Caveat: Tree #851

This tree saw that I have attached a sail to my treehouse. Nah – just kidding. It’s a temporary tarp roof, because it was sprinkling rain while I was working on it, but it was partly sunny today, too. I made good progress.
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picture[daily log: walking, 3.5km; banging and sawing, 8hr]

Caveat: Poem #1750 “Brought low to earth”

ㅁ
The slug proceeded down the forest path.
It was a leisurely, one-footed stroll.
The sky attempted rain. But nature's math
miscalculated, missed that hoped-for goal.
Instead the damp air licked at leaves, and clouds
just hovered low and ominous, like ghouls.
In trees the birds made plots in secret crowds,
and droplets hung, undried, from leaves like jewels.
I took a walk, then, clearing out my mind.
The patterns shifted. "That's quite strange," I mused.
The randomness of things seemed all designed.
These apophenic turns kept me confused.
And meditating thus, a hole I'd dug
appeared. And so I fell. "Well! Hi there, slug."

– a sonnet in iambic pentameter.
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Caveat: Tree #846

This tree joined its generational cohort to attempt to repopulate the gravel of the driveway on lot 73.
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picture[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 7hr]

Caveat: A quite belated obituary (Professor Hernán Vidal)

I have no idea what caused me to suddenly google his name. I had some stray thought, down the path of Latin American literature and history and the intertwining of ideology and criticism – a flashback to my grad-school brain. And thus I learned that Professor Hernán Vidal had passed away some years ago, on August 15, 2014. That’s already almost 7 years ago.
There’s no need to record his career and life – others have done better. There’s a short but heartfelt obituary by Professor John Beverley, here. All I meant to record here on this blog is that he was one of my favorite and most influential teachers in all my years at college at the University of Minnesota. In fact I only had one class with him, plus a kind of unfinished, ongoing independent project that meant I met with him frequently for about a year after that class. I took him for a survey course related to Liberation Theology, taught in Spanish, but, interestingly, including English-language texts – it was my first experience of writing academically in Spanish about non-Spanish topics, if that makes sense. I believe I wrote my final paper for that class on Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.” I also recall it was the first class (and last!) for which I read a text in Portuguese – I’d taken “Portuguese for Spanish-speakers” the summer before, and so I was feeling hubristic about my capacity in that respect. I read something by Leonardo Boff, the Brazilian priest and “Liberation Theologian” who’d been “silenced” by the Pope for his radical views. I suppose I’d been drawn to that text, in turn, because I’d actually met Boff once, in 1986, at the Mexico City Quaker Meeting, of all places.
Vidal was one of those charismatic, riveting teachers with whom you feel as if you are always hearing something profound. It really wasn’t that his observations were always profound, it was his “angle” on them: always insisting on remaining aware of a text as being in dialogue with the wider world, with other texts, with its intended audience, with peripheral audiences.
One interesting tidbit from Beverley’s obituary, that I’d never known: Vidal had been a Buddhist for the latter part of his life – perhaps only after I’d known him, which had been in the early 90’s. Specifically, his Buddhism had intensified during a bout with cancer. That presents a very striking parallel to my own life, one of those eerie synchronicities one runs across.
 

Caveat: Tree #844

This tree (it is a cladistic tree diagram) demonstrates that “tree” is a false category. Learn more at the blog where I found it: there’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically).
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I don’t often mention (because it’s rarely relevant) the fact that I was only one course short of a botany minor in college. And despite that, I’m terrible at identifying plants. I was better at the biochemistry and cladistics stuff.
picture[daily log: walking, 3km; banging and sawing, 4hr]

Caveat: Tree #843

This tree (well, group of trees) is merely a group of seeds in a baggie. I purchased some exotic tree “seed kits” to try to grow here. It’s too difficult and expensive to get saplings delivered, so I thought trying to grow a few interesting trees from seeds was the best, inexpensive option. The seed kits include the seeds, a little mini greenhouse thing, some specialized soil and such, and detailed instructions. I got 2 coast redwood trees and 2 eastern maple trees. The seeds in the picture are redwood trees. We’ll see if I can grow actual trees.
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We had some cessation to the rain, so I worked outside on my treehouse while Art got reoriented to life-at-Rockpit.
picture[daily log: walking, 2km; banging and sawing, 6hr]

Caveat: Poem #1743 “El vaquero de Gojangú”

ㅁ
 Como estamos descansando
 quisiera en este canzó
 contarles lo que pasó
 allá en el llano a un vaquero,
 nombre de Che Quim el fiero,
 p'acá de Gojangú andó.

