the tortoise initiative

Ordered a Bowtie

2012-01-20T09:39:00.000-08:00

I ordered a bowtie on the online. No returns. Looked like a good tie and the price was right, so there I was shopping for haberdashery on the internet.

It arrived as inconspicuously as possible, but the crime was blatant and it wasn't a pretty sight. It was a pre-tied, clip-in-the-back abomination.

There oughtta be a law against that kind of false advertising.

from ali : kickstart to the new year?

2012-01-18T08:26:00.000-08:00

(shamelessly cutting/pasting recent writing from the personal blog)

I am pecking this out with painfully slow consideration on my aging iPhone, a stuttering thumb war for remembrance on a doll sized keyboard. Each word, too, is jarred by the interruption of a nose thrust into my elbow with clockwork regularity - a wet nose, alternately snuffling inquiry or suggesting with various degrees of forcefulness an alternative activity in the form of a much-loved and consequently tooth-pocked rubber ball.

The damp nose and equally damp ball belong to Chester. They are essential parts of his evening routine, a routine consisting primarily of loose-limbed ambling from one room to the next, broken by sudden spasms of gymnastic, clawing energy aimed nose and teeth first at the unsuspecting ball or an unsupervised pair of rolled up socks or that most treasured of fleeting toys, the stray leaf snatched discreetly mid-toilet breaks or tandem walks. Acorns, too, and fraying bits of stick are smuggled in - and once, nearly, a dried out mud dauber nest - cherished contrabands, deliciously forbidden diminutive playmates to be tucked away innocently between paws and carpet when he raises a self-conscious gaze to meet my silently laughing one.

It is this almost human gaze that surprises me the most, seeing comprehension and strangely familiar emotions now flickering in mute eyes that were once just bright little brown buttons of generic puppy cuteness, as broadly adorable as those on a grocery aisle Hallmark card. They have become pointed with personality, at times conveying unmistakeable boredom as he throws head down on paws and sidles out a heavy sigh and sideways shrugging glance towards and then immediately away from my deeply uninteresting human busyness; at others, taut with accompanying full-body alertness, following every sway of a toy dangling in mid-air before its inevitable fling across the room or field; illumined with utter unspoiled happiness too in these moments, and always roaming the hope of them at me later, offering the argument with a nudge and peaked eyebrows that surely there is nothing more joyful in life than playing. (About which he may be right). To be fair, too, they can infuriate me, crackling with unmalicious but exultant defiance as he dances just beyond the reach of a confining leash or reprimanding hand - but when, or rather if, the hand has finally made its point, they are quickly downcast, only tentatively tossing upward the apologetic and heart-melting hope for restored favor... which is of course never slow to follow.

And lastly, the all important look - the one I am getting now, unwavering and urgent and often accompanied with vocal reinforcement if ineffective - the look that says it is time to visit the giant doggie toilet we humans laughingly refer to as a front yard.

"Coming home"

2010-11-30T10:07:00.000-08:00

I need help with this. I'm not completely happy with it, but I can't exactly say why. Maybe I say too much? Need to leave more to the imagination? Or is it all too out of context? Thoughts and criticisms are appreciated, I am not a good fiction writer (yet, anyway).

His feet barely rose from the hard ground.

“Stand tall,” they used to snap. “Don’t shuffle,” they’d say. “Lift your steps high.”

But that was when his hair was dark and thick and waving in the wind, when his back was straight and his eyes bright and his heart full of hope and love and promise for the future.

That was years ago. Decades ago.

The old man shuffled slow, now, puffs of dust rising from under boots worn and cracking and caked with the mud and dust of mile upon weary mile. His back bowed under a faded and patched sack, only half full. Strands of gray, thin hair escaped from his shapeless hat.

Now he came to a crossroads, where the dirt road crossed a paved highway. A truck rattled by, breaking the quiet. The old man paused, looking one way and another. He shielded watery eyes against the glare of the midday sun, to where the highway disappeared in the curve of the horizon.

The road was empty again.

“It’s the same road,” he said softly, looking at the ragged-coated dog at his side. “The same road, but it’s not the same, somehow. It’s all grown up…”

He trailed off. The dog whined. But when he looked back there was nothing there. Just dirt and weeds and sunshine and an abandoned stone house, crumbling back into the earth.

He crossed the road.

***

She sat motionless in the recliner in the front window, face turned full into the sunlight, hands resting in her lap. A blanket was tucked around her feet.

A clock ticked loudly from the mantel, beside a framed wedding picture of a girl with straight, black hair and a boy with piercing eyes. The picture was old, yellowed even under the glass.

“I’ll be fixing your lunch now,” the nurse called from the kitchen, but the old woman did not stir. The nurse watched her from the doorway, then reached for the phone.

Still the old woman looked into the sunlight with unseeing eyes, hands folded. She felt the warmth, but long ago she stopped seeing it. But as the world around her grew dim, things far away became clear.

How long had it been since she took up her post in the window, watching and waiting? But she was young then, the boy a child. Always she sat there in the afternoons, watching for him to come home from school, she told him, but everyone knew different. And the years passed and the boy grew into a man and still she watched.

“Either he’s dead or he found himself some far-away woman and isn’t ever coming home,” a young woman told her aunt one summer afternoon when the two passed on the street. “And there she is, still watching. It’s time someone told her the truth.”

But the older woman shook her head.

“He didn’t forget her. Never did a man love a woman the way he did her. Death took him for sure.”

And they did tell her, each in turn, walking gravely up the walk to her front porch. They told her it was their duty, that she was clinging to false hope, that it was time to accept what God had willed.

And she’d listen and nod with gravity and refill their glasses and show them to the door.

And she refused to wear the black of mourning.

But she never told them that at night she looked for him, running over far-away beaches in her mind, searching among the bleached bones half-buried in the sand. She searched through jungle vines, peered into vacant eyes of countless men on crowded city streets. And on some dark nights when her spirit was heavy, she searched lamp-lit homes in case someone had stolen his heart from her, too.

But she never found his bones among the others, and so she clung to hope.

Now she was old, and long ago she stopped speaking of him. But still she watched. Some people wondered if she even knew what she waited for.

But this day was different. Her anxiety was palpable. Even the nurse kept glancing out the window, wondering what the old woman knew.

She couldn’t see the robins scratching at the soft earth after last night’s rainfall. But now she saw him in her mind. And now she watched his slow progress, watched him pause at the crossroads, watched his foot catch on a rut in the old road. And with each step she willed him forward.

And when he turned off dirt road and his boots crunched on gravel, she stood, her feet following paths worn deep into her memory. She stepped out the door, down two steps, along the narrow walk, out onto the road. She stumbled forward, arms outstretched. The sun was hot on her face.

A car swerved around her, someone laid on the horn. And now the world around her was intruding, and she couldn’t see him anymore. She wavered, legs trembling. She couldn’t remember which way to go. She felt the tears come; she was too weak to stop them.

And then she felt his presence, smelled his sweat and heard his footsteps. And the old man’s steps were lighter, when he took her arm in his and turned her back, toward the old house.

“I told you I’d come home again,” he said the words soft.

***

The son walked quickly through the kitchen, to the front room where she sat day after day.

But her chair was empty and the front door stood open. And on the old porch swing he saw them, the old man’s arms wrapped around her. Both were smiling, and the years had rolled away, and he recognized his own face in the old man’s, and wondered how he missed his mother’s beauty all these years.

“Mother?” he asked, but she did not speak again.

“What did I tell you?” the older aunt asked her niece, now graying herself, at the funeral. “Such a wedding that was, years and years ago. I was just a child but even I could see the way he worshiped her.”

And when the sod laid back over the fresh-dug dirt and the chairs packed away and the flowers moved back to the house where he had played and grown, the son stood alone at their grave, reading words scrawled across pages of old and faded notebook paper, on the back of receipts and envelopes, on drawing paper and blank-paper books with the spines cracking: Words that told of a lifetime of coming home.

How to stop breathing for three minutes.

2010-11-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

The winner of the most recent three minute fiction contest on NPR, "Roosts" was read on the radio today and woke me up. I find that all I want to do now is write. Tortoise forgive me for neglecting you so.

Background info: The rules were that the story should be able to be read in under three minutes and that the first sentence be "Some people swore the house was haunted" and the last sentence be "nothing was ever the same after that".

Roosts

Some people swore that the house was haunted. Almost every day for three weeks, we'd find a dead one inside of it.

Bill wanted to chop it down, but Mother said no. "They need somewhere safe to die. Someplace warm and maybe a little dry. It stays."

The first one we found was a hoot owl. It lay inside the painted blue plywood walls, its face pressed firmly into the floor like it had been dropped from some great height.

Bill buried it behind his woodshed and we all said grace.

That night I saw the owl on a branch outside of my window. It was pale white and almost completely see-through like milk in an owl-shaped glass. It shifted from leg to leg and kept looking over its shoulder. I couldn't see what it was looking for. It was cloudy and the woods were dark.

The next one was a falcon of some kind. Shelby pulled an old bird book from the shelf and we all watched as he turned the pages until we found it.

"Peregrine," he said softly and looked up.

Bill looked closer. That bird shouldn't be around here.

We buried it and said grace, and that night it was on the branch outside of my window. The owl shifted and the falcon ruffled its feathers.

The next day we found three mockingbirds, and that night they were all there on the branch, facing my window.

"Shelby, come see." Shelby woke up, bleary, and blinked against the windowpane. "Trees," he said.

I looked, but the white birds were there. They were shining like moons and the dead leaves curled away from them.

We found a blue jay and a red-tailed hawk. We found a wood thrush, a scarlet tanger and an ovenbird.

We started throwing them in the creek. "Not too close," Bill said. "You don't want to get that stuff on you."

One night I found Bill sitting far away in the truck.

"Why are those birds coming here to die?" I asked. He looked at the keys in his hand and then looked at me.

"Here's as good a place as any. Maybe there's nowhere else to go."

Everyone stopped going out the birdhouse. Shelby would wait by the bird book and solemnly flip the pages for me until we found the right one.

The nightingale was the last one I found. I held it in my hand even though I knew it was poison. It was stiff, but the feathers felt soft and I stood there a while and stroked it. After I threw it in the creek, I turned and saw Mother watching me from the kitchen.

That night, I watched the birds in the trees shifting uncomfortably. As they moved, they left behind faint after-images and the trees flickered with them like Christmas ornaments.

When the peacock arrived, I knew it was the last time I would see them. It was magnificent. It glowed brighter than all the birds, and its tail feathers were as white and pure as flour. They strobed with electricity as it walked solemnly into the clearing by the blue birdhouse.

They lifted, one by one, from the branches and slowly circled overhead. I looked over to where Shelby was sleeping. Pale shadows flickered on the wall.

They circled through the trees like constellations. I wondered for a second if I would be lifted up with them and carried off into the woods. But I stayed.

Then they were gone and nothing was ever the same again after that.

Data Architecture for Verbal Analogues

2010-11-10T13:54:00.000-08:00

The Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus is another thing that makes me wish I had programming know-how to use my information design skills in user-interface stuff. This is a fantastic tool for anyone who is a visual learner with a thing for verbal patterns (i.e., me). Hello, creative tool.

Inspiration: Minimalist Wikipedia Banner

2010-11-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

I looked something up on Wikipedia today only to be immediately confronted with a Wiki rarity: a banner ad. Oddly enough, it wasn't intrusive. In fact, it's well designed, maddeningly so considering how little work probably went into it. Granted Helvetica font face promotes itself, being one of the easiest faces ever to read and utilize. Even so, the colorful photo with the grizzled looking mug just got my attention without revolting it away again the way most banners do. There is something to be said for the way the text runs left to right, terminating in Wales's name and pointing the viewer's eye right to his plaintive yet confident expression in what looks like an innovative working environment, albeit of nebulous nature.

The point of the banner is to drum up donations to support the unwieldy user-supported behemoth Wikipedia, founded by Jimmy Wales.

