Semi-Urban Cartography

Paw Prints On Tundra

Random thoughts from the end of the week/weekend:

• Cat paw prints appeared on the stove top overnight. At 3:30 I was awoken by a cat between my knees, rendering me unable to move from side to side. Iggy. I rolled over and he simply went with me — then I lifted him off and dropped him on the floor. He came back hours later but I wonder if in between, he walked across the black, glass top in search of heat.
• Finished reading Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner yesterday while agonizing over an empty desk at work. In summary I thought it was a good book, the first and last parts were a real narrative revelation (here is where Stegner works on the Doppler and title affect). However, the middle passage, those 475 pages of epistolary work left something to be desired. Ultimately, Stegner’s narrator has to draw his conclusions anyway. All told, I’d rather read Crossing To Safety once again.
• Last week I got a letter from the Oregon Secretary of State: my LLC license needs to be renewed to the tune of $50.00. Why does this feel notable to me? Longbranch Productions has once again provided an identity for my ambition but no work to show for it. Perhaps I’m thinking too much about this.
• Next books on the list: Microserfs by Douglas Coupland (full disclosure: third attempt), Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (“really smart Dan Brown”) and likely the long anticipated Sot Weed Factor by John Barth. I’m open to suggestions however. More James Ellroy and Wu Ming seem similarly compelling.
• First night of Hanukkah last night. Candles lit. A Chai goes around Lisa’s neck (only to be returned soon after).
• Another winter storm. Frozen temperatures rising only long enough to lower again and carry in moisture from down south. Batten down the hatches. The dog and I may walk just far enough today to get coke for the bonanza of rum in our liquor drawer.
• Musical rabbit holes abound these days as the weather freezes in and the light begins to fade. Just when I was beginning to submerge into Antony and The Johnsons (a shallow pool, few albums to explore) someone turned me onto Atlas Sound, and by proxy, Deerhunter and the expansive Micromix Project by band helmsman Bradford Cox. Spartan stuff. It reminds me of the first few days I discovered Guided By Voices.
• Hard scrabble three months have passed since I wrote out submissions but I have seven on my desk as I write this. As the screenplay pen goes down, the poet’s pencil emerges. I’ve enthralled in a new personal writing theory: “Poetic Omission(s)” and feel like I could run with in the reworking of old things. When I struck that line, my stomach turned.
• Today is one of those days. I may not go very far. I’ll look out the window for snow.