– un fragmento poético en métrica romance.
I wrote this bit of poetry in around 2015. It’s a bit complex in terms of what it’s meant to be – it’s a fragment of a poem embedded in a fiction, so it has its own “author” within that fiction. I had been quite involved in creating fictional “wiki articles” about one of my imaginary countries, at the time, and this poem occupies that space. I still have some of those wiki articles hosted on my own wiki – here is the article about this poem. Note that the poem’s protagonist, Che Quim, is a “fictional character” within the broader fiction that is the enclosing wiki article – if that makes sense. He’s doubly fictional.
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Caveat: Tree #842

This tree is now committed to summer’s eventual arrival.
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Speaking of arrivals, Arthur arrived safe and sound at Klawock airport. He declares that he is “done with traveling” for a long time.
picture[daily log: walking, 2.5km]

Caveat: Tree #840

This tree saw the boat once again exit the barn, and perch at the top of the ramp in what seems a slightly precarious way. There’s a strong rope around the back of the boat, so it doesn’t go sliding off into the sea in the event that there is a failure of the trolley cable – something I like to worry about but which has only occurred once (last fall).
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picture[daily log: walking, 2km; wood-chopping, 2hr]

Caveat: Currying Favor With Myself

Arthur is adamantly opposed to curries. Because of this, and since he’ll be back soon (Saturday), I decided to make a fish curry for myself while it’s still just me alone here. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever made a fish curry. I’ve made chicken curry many times, and veggie curries of various kinds, and once I think I even attempted a spam curry, because living in Korea, one sometimes suffers a surfeit of spam (spam “collections” are often given as a gift). Anyway, I decided to make a Goan-style fish curry.
I made my curry paste first – using my stylish pre-war Korean blender.
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Then I put it all together. It came out very deliciously.
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In other news, I parked the boat on the ramp, so I could clean out the boathouse a little bit, and also assuming Arthur will want to take the power-washer to the bottom of the boat – though personally I’m skeptical that will make any difference with respect to the crusty barnacle-footprints that remain all over now that it’s mostly scraped.
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What I’m listening to right now.

BAND-MAID, “Thrill (スリル).”
Letra.

つまらないノイズかき消すように
イヤフォンの音上がて
やつらが転ぶ隙狙ってる
Hey you 聴かせるわ

いつだってそうこの世界 は Faulty
立ち止またっら out of control
暴走気味と罵られても
I don’t care 踏み出せ

I’ve gotta be on my way (HEY!!)
真っ平らな道に 興味は見当たないの
Just breakin’ new gate (HEY!!)
“後悔” という陰謀の魔の手 かいくぐって
この上ない快感はスリルと共に 生き続けって

見たくもない光景 ばかり
四角 に閉じ込める
小さな空に弧を描く鳩
Who are you, 見上げるは

もがいたってそう リアルは Steady
自己暗示しても out of control
涙じゃ救われないなら
もう Enjoy 味わえ!

I’ve gotta be on my way (HEY!!)
答えのない 恐怖は狂気に変えれば いい
Just breakin’ new gate (HEY!!)
真っ白 に 消し去ったページ は 破り捨てろ
覚悟 の 先 へとスリル と共に 身を捧げて

いつだってそうこ の世界 は Faulty
立ち止ま たっら out off control
暴走気味と罵られても
I don’t care 踏み出せ

I’ve gotta be on my way (HEY!!)
真っ平らな道に 興味は見当たないの
Just breakin’ new gate (HEY!!)
後悔 という陰謀の魔の手 かいくぐて
この上ない快感が あたしを走らせる
覚悟 の 先 へとスリル と共に 身を捧げて

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Caveat: Tree #839

This tree was seen from the deck of the Fireweed Lodge, a resort and restaurant in Klawock. I had breakfast there this morning with my coworkers – they tend to schedule full-staff work get-togethers for breakfasts, before the store opens. I had never been at Fireweed before, but it’s pretty famous hereabouts.
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picture[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 7hr]

Caveat: Poem #1739 “숙제”

ㅁ
선생님, 왜요?
숙제 할수없어요.
그래서 미안.

– a pseudo-haiku in pseudo-Korean – because I sometimes still dream I’m in a classroom in Korea. Here is an English-version pseudo-haiku, which approximates the meaning.

ㅁ
But, teacher, why me?
I couldn't do my homework.
So, sorry for that.

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Caveat: Tree #837

This tree oversaw the greening of a huckleberry bush.
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Meanwhile, in my garden, there was some critter that had been breaking into the greenhouse at night and eating all my newly-planted radish seeds. So I borrowed a couple of Art’s mousetraps and set them in the planters. And lo, this morning, a very fat-looking dead mouse was caught in one of the traps.
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Meanwhile, what with it raining today, I went down a kind of rabbit-hole on my server stuff. I built an email server. I’m not sure it will really work, or even prove useful. But it might – a lot of the problems I’ve run into with developing my own websites has been a lack of an email system that I fully control. So maybe it will work out.
picture[daily log: walking, 2km]

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