THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER

I walked three miles to work in the snow this morning and three miles back home this afternoon. I passed a total of nine trucks on the way to work and around fifty on the way back. The streets are mostly silent.


6:15 a.m.
Valley Avenue East.
All is quiet. Puyallup and Edgewood slumber.


6:18 a.m.
Automotive & Diesel Performance.
They perform engine and body repair. They also have a 24 hour towing service. They seemed to have plenty of business, even this early in the morning.


6:18 a.m.
Railroad tracks.
A freight train will roar through here in twenty minutes, the rumble of its engine and the shrill shriek of its whistle echoing up the hill.


7:00 p.m.
The crest of North Hill.
Almost there. Five minutes ago, I was barked at by two large dogs who wanted to be the only ones wandering about on the deserted streets. A rooster on a nearby small farm will crow in three minutes.


12:30 p.m.
The crest of North Hill.
Return trip. This is the same location as the previous picture, five-and-one-half hours later.


12:30 p.m.
North Hill Farm.
A tractor is clearing private driveways of snow one-quarter mile back.


12:35 p.m.
A North Hill farmhouse.
These people mow their fields for alfalfa. Their children are sledding on the farm acreage, screaming with joy as they fly down the hill. The smoke of fir and alder wafts from their chimney. The smell is faint in the cold, but welcoming, comforting.


12:45 p.m.
Looking down upon Puyallup from North Hill.
The city is buried beneath a blanket of snow. More snow is starting to fall.


1:00 p.m.
Near the bottom of North Hill.
I am almost home. I am trying to walk in the paths laced with tire treads that are only an inch of compact snow and ice upon the pavement, as opposed to the six inches of deeper snow on the shoulder. As trucks approach I move into the deeper snow until they pass. I will soon be home, ready for an afternoon nap.

LET IT SNOW

The child and I have spent a lot of time wandering about Puyallup in the snow the past couple days—walking, sledding, playing in some of Puyallup's parks, drinking hot chocolate at Forza.


(1) Snow at night, Puyallup Riverfront Trail.



Clockwise from upper left: (2) residential street; (3) in Pioneer Park facing Puyallup City Hall; (4) giant snowflakes adorning the side of Puyallup City Hall; and (5) Puyallup's live Christmas tree in Pioneer Park and the Puyallup Public Library.


(6) "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." But snow and subfreezing temperatures did mean that our mail carrier wore snow pants and a winter jacket over his customary shorts!



Clockwise from upper left: (7) beneath the Puyallup River Bridge; (8) phase 1 of the Puyallup Riverfront Trail; (9) Mount Rainier; and (10) phase 2 of the Puyallup Riverfront Trail.


(11) Snow in Puyallup Skatepark.

FOR LES SARDINES

A toast to the members of Les Sardines.

Due to inclement weather, the meeting of my writing group was cancelled on Thursday night. I told the group that "I am going to stay home this evening with a nice cold beer [and] a good book." I kept good on my promise.

---

Snow Cap Ale, a Winter Warmer or an English Strong Ale by Pyramid Breweries

This ale poured the color of garnet with a thin ivory head. The nose was of a lightly spiced red wine with a hint of apple. The flavor is of beef broth, red wine, cloves, and cinnamon. There is also a wee bit of an alcohol bite and a slight tickle of the tongue from its carbonation. Each drink provides a rich start and a dry, clean, ticklish finish.

The bottle calls Snow Cap a "full-bodied winter warmer," and it is indeed full-bodied, but without being too heavy.

This is a great winter beer. It is simple and bold of nose and of flavor. That simplicity doesn't mean that it compromises anything. It is an extremely well brewed beer.

---

"For years we've been walking in mud to our knees without thinking,
sucked into the slop and going on though its clutching is killing."
—page 189, "Flood Plain" by Aleksey Parshchikov, as found in Contemporary Russian Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Evgeny Bunimovich and J. Kates

I am jumping around through the 489 pages of this great collection of the work of forty-four contemporary Russian poets. It is like getting to walk through a candy store. I am choosing poems that catch my eye—titles, content, language, layout. I am reading. I am rereading. I am reading aloud. I am having fun and enjoying myself.

2666: THE PART ABOUT THE CRITICS

"And a funny thing happened to me with those kids, or the coffee they bought me, I noticed something strange about them, it was as if they were there but at the same time they weren't there, I'm not sure how to explain it, they were the first young Mexican poets I'd met and maybe that was why they seemed odd, but in the previous months I'd met young Peruvian poets, young Colombian poets, young poets from Panama and Costa Rica, and I hadn't felt the same thing. I was an expert in young poets and something was off here, something was missing: the camaraderie, the strong sense of shared ideals, the frankness that always prevails at any gathering of Latin American poets."
—page 136, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

"Mexico is unbelievable (here she digressed, but only in Espinoza's letter, as if Pelletier wouldn't understand of as if she knew beforehand that they would compare letters), a place where one of the big fish in the cultural establishment, someone presumably refined, a writer who has reached the highest levels of government, is called El Cerdo, and no one even questions it, she said, and she saw a connection between this, the nickname or the cruelty of the nickname or the resignation to the nickname, and the criminal acts that had been occurring for some time in Santa Teresa."
—page 142, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

What do I find so compelling about a tale of four academics who specialize in a reclusive novelist that none of them has ever met?

