Line of Contrast

  

tissue package

 

Recherche! Today the gates close on the month of January.

In retrospect: We look back on the month that began the new year.

Bye! Gone!

Gold Prospecting: We anticipate month two.

It is a time of beginnings and endings, again.
   Janus, the Roman god of gates and doors – depicted as the two-faced god, 

 is also ruler of entrances and exits, comings and goings,  arrivals and departures.

 And being here.  All the action in between. I see you. I meet you.
  

 Underscore Maslow: Everyone has a split of some kind. Ideal when the split is well-integrated and functioning positively. The reconciliation and coexistence of opposites and the integration of polarities, the employment of  things and themes that go separately together is the proof of our psychological architecture. Is it well arranged, harmonic and balanced, or is it grotesque, dissonant and off center?  The proof  is in the putting together of the yin and yang of life. And in our ability to move forward in the face of contradiction.

 

shed, doors

The eyecatching Kleenex®™  ”lemon wave” package, the stanchions and the shed (rotated left.)  I would not have noticed them;  their “makeup” -  yellow and green paint noticed me.  Without their form – wood, concrete, paper, plastic – no makeup.

   Without make up, no form. Look at me! Don’t look away. I’m in the flow. Enter here and leave.

Au printemps!

stanchions

Intratelluric

supratelluric

   What is a ten? Abbreviated walking today: crunch, comma, crunch, comma, crunch, comma, crunch. To walk is to move like a high-stepping horse.
Two herons fly up; the second so neatly tucked, feet together, it merits a gold medal in Olympic diving, with the exception it does not enter the water and thus does not, technically, dive.

  

   

Things that are situated upon the earth! 

A pine cone seed packet lay on top of the snowy crust.
It gets tucked into my pocket.
The park crew put their snowplows in motion.
Making a drawing, looking for infinity symbols.
Where is that mathematics book?

 

Infinite Seed

Rabbit Rests

Rabbit at Rest

  ):< Brewer mourns loss of native son.  Kingdom for an Angstrom. >:(

SPOTTED: The Wash Me Variations

Spotted

   

Seen in Pottstown, PA:

DRIVE ON

THE RIGHT.

PASS ON
THE LEFT.

 

 GET OFF THE

#@*!

CELL PHONE!

( Panel truck driver/calligrapher embellishes  “dead air” area on rear doors).

Weekend Warrior: Straight Through Gibraltar

  

Weekend Warrior, Eddie, Raven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Update:

 Have you ever gone straight through? Jabal Tariq, it was. Tariq’s Mountain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warrior and Edgar Allan Poe and Sizzy journeyed to Gibraltar.

 

Gibraltar, PA. U.S.A.: a village of  apparently few inhabitants and no official population count.  Just the straits, ma’am.

The township population is 6,869 and 97% white (2000 Census figures).

Main Street Gibraltar

Eddie thought he saw a sign for Elf-Storage, so we stopped to see what they had on the shelves. It was Self-Storage. We were locked out :(

Elf Storage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A faux topiary elfin Mickey Mouse posed with Eddie, Raven and Warrior.

mouse elf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eddie found a tell-tale heart in the asphalt topping:

 

Tell-Tale Heart

 

We drove under the fire station sign:

Fire Station Sign

 only to find a sign at the fire station:

Any Volunteers?

Is this the shooting gallery?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No wonder the place is deserted.

Evidence of Shooting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did the January 18 Shooting event go, we wondered?

We wandered up the street to ask someone. 

Oh. Dessert!

Dessert! Sweet!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 They have chocolate mint chip. Have they any catnip?

in the knife throwing gallery

Guess not.

Enough! Nevermore!

Lincoln logs

Enough of this Lincoln Log sort of thing!

 

Any ideas? How about Aqueduct in time for the daily double?

Aqueduct sign

This state-owned site is on the National Register of Historic places and is vacant.

It is an architectural and engineering marvel by Beecher, Ephraim, Pettitt and Kimber.

1800-1824 Aqueduct

Here ARE the Rocks of Gibraltar!

Hello World!

I wish Thomas Jefferson could be here.

On a Rock of Gibraltar

    

We left town as we had found it.

bench, red/green

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 including these rocks:

Hard Rock Gibraltar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next drink is on us!

