WHAT IS SET IN MOTION?

8

9 of #100daychallenge

I am often fond of quoting Soylent Green although it was a stupid movie. I was at a Dead concert at the Universal Amphitheater in 1973, when after a thunderous jam, it was all quiet and dark. Someone took the moment of silence to yell out "Soylent Green is people." It was, and still is hilarious. I do think it is pertinent to the way we live. We may not be being actually eaten, but our information and our souls are certainly fodder for some. And we sure as hell are expendable.

The cortisone shot yesterday gave me a bit of relief. My knee stopped cracking for awhile. Today, it is back to the usual excruciating ... well, maybe not that bad but on that continuum ... pain. I probably shouldn't do things such as hauling around 60 pound bags of potting soil or kitty litter, but if I don't do it, it might not get done. I mean, I could wait for Shelly to come over or ask my neighbor when I saw him, but then it is just one more thing on my mental list. It was bad enough today that I teared up driving. McShane, my orthopedist, would rather not go to knee replacement yet, but if the cortisone doesn't work that would be next. I would be the first person to tell a friend not to overdo it, but I don't take my own advice, of course.

Although I said I wasn't going to do it, I not only hit up Savers on 30% Off for Seniors Day, but I bought another pile of books for my great-niece. I don't believe I have introduced you all to Juna Wolfkot or her kitty, Emily (my nephew would argue that it is his cat). I provided the catepillar. Right now, she looks very much like a Syberg. Having heard my friends complain about how bored they got reading the same children's books over and over, as well as wanting to instill a love of good illustration and books in Juna, I have been piling them on. I have been thinning my collection of children's books written by my friends as well, just as part of the general purge ... Purge sounds significant and possibly violent ... Purge indicates volume ... and that is overstating things quite a bit. What is a mini-purge? An ooze? A dribble? 

The cat has clear Syberg cuteness as well, although it is not technically a Syberg cat. My nephew and niece-in-law decided hyphenating their names was dumb, so they threw off both their surnames to become Wolfkot which is nice, easy to say and spell. 

I bought her a copy of Peter Rabbit. That is one I very well remember my mother reading to me and my older brothers. We had a big overstuffed rocking chair and, as we were so close in age, my mom could sit with all three of us to read. I remember Winnie-the-Pooh as well. Must get Juna the Ernest Shepherd illustrations and not the over-merchandized and crappily illustrated Disney versions. What I hate the most about the Disney versions is how they mutated the characters like Tigger in obnoxious ways, not to mention it was ugly. The sweetness and gentleness of Milne's characters are replaced with boorish, broad, Americanized standard characters. Who needs them? Anyway, Juna needs to know about chamomile tea, which in our family has hence been known as Peter Rabbit tea.

(One of my friends who hasn't and still doesn't go to movies or watch tv much swears he told his daughter (born sometime in the 1980s) to always beware of character driven merchandise. Evidently, she is passing this tradition on to her own children.)

I haven't read any research on the subject, but I think illustration before computers is much more interesting. Of course, I don't mean everyone, Bob Staake, David Cowles, Scott Nash and others who might use computers to create, but they aren't 3-D models flattened. I don't even see some of the beautiful hand-hewn techniques, like torn-paper, used previously in children's books. Pen and ink! Pastels! Layered tissue paper! Woodcuts! 

At any rate, as Juna is probably the only great-niece I am going to get, I am spoiling her. She and Emily and her parents live in Brooklyn which makes me sadder than I am no longer there. It's fun to have a reason to purchase cool vintage kids items when, on rare occasion, I run across them. 

I haven't yet met Kasia, ma belle-nièce. We have a nice text thing going and are both eager to meet one another. I did meet her via Zoom so that Juna could meet her great-grandmother. And Janet just goes goo-goo and melty when she sees pictures of her. She is afraid she will not ever get to meet her. I think Janet has some time left and as soon as it is safe to travel, I would imagine that Kasia, Seth, and Juna will come to visit.

Rather than Babylon ... babble on, I will end for now. More to communicate about life with Janet and all, but I have taken enough attention for the evening. Plus, I want to watch some The Handmaid's Tale before I call it a night. (It is night, whether I call it or not.)

TEST

Imagine a surface

so still and vast

that it could test

exactly what

is set in motion

when a single stone

is cast into its ocean.

Possessed of a calm

so far superior

to people’s, it alone

could be assessed

ideally irascible.

In such a case,

if ripples yawed

or circles wobbled

in their orbits

like spun plates

it would be the law

and not so personal

that what drops warps

and what warps dissipates.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York, 2010