First, it is their echo and distorted reflection of the young visceral realist poets of The Savage Detectives. These four critics—Pelletier (France), Espinoza (Spain), Morini (Italy), Norton (America)—would not have been proper members of the visceral poets but fringe members or friends of the core members, if they even ran in such circles in their youth. Now, however, they have grown up, sold out, become established, settled down, matured. They have academic credentials and tenure to protect. They must publish and lecture and debate. But they still remember what they once had and the loss is palpable.

Second, it is their abject loneliness. They revolve around one another like stars and their planets and their moons on a macrocosmic scale or like protons and neutrons and electrons and smaller, stranger particles on a microcosmic level. They love one another. It is camaraderie and friendship, philos and eros, companionship and fucking. It is the choice between the inherent misunderstanding and violence of relationships or the threat of the abyss. It is choosing the lesser of two evils. It is shoring up our defenses against our own mortality. It is joining with another to stave off thanatos.

Third, it is the hauntedness of these four individual atoms. It is their ghostlike wanderings across Europe and Latin America, as they converge upon Santa Teresa. It is their traces as they enter this city of the Sonora Desert. It is the hints and forebodings of dangers, some which I fear may be revealed in short order and others that I fear will never be revealed.

It is the loss. It is the quiet places carved out of "prehistoric rocks." It is the specters of the twentieth century, looming large yet unnamed. It is death, palpable and tasted.

"The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower."
—page 129, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

SANTA TRAIN

The wife, the child, and I traveled up to North Bend with friends to ride the Santa Train from the North Bend train depot to the Snoqualmie train depot.

There wasn't any snow on the ground in North Bend, but it was only 29 degrees Fahrenheit, which felt like 18 degrees with the wind.


A "vintage" railroad officer keeps the peace at the station.


Santa Claus makes the rounds on the passenger cars, handing out peppermint candy canes to children.


We rode the train from North Bend to Snoqualmie, we waited in line in the frigid temperatures to see Santa, we huddled close to outdoor patio heaters, we met Santa, we ate cookies and drank hot chocolate, we once more huddled close to outdoor patio heaters in one of the passenger cars, we waited outside to board the train again, and we rode the train back to North Bend.

The evening ended with hot pizza and cold beer at Jay Berry's.

RUDOLPH

There were reindeer on Main Street in Puyallup. Knowing this made the child absolutely crazy until we went down to visit them. We have been singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" ever since.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

A mural of Bedford Falls as portrayed in It's a Wonderful Life, painted on the front of Puyallup's Liberty Theater by Murals by Angie.

O CHRISTMAS TREE

The wife, the child, and I erected and decorated our Christmas tree for 2008. We followed our family tradition of eating pizza for dinner prior to tree decorating. Then we snacked on candy and listened to Christmas carols as we decorated the tree. We each took turns hanging our favorite ornaments from the branches.

We even have "special" ornaments that we always hang on the back of the tree so that we don't have to look at them, but that we can say are definitely on the tree. (Rest in peace, Grandma!)


This red star was a gift from the wife and I to the child. It is made out of recycled elephant dung by The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company. We picked it up on a recent trip to Powell's City of Books. Believe it or not, the child was very pleased with this ornament.


This "peace dove" ornament was given to me by a coworker some time ago. It is a Chinese "Li Bien" ornament, which is painted on the inside of the ball through a small opening.


This sea star ornament is one of two from another coworker, each given on different years to me. This "Dancing Star" by Margaret Furlong is loved for its organic beauty and subtle movement. The other is "A Star in the Night."


This nativity scene ornament is from one of my boss's travels to rural China. It was hand carved by a peasant craftsman. It is striking due to its simple lines that convey a rich message, its wonderful pentagonal shape, and the red cord that holds it fast to the tree.

READING ROUNDUP

Vacation by Deb Olin Unferth
An odd first novel that concerns obsession, loneliness, love, violence, and voyeurism. In the midst of all of the above, the characters constantly miss meeting one another. That includes a husband and wife!

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
This "memoir" is a mixture of the history of bookselling as a cultural phenomenon across cultures and the centuries and the autobiography of the author's personal history of bookselling. Considering I was a bookseller for sixteen years of my life, I reveled in Buzbee's tales. His story was oftentimes my story.


