Poetry Night

リディヤ・メンドザの声は
ラジオで
夜中に
私のアルメニアの祖母さんの声で
しかも、スペイン語で、
古いバイナルで、
ラジオで、
夜中である。
彼女は彼女を聞いたことあるかしら
仲良くできたかしら
か、
仲良くできる
今
彼女らがいるところで。

The voice of the late Lydia Mendoza
Over the radio
Late at night
Is the voice of my late Armenian grandmother
Only, in Spanish,
And aged on vinyl,
And over the radio,
Late at night.
I wonder if one ever heard the other
And if they would have gotten along well
Or,
If they will get along well
Now,
Wherever it is that they are.

California

I flew out west last week to visit my aunt and uncle in Sacramento and get away from Missouri for a while. I enjoy spending time with the Golubs; we just kind of click.

Sacramento is really spectacular, even in the rainy winter season. I’ve always loved heading out for a walk along the American River, especially with the Golub family dog, Kingsley.

Kingsley is a beautiful malamute with unusually light coloring and a gorgeous, grumbly voice. He is also the most mellow dog I have ever seen in his weight class.

This time around, the big adventure was a journey down to Oakland to take a flameworking class with aunt Mari. If you live anywhere in the bay area, I envy you for many reasons. The most recent of these is the Crucible.

The Crucible is awesome. It is full of interesting things and interesting people to tell you how to use them. Things like glass and fire, and people like Tara Murray.

Boron glass + fire + patient instruction from teachers = marbles!

I love marbles. Big, imperfect ones that you make yourself (and take a few burns for) are definitely more interesting than the ones that come from the store. My favorite one is this vortex marble.

It came out a little not-so-round, but it’s cool to look inside and see the rippled colors all twisted together. (And when you get really good, you can make ones like THIS.)

I also met Robert Mickelsen purely by chance, as he was touring the Crucible with the likes of Kaj Beck and a whole assortment of other glass artists.

I love California.

Small Amusements

If you, like me, are easily entertained, here is a game to play.

1) Turn on the radio.
2) Tune in to a news/sports station.
3) Turn off the radio, get a slip of paper and a pencil, and get ready.
4) Flick the radio on briefly: listen for the first sentence or complete phrase you hear, then jot it down.
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have gathered sufficient material.
6) Send a letter to someone composed entirely out of your new lines, or, if you have a friend handy, try to have a civil conversation with everything you've written down.

Please note that this game is particularly entertaining when played between the hours of 3 and 6 in the morning.

In other news, the house smells like apple pie, and I heartily approve.

Kites!

They came, they flew, they got the family out of the house. (In January, which, retrospectively, might not have been the best for our health, but it was worth it.)

A Paul Gunther butterfly....


...and a "small" delta-coyne. (Only in the world of kites and passenger jets does five feet of wing mean "small.")

A note to any other Missouri kite fliers fighting with variable winds; delta coynes. Seriously. They’re unshakable, and they’ll climb up on anything from 5 to 25 mph, easy. We launched Tiny from a standing takeoff, no assistant, to 150 feet in 40 seconds.

We're gonna need a longer line.

A Time for Kites

When it's early January and a pleasant 71 degrees Fahrenheit outside, it becomes a time for kites. I went out to Faust Park on Sunday with the family and enjoyed the wind with "Yasui," my uber-cheap, half-tailed, 40 feet of single-line Edo kite. He's flown in the sea breeze off the eastern coast of Japan, and he did fairly well in the skies over middle America, but a paper kite only lives so long.

So now it's a time for new kites.

We've got a pair on order from Into the Wind, but until they arrive, I'm enjoying myself over at the Kite Plan Base.

(Highly recommend that there Kite Plan Base.)

Caterpillar Love

I would like one of these, please.

Just a chance to meet one would be awesome.

(Looks even spikier as a hatchling.)

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu

あけましておめでとうございます！

Happy New Year!

Two-thousand and eight is the year of the rat or mouse. You can make your own little mouse mascot with the pattern and instructions provided by Runo over at Nuno Life.