Shiah working on his new bar in Winthrop. The Copper Glance. Opening maybe in May.

Starting them young.

Artistes

The Artistes!  Memphis on left, Eason on right.

Memphis paints a leaf and sun

Eason's dynamic expressionist painting #1

Eason's forceful, gorgeous painting #2

Posing

Eason and his friend Memphis paint beautiful artworks in my studio.

Charles Takes a Break

Charles relaxes poolside in Arizona after escaping for a week from the Ann Arbor deep freeze.

Lookout Mountain

Julia and I took a little stroll Monday to the waterfall in the sun dappled forest of Lookout Mountain. 

March

Eason eyes the Anacortes Refinery at Bayview beach one lovely evening

Waiting for an oil train to pass in the night

Reworking a flower bed

Planted:  Calla lilies, irises, Crocosmia, and two mystery plants

A new bed for my Colocasia plants.  ("Elephant ears"

Burning a years worth of yard waste, prunings, clippings

Elegy with Surrealist Proverbs as Refrain

By Gioia, Dana


"Poetry must lead somewhere," declared Breton.   

He carried a rose inside his coat each day

to give a beautiful stranger—"Better to die of love   

than love without regret." And those who loved him   

soon learned regret. "The simplest surreal act   

is running through the street with a revolver

firing at random." Old and famous, he seemed démodé.   

There is always a skeleton on the buffet.


Wounded Apollinaire wore a small steel plate   

inserted in his skull. "I so loved art," he smiled,

"I joined the artillery." His friends were asked to wait   

while his widow laid a crucifix across his chest.   

Picasso hated death. The funeral left him so distressed   

he painted a self-portrait. "It's always other people,"   

remarked Duchamp, "who do the dying."   

I came. I sat down. I went away.


Dali dreamed of Hitler as a white-skinned girl—

impossibly pale, luminous and lifeless as the moon.   

Wealthy Roussel taught his poodle to smoke a pipe.   

"When I write, I am surrounded by radiance.   

My glory is like a great bomb waiting to explode."   

When his valet refused to slash his wrists,   

the bankrupt writer took an overdose of pills.   

There is always a skeleton on the buffet.


Breton considered suicide the truest art,

though life seemed hardly worth the trouble to discard.   

The German colonels strolled the Île de la Cité—

some to the Louvre, some to the Place Pigalle.

"The loneliness of poets has been erased," cried Éluard,

in praise of Stalin. "Burn all the books," said dying Hugo Ball.   

There is always a skeleton on the buffet.

I came. I sat down. I went away.




Dana Gioia, "Elegy with Surrealist Proverbs as Refrain" from Interrogations at Noon. Copyright © 2001 by Dana Gioia. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Chickens

We went to the Annual Edison Chicken Parade yesterday.  Lots of people lining the short main street, for a totally silly Welcome to near-Springtime, and enjoying the sun.

I texted Lori as to why she didn't come and she said, "  Yeah, was dying to see chickens on leashes."  and "I think an adult dressed as a chicken is slightly creepy! I found videos n YouTube of it last year.  Funny!  still cracks me up.  One guy was walking it like a dog."

Here's a few photos. Will see if I can get better off Julia's phone with the real chickens.

Eason's 6th Birthday

Fun at the roller rink with lots of children.  We all enjoyed skating.

Seahawk photo

Julia sends a Seahawk photograph to brighten our days.

 

