Alien - a poem from Inverse Origami

Alien

This world is humming and busy
but i am alone,
apart,
vapor,
a trick of light.

People chat easily on balmy earth
while I sit condensating,
turning to ice crystals
out here on Neptune.

I try to speak, to make contact
but my protective helmet
takes up too much space
calls attention to itself
with its enormous nest
of convoluted filtration hoses.
The compressor
roars in my ears.

- October 1996

- a poem by Mar Walker

The picture, a custom digital drawing by the poet appeared with the poem in the book..both appear on page 16 of Inverse Origami...

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding

--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998

Puzzled Dragon Press

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Crafts to tea tasting & hiking Candlewood dam

At  Brookfield Craft Center's current show - Jump - The Synergy of Connection - which has to do with the substance of links - some of glass, clay, metal or mesh - you can find a vest made entirely of soda pop rings. Who would have guessed?

While there last Saturday, a friend, Anne Marie Marra and I struck up a conversation with a fellow craft admirer. She told us she had just come from Simpson and Vail - the tea company, and had tasted a tea or two. It was less than a mile away - so naturarlly that was our next stop.

Simpson and Vail sits on the quiet bank of an old quarry pond - so the tea contemplation begins before you enter. The atmosphere within is friendly, and heavily scented with exotic teas. Many of the tea pots on display are works of art.

Newly caffinated by this visit, we were still in need of a trek, and drove north to take a hike down to the Candlewood Dam. This earth dam was constructed in the 1920's. It was far longer a trek than I remembered - (though I am rather whimmpy!!) When we finally walked out onto the dam, my friend was stunned to see streams of water shooting out of the pipe that leads down to the power station below. The first time I noticed this, it was winter and these min-geysers had created a lattice of ice sculpture around the the pipe. I was so concerned - I went home and called up the Candlewood Lake Authority to inform them the pipe had leaks.

The man who answered the phone laughed as he assured me that was the normal condition. The water cascading out serves to dampen the pipe and keep it moist for - amazingly - this section is not made of metal, but of thick staves of wood - like a giant barrel or oak cask who's sections can not be allowed to dry out and separate.

After our trek, we went to a little restaurant for supper. After ordering, we were surprised to see Mia Farrow and several family members stroll in, and sit down for a meal just one table away. We didn't look, nor comment as everyone is entitled to have quiet meal without being gawked at.

All in all it was a pretty interesting day. Got some great video of the dam which I may post after a while.

A different sad eye (singular)

One digital eye, which I made sometime ago in the old saw, mspaint. It was originally a bmp file. Don't stare... The eye is a potent symbol, peers forth even from the dollar bill where it eyes the world from a pyramid. This post is from the old Gallery blog.

Maisey at the Sun

Since Maisey doesn't ride the bus that far, and doesn't drive on the highway, my Christmas gift to her last year was to drive her to the casino this year. Now I am not a gambler - at all - I simply don't have the dough to lose. Also - I really don't "get" it. Should I be in possession of a dollar in change I am thinking I about getting a cup of coffee... not finding some burbling slot machine to feed.


So yesterday I brought a newspaper, and my camera. The rules say that you can take pictures but not right in the gambling areas on the floor of the casino. The leaves the walkways, the restaurants, shopping concourse, hotel lobby, the foyers for the various entrances..... The photo above is from the hotel lobby. The shot to the right is the waterfall that flows in between the the escalators to to the lobby. There is eye candy everywhere in this establishment.

Ethanol - more short-sighted foolishness

Think Ethanol will save us from big oil? Ethanol IS big oil and big money.

Naturally our All-Cronies-All-The-Time government gives conservation credits to energy businesses that BURN UP a crop that used to provide cheap food for people around the world. Plans for several proposed Ethanol plants by U.S. campanys have been put on hold in the last month because the rising cost of corn is now making Ethanol untenable as an alternative fuel.

It wasn't so long ago that vegetarian argument against eating beef was that it used up too much of the world's corn. Science says you can grow more pounds of human being per bushel of corn, than you can grow from that same corn, if the cattle eat it, and then the humans eat the cattle. Or course how many miles per gallon does a human being get exactly? Haha. Yikes what a world.

I heard there is a plant going in in New Milford, or proposed for that town, that would create energy out of weeds. Not sure what to make of that yet.

Danbury Women’s Center Poetry Reading -Tea, Poetry, a little sketch

I heard FIVE poets read today along with a friend. At the Danbury Women's Center's Tea and Poetry event, I heard Doris Henderson, Rebecca Dobson, and Lynn Deming read their work. At the Hudson Valley Writers Center I heard Stephanie Lenox and Denise Duhamel. I think I have poem overdose.... At the last reading I make sketches of the two poets. Got a nice sketch of Denise Duhamel. If I can get it scanned I will post it. Tea could be imbibed at both events.

Poetry works well with a cup of tea, a comfy chair. Tea and quiet can brew peace, imaginings, a drawing, reflections in the glass. This is charcoal, gesso, pencil and water color pencil and it was made decades ago in the late 1980's in the house where I grew up. In fact in the room, that was my room before it became a den.

The Beinecke Library: treasure under glass

This past week, on Thursday and Friday (3/14-15/08) I attended a conference "Metaphor Taking Shape," which was arranged by The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale in New Haven .

The library building itself was one of the high points for me. (I have addressed the conference itself in another post....) The Beinecke features an interior core of books many floors high behind an inner glass cube. In the right hand photo, you can see one of several inviting leather couches on the library's mezzanine. Behind it is the glass cube with rows of bookcases and books with spines facing out, creating a stunning visual. There is a walkway on each tier so the books on the exterior shelves can be accessed. The large photo  above has an oddly tipsy view and it features the lovely repetition of squares in the building design. You can also see the building's luminous marble side panels, the square forms on the ceiling as well as the glassed book cube. The angle is odd, even dis-orienting I admit, but it's still somehow pleasing to my eye.

To the right is a better view of the luminous marble which on a cloudy day is as grey as the sky. From the exterior, the building is beautiful in its symmetry, but the interior is still the most spectacular view. The design specifically shelters and protects the Beinecke's book collection from damaging sun.

I snapped these shots on Saturday - the ides of March (haha) when a few of the Shijin took a little tour of the library's exhibits and some other New Haven spots. While my friends were pondering the book-show for the conference, I got out my camera. (It's surprising the many delicate places you can take photos as long as no flash is used. I also took a few in the Yale Museum of Art. I asked in both places.) I should note that I use a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 . It takes six meg pics and is obsolete according to Circuit City. However, it has a Leica glass lens which takes marvelously readable pictures in low light conditions -- perhaps not the kind of photos a real photographer takes - but adequate for my purposes.

-- Mar Walker