I've mentioned before that I love bands like Spoon, who use minimalism to great effect in their particular creative discipline. I will try to share more examples of "less is more" in the future. That phrase, as an ethic and aesthetic, greatly accounts for the poignance of some of my favorite art, and motivates some of my own work as well.

Inspiration: David Airey's Subscription List

2010-11-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have been drumming up creative energy for the last couple of weeks, and I have some things I will share soon.

In the meantime, however, I found myself caught in a Twitter riptide today (something that never happens to me, as I am a rather careful swimmer). After clicking, madly and mindless, to follow about eight or twelve different graphic designers' Twitter accounts, I happened across this little gem of a link.

He may have ended his entry title with a preposition, but I am not complaining. I could spend weeks compiling inspiring graphic design portfolios and sites, without achieving this. Good eye David Airey shares his graphic design blog bookmarks.

davidairey.com/design-blogs/

It's not all up my alley. But then, what is?

Thoughts on a current state of being:

2010-10-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

A combination of weakness and cowardice keeps my jaws clenched and my fists balled up by my sides. Anger rises 'til the face I try to keep calm turns beet-red and I take deep breaths that escape me again as defeated sighs. I continue hoping that things will change for the better but the hole only seems to go deeper. Kierkegaard said, "He who will only hope is cowardly." This statement suggests that I am cowardly and I am in no way in disagreement with such a suggestion. All the hoping done yields no worthy results and every word muttered contemptupusly under my breath hurts nobody but myself and my relationship with God. The hope is a placeholder for the action demanded for true growth. Progression is the acceptance of the current state of things and the ability to understand that faithless prayers and time ill-spent hinder forward motion.

Since it is all in God's hands (which I understand to be undisputed truth) then one should always be seeking truth and improvement through the implementation of healthy habits and non-destructive activity; all of which we should thank Him for and rejoice in the blessing of repetition that brings us nearer to an ultimate truth and and undying love in Christ.

[note: All of the above is directly copied from a journal entry made immediately after reading a section of Repetition by Constantine Constantus, otherwise known as Soren Kierkegaard. The vaguebit about repetition in the final line is, of course, referential to this book.]

That gate was meant to protect...

2010-08-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

We bring her to a new house with new corners to explore and a whole pile of boxes perfect for hiding and a rug rolled tight into a tunnel for ambushes and sneak attacks, and all Vesper wants is to jump the low fence into the kitchen, where appliances hide death motors on their dark undersides.

All she saw was the dark coolness calling her, a sort of tunnel her instincts told her to seek out. I saw the motors, the fan blades.

I spent all evening near the fence, pulling her down time and time again, a short-term solution to a long-term problem. I tried distraction; I tried scolding. But the only place she wanted to be was the one place I said she couldn’t go.

My husband said he thought animals must have sin natures, just like us.

And standing there against the wall, watching her obstinate attempts to cross to a place where I knew injury or death was waiting, I thought of all the times I blindly flung myself against a closed door to get something I was convinced I needed.

And I wondered what was on the other side that I couldn’t see; and what dangers lurked in the shadows of what I thought was good.

“Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you,” the psalmist writes.

Or like a ferret, also without understanding, who runs headlong into death.

Sometimes God puts obstacles in our paths to grow our strength, so that in fighting through them we become stronger, more battle-ready.

Other times it’s a closed gate to separate us from disaster.

I just hope I’m in tune enough with Him to know the difference. And that he keeps pulling me down from the fence when I get too close to the edge.

My Business Papers

2010-07-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

I separate the discipline of writing, and the art of writing, and I set them like two irons out to the horizon, to the inconvenient northerly direction of colder moneys. It's been a while since it was my job to write at work, but I find myself again pondering the keys as my fingers linger over their printed plastic concavities. Clicketty-clacketty, the keyboard goes, and I am a train running over the rails. Not one, single, wooden railroad tie is important in itself. Or perhaps each is, but I pass them, take them for granted.

This is business writing; I make business papers. I leave nothing to the imagination. I run everything firmly along the bolted ground. Are these clicking letters noteworthy? Why do I line up these words, like miles behind me, in neatness, in rows, toward a distinct end? They don't make someone think; the thoughts are all had. They can make someone notice but can't make them see. The information is placed here, to go directly there, without mystery.

Is this my creative time, when my words may go where they will go? No. Will more destinations be opened up to the mind than the number of places I am refusing to let it go? No. This is the time when I must write linear thoughts into rectangular formats, bolding the main words, and adding the figures together, till there's nothing left to be thought about, on the subject, no hope but to change the subject to something entirely more interesting.

It takes all the art I can muster not to create - not feel around for inspirations - not grow, not change. Stick to the rails,

clicketty-clack, click-clack,

for the rails go only one

(click-clack)

direction, only one

(click-clack-click) place.

Clicketty-clack, click-clack, click-clack,

and that's my reader's destination,

click-clack, click-clack,

and I will put him to sleep with the swaying (click-clack) of the rectangular four-walled boxcar, with its right-angled, locked doors, and its dusty, uniform furniture.

When my passenger wakes he will wish to step down to the platform and stretch his legs, and thank the sky and the air for still being merely there in every explorable direction. He will want to do anything but ride on a rail. He will seek any activity but reading.

But till said arrival, necessarily, I will clicketty-clacketty-clickingly tick out and away to the hard iron skyline of my business papers.

Of wild mint and berries, a bouquet of grace

2010-07-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

It’s hot, and I’m hot, my gray tank top is clinging to my back and my calves are spattered with mud from the water-logged trails of the forest I just left.

It’s cooler in there, under the countless leaves of countless trees, where ferns grow thick and moss clings to bark and stone and sunlight falls in patches. But I ended up on the wrong trail and it dumped me out here, on a winding road in the hot sunshine of a July morning just before noon, still blocks from home.

I have to hurry, which just makes it worse, because I have $2 left of this week’s grocery allotment and I want to spend it at the farmer’s market behind the bank; it closes at noon.

And I’m frustrated because I had so many good plans for this morning. I was going to hike up the ridge behind my house, find a bench or boulder to rest on, and commune with God surrounded by His handiwork, then head back down to home before the morning was gone.

But then I had three paths to choose, and I knew the left one went home but I’d been there before so I took the center – and now it was late and I never found that boulder and my own silly head narrated every step and made the silence loud.

It is the flowers that I notice first; white and lacy and, while common, pretty in a simple way. I pause to pick first one, then another, trying not to bruise their stems while I break them off, trying not to crush them with sweaty palms.

Then I see the berries, mostly red but some black, sweet with the taste of childhood summers spent fighting the fire ants and green brier for dewberries along the fence. I step further into the ditch to pluck one, and it was the smell that caught my attention this time.

The entire ditch is growing mint, tall and spindly but so aromatic as I crush the leaves, taste one, and feel the heat recede at its freshness. I’ve been dreaming of mint ever since an enterprising organic farmer handed me a leaf at an organic farmers’ market in Pittsburgh. I’ve been dreaming of planting it against the house, where nothing grows except weeds because it’s rocky and the water pours off the roof and beats down anything that tries to grow up.

And the rest of the way home I’m happy, steps lighter, smell of fresh mint added to my small bouquet giving me energy I didn’t know I had.

I’m still not sure how something as small as wild mint and fence-row berries could make my day, but they did. I spent the rest of the walk home dreaming of chilled white rum poured through crushed berries and garnished with mint; planning future visits to gently pry a few of the plants out of the ditch, carry them home; wonder how many cups of berries that one bush will give me, if there’s enough to freeze or just to top my morning yogurt-and-granola.

Now I’m still dreaming of that drink – I had to head in to work this afternoon and it wouldn’t do to mix those – and I’m also thinking how even though I’d failed to spend any time with Him this morning, anytime reading that Bible I carried through the woods or even talking with Him while I walked (my head chattered too much even for that), He still gave me the little things to make my day beautiful.

I think that’s a little piece of grace, don’t you?

(Photo credit: by me. The nectarines have nothing to do with this post, they just didn't want to be left out. More of my forest adventures are detailed here.)

The Baker Hotel

2010-07-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

On July 4th, Taylor, Ryan and Ali broke into the condemned

Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas.

The following was inspired.

Mistress

taylor

Fingertips placed gingerly on the rim of his glass he looked up at the bartender who appeared as formal as his freshly pressed tuxedo. He imagined that his head would topple off were he to loosen the bow tie for him. He took a final, deep swallow of the whiskey sour. Nodding once when the bartender glanced his way he stood, turned with an over pronounced elegance, and made for the ballroom. He spotted her across the vastness of the room. She felt his eyes on her but would not meet what she knew all to well to be his solemn gaze; a gaze lacking invitation, deep wells of regret hidden behind a stern grey assurance. Regaining his composure, slackening the tightness he felt at the temples, he crossed the luxurious Oriental rug with an air of royalty. He brushed past her without a word or side glance and approached the lobby's front counter.

"I'll have a room for the night," he said in a rich, careless monotone to the clerk who promptly presented him with the correct key in a correct manner of submissiveness.

She was waiting in the elevator when he stepped into the compartment, languidly dangling a cigarette from her thin fingers.

The operator, in a cracked voice, asked, "Which floor sir?"

Her limpid eyes locked on the key in his hand for a moment and then onto the elevator attendant.

"Seven," she answered for him.

Her voice contained a hint of laughter, was so smooth and sweet that the operator almost overlooked the mocking sneer that played on her lips briefly. Theodore looked at the key in his hand and back to the numbers changing above the sliding doors as they slid quietly past the five floors that separated the lobby from the room. As the lavish compartment shuddered to a halt the young man announced the seventh floor and prompted the shining doors to open with a few well rehearsed flicks of his wrist. Theodore exited first, tucking a crisp, rather large bill in the pale-faced operator's front shirt pocket. She snickered softly under her breath at the tip as she crossed the threshold onto the rich carpet of the hallway. Theodore trembled with an anger absent in his face's unshakable demeanor and marched with military formality towards the room at the far South East wing of the building, his building. At the door he turned to face her for the first time. She smiled and took her own key from her handbag. With apparent fatigue he followed her into the room, modest in size but exquisite in its decor. He sank into a rocking chair of glossy oak and plush brown upholstery. From the side table he lifted his reading glasses and a newspaper.

She cleared her throat and lit one of the cigarettes she kept in the drawer of the nightstand. Refocusing strained attention from the column he had been pretending to read, his gaze fell on her leaning back on her palms, her fingertips pointing away from her, the cigarette dangling from the permanent smirk she wore when they were alone. She crossed her legs and assumed a sloppy pose made enticing only by the cut of the black dress she wore with absolute confidence.

"Why do you keep this up Teddy?"

"I couldn't tell you really. I've been made a fool and I've been controlled. Truth be told I loathe you. You make my skin crawl. The air is thick with some sort of evil when you're around and though I cannot for the life of me reconcile the wrong done when I'm with you there's some latent terror of what would happen if I broke it off and sent you packing."

The corners of her mouth turned sharply upward into a smile that revealed both her overly white teeth and her malicious intent.

"I've broken you. One day everyone will know that you gave to my every whim. They'll know that I owned you."

She rose quietly with unmatched grace from the bed and seemed to glide to him.

"Mr. Kennedy is even lovelier in person than on the television. Don't you think so?," she asked returning to her innocent tone, and settled into his lap.

He cringed as she kissed his temple, her lips brushing against the frames of his glasses. She removed the spectacles, taking note of the lipstick smudged on the arm, and proceeded to set them softly onto the side table as she leaned forward to lie her head on his shoulder. She felt him quiver with unease and smiled inwardly at her ability to make him do so.

"Get out," he said suddenly, "it's done."

He pushed her off his lap and stood straight with newfound courage. The part of him she believed to be broken stood snarling before her and she knew that very moment that she loved him this way. When he stood for something he was a god. When he approached life like he approached business, with a raw masculine ferocity that swallowed up any pretense of calm and the storm began in his eyes, he was the image of Ares before trembling masses. He was rigid with decision and his eyes were merciless. She tried once to meet his contemptuous gaze with a submissive glance but found that she was in fact broken despite her best efforts. Rising to her feet with all the dignity she could muster she said goodbye and leaned in to kiss him. Theodore side-stepped her attempt and strode to the door, swinging it open.

