turkel's Working somehow. Leaves of Grass is a celebration of the everyman...
• Why I am not a Christian (Russell) Two other books on this line that influenced me were The American Religion, (Harold Bloom) and the Lucifer Principal (Howard Bloom)
• Mount Annalouge (by Rene Dumal) Hmm. Holding the incongruous and eccentric, striving for metaphorical heights, but helping on the way up and down.
• Owning Your Own Shadow (by somebody johnson) At some point in your life, you might find that this slim volume is worth a library of self help books. A novel I read around that time was The Man Who Would be Thursday by Chesterton? which featured the idea of a doppleganger
• Pale Fire (by Nabakov) This is the first book I had read where the narrator cannot be trusted to tell you the truth. But you don't realize this at first. Slowly it dawns on you that the narrator is fabricating.
• Einstein's Dreams (by Alan Lightman) ...a series of vignettes portraying different imagined mechanisms of time and their effect on a town or a few individuals -- written in a clean yet lyrical way.
• Labinrynth (by Louis Borges) A collection of his short odd works. The Garden of Many Paths. etc My dog orginally chewed up seven of my hats, then abruptlly switched and pulled this book out of the book shelf and chewed it to shreds. I was so upset I bought a crate and crate trained her....)
• On Writing Well (Zinsser) This guy's advice can enable you to trim Doughboy prose into a jaguar..... Other than the inestimable Jack Sanders, I can't think of anything that has changed my writing more. Hmm - a reread may be in order.

-- Mar Walker