 

Seven-Up sign

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

or, us in the drink.

sea you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Addendum: edited and revised from The Volume Library, 1977:

on Gibraltar the British Crown Colony, to reflect Gibraltar village 2009:

Gibraltar has no natural resources [once an iron furnace] and no useable farmland  √[check], and the colony village depends heavily on tourism, the fire company, transit trade, its two traffic lights, and its excellent citizens harbor and drydock facilities. A British naval base Turkey Hill convenience store and pump station contributes heavily to its economy.

travel

Rudder to the Ship of State

   

    Sell it, trade it, or make something of it?

    I have the rudder to the ship of state!

    What’s its name?

Aretha, Taketi and Uloomu

Snow Bow

 

     Beam me up. Count me in. Let me go on record: Miss Aretha Franklin’s grey felt Luke Song hat – give her props!

    As a new co-worker and I sat inside a sandwich shop, watching the live inauguration broadcast, the Queen of Soul looked grand in her coronet before she rose to sing. In command of her presentation. Beautiful.

   “That’s quite a hat!” I said.  “So taketi/uloomu!”

    Taketi and Uloomu could be - but are are not - persons attending the inauguration. They are the terms invented by Wolfgang Köhler to describe things that are angular and spiky (taketi) and things that are rounded and curvy (umoolu), wonderful opposites that attract and complement.

   The admiration I feel for the accessory, that Detroit- made work of millinery arts, is very much like the affection I have for the heron: Similar color! Features and benefits: plumage AND crowning glory.  Angular and round and soft and sharp.  Folding  and unfolding limbs and wings. A committee of means and ends. Simultaneously ungainly and elegant. Set with stones!  Poised and awkward. Blends in yet stands out in a crowd. Circumspect!

    The Heron Report: Spotted two.  First one cruised in for a landing about the 7 marker and stood sentinel-like at the edge of the bank ( 2:31 p.m).  Second, also sentinel-like, fished from the downstream side of a rock in midstream. Either that or it was one heron in two places. They are very haberdashery.

so taketi/uloomu!

aretha-franklin

Argent Aurific Oneiric

   Inauguration Day morning in Pennsylvania is silver rich. With the temperature at eight degrees at 5:30 a.m., the creek continues to churn out mist and moisture which forms fern-like crystal colonies on the bank’s marginalia of branches and boughs. The water itself at dawn has  the teal and aqua iridescentishness of abalone; the heron flying low: blue and slate. The woods look silverish. Closer inspection shows that is white snow on grey bark.

   We are  150 miles and several light seconds removed from the inaugural activities and events in Washington, D.C, where it is a new address for the Obama and Biden families, a glimmering new dress for the First Lady, her Adam the first black man in the White House and at the presidential helm.

    Sunrise grows golden. The augury is auric. We must pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off - of snow, of dust, of gold dust. Yesterday was only a dream.

 

Fleet Foxes and Fauve Footprints

   What cannot be confirmed may go unreported.  An incredible reveal:  the doglike tracks seen in Sunday’s mix are the sexy paw pads of a fox.  At 7:10 Monday morning, I spot it  jogging through the winter white woods at the dogleg turn of the creek. How refreshing to see a fleet fox, not one dead on the side of the road.

   Recent  popular conversation has introduced the notion of the carbon footprint. May we please also include awareness footprint,  creativity footprint,  footprint of character?  What is the measure of the man, the impact of human activity – the content of his character as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King said?

Energy Confetti

     

Sudoku Re:bus, Allison Huyett

 

    Was it the material, the method or the man that made the bits of track flick out of their footprints? Reason unknown. One set of  shoe treads – out of all the tracks on the trail – had bits and pieces of the sole’s waffle pattern shake loose and redistribute around the toe area.

    When the artist started out walking on fresh snow, it was entertaining to see  bunny, squirrel and bird tracks and be the first human tracks among them. What whole realms of activity beyond  sphere of self  go unnoticed!  Have  to go unnoticed or we would go insane.

  Then this confetti thing started.  Was it the material of the sole that caused this, the action of the walker or the particular pattern of the shoe that created this effect?  The artist’s sneakers produced no such scattering.  This had the artist so mystified she nearly forgot her heronspotting duties.

  The energy confetti showed up in the Sudoku Re:bus for 1/18, along with a heron and a sketch of  three joggers, one of whom was heard to say: “I was actually rooting for them to lose at the end of the season.”

   Saw three heron and heard one. Quite a few cardinals adorned one bush. Three males and one female.

   Tomorrow is Poe’s birthday anniversary and Martin Luther King Day.