"Get out. Now."

She, without gathering her belongings, walked, crestfallen, through the door and faced him for the last time as he slammed the heavy oak panel in her face. Shame and fear washed over her as she stepped back onto the elevator.

"To the roof please Jim," she nearly whispered to the operator.

"Here you are ma'am."

She quickly and quietly removed her earrings, a gift from Theodore, and slipped them into Jim's front pocket with Teddy's tip. As she stepped off the elevator crisp air hit her face, streaming with tears, and she wept openly. She stared out over Mineral Wells perched on the edge of the cupola bathed in midnight moonlight.

World Enough, And Time

ryan

Viscerally
ali

Sixteen stories of stately brick call us back to an abandoned alley for a couple quick glances tossed across the shoulder before a deft scramble over the wall with its mute NO TRESPASSING frown, running low through weed-eaten courtyards and graffiti-streaked tunnels to lie bellies flattened against the cement spine of its bridge as a siren wails its presence by. Light foot dash forward to shimmy up a column and - pause, dangerously poised, before - jumping over the teeth of a locked iron gate, to squeeze through the slip of the top of a doorway, finally boots-first through a broken window, the kaleidoscope of dismembered glass and full-length mirrors and heavily sagging ceiling shifting underneath tenderly-placed steps into the unknown dusk of what we later learn was the once-swank Brazos Club.

Layers of unbelieving understanding starting to unfold as we creep reverently on past a forest of strangely sobered arches, through dense carved doors in a segue to the soar of the lobby, its chandeliers still swinging like a first loose tooth by one frail nerve, drapes still swooned across windows slicing light into mote-thickened arcs, rugs still smooth as a lick of pomade against the span of its echoing stretch - we fling our voices out in glee and pull them back in whispered awe.

Outstretched hands and feet now feeling out the staircase, pocket knife first, up by one swirl to the lobby's upper ledge, emptied out beside the blinded eyes of iron-lidded elevator shafts dropping silently to stomach-felt depths.

Rooms petal off by function only dimly hinted at, here by a densely rust encrusted typewriter in a jumble of otherwise unidentifiable machinery, there by glass doors folding inward for all the eye like phone booths, us gingerly pushing with our toes at a pile of chairs, running our fingers through the dust icing fitted marble counter tops, casting our questions up at the globed dome of what must have been another ballroom.

With our hints we gather artifacts, typewriter keys tucked in pockets and ashtray bowls carried under arms, the crowning find a lone rocking chair of scrolled arms rolling into curled legs holding straight the perfect line of a brown upholstered back - letting ourselves out the window, histories clutched tight to the chest in a shifty gait past the pit of the pool across the naked stretch of the lawn, our car and triumph a short leap over the chainlink fence beyond. Dangling precariously along the edge of discovery when a car turns the corner, slows, windows rolling down and heads popping out flinging questions - parried to find them harmless observers, envying our bravado and eying our treasures, parting with a word of warning.

Five minutes later sliding into a dinner booth, still dusted with asbestos and exultation -

"Do you know anything about that abandoned hotel around the corner?" we ask the waitress with barely veiling innocence.

"Oh yeah. It's famous around here... people are always trying to break in, but they have someone watching it all the time. It's automatic jail time, if you get caught."

We smile, and order our drinks. In the parking lot, in the dark, a chair rocks slightly.

2010-07-13T06:13:00.000-07:00

Prometheus

Oh life -- forbidden flower
by destiny compelled
to grace our mortal bower
so near yet still withheld.

Too long thy dancing feet have fled,
oh all elusive bliss;
ensnared -- when man thy hand has wed
and tasted of thy kiss.

By arts profane and sacred
your secrets are revealed.
Your love shall meet our hatred
and we, in turn, be healed.

Now captured in the moment,
enshrined in walls of time,
your light, our hallowed sacrament,
albeit Adam's crime.

Once flowing through our fingers,
now held within our hand,
your setting ray but lingers
above our radiant land

and tarries o'er Olympus,
whose crimson shoulders rise
drenched by years of living death
where Prometheus dies.

A greeting and introduction

2010-06-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to know how to introduce myself, to decide what about me is so vital that you must know it to understand what I write, and what is periphery, a distraction. But with time against me (and my own conviction that as a newly-invited author to this community I owe you all an introduction sooner rather than later), I’ll keep this short.

My name is Heather. I am a writer by trade, but am falling in love with words all over again in my spare time. I live in coal-mining territory in the hills and valleys of western Pennsylvania with my husband of three years, work as a reporter at a daily newspaper while he begins a doctorate degree, and spend afternoons on my living room floor with Vesper and Alaska, my ferrets.

I once thought I had a fairly decent handle on this journey we call life; but I know now that what I thought I understood must be relearned. I have been shattered, and am slowly being rebuilt into a more useful tool for service in the hands of my God. And I am coming to understand that the growth is worth the pain.

So that is who I am. I’m looking forward to being a part of this far-flung community.

- Heather

P.S. I'm not familiar with the font, size, or tagging requirements for posts - please let me know if I need to change something!

from ali : census work

2010-06-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Fellow friends, family and tortoises:

Just a quick blip to let you know we now have Heather on board, that delightful Pennsylvania-dwelling journalist cousin of mine (as well as Alden's older sister - we're a big clan like that). Many of you know her, some of you don't, but hers is both a professionally developed and refreshingly genuine voice I'm thrilled to incorporate here.

... now play nice.

History

2010-06-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

There is but one science

There is but one art

There are a multitude of muses, but there are no other mediums

Form and function by our ability to remember

Meaning by our predilection to forget

A Truly Joyous Jumble

2010-06-08T23:32:00.000-07:00

Fifteen miles into a bike ride through the country and my knees stop aching. Ten minutes into a swim when the scrapes on my shins quit stinging. Twenty-two years into a lifetime and my soul starts truly yearning for a God that's forever present. Three lines into a blog post and life seems a wonder.

Staring off a monolith into a valley of sticks and greenery. This is where I find myself the weekend of May 29th. Flash forward less than two weeks and I am sitting below a florescent light, at my desk, dreaming of cliffs and clear, bluish-green water. Escaping into the yellowing pages of a Hesse novel is no match for total immersion in water lapping against a rocky shore of a small, hill country community.

The days have grown much longer and the expanding schedule for each day is, surprisingly, not burdensome. Each dip in the city lake, every sunset reminds me that He is rolling out beauty in every direction. Warmth from a fire crackling in the 'rocket ship pizza kiln' consumes doubt and apprehension. This life is for living and it's time to get busy doing so.

"I don't want to be a fair weather fan caught in a trough drifting again. When the tempest comes, and we know it surely will, I hope we ride the wave and learn to sit still. Life isn't poetry. It ain't a book you read or a movie you've seen. It's not the fickle flesh or the drugs that make us feel the best. It's the culmination of faith and the guiding light that leads through the pitch of night."

-evergreens

from ali : grabbing the light

2010-05-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

So for all its sense of present longevity, I never can recall a past summer - attempting to fight that this year with some sort of rapid written restraint on the day. Will be recording it elsewhere, but wanted to share the undertaking and a sample here in keeping with the ideal of accountability inherent in the Tortoise.

We are carving out a corner in this forgotten jumble of scrub and cement: brined in sweat and sun, the ant-infested red earth streaking clothes and arms, hands and knees bug-bitten and shovel-blistered. I haul small slabs of asphalt and stone, building a wall at the open mouth of the rocketship pizza kiln to protect the dry thicket beyond, Ryan simultaneously shearing through its most obtrusive bulk by machete. We make it safe, mostly, so steady flames fill the kiln with heat and smoke but only a few slight sparks loop their way beyond its yawn. Ryan disappears in search of food - left alone, I eye night creeping closer on the firelight's failing circle, grabbing the machete to hunt out more kindling, stripping small branches and cracking thick pieces, darting a hand into the fire to stir up its embers and reassemble long logs that halved in the heat like a broken bridge. Proudly observing my handiwork, when he returns with meat, oranges, a jug of water - we squat on our haunches facing the smaller end of the kiln, turning the bratwurst-heavy spokes and watching them fester to final perfection, wiping the after-grease off on pants or just licking fingers clean.

Sated and rested, so over the potholes and out to the dock, a terrified tentative examination of the lurking nighttime lake. The first jump - Ryan - now bobbing in the black water, yelling urgently for me to follow so he's not a lone target, I strip off my boots and make a leap for it, splitting again the shocked calm that's shaking itself awake, now both of us striking out in shoddy speed for the barely discernible center dock. A perspective shift on people when the cluster of high school boys, obnoxious by daylight, show up as gladly welcome company in the night, fellow and further barrier of humanity against the water's stretch. Pale-legged floating beneath the wood through India ink pools and wan moonlit puddles, head craning back at the sky through the dock's gap-toothed grin, stretching my hands upward to grip its slats with my body struggling graceless but stubborn behind.

We part ways with the usual namaste, and me back to my snug little house, the lovely full relaxation of a swim-spent body and wet hair in loose dry clothes, drinking hot tea with milk and honey, carefully consuming Naguib Mahfouz's sparse Egyptian story and nag champa's blanket heavy scent. Some humming barefoot housecleaning alongside the washer's throaty murmur, then a gradual drift to sleep, loving my life & youth.

The Eye of Naturalism

2010-05-19T03:29:00.001-07:00

A brilliant sun, shining through a hazy morning sky lights the tossing leaves that, by natural decree, don the translucent vibrancy of life. The wind is cool, but hardly cold. A vivacity of strength and newly discovered being seems to emanate from nature's every move. Through the narrow grid of the old french doors that let in the sunlight I see the world beyond. A poorly kept hedge, a gravel path, and an old country road that disappears into steep mountain trails. Beyond, the great sweeping course of the valley stretches towards the horizon, dotted with villages, towns, cities, and, just beyond the edge of sight, a glimmer reflected from the sea.

As night approaches, lights, like a luminous forest spring up among the shadows till, between the dark arms of the surrounding hills an illuminating river runs from some hidden source to the edge of the Mediterranean. There, the void of thoughtless infinity begins. On land, the last holdout of day stands, against all odds, to face the force of all-embracing night. Distinct, a million pin-point lights combine to fight reality. Then, as if subdued by an unseen hand, the lights go out. One by one, thousand by thousand, a chilling wind lays to rest all human breath. Alone, travelers pour along the roadways in a restless consciousness that, albeit unwillingly, remains to defy the call of mother nature. Passing -- ever passing -- soon they are gone. The night is cold. Above all else, the cynic's question resonates throughout the emptiness of time: "what is truth?"

Dromophilia (Love for the Road)

2010-05-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

I will never end my affair with the curves of her California highway,
a strap casually hung over her spring green sundress, I-880 north.

Grassy laces that ripple with the breeze,

Bouquets of liveoaks cascade from her knees

She lies in the baby blue indigo sky,
Her hips and soft elbows rise on both sides,
And each bright white cloudlet is her whisped, loving sigh.

If she would oath never to stray, then by my oath, neither would I.

John Ballard 4/29/10

{ ed. note }

I originally wrote this spontaneously last Thursday while driving I880 N toward Sacramento. Downside of that is that I had to try to funnel my inspiration into a text message, while driving, that I intended to save as a draft. Carefully I word-smithed, with one thumb, glancing down frantically every half-mile, and pressed "Save as draft." My phone replied "Draft Box Full" and my poem was gone. I tried to recreate the moment through dictation, as a sound file on my phone, which was a terrible failure. I am afraid I am not a fan of my own speaking voice. So in truth this is a rewrite, not the original. But it is very, very close, and the differences are more in the articles and conjunctions than the adjectives, verbs or nouns, which my memory preserved nicely for me. So much to say, the spirit of the moment remains intact. It was one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen. Old friend Mr. Paul B.D. McNiel was my Sacramento airport arrival, and can corroborate the previous statement. ~J.G.B.