The Believer, Fifty-seventh Issue: Shukran, October 2008
Favorite pieces: "Hunting the Windy Vapors: A Fetid Jaunt Through the Dank, Unruly World of Humoral Medicine" by Rachel Poliquin; micro-interviews with Diane Williams scattered throughout the magazine; and "The Military-Toy-Industrial Complex" by Jason Boog.

The Believer, Fifty-first Issue: Aroma Prom, November/December 2008
This is the 2008 Art Issue. Favorite pieces: "This is Corporate America: The Intertwined Histories of Photography and the Office" by Britt Salvesen; drawings of people with buildings for heads by Ryan Dodgson scattered throughout the magazine; "The Paralyzed Cyclops" by Lawrence Weschler, wherein he writes about his strange relationships with artists Robert Irwin and David Hockney, who each use him to avoid the other.


The New York Times Magazine, Sunday 23 November 2008, The Screens Issue
"Becoming Screen Literate" by Kevin Kelly argues for the need to embrace (digital) visual literacy as technology finally puts the book into the grave. I don't agree with most of his assumptions, but his arguments are nonetheless compelling and thought-provoking.

The New York Times Magazine, Sunday 12 October 2008, The Food Issue
I am intrigued by the article "Kosher Wars" by Samantha M. Shapiro. It is about modern day Reform Jews who are reclaiming kashrut, kosher dietary laws, as they not only try to eat kosher, but also try to be environmentally conscious, eat locally, and be more humane to the animals that they eat.


Harpers, November 2008
I picked this up from the library solely to read the excerpt by William S. Burroughs from the book And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks that he wrote in 1945 with Jack Kerouac. The book was shelved for more than 60 years, only to be published this fall. I am looking forward to reading it.

City Arts, Tacoma edition, November 2008
My favorite piece in this issue is the "Walkabout" of Downtown Puyallup, where the magazine highlights some of their favorite sites and places of the downtown core.


Celebrator, October/November 2008
Beer, beer, beer—focusing on regional brews throughout the United States.

Northwest Brewing News, October/November 2008
Beer, beer, beer—focusing on Northwest craft beer.

READING ROUNDUP

2666 by Roberto Bolaño
This is definitely Bolaño's masterpiece. I have completed book one of five contained within, and am beginning book two. This is even better than his Savage Detectives, although very similar in tone.

Voice of Ice - Voix de Glace by Alta Ifland
Ifland wrote the original prose poems in this collection in French and then translated them into English herself. Versions in both languages are presented side by side. These short pieces inhabit the realm of fairy tale and myth as well as the contemporary world. I keep reading these to figure out how she does what she does.


What is a Trade? by Donald Fels
Donald Fels is a Pacific Northwest artist who has collaborated with signboard painters of southern India. His work is fascinating because of it use of local color and imagery, collaborative nature, and political statements. I have been running around Tacoma and Port Angeles visiting various exhibits. This is the Tacoma Art Museum show catalog and it contains images of paintings in the exhibit as well as an essay by Dr. Samuel Parker of University of Washington Tacoma, one of my former professors.

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta
Mehta's meditation on his hometown (if you can call a crowded city of 19 million inhabitants a "town") is all the more timely with the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. This is a haunted, longing look at the power and pleasures that form the fabric of this wonderful and vibrant city.


The New York Times, various
I have been reading it more so than usual, in both print and online versions, to keep myself informed of the Mumbai attacks. I have supplemented it with narrative and photographs by someone on the ground, a resident of Mumbai who lives near Nariman House—Vinu.

The Believer, February 2008
I reread a piece in this issue by Suketu Mehta to supplement the other Mumbai information bouncing around in my brain.


Poetry, November 2008
An issue with recently translated poems by Roberto Bolaño (he's everywhere!), beautiful word art by visual poets, and a challenging essay by Adam Kirsch.

Tuesday; An Art Project, 2:1, Third Issue, Spring 2008
This is a collection of 5" x 7" cards that have been hand printed and pressed. They contain poems, photographs, and prints. They are "bound" together by a belly band and wrapped up in 11" x 17" heavy paper poster. I am as fascinated by its architecture and presentation as I am by its contents.


Selected Poems by Jorge Luis Borges
Poems by one of the heavyweights of world literature are presented side by side in the original Spanish and the translated English. A cadre of contemporary translators and scholars really make these poems shine.

Oregon Humanities, Fall/Winter 2008, The "Civility" Issue
I picked this up at Wordstock 2008. The state of Oregon has a great publication in this magazine that is free to all residents of Oregon. The civility issue looks at manners, over-the-top political correctness, incivility, public conversation in a democracy, and other issues of a civil society from varying viewpoints and perspectives.