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"A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes– it’s a love letter to someone I haven’t met yet."
CarrollBlog 7.17
Line of the day-- I did someone a favor and they said thanks, I'll worship you till the end of the week.
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The old people just barely moving down the street on their own power, or using walkers to get around. What great courage it must take to leave your house knowing how extremely frail and wobbly you are, but still saying I need to get there so I'm going. That struck me today when I saw a very old woman inching down the street on a wheeled walker and stopping for a rest every few steps. I wonder if I'll have such courage when I am that old and infirm.
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I have very little hair yet whenever I go to buy shampoo at the drugstore I am invariably frozen in place trying to decide from the enormous variety which one to choose, and that's just something as trivial as shampoo. While teaching I used to say to the students you have a choice-- you can go to a restaurant that has two things on the menu-- steak and fish. Both are delicious and perfectly prepared. Or you can go to a restaurant that has a menu forty pages long, all of the offerings delicious. Which do you want? Usually the kids opted for the long menu despite the fact choice can be confusing and ultimately disappointing. I used to agree but I don't know anymore. A lot of the time I prefer the restaurant that offers only two things and since I don't like fish, it's that much easier.
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from NG. Look at all of them:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0716081shirts1.html
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRNb64RgZ6Q
CarrollBlog 7.16
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2008/07/young-artists.html
CarrollBlog 7.15
IN SUMMER
by Jay Leeming
We stood naked in the grass, ice-cold water spilling
out of the green hose you held, water
that bit me dumb, that rattled and satisfied.
Dried mud ran from my shoulders and chest.
If we said anything then it was lost
in the hot noise of August, in the buzzing
of the cornfield around us. No one but me
could see how your body shone
as you reached out gently to brush
the last dirt from my arm. Your eyes
avoided mine. Do you
remember? We stood there a moment
dripping in the hot sun
and then you dropped the hose into the grass.
CarrollBlog 7.14
Now that it's summer I see him almost every night at the crummy pizzeria. He has his outside stammtisch (reserved table) right beside the door. The owners of the place, an Indian family, treat him especially well because he is their only constant customer. You rarely see people from the neighborhood at the restaurant because their food really is bad and most of us know that by now. But the owners are nice people and I am always glad to see their tables filled. He only seems to drink wine. I have never seen him eating although he stays through dinnertime well into the evening. You can only guess at how much he drinks every night to stay there hour after hour watching the movimenti on the street. I walk the dog past that place and without thinking check to see if he is there. He always is and it makes me feel better. He's in his place; he's where he wants to be. Often I've wondered who he is and what his life is like. Why is he always alone, and what does he do in the winter? Does he sit inside this restaurant then too, or in a more cozy cafe somewhere in the neighborhood? He never reads anything and never seems to talk to anyone. If we make eye contact he glances a moment at me and then spends more time looking at my dog. And now I am wondering what he would think if he knew I was writing about him tonight for you, the only audience he will ever have.
CarrollBlog 7.13
MAN IN A LIGHTED ROOM AT SUNDOWN
by Jay Leeming
To him is denied the soft bewilderment of dusk,
the slow drifting of his room out to sea.
He doesn't see the shadows joining hands to become the night,
the question of noon unraveling behind a chair.
Instead he knows a room bright as an eagle's eye, lit by a lamp
that is all yes or no. Yet as he lies down to sleep
the requiems between the stars move closer
to rush in, as he clicks the switch, like the dark ideas of thieves.
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I forget if I have already posted this but it's worth seeing any time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX8sbNgEk4g&feature=related