Planet

2010-05-05T14:53:00.001-07:00

A Long Day

2010-05-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

It was an arduous day and creativity of any kind was omitted as will be reflected here for the most part.

Frustration with a busted radiator and a dead end job has me a little rattled but I'll make an effort to give project updates.

Ali is making a home for our co-op garden in her backyard since we didn't start early enough and I, for one, am quite excited to see what we reap. More than being ecstatic about seeing the growth and production of the work scheduled to be put forth I am bubbling over with anticipation at the thought of the dishes Ali will concoct using the yield.

Finished working out lyrics and a basic guitar structure for a new song which will be added to the original set I've been working on and really need to start and finish the recording of said songs. The completion date is still set for mid-May which means I have work to do.

A great gift in the form of a classic Schwinn has resulted in several trips to the bike shop and a nearly finished product which has already provided me with great times and enjoyable exercise. Once it has been completed I will post photographs and gloat over the luck and yet again give excessive appreciation to Ali.

I sure hope William follows this up with something worthy of attention. I would love to see some more of everybody else's work here...

Adolphus and Slungman discover that hills have two sides

2010-04-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

Nothing has been left barren. Spring is in full swing. The days have been warm and after the sun has set the air becomes chilly, swaying silhouettes of trees to and fro on winding country roads. A storm left branches scattered on the road and the twigs scrape against my hands as Conrad and I go for a late night bike ride to stretch our limbs, expand our lungs, and escape the cabs of cars or the sterility of office buildings. A scent of honeysuckle on the wind and the lowing of cattle in the fields accompany the whirring of tires as we drift over the asphalt. I feel released from some imagined weight as we glide down hills, the sweat from pedalling hard to escape yard dogs drying as quickly as it came. The chain clinks slightly as I push the pedals back, positioning them in anticipation of the next upward slope. Everything is more beautiful when you can be a part of the scenery that you're passing through. Twenty-three miles of open sky and wind swept fields on either side; it's a painting that you soak in and appreciate, a panorama in which you are not the primary subject. To feel small like a speck of color on a canvas is to feel a sort of freedom. Stress from the week's work melts away at every mile marker. The strain of calves and thighs dissipates as we lean against a fence pole in want of water and a cigarette. A blanket of star speckled blue stretches further than imagination reaches. There was only the last stretch of road on the return home and that unfettered liveliness rising in my chest. It wasn't a song but the first movement of a symphony.

from ali : updating, and questioning

2010-04-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

A handful of shifts at the Chateau and I'm getting a grasp on its rhythm, which is at times energetic and at others exhausting, but always interesting and educationally all-encompassing: I'm learning everything from tactfully handling disgruntled clientèle (comp the ticket, give them a free creme brulee, and smile them right out the door) to honoring restaurant code (soups must be 140 degrees, minimum) to tossing a salad properly (with your [clean] hands - anything else might bruise the delicate lettuce). Biggest challenge? Empty tables. The Chateau is inconveniently buried off a farm-to-market road in Emory, with minimal traffic exposure for any city folks who might be passing through and an intimidating aura of high-brow reserve to the locals, most of whom seem to be missing the majority of their teeth.

So. That brings me to the question part: Elle has asked that I not only dip back into my now-dusty experience writing restaurant reviews for local publications and whip up some words in the promotional vein, but also help her create and implement a more aggressive marketing strategy. There are endless possibilities, from a much-needed design overhaul (menu, website, and advertising) to generating awareness by realizing her dreams of cooking classes, a wine club, private parties, etc. IDEAS. Rack your brains, and creative resources, for how to first let people know about the Chateau, and then get them inside its doors.

P.S. Pictures from my own kitchen - because experimenting with food and photographing it is what Sunday afternoons are all about

2010-04-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

"All work is an act of philosophy."

Project: Biochemistry

2010-04-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

I just recently finished a book on intelligent design entitled Darwin's Black Box. Michael Behe presents his case against evolution centered around the concept of irreducible complexity. An irreducibly complex system is one in which none of its components can be removed without the system ceasing to reasonably function. These systems pose the biggest roadblock for Darwinian evolution.

In this book, Behe presents a number of incredibly complicated systems that, he argues, are irreducibly complex. He delves into great detail on each of these examples, stating that he does not expect the reader to be able to understand everything, but to at the very least, be able to marvel at their complexity. I struggled, in way of rereading particular passages and referring to the illustrations associated with each, grasp these systems with minimal success. Which brings me to my point.

Aside from teaching me about intelligent design, this book sparked a new interest for biochemistry. I was extremely fascinated by the extraordinary functions of these systems. I am in the process of buying a introductory biochemistry textbook. Who knows, I may even take a microbiology class next semester. I am very excited to be learning something so new, and hope this new interest may take me somewhere worthwhile, in any sense of the word.

A Challenge?

2010-04-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about "forever". The thought of dying and going to a magnificent place that never ever ends is mind blowing. However, it is so hard to even begin to conceive. No amount of straining will bring you any closing to grasping it. Much like writing, two great tumblers must align. First, you must randomly happen into the proper state of mind, and then the thought must cross your mind.

You can say the words "eternity" or "infinite" all day and it won't bring you any closer. So my challenge is, in the coming days, just try to keep forever in the back of your head through your day to day activities. At least a time or two you will draw it into your conscious mind and be completely in awe.

This is not to say that I or any other human being can comprehend eternal life, but we can begin to have an inkling of an idea, and even that is a very overwhelming experience. It makes me feel very small and extremely thankful.

The Daily Drop-Cap

2010-04-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

orry to drop such a simple post on you, but I found something delightful. I was looking for drop-caps (y'know, the big fancy letters at the beginning of classical or industrial text blocks) and I discovered that someone out there is daily meeting this need. The results are beautiful. I recommend giving their site a visit.

{dailydropcap.com}

Evergreens Re-Do

2010-04-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

...and one day we'll be evergreens.

We'll outlast Winter and breath in new life. We will bloom in Spring and lift our hands to hope and wisps of feathery clouds until Summer creeps in, washing the land in light, darkening our exteriors while brightening our disposition. The sun will bare down on open fields and the wind will be welcome to beat against moist necks and damp hair. The Autumn phoenix will again dance and burst with color before the coming onslaught of grey December days short and icy. So the seasons circular track goes and the years overlap as hairlines recede. Youth - for now under appreciated to the point of being virtually overlooked - will slip from groping hands and age will settle into our hearts and joints. Sometimes I feel the aging process when I tug at my beard and remember the thinning spot on my crown. Exhaustion sets in well before midnight and I battle for one A.M. to prove I'm still youthful. Will we welcome death and join our maker after deep sleep and the cessation of memory or struggle to grasp the life we once led? The last breath should be exalted and prayers whispered in earnest. Our final exhalation should be spent giving thanks for the time here and praise for the eternity to come. And one day we'll be those evergreen on the hillsides, those reminders of endless life and the vision of hope to those lost in the barren Winter.

Oh, I've been in a way

2010-04-11T01:34:00.000-07:00

i've been in a way these past few days,
and since i've not much to say,
i'll continue on my way, in way, of continuing to sway,
for swaying is my way, today, delay, then sway,
though it's not much of a way, i'd say,
so avoid my swaying way,
but if you say, hey, to sway i may,
then sway, and sway away,
but when in the star's bay the moon does lay,
and your day is swayed away,
you will bay your foray of the sway,
and cease your swaying ways

True Stories I Just Made Up #1

2010-04-09T16:01:00.001-07:00

I find that it is a lot easier for me to write vignettes, moments stolen from a bigger picture, but that I rarely sit down and attempt to tell a story. This series, therefore, will be about telling stories with beginnings, middles, and ends; even if, as is the case today, the story is told in a "vignette setting".

My goal here with the first story was to be at least 50% comprehensible, for that is, after all, the very first among a writer's goals: being understood. Nothing really intensely inspired this story, I just got a visual and ran with it as an exercise.

Celestial navigation

The truck, the old man and the boy would have seemed sorely out of place to anyone driving by the lonely cotton-field that night. The witness might have squinted her eyes and stepped off the gas in an effort to answer the question inherent: "Why so late, on this june night, would two persons be traipsing around in the dark?"

But as it happens, not a soul passed by and the "question inherent" was left to the contemplation of a lone raccoon crossing the county road.

The field had been in the old man's family for four generations. The Hendons used to own half the town, but now the field and the farmhouse was all that was left. The old man had been explaining this to the boy on the short ride over to the bumpy stretch of land he had referred to as "Sendow's Point".

The boy, 16, but tall for his age, was, of course, the old man's grandson. He was not, however, a Hendon; in fact it had only been that summer that he had met his maternal grandfather, or even passed through his mother's hometown. Throughout the duration of the ride from the two story farmhouse he had nodded along with each detail the old man had pridefully put forth, the big overzealous nods people use to express acknowledgment without words.

The truck, a seen-better-days Ford with a "made in america" sticker carefully applied to the bumper, was a sort of faded teal color, save for a white hood that had been recently, relatively recently, replaced. There was barely room for both of them in the cabin; if the boy was tall, it was very possible he was tall because of his grandfather's genes.

Eventually the truck quit the fight, the jostling in the cabin subsided and the two figures stepped out into the night. June nights in Oklahoma are the temperate result of two extremes. Without shade, the field had been baking in the furious summer sun all day, so come nightfall the cold North wind whipping through the cotton stalks was met with the release of the ambient heat stored in the tight-packed sod. So it was that night when they ventured out. It was several hours after sunset when at last the old man laid out the blanket and retrieved the thermos from the dashboard.

"Grandad, you said we were out here to see the stars right?"

"That's right Simon."

"I don't see any stars."

"No, I don't suppose I do either." He paused, exerting the effort necessary to lay out his old bones across the blanket. "But let's wait a while. Sometimes I come out here and can still see a few, scattered about."

They waited in a silence broken only by the occasional slurp of coffee from the over-sized thermos. What is only 15 minutes can seem to a youth like time upon time, and to a man closer to the grave like a precious fleeting breath, as fragile as a childhood memory.

Again the boy broke the silence.

"So why did you call this place Sendow's Point? Is that someone in your family, like that I'd be related to?"

"No, no." The old man almost smiled. "We weren't related to Sendow. Not in any sense of the word." He looked at the boy again, and his half-smile faded into the quietest, but most complete expression of disappointment. "I proposed to your Grandmother on a night like this one. Many years ago. Before the highway came through town, you could actually see a thousand different constellations. I was hoping we could see a bit of what I saw that night." He scanned the sky from zenith to horizon. "Even a tenth", he said with a sigh.

Instead, what he was seeing was the yellow artificial glow, incommensurable to anything in nature, that swallows up skies observed by all who came before; street lights every ten feet, and empty parking lots illuminated continually, who, without the slightest pause or reservation, undo epochs of wonder, purpose and beauty. It can only be surmised that throughout his life the old man had seen the town grow, and the sky shrink, and that now he held onto a fool's hope of sharing what this place, what his life, had been.

The warmth that the ground had stored for them was quickly being carried away and a more persistant chill filled the air. Perhaps he knew that this was his last summer, or that the boy would understand, or that some stories aren't stories until they are told, but on that night the old man spoke of what he considered the axis, the days upon which the rest of his life was secured.

"They saved my life once, you know", he started, tentatively.

"Saved your life? What, the stars?"

"Saved my life, I'd be dead. You'd 'ave never been born. I would've never married your grandmother, you'd 'ave never been born." He was gaining a bit more confidence now, as details rushed back to him across the sweeping wind-torn fields, across oceans dark and deep, halfway around the world they sped and told his tale:

" After December 7th, a bunch of us, my friends and I, started feeling real strong-like. We joined the army, every single one of us. We were patriots, and we were shipping out to basic within the month. Left your grandmother and I with no time to plan a wedding, no time to do it right. I wanted to do right by her, so I told her we'd be married the day I got home, but that we would plan it all out really nicely in letters and that everything would be perfect. I still have all those letters, in the attic.