Charles is: Pondering Malphi's Coming Out Party

I have been wondering and pondering and calculating, the last few days, on how I am going to possibly write about a Masquerade Ball set in Malta in 1928 and then it came to me... I just need to story board the Ball.... what symbols do I want to use.... what creatures do I want to create and what music will be playing and what jewels do I want to display or better yet how to go on and on about female body parts that are pushing out of satin dresses like ripe pears on a hot summer night and go on about princesses with luscious red lips who posture towards you and elite tycoons in yellow silk shirts and flowered ties who are dreaming of the illuminati and maidens to eat their dessert off like a sensuous living plate and stuff like that and then build the story in an architectural sort of way with the tools available to me you know in a revolving world sort of way piece by piece and then all I have to do next is to just write towards each landmark foundation point in the story boarding right here is where you want to bee way point of view of the story boarding and then probably I will be able to accomplish this task.   And although I continually second guess myself on myself writing such a complicated and multi layered story like a Masquerade ball but really my mind stays centered on the fact that I think it's not a very good idea to plot against the dream and maneuver around my mind and doubt the dream I had about the Lucca and Malphi book  and  go doubting the dream you know the dream where I saw the book in its totality laid out before me and the very same dream where I can't remember anything else about the dream but the fact that the  dream told me that the book was going to be written in 4 separate chapters each clearly defined you know and the dream told me to write a masquerade ball chapter for chapter two and  so I will do that even though currently I am lost about even considering how to write a chapter about a masquerade ball and it will be a very difficult task to write this second chapter and I know that and you know that but for god sake's what else do I have to do with myself.

 -- Charles

Alger Black and Yellow Bugs

Last night we attended a presentation on 'black and yellow bugs' at the Alger Community Hall. (How could we not attend a talk with such great subject matter????)  After the presentation, we went outside and were treated to this dragonfly, flaming in the night.  Oh yeah, and a big chunk of homemade "Creative" chocolate.

Lynne's Art at Hanover Art Guild Black and White Show

Lynne has three very nice pieces of art in the Hanover Guild's "black-and-white" art show right now.

Her's the link:  http://www.hanoverareaarts.com/show/album/index.html

The Guild is pretty interesting.  It is very active, with about 150 members.  It has been around in one form or another since 1968 and owns its own building in downtown Hanover, PA.  It has both gallery and studio / workshop spaces that Lynne makes good use of.

Elaine and Byron!!!!

Happy Birthday to you PA-livers!

Happy Birthday

 Happy 33rd Birthday, Spencer.  Here are some photos from Julia of times past!

Skagit River Eagle Festival

Julia and I spent Sunday walking old growth forest up the Skagit River in Rockport and Marblemount.  We saw trees that were 300 -to 500 years old.   And lots of lichen and moss.  All part of the month-long upriver "Skagit Eagle Festival."  Oh, yeah, we saw a couple of bald eagles too. . .

Because I Bee

Charles's New Book "Because I Bee" is now available on Amazon! 
Critics say "Profound Fun!"  and "A Riot, Pure Genius with Gorgeous Bee Paintings too!"

Here it is.  (When you get to page, click the "Look Inside" image to the left.)

http://www.amazon.com/Because-I-Bee-Charles-Grimes-ebook/dp/B00S2789G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421358846&sr=8-1&keywords=charles+grimes

Charles's Prologue to "Because I Bee": My Response to Going Live on the Internet Wire

Oh man does this

Mean that I am now

Beeing scrutinized or

Euthanized or criticized

Or better yet marginalized by the cultured eye?

Or maybe this means beeing held over the

Hot coals by the powers that bee for beeing such a lousy

Speller and for beeing complicit

In so many run on sentences after continual

Run on sentence and finally before I was

Even a man I was sentencing my 10th 

Grade English teacher a certain Mr. Brandt I want to 

Remember who was forced into eternally pulling his hair out in class

And pronouncing to everyone all around the classroom as

He walked around in circles and circles and

Around the desks and around the chairs and

He was want to restlessly storm about the classroom on his

Own two clumsy feet and then teaching us in outbursts of his

Heartfelt and truly tested and sometimes frustratingly

Tested humanity and how he would say to all of those still awake

And maybe even awake and responsive

In that sun drenched little classroom at Omak High that

I Charlie Grimes was the King of the Run On Sentence

And Oh my god will this ever cease

And Oh My God if Mr. Grimes will please work harder

On his next assignment and then maybe even write an original Thought or
Two about all of these great stories of American Literature

That I continually bring to you on a regular basis

Week after continuing week like a drubbing that won't stop so that

If Mr. Grimes could just bee a little more responsible  

We can all then get back to

Everyone's favorite subject Moby Dick and some day you

Can all learn to remember that I told you all to call me Ishmael.

-->

Field Work

Lori writes: This is Spencer, my brother in law, and his son Everett in their hay field in Silvana. The Stillaguamish river got a little high today!

Now.

Now.

Dateline Winthrop: Apples