War is a confusing thing, and a lot of what happened in that year of my life I don't understand. I ended up on a boat in the Pacific, a communications officer, when my unit was disbanded. I was only supposed to be on that boat for a week at the most, but, like I said, war is a confusing animal; I was on that boat for 3 months and 12 days. For 3 months and 12 days I wrote letters that I had no way of sending, I was miserable and alone, save for the one tolerable man on the whole crew. Private Sendow was our gunner, a mountain of a man, and a hell of a poker player. We worked a lot of nights together, floating around in the middle of nowhere. Jon was a college man before the war, he was going to be an astronomer, taught me all about how the seasons change the constellations around, and how I could always tell where we were going. We never really talked a lot about home, or about our families, our girls, but we spent a week's worth of hours staring at the Pleiades, at orion."

The boy was watching, listening carefully, to the old man. It seemed to him as if his grandfather's entire physiognomy had been bathed in the yellow artificial light and dissolved, leaving a face bare of wrinkles and a mind free of the weight of the years.

"Three months and eleven days into my time on the "saber", that was the name of our cutter, we passed by an archipelago to the south that was supposedly in hostile territory. Our Captain thought us unprepared for conflict and we headed out into open waters.

I woke up the next morning to sirens blarin' and fires blazin'. The Saber had been attacked, and our Captain was right, we weren't ready for conflict. I was almost overboard before I knew what had happened and after a few more wet, confusing minutes it was over. The Saber lie at the bottom of the pacific, the japs had made off, and I was left alone, a soldier dying a sailor's death."

The old man stopped for a while. A particularly cool breeze had rustled through his whispy gray hair and brought him back for a moment. He closed his eyes and described what he saw.

"I had a life-vest. I had a life-vest and that was it. I never have felt as small as I did then, tossed around, alone. For a while it was more than I could take, I closed my eyes and waited for it all to end. I was a coward, I wouldn't let go of that vest. I was waiting for fate and force to finish me.

For 16 hours I was lifeless, worthless chaff in the sea. The daylight burned out in a fire that consumed the horizon and then I was alone in the dark. I yelled for a bit, maybe a half an hour. I sloshed about and gnashed my teeth and was left with the fact that this vastness was going to swallow me one way or another. So I decided to let it.

I let go of the vest, and laid out, floating on my back. Then I looked up.

Then I opened my eyes and looked up.

I saw across stretches of space that make the whole of the ocean look like a step through a doorway. It was the exhaustion surely, or the onset of shock or the hopelessness I felt, but my eyes were lit. Every star, the whole sphere of the heavens, was visible. When I closed my eyes, they followed. I couldn't help but recognize the constellations Sendow had taught me to look for. Andromeda, the big dipper, Aries, I knew a sky that had order, that I had made have order, if you can possible follow my meaning... Well, it got me to thinking about your grandmother, about that night I asked her to marry me, beneath the same stars which were then nameless to me. I thought about all the things that had led me to that boat, of all the twists and turns of fate. I thought on all of this and felt something start burning in my chest."

The old timer opened his eyes and stared thoughtfully at the spellbound youth.

"Well I got this crazy idea in my head that I wanted to live. Not just that I wanted to survive, but that I wanted to get home, marry Celine and really live. I wanted a family to teach the names of the stars. I wanted them to guide me on a thousand journeys home.

I looked around for my vest, and found it to be, miraculously, a few yards away. Remembering that there had been a chain of island to the south, I used the techniques Sendow had taught me to divine which way I should be swimming. A queer thing, a thirst for life is; it'l fill you with a second wind. And thank God the current was with me that night.

I swam and paddled for hours, and the rest of the story must be no surprise for you. Here I am. I got to the islands and waited for a week and a half, but then I was on my way home. What a home it was. I married Celine, we had your mother and your uncle Stan. For a longer time than most, we were happy."

He stopped again, and again his smile melted into troubled reflection.

"One shouldn't complain when one has been blessed for so long, but after the car accident it was just me and your mom. I felt like those stars had lied to me, like I should have died that night, alone in the Pacific. I didn't see what I had left. I was so caught up in the unknowable dark, I lost sight of the bright points of light. I pushed your mother away from me, we lost touch, I lost touch. I gave up on finding my way home. I stopped looking up at night, and eventually they stopped coming out at all.

But that was many years ago; Time has a way of smoothing over bitterness, hearing he ain't got long left has a way of changing a man, and hearing he has a grandson has a way of softening the heart, making me remember why I am here. So here we are, trying to catch a glimpse."

He had never told his story before, never even written it out, so sharing all this was like letting the largest part of himself go. He was greatly disturbed. Turning away from the boy, he spent a moment collecting himself, banished the whole ordeal from his wiry frame with a heavy sigh, and announced: "We won't be seeing much of anything tonight. No I don't think we will".

***

The boat, the man and the urn would have seemed sorely out of place to anyone standing on the sandy shores of the lonely island chain that night. The witness might have squinted his eyes and stepped out into the water in an effort to answer the question inherent: "Why so late, on the night in july, would a sailboat be passing by this out-of-the-way archipelago?"

But as it happens, not a soul passed by and the "question inherent" was left to the contemplation of a lone hen, escaped from a nearby village, wandering the shoreline.

The boat, a 26 foot yacht, was a brilliant white form against the water. It had been painted recently, and though it was of an older build, thorough maintenance kept her sailing smoothly. Nothing was out of place inside the cabin, and a clear, uncluttered deck betrayed the orderly manner of her captain.

The man was, of course, Simon: the boy grown up. At 24 he stood even taller than he had that June night among the cotton. His features defined, his jaw set, he scanned the dark waters before him with the eyes of an experienced sailor. His three itinerant years on the water had taught him many lessons and so he employed his wits and strength with the vigor that the sea demands. His searching eyes met what they were looking for, and he dropped anchor.

The urn was a humble porcelain home for what remained of the old man. No etchings or painted patterns adorned the exterior. Simon liked to think that his grandfather would have appreciated the lack of what he might have called "frivolity". Simon liked to think that he knew what his grandfather would have thought about certain things. He often thought back to that summer in the fields, going out every night to Sendow's point to fruitlessly search for constellations. They had become close in those days. They had worked and lived together and Simon was there the day the old man died.

He had promised himself he would make this trip, and to him it was the most sacred and real commitment he had ever made. Here at the pivotal moment however, he felt no great stir in his heart, no sense of completeness, only a practical knowledge of what was left to do. Once the yacht was completely still he grabbed the urn and unceremoniously scattered the ashes into the water. It was done.

The man uncorked a bottle of wine and drank deeply straight from the bottle. With a pause to wipe his lips on his sleeve, he set about pulling up the anchor and rigging the sails. He was halfway through the process when he realized that he had not yet set a course.

"Where to now?" he asked aloud, half expecting a reply. He went through the motions of grabbing for the navigational unit in the cabin, but didn't have the heart to open it, for he knew in the deepest pit of his chest where he was bound. And he knew that there was only one way to find his way.

"Where to now?" he laughed as he put away the laptop.

The man hoisted the sail. Then he looked up.

Summer Feelings & Flora

2010-04-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

"Are you like me? Is there just no such thing as too hot a day?"

"Oh yeah, there's just something about being miserably hot."

"I know. Like no matter how hot it gets, it just fills me up with energy."

"You know one of those days where you're sticky from the heat, you get in your car and it's even hotter so you turn on the a/c but for the first few minutes it's just blowing hot air. Like I said, there's just something about it."

"It gives me so much life."

"I swear, every year I look more forward to summer."

"Yeah, I mean just look. You have all these different shades of green already starting to come to life. And that purple stuff, I don't even know what that is."

"Me neither. I've always thought that it kind of looks like upside down Blue Bonnets."

"Yeah it really does. Look at that Post Oak. It's funny, a lot of people wonder why they're called Post Oaks, 'cause when you see them in someone's yard they just look like any other tree. But when you see a bunch of them together they grow straight up just like a post."

"I didn't know that."

"Yeah. It's all about competing for sunlight. When there's just one alone in a yard it gets all the sun it wants. Its lower branches can grow out wider and get sun too. But in a forest, it has to grow tall, the lower branches get blocked out by other trees and die and fall off. That's why all the tallest trees tend to grow in the most dense forests."

"Oh, so that's why when you see a random tree off in a field all by itself, it always grows really round and wide."

"Exactly."

From Gabe: A Tortoise Housekeeping Issue

2010-04-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

Dear members of The Tortoise Initiative,

A continuing dilemma has arisen from the fact that this blog publishes to our individual online profiles. Click here for an example. You'll note that once our feed is published to outside sources, (no doubt a good thing) there is no way to tell which of us authored which post. The dilemma is then whether to allow the ambiguity to continue, or to manually delete posts from sites such as Google when they republish there.

But the dichotomy is false, in that it can be circumvented, as Ali has been doing, tagging her titles "From Ali." This is both a quaint and efficient way of addressing the problem, and I propose we all do the same. Title your posts with a "From," adding each your own name and a hardy subtitle set off by the punctuation-mark colon, as I have demonstrated in this post's title, from here on out. I recognize this demotes our flowery titles to subtitles of a dull series, but such is the cost of greatness, gentlemen and lady.

Just to keep this inspirational on some level, I will add that in my rather fruitless momentary attempt to look into the proper use and history of the colon, I inadvertently caused this timeline [link] to come into existence. As a communications designer and an old soul, I am instantly stopped in my tracks, a child who has found a minutely life-changing new toy. Trivia and distractions abound, branching off in thousands of directions, all neatly arranged for the eye while expansive enough for the curious mind. Enjoy.

The root of art and decline of faith

2010-04-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

"He thought that fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do."

-Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse (an excerpt)

This particular passage does not mirror my own beliefs. I rather like to think that all creation is done to canonize the beauty in life but see so many examples that are summed up so well by this description. Take Guernica, for example, or every Carissa's Wierd* song you have ever heard. This weighed on me pretty heavily when I first read it and thought it would be worth sharing.

(*Yes, weird is spelled incorrectly but there's a reason this group was referred to by so many

music critics as "music's spelling bee champs".)

from ali : on coming home

2010-04-04T23:51:00.000-07:00

“[Home] is the center from which we define and understand

the nature of everything we encounter in the world.

The home . . . is not one thing among many in a world of things; nor is it merely the product of a culture.

Rather, the world of things derives its sense,

and a culture its significance,

from their relationship to the home.

Without the home, everything else in the world or in a culture is meaningless.”

- David Patterson -

For the past four weeks my primary creative project has been piecing - and at times pulling - together a living space, and the process has me thinking about homes, about their all too-frequent lack - of the sprawling several thousand square feet structures passing through my office with vaulted ceilings more conducive to admiration than comfort, formal dining rooms designed to entertain rather than embrace. But as criticism is bloodless without conviction and conviction fruitless without action, I'm striving to start in my quite literal backyard, and struggling to grasp the essence of what a home should be when so many have become just another place.

from ali : gone French

2010-04-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

I've been ducking my head guiltily at every mention of the Tortoise since my project was waiting on a return call from Elle / the cajones to initiate a follow up, but we finally talked and boom bada boom...

I start helping out pro bono at the Chateau next weekend, but it won't be just dishes - Elle offered to let me help with the actual food prep, and all that entails, including a crash course on knife work.

Now if you'll excuse me, need to go lock myself in the bathroom and scream giddily until I pass out.

Your Father's the light within all that you see

2010-03-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

He fills up the ponds as He empties the clouds
Holds without hands and He speaks without sounds
He provides us with the cow's waste and coconuts to eat
Giving one that nice salt taste, and the other its sweet

Sends the black carriage the day death shows its face
Thinning our numbers with kindness and grace
And just as a flower and its fragrance are one
So must each of you and your Father become

-mewithoutYou
King Beetle on a Coconut Estate

Interrupting Moon at Five A-M

2010-03-31T05:48:00.001-07:00

The urgent moon awoke me, wide and full, wide and full
The cold bright moon awoke me wide and full
Fin'lly that entire stretch from my lungs to my mouth
Is an indian drum, dry, stretched o'r too much emptiness
Percuss, percuss, thumps throat on hollow chest

The heart beats not at all, must have forgot, I don't recall
The heartbeat doesn't beat, I don't recall
I look into the void where the moon-burn was before
The dusty lime-like drink is only warmed up by the heat
By radiator-wet forehead and feet

Wet drizzle, dry bed, unsettled place to rest my head
Unsettled, restless place to rest my head
Its coolness has been robbed away by discontent dark grey
Its cotton changed to hot rough wool on a sore moon-burned cheek
Throbbing globe, aching sphere, dull refuge keep

forward motion?

2010-03-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

I would like very much to inform you all that I've spent the week coming up with something new to post here but time has been dedicated to porch sitting and quality time with friends and family. Instead my day will be used as an opportunity to give a progress report...

The seven songs listed in a previous post have undergone some changes. "His Name was James" has been extended from a little, two part progression to a finger picked introduction to be followed by a few extra sections. On the new additions some of my talented friends will be accompanying me and contributing new ideas to improve upon the original concept. Aside from the expansion on this particular song lyrics have been finished for "Evergreens" and "Death Egg". I'd also like to take this space to say that the latter is actually an instrumental blues song that David and I wrote together and the recorded version that's being worked on is simply going to be a stripped down version rearranged for a single guitar. The other songs are receiving finishing touches and I've given myself a deadline of mid-May to complete the project.

Sorry for the brevity and lack of content.

2010-03-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

I work, I sit, I pass time shuffling around the pillar island, drinking half glasses of water, and thumbing through hair. While my hand wears a print on my head, between awake and asleep, my ears pique. I'm hearing a young girl stating complaints and searching for solace from a voice on the other end of the phone. I'm hearing more than that though.

I'm hearing an attempt to convince herself that the current situation isn't her fault. She lists grievances that have been leveled against her in exaggerated tones and facial expressions. A phantom in her own stories, you hear nothing of her part. What is in her mind are the extremely unecessary sacrifices she made in hopes of justifying her love. A troubled boy enters her life with similar interests and she jumps. Leaving friends and home, traveling with him to a town in which she doesn't want to live. The bigger the inconvenience, the more the pain, the stronger she is convinced of their relationship. Months pass with his constant refusal of seeking employment, which results in an failure to pay rent. Now, faced with tough decisions, she is at a loss. As a substitute for making a decision, she complains, denying her role in this state of affairs. That's where she is, roughly fifteen feet away, back-tracking through a year's complications.

I open my eyes and look over my left shoulder. At the back of the restaurant a man stressfully sifts through checks with forgotten birth dates and missing driver's license numbers. More years are piled on his face than he has lived. But I am not seeing just my boss.

I'm seeing the formerly successful member of the european lumber industry. A business his father built, and he inherited, honoring his family's name. And then the war. People fleeing homes, soldiers forcing them from their vehicles along crowded highways. I see a small family, walking back after its conclusion, in hopes of some remaining familiarity. They find their house burned to the ground. Two growing young boys and a father wondering how he will provide for them. His relatives having been doing well in the states, and it seems the most logical plan. After spending a few years in the city, although his restaurant is providing more than sufficiently, he cannot supress his country roots. They move to a small town and set up shop, but italian is not in high demand in such a rural and uncultured area. He makes enough, but with a growing family and slowing economy, only enough. Close margins force an added attention to detail, and the lines continue stacking upon his brow as he scans the checks.

I scratch my stubble and wonder if there are any tables at the moment. My question is answered by two hefty women, one chattering between gulps of her chicken alfredo and the other nodding as she inhales her lasagna. But I see beyond their lunch.

I see them sitting on benches outside of outlet malls, multiple bags from beall's and old navy stationed by their ankles. As they are heading back into town they see a billboard for a restaurant they have never heard of. Pulling in, they notice a woman descending the steps of the courthouse, and comment on her wardrobe or standing in the community. They briefly examine the menu, ordering the only items they know how to pronounce. The clinking of their furiously shoveling silverware conducts the gossip.

Time is inching by. I'm feeling more than just seconds slipping by. I'm realizing that it is from these seemingly endless variables that one single moment is comprised.

The Watch-Spring Metronomadic

2010-03-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

Ardent hushed arbors, and
Gardens echo approachers
Sellers of squash seeds and thymes
Trollers of dirt roads to bleach-whitened she-town
Now pluck, tune and strum her taut laundry lines
Till she resonates out in her groves, dells and downs
Knock loose that dust, that fresh cedar smell
Smooth her neck with the cup of your palm, then
Resonate, ciliate the sense on our drums,
Pass o'er her pastures, you fingers and thumbs,
Bootleathern, healers, brushers of stealth-strings
Sneak to her, rescue from chilled retinue
Disquiet her nerve-rooted enamel houses
Her cold posts, winter lamps, and choral white porches
Vibrate those ivories, from placards to gums, and,
Picking out fruit-flowers of things yet to come,
Sing warm songs from elbows, given words by our sons
And dance future daughters in one-two's and three-fours!
'Nowned coolness 'verberates dappled by sun
While we major in C-sharp, three-octave chores
And a quiet, old B-minor-flat nods and hums

Gabriel Ballard, 3/19/2010

The Shifting of Tides

2010-03-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

An uproar of laughter and good, though drunken, cheer passed through walls not fit for privacy. Past a door marked "B" there was silence. The old man who inhabited the cramped space behind sat on a leather couch, cracked with time, and stared with a certain emptiness out of the facing window with shutters thrown open. The walls were wanting of a new coat and peeled in an unsightly fashion. A chip of ancient paint fluttered from the wall and drifted across the room, settling on the knee of the elderly man's pressed pants.

He glanced down, plucked the little chip between his gnarled index and thumb, and glanced meaningfully at it. His head cocked ever so slightly to the left as he examined the chip, consciously frowning as he deposited it into an empty, glass ashtray. Death crossed his mind for the first time since his formidable years in the service of an ex-lover's father who had employed him during his reckless twenty-somethings. In the midst of emotional upheaval brought on by dissipation of this affair and loss of work he left the country, fled to Spain, and had ever since dwelt on an overly-romanticised loss of love in the leaky, decrepit apartment in Madrid. Every day for forty years he had rifled through old photographs of her and drove himself into a vacuous hole as the lines deepened on his brow. She had been exquisite. As a young man he savored each word she spoke, drank in her elegance, breathed deeply the aromatic delusion of love. He was intoxicated by the misconception that she had returned these emotions and had always since been hung over, recuperating from the loss.

For some reason he saw fit to accept the pain now. A pile of yellowed letters he had written to her shortly after his arrival in this place hid a worn though unread Bible. He lifted the book with shaking hands, plagued by arthritis and flipped pages that cracked like dry leaves underfoot in late Autumn. Pausing in the book of Job to read a few passages he couldn't help but laugh a bit at himself. The old man's suffering was a product of withdrawal from society and he became aware that his exile was but a choice made, his own open consent to welcome loneliness. There was a second chance for life awaiting him patiently which had only just become apparent. He had woken from a dream to meet life and sank to his knees before a dusty coffee table. He was made to endure this hell he created by design and he could not begin to imagine what wonder awaited him beyond the four walls surrounding him.

Lighting a thin cigarette, hand-rolled and a bit loose, the newly released prisoner peered out of his window at the courtyard below. Several Spaniards and English women, intoxicated by both the beautiful accents and rich wine, danced with the fervor of adventurous children. A stream of blue-grey smoke passed his cracked lips and dispersed outside the window. Below a well dressed young man looked up to the second story window where the old man stood. The younger of the two smiled brightly as he tipped his fashionable cap. The elder for the first time in years felt happiness spread through him and manifest itself as a wide grin. His knees went weak and his chest tightened. The young Spaniard's smile melted to concern when the old man crumpled to the cold wooden floor still smiling, musing at the idea of joining the fiesta.

Inspiration: "Yr Cherry Bomb" Vid & Double Triple

2010-03-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

I know it's old, but I just love this stuff - the music and the visuals. I think it's a remarkable, even textbook example of design synthesis with sound instead of text. The album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, from whence this single comes, was released in 2007.

Yet another incredible work by the ever impressive Double Triple. Looking at their design website makes me pretty much mad with design jealousy. Exception: I already had the minimalistic thumbnail concept drawn up for my own site before I saw theirs. Don't let me pat myself on the back for simple ideas anyone could have conceived. Also, can anyone tell yet, that I am a sucker for bright colors? *Looks around furtively.*

from ali : on going MIA and going French

2010-03-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

So, yes.

Saturday's slipped by and between the rain and the sleep and the lack of an internet connection, my posting deadline slipped by too -

but the bullet point version of my planned post is: I'm going to pitch an internship offer to local French chef Elle Maisdon [read: let me wash your dishes so I may watch your sauces], who owns and runs the French fusion Chateau Bistro in Emory. I'm calling her tonight and am more or less shaking in my shoddily-heeled boots over it, not because she's intimidating - in fact, she's the quintessential gentle French aunt - but because it's just too perfect. More on why, later, but there's the project simmering at the back of my plans...

a delayed arrival

2010-03-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, acquaintances, strangers. My name is Will.

Ever since the rough idea of what has now manifested itself as the tortoise was orignally conceived, I was very supportive. A group creative outlet has been bounced around and attempted for years now, but never successfully executed. Despite my initial enthusiam, I found that sparse internet availability and an ironic lack of "initiative" were obstacles too big to overcome. Enough motivation remained, however, to check in from time to time. What I discovered was that in my absence a small community was thriving. Now, after much delay I find myself standing on the welcome mat, trying not to scuff it with my muddy shoes.

Just like a father serving a prison sentence while his newborn child is quickly developing, I feel very deep regret for missing the tortoise's first steps. Upon my metaphorical release, and actual inception, I realize there is still time left to teach the tortoise how to ride a bike. In an effort to make up for all that I have missed, I am instituting two cardinal rules for myself.

First, I will struggle to be open, which is quite a lofty goal with my pinky backspacing more than my fingers are typing. This is a much more critical environment than I have been affiliated with in the past. That is not to say that the current condition is stifling creativity, but when you come from a background of constant back-pats, so much as a "your last post was okay" can seem harsh. Obviously, my former experiences were not very conducive to progress so I would like to go ahead and welcome any future criticism one might have.

Secondly, I will not deal in putting down another's work. The last thing I want is to advocate the same attitude that makes me cautious of posting. While I may have a few critiques, they will remain constructive and never be voiced in a joking manner. To be supportive is to aid in the growth of others and of myself, which is my intention.

Now that all the formalities are out of the way, all thats left is to sit back and muse over what my favorite things about the tortoise initiative will be. Maybe it will be perusing past posts, and giggling over all the grammatical errors we've made? Or being so filled with inspiration that I stay up until midnight just so the post will be on my day? Or the mixers that we'll attend with people from other blogs? Oh boy, oh boy.

Raiding Eternity

2010-03-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

I tilt the picture in my hands just a bit until I can see the scratches on the matte surface. There are hundreds of little indentions, tracks from fingernails showing the many times the photo has been held.

When we scan this picture in those scuffs will disappear. The rest of the world will see only the young, bearded man smiling in some sepia living room. They'll increment the file's viewcount by one, leaving their own perfect hash mark. It won't be the same as the photo I'm holding in my hands, shifting in the light to read its physical metadata, but it won't be inferior, either.

– Joel Johnson, “Raiding Eternity”

A Backward Glance O'er Roads Travel'd

2010-03-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

Friday. I promise something fresh, something recent, soon. Until then, here are two poems I wrote when I was 16, within a week of each other. They make me smile, not because they are particularly good, but because they bring me back in ways that only something you produced can. It's funny how that works. Revisiting a thought you had at a specific moment is almost as good as a time machine.

-----------------------------------------

First Impressions

Momentary beauty

in what may have been a dream

mysterious and lovely
quiet and serene

if in a dream it was we met
appropriation of
all beauty and truth beget
you; mysterious icon

Haunting my imagination
puzzling vapors and remnants
the you of my creation
thought of which leads to divinity

I had just encountered that quote from Auguste Rodin:

Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and there defines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated

Completely enamored with this thought, I set about exploring. Could places, people, induce such contemplation? What are the limits of "art". As any good aspiring creative mind would attempt to do, I took this idea in the macro and tried to express it in the micro. My muse at the time, a 17 year old french-cherokee bombshell, provided all the "practical" inspiration needed to express the intangible curiosity I felt towards the label "art". It also has this magical kind of self awareness concerning the fleeting nature of beauty, which I should have picked up on as subconscious hints about the cherokee girl.

-------------------------

The wave

Inspiration

No truer form

A stir in the mist

On the edge of existing

The Movement of the water over the sand

Graceful in it’s quiet, calm, rhythmic, breath.

Pen to Page

Feasible, tangible

on the tip of your tongue

The feeling remains but words won’t come

Choppy and uncertain. Tensing, relaxing. Belief then unbelief

The vastness of the sea, building, taking shape.

Furious Transposing

The reason and the rhyme are one

The time has come to pass

He whispers as he walks the way, “No one wave is the last”

The Wave, white capped and fierce crashes against the cliffs

Dread fills my heart as the tide comes in, its song my spirits lift

Still

The calm must come to make complete, the cadence of the deeps

I find rest, and am challenged by the secrets that they keep

If truly this is the first of many enigmatic waves

I pray that I might be all caught up and in the torrent be found safe.

Overall, probably not as good of a poem, but I am a sucker for the personification in the third verse. The image I had in my head was of this white-bearded, ageless lighthouse keeper type materializing from the crags and escarpments of a new england beachfront and walking by me and into the water, into a Nor'Easter. An acknowledgment that creativity is cyclical and then returning to the chaotic waters, the ether beyond ourselves from which all our good ideas come.

Graphic Design Whim: Musician Crushes

2010-03-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

Inspiration

Shopping for shampoo and picking up a prescription for back pain at the local drug store last week, I heard a song by the Dodos over the loudspeakers. It was "Fables," a song I think is somewhat catchy, but I couldn't remember that it was in fact the Dodos who wrote it. In fact, trying to recall the artist was giving me fits of discomfiture. This distraction set me up perfectly to heed the pharmacy background music when the next song came on. As the first bars floated down over the mouthwash and toothpaste aisle, I was ready to lump it away in one of several despicable lite rock of top-40 pop categories. This is my usual way of coping with otherwise unbearably insipid ambient shopping music. But instead I found myself lured by cellos and and a woman's alto singing, "I hope you give yourself up too." I texted myself some of the lyrics so I could look it up when I got home. It gave me goosebumps and I found it very attractive. The song was "What Have I Done" by Anna Ternheim, a Swedish recording artist whose music I hadn't previously heard.

Being that I am male, a musician, and an amateur music critic, it only made logical sense that the sounds of beautiful female voices, belying remarkable female minds, encased in winsome female exteriors might cause me some inspiration. It was only a matter of time before said agitation would have me rattling my way back and forth over a computer keyboard in an effort to type my unrequited admiration out into the vastness of the internet. The result is a series of entries that will be published on my blog, in addition to aforesaid "Decade Music" project, entitled "Music Crushes."

Creation

It didn't seem fit for much literary effort, as the concept is more of a back page magazine feature than anything worth much thought. Besides, with a whim, to over-think is to kill. Rather than merely post pastiches of found photography and music video, I wanted some signature touch of my own. I drummed up quick two-step designs that combine fonts and patterns complementing each musician's style or image (or their own album art, if I feel like it). The first one is published as of this morning [link], and features Neko Case and the new favorite number by Ternheim. Next week's entry will feature Basia Bulat and Jenny Owen Youngs. Other artists sure to be mentioned include Leslie Feist, Zooey Deschanel, and Corinne Bailey Rae.

While Observing at Dusk

2010-03-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

The first installment of 'Tuesdays with Taylor' is really quite a shallow and probably undeveloped one but a deadline is a deadline. This bit was just buried somewhere in my journal and I have decided for the sake of sticking to a schedule to go ahead with it since playing basketball by streetlight was ever so appealing. Here it goes...

The Sheltie puppy darted beneath the plank table and gazed out upon the garden as the sky turned to pale shades of pink and orange. His eyes roamed curiously until he caught sight of a thieving raccoon moving on padded feet to the tomato cages. The great fruit heist was at hand as the brown and white youngster darted down the hill bounding clumsily to accost the slinking bandit. He let loose a low, almost comical rumble from his throat. The underdeveloped muscles trembled with apprehension but his determination, overriding any precautionary hesitation, drove him down the hill towards the thief.

Arriving at the scene of the crime, the pup stumbled unprepared within striking distance of the nocturnal, stripe-tailed rodent's claws. The raccoon snarled, swatted, and I grimaced as the furious little claws batted at the wet, inquisitive nose of the unlearned youth. This black and grey,

bushy-tailed, nighttime burglar treated the bold pup's snout to a melee he wouldn't soon forget, snatched the red, ripe fruit from the vine and stole away into the trees bordering the garden's edge to wash the spoils in the creek. I washed the defeated pup's nose while his enemy ate his fill at a safe distance under the cover of night and tree limb.

A skunk darted behind the trash cans near the back porch and his ears perked up and spine went stiff...

from ali : housekeeping continues

2010-03-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you not kicking it here in Canton (i.e. Alden and Gabe), we regionally consolidated Tortoises have committed to a scheduled output of content designed to both a) strengthen our own individual creative production and b) ensure consistent activity here. Gabe, I know you're already spread thin over multiple activities so there's no obligation to commit to timed posting, but you're welcome to as well!

Current deadlines, beginning this week and subject to change as needed:

Taylor : Tuesday
Ryan : Friday
Ali : Saturday
Conrad : Sunday

And a few notes:

The days are not exclusive e.g. Taylor can still post on a Sunday, or Gabe on a Friday, etc. Anybody can post anytime, but everybody with a schedule will post something on their day.
Content is up to your personal discretion as usual and there are no restrictions on what you choose to share - you can roll with a new design, a project idea, a project update, a well-turned line, a full-blown thesis, a song, an inspiration for a song, whatever. Again, the idea is to just post something.

Ideas? Criticism? Frantic preparatory scribbling mingled with thoughtful chewing of pen caps?

---

Oh yes, and loosing my fanatical white-knuckled grip on the virtual file cabinet for a moment...

Someone (Taylor, perhaps?) had the bright idea to tag each post with the author's name in addition to its category in order to help us find our own or a particular person's posts quickly. Is everyone down with that?
Gabe introduced the Junk Drawer tag for those miscellaneous items (like this post) which don't fall neatly into one of the three broad categories of Inspiration, Quotations or Creation. But so help me, if you people abuse it... *tightens lips*

Blog Gets a Flag Facelift

2010-03-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

I've started journaling on Blogger again because my life is a mite eventful at the moment; that's why I conceived that blog, "Oh The Times We Have!" in the first place, as a chronicle of events. However, I started that blog before I ever honed my design skills, and blogger's "Rounder" template had really begun to get on my nerves this time around. I was watching Leatherheads while I was designing the new banner and color scheme. Somehow something in the film's convincing reproduction of that 1920s era really crept into the style of my banner.

As a side-note, I do wish young women would more often dress the way Renee Zellweger dressed in that movie. An exception might be given for the bright orange hats. I suppose I wish we fellows all dressed the way Clooney and Krasinski's characters dressed, too. But then, as long as we're discussing personal inspirations and styles, I've always felt a little inexplicably homesick for eras before my time.

As a second side-note, I find it interesting that the publisher's term "flag" isn't defined in disambiguation on Wikipedia. Perhaps that should be rectified. For now, see this page for some common terminology I've learned in class and in the workplace, and to understand my use of "flag" in the title here. Maybe this use of the word is part of a dying nomenclature, but if it is, nobody told me.

Themes and Variations on Waking Up

2010-03-08T22:28:00.000-08:00

Hello all. I am called ryan. I enjoy building fires on beaches and san serif fonts, so it really bothers me that Helvetica is not an option here at blogger. I used to blog at http://greatintheory.wordpress.com/ but I eventually deleted every post, as I have a particularly bad habit of doing (ask the torn bindings of my moleskine).

I am glad to be here at The Tortoise Initiative; I consider this domain a blank slate limited only by my fear of the blinking black line in the top left corner of the screen. The idealist in me always harbors that hope that all we (the editorial "we") need is one more fresh start, one more creative space to start over and reinvent. As naive as that may sound spoken aloud, we all have a tendency to inwardly believe something similar at certain times.

At the diner, the rising sun will send rays of light haphazardly leaping through the windows, cutting through the steam rising from your mug, and whatever you say during that moment is vigorous and youthful and awake. That is a redemptive feeling. There is a confidence and a forgiveness that comes with letting go, no not forgetting, letting go of failures, victories, preconceived notions of what you are capable of, labels and loss. Everyone has experienced the terror and beauty of waking up in an unfamiliar place. Everyone secretly wishes they could brush their teeth, walk outside and announce that "today, the rules are: there are no rules".

Alas, in the interest of intellectual honesty, we must consider the converse. We must do what is hard and weigh the benefits of the past against the freedom of the untethered life. For there are benefits, I must admit. Momentum can only be realized through an awareness of your own personal history, and truthfully the excitement of waking up at a stranger's place is the fuzzy pre-dawn question "am I home?".

Where do I fall on the issue? Is there wisdom in whole-heartedly embracing the new day, the spring, or are we losing something by forgetting the lessons we learned in winter? Here at the Tortoise I will attempt to do what I have never done previously: Create and not forget. I will not rip the pages out, even if looking back over the clumsy words and fuzzy logic, I see little worth saving. One can still feel the excitement of the pen on paper even if there are pages and pages of rough coffee-stained words to the left.

I like how one of my favorite navel-gazers Søren Kierkagaard puts it:

Nature, at its most basic level, is ahistorical, in that it can only be predicated of history in one way: it has come into being. A smaller subset of nature, potentiality, can be more fully predicated of history.

Potentiality is the thread that ties our past and our future together. There is only what has been, what could be and the vaporous sliver of time called the present where we sift through the latter and fall into the former. When I look at it this way, the sharp distinction between past and present blurs the slightest bit, and I see more clearly that decision is what lies behind them. Every new post could be a million things, and every old post could have been a million things. Accept, maybe even rejoice, in your history, live out your future. Do not delete, do not give up.

I love this song, and I think the video, in a way, expresses what we all value about spring, and new beginnings, but has a reflective ending that kind of blurs those type of distinctions.

*Must be watched in full screen mode

White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

So there it is, my first post. Maybe you read it and liked it, maybe you read it and hated it. Maybe by morning I will think myself foolish, or preachy or any number of things, but regardless, this time I won't tear out the page.

Partially Cloudy with a Chance of Vocabulary

2010-03-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

from ali : a matter of housekeeping

2010-03-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

a moment of your attention, my darlings.

most of you here know I like neat things - I like the Dewey decimal system, and clothes arranged by shade from dark to light, and separating the big soup-slurping spoons from the little ice cream nibbling spoons. Because keeping things neat means less hassle, and less hassle means less time wasted, and less time wasted on hassle means more time to waste on more interesting things, like the latest issue of People magazine.

for example, I don't want to dig around here looking for your so-far altogether delightful posts. I want our content tucked in a few crisp, clean folders, where we can retrieve them with speedy ease - which is where the tags come in. Consequently there are currently only three folder-tags which should be used : Inspirations, Quotations or Creation. Applying more than that (cough GABRIEL cough) interferes with the happily minimalistic filing system, while forgetting to apply one altogether (cough TAYLOR AND CONRAD cough cough) creates the virtual equivalent of having to hunt through the junk drawer for matches - and I hate hunting through the junk drawer for matches.

now my darlings

*rubs out cigarette with care, delicately pushes ashtray aside*

do you understand what I'm saying?

----

p.s. obviously, the tagging system is open to debate, seeing as this is not actually a monarchy.

*fingers gold felt crown longingly*

2010-02-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

This will not be a series of observations or a flowery description of some afternoon in the park. Instead I've opted to make this little entry a list of what I'm working on at the moment due to the fact that nothing has reached its final stage just yet.

There's a series of songs and musical pieces I've been putting together over the past six months that I'm preparing to record (actually record. Not the "about to record" with the distant look in my eye that means I want to but probably never will.) The track listing will be as follows:

1. Death Egg [Revised]

2. A Hug from Guillermo

3. The Saint Rides Again

4. His Name was James

5. Evergreens

6. Places You Go/Places You Stay

7. At the Beach with Adolphus

Aside from the above listed songs I have the desire to write a song for each and every one of my friends because what's nicer than having a song written for you, really? It's a long, arduous process because each quirk, every mannerism, and all the wonderful things about these people must be embodied by the chords used, the time signatures applied, and then the songs should take on the personality of the individual they're written for.

Is Ali a waltz or a folk song? Is David a ballad or a rollicking rhythm and soul song? Are they meant to be minor chords or soft humming over maracas and bongos? Is Canaan a jazz song just because he loves Billy Cobbam?

2010-02-22T08:15:00.000-08:00

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma

Take me home, country roads

interested in exploring all our respective creative homes - "creative home" not being definable as a literal place or even established style, but more as a sensation that can be felt in the work, that subtle awareness of firm footing as your pen hits the stride of a core creative beat or your picture perfectly projects your individual eye, the actual inner view that's shaping the outer world, into a single shot.

Mosquito Hawk

2010-02-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

Caught a mosquito hawk in my shoe
Put her out on the front porch to fly at the moon
She'd achieved the bulbs over my bed over and over
and below I'd been cooped, ducking her flutter all day

Thought occurred to me
To wonder what she eats,
What she thinks about when she flies at big lights
Does she really eat bloodsuckers,
Or feel hearing or sight,
What's her calling, what purpose? what name?

She bounced off the top of my head a time or two,
Landed on the mirror, landed on the wall,
Alighted on the light fixture and the bedpost and my laundry
She clattered about in the leather of my loafer,
Rattling surprisingly raucous as I closed her in
Confined for a moment, dark for minutes
Battling the hide where I hid her
Then out in the night
in the wild I slid her

I caught a mosquito hawk
In my shoe
Put her out on the front porch to fly at the moon

Gabriel Ballard 2/14/2010

2010-02-06T22:48:00.000-08:00

2010-02-06T14:51:00.000-08:00

I have been told recently that my life and soul are full of holes that cannot be filled. As I step out from the Daniel's front door to meet a chilly January evening I catch sight of a smiling gentlemen in the room on the right with a wise, white beard tumbling from his chin down into his lap. His eyes are kind and reveal a peaceful, humble wisdom far beyond my understanding. Easing the door closed, I decide that my departure can be delayed for just a moment with this man.

He is deaf. I know that he has never heard the roar of a city highway or the melody of nighttime sounds beneath pine trees on a Summer evening. He has seen and smelled a world in ways unimaginable to me. What is it like to look out over an ocean not mingled with the sounds of gulls and crashing waves?

Graphic Design Whim: Writer Identities

2010-01-18T14:14:00.000-08:00

I'm writing up the unofficial Xanga user poll on the best ten popular music albums of 2000-2009. When I present the results, I want to try something different. Usually I would just let the album covers stand as their own visuals. But that will be a lot of little jaypegs. Each Xanga writer's distinct personality comes through in their music choices. Why not show that visually? The Whole Brevity Thing is my formal blog [link]. Usually I accent its white landscape with colorful entries. So I started compulsively creating flashes of color that I would feel okay sharing as my design work but would also represent the personality or style of each blogger as I displayed their top 10 lists. All my projects are unwieldy, so who knows if these will ever be posted anywhere but here? Links to each blogger are below each banner prototype.

drakonskyr

CallMeQuell

psalms5289

roninism

skittlesruletheworld

bongo5

elelkewljay

iStephanieMarie

KATE MACDOWELL

2010-01-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

Elegant but eerie - Kate MacDowell's work reminds me of Pompeii, her concept-creatures arrested in incongruously violent yet serene preservation ...

"idea"

"cuckoo"

"casualty"

"canary"

"bad seed"

don't burst my bauble.

2010-01-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

blackbird claw, raven wing

2010-01-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

2009-12-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

There's this great expanse of sky all around. An atmosphere of understanding and an undeniable, unending amount of truth. There's just enough misleading done by an enemy at once within and without, pacing up and down the miles of earth, to distract from and upset the balance of harmony instilled by a trust and honest belief in God to lead to discontent if ideas of this world are whole-heartedly entertained. Sometimes I paint my face up in illusions of money and lust and gluttony so perfectly that I forget to count the blessing as numerous as the stars hanging above;

Glorious light through old blinds on a clear morning, my mother's smile, my father's firm embrace given upon departure, Conrad taking time out of his schedule to exchange a few words on the telephone, a man offering his blessing from down the highways of telephone wires suspended over fields and city streets to close out a long work day, and the promise of faithfulness and ceaseless forgiveness.

Sometimes it's helpful to take stock of the things that bring even the smallest amount of joy into life that seems to be an endless walk towards nothingness. It's becoming rather apparent that all things have purpose and everyone has a part to play. It's about time to get into character.

Jagged barbed wire perched on top of cold chain link fences all against a back drop of bare, grey trees is, for some, reason to lose hope. The visual can tug it right out of you. It's also a reminder, though, that in a matter of time those same trees will again burst with new life and overshadow the presence of the fences that stand before them.

...and one day we'll be evergreens.

2009-11-30T20:42:00.000-08:00

Oh my I miss you. I’m here on my back again, laying in the same tall grass and watching the same stars cycle overhead, my eyes following blinking lights across the sky, my mind traveling faster than my feet ever will.

It’s been forty long years. Our house is the same, I left it just as you did darling. It’s quieter, and lonelier, I can’t deny.

I think of when we were first married, when the you posed a question of loyalty, half turned to the kitchen window and waving a spatula for emphasis. You asked me if I thought of you while I was away, if you were ever and always in my thoughts. I caught you around the waist, the morning sun catching all your hairs in a dance of flame and shimmer, I showered endearments and playful tones of love.

Our cabin, my cabin you made ours, every quilt and ornament and decoration and corner a piece of your eye and mind.

Our little one, who was so close yet never was. I hated myself then, hated myself for you, hated the weak blood and poor genetics I had dared to contribute to you, hated the mortality of former generations that kept her from being yours.

You would laugh at me now darling, an old man talking to flowers and dustballs and hummingbirds. Bartholomew is an old man as well, we two sputter and hiss at each other, me with my clumsy feet and him with his claws, the house our rivaled respected domain, keeping peace only in the memory of you. He doesn’t let me near your reading robe, many nights I’ve told myself I couldn’t bear the sight of it, and many nights his eyes have warned me that I had better. I’m glad he’s there, fighting for your memory when I don’t have the strength.

It won’t be long now, you can tell the Old Man to keep his eyes off you, I’ll be there soon. He gave you to me once, maybe he’ll be kind enough to do it again. I rejoice at the pains in the knees, I laugh at the hanging in my chest. It means I’m coming to you darling, it means I’m coming home.

2009-11-27T00:21:00.001-08:00

In din of crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,

May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place

Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing the curlews,

Hearing the horizons endure.

- ted hughes, the horses -

There are few things that grip the pit of my stomach like the strike of bared branches against November blue, that hard-eyed crew-cut autumn blue that draws color out sharp and breaths out soft.

In those branches is the epitome of a season that for all its sweet is the most bitter, in which every leaf is tipping gold because it's on the downward turn - the season in which I remember that we're eternal.

Because you see this concept of time, it's something our bodies understand. Our bodies understand it because they belong to it, to the clay world transience. They move within its determinations and along its grooves with unflinching and inevitable obedience from first fertilized egg to last taken breath.

But our souls, they know better, and are never fully reconciled to this unnatural constraint. The sense of injustice, of loss, of poignancy in grasping at a full moment just as it's slipped away - the autumn ache -

it's the eternal within us arching its back against the temporal around us.

(and in that knowing, it becomes less of loss and more of hope.)

pick a picture

2009-11-15T23:06:00.000-08:00

[dipping my lens into the study of color as a concept,

so please let me know the why behind the which!]

one million footnotes

2009-11-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

A daily pre-twitter conceived blog, each entry a single line, described by the author as:

"Footnotes to a nonexistent book, a series of observations, a novel without the plot, the autobiography of an imagination, linked poetry of the everyday world, an impossible goal."

Excerpts:

"He considered the varieties of vanilla ice cream he could buy and wondered if the closer something was to nothing the more variety it encompassed. "

"A long enough hug, and the heat moved between them. "

"He spilled the pencils like ink all over the page. "

"It had been forty years since he'd seen a live raccoon cross a road, and this one wasn't attached to a leash. "

belief and explanatory reports

2009-11-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

"I guess we're all, or most of us, the wards of the nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn't explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn't explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were more interested in what is than in why it is. So many old and lovely things are stored in the worlds's attic, because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out."

"The Winter of Our Discontent"

-Steinbeck

Humor

2009-10-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

"Humour is for them the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence, it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is 'mean,' but if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows with having been scored off, he is no longer 'mean' but a comical fellow. Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humourous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can be passed off as funny. Cruelty is shameful -- unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man's damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke."

adjusts reading glasses...

2009-10-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

... peers over them enthusiastically around table, folds hands and begins brightly:

well hello boys! I'm so glad to see that Taylor Coleman has joined us today and -

checks notes, furrows brow

- Leon ... Willabee.

Conrad wriggles in seat with delight, jabs at Taylor with elbow - Taylor attempts to subtly distance himself with long, contemplative sip of coffee.

I'm pretty sure I've already laid out this blog for at least Taylor, if not both of you.

Conrad yawns noisily. Ali glares, corrects herself, resumes with strained cheer

Basically, it's a practical manifestation of an idea sparked by Conrad's hypothetical scenario of "communal living with a positive purpose," and fueled by the creative energy generated while sharing and discussing projects with Taylor.

Taylor beams. Conrad flicks paperclip at Ali's glasses.

What I had in mind for the tortoise was a place where we can share

Inspiration: anything which sparks you - passage, quote, article, link, photograph, art, artist, author, concept, anything
Ideas: whether a broad, general creative idea or an idea for a very specific project
Projects: sharing the progress of a project, the actual project-in-progress, or the completed product

Basically, a creative catch-all: somewhere where we can not only archive our own inspirations, ideas, and creations, but where we can also open them to others and receive/generate thoughtful feedback.

Every post will automatically have the author's name at the bottom and, if we all use the same labels when creating a post [e.g. IDEA, INSPIRATION, or CREATION] then we can quickly find everything within a given category using the label module on the home page's right hand.

Any thoughts? Questions? Suggestions? Concerns?

Ali looks up - realizes Taylor is texting and Conrad has quietly slipped under the table to nap on his backpack. Rubs bridge of nose wearily, sighs.

Beginning of "A Long Walk"

2009-10-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

Three faces suspended within the panes of three unwashed windows looked out upon a burning hayfield. The flames crept nearer to the quaint home. Smoke billowed high, blotting out all but mere remnants of the sun.

A mass of gnats hummed over a pool of stagnant water to the left of the doomed structure. The dog, an old, shaggy, golden lab, drank from the puddle and retreated beneath the porch while the barn cat lept from branch to branch in the uppermost regions of a stand of trees behind the house. The youngest of the three children in the home, Benjamin, stared wide-eyed as the flames grew closer, consuming the dry alfalfa. He bit his lower lip to stifle his sobs. Tears rolled gently down his smooth, sun burned cheeks and he quickly hid his face from his older brother to his left who looked on defiantly at the rapidly approaching fire.

The boy's sister, Hope, sat patiently and looked at the back door suggestively, drawing their gaze away from the fire. They all rose slowly, painfully, and walked quietly out of the house. The dog followed faithfully as the flames weakened and swallowed the comfort of their home...