THE LAST MEAL

This year's Last Meal was one of the best yet.

The Last Meal fire was started with newspapers filled with 2018 news, which went up in flames and smoke. Steak was seasoned with black pepper, Salish alderwood smoked sea salt, and fresh rosemary from the herb garden. It was grilled/smoked over charcoal, black walnut, Italian prune, and a handful of cedar leaves, which imparted a wonderful smoky and peppery flavors to the meat.

The Wife enjoyed Dungeness crab. The Child enjoyed carrots and peas, pasta and cheese "casserole." TWT enjoyed Pelican Brewing "Bad Santa" Cascadian Dark Ale.

After the cleansing fire and our Last Meal of the year, we played some board games—Azul and Rumis.

PRAYER for VAN GOGH

"Prayer for Van Gogh." Corkscrew willow, Puyallup Riverwalk Trail, Puyallup, Washington.

AMERICA

America. (Seaside, Oregon.)

AT ETERNITY'S GATE

At Eternity's Gate at The Grand Cinema, Tacoma.

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This is the movie I needed right now, even though it "hit a little too close to home." I could too well relate to Vincent's depression, anxiety, and madness. There were plenty of shots of the camera staring up into the canopies of the trees and the leaves, branches, and sunlight up above, something that I have found myself doing with my "prayer" series of photographs of trees.

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Willem Dafoe's performance as Vincent is spectacular. The camera work is intimate. The switch between third person and first person perspectives in cinematography is intriguing and inviting, as much as it is also jarring and distancing. The liminal space between is what I found compelling. Likewise with the soundtrack, with sound and music occasionally stopping, starting, or just dropping off for a bit of time longer than expected. And the use of doubling up of images and/or dialogue to convey the difference between "our" "reality" and Vincent's "reality" is a trick that only works in a medium such as film.

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Director Julian Schnabel brings a painter's eye to the film, being a painter himself, and uses the screen as a canvas of sorts.

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This is a film that I'll definitely be thinking about for some time, especially with its ruminations on art, religion, mortality, and existence.

PRAYER in MAPLE

"Prayer in Maple." Brownsville, Washington.

CHRISTMAS PRAYER

"Christmas Prayer." Italian prune, Puyallup River Valley, Puyallup, Washington.

LONGEST NIGHT

"Prayer of the Longest Night." Negative mirrored image. Riverwalk Trail, Puyallup, Washington.

 —

LONGEST NIGHT

3 o’clock. Afternoon. The sky already listing twilight.
The color of dead salmon in the shallows. Near the riverbank.
Silvered skin. Flesh once pink gone gray. Now sky.

Then the rain. More rain. Rain and rain upon rain.
Torrents from the sky. Rising river. Turbid water.

Many were worried about me. How could I tell them?

I didn’t wish to be dead.
I was certain I already numbered amongst the dead.

Murder of crows sat in the cottonwoods.
Cackling at me. Teasing. Taunting.
Little did they know I was their cousin. Raven.
I cried back. Deep throaty caw. Fanned my black feathers.
Spread my arms into wings.

Lifted into the sky. The salmon sky. The river sky.
The bruised night sky. Into the silence of the crows.

Copyright © 2018 by Troy's Work Table.

—

Other Longest Nights.

BOTANICAL PRAYER

"Botanical Prayer." W. W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory, Wright Park, Tacoma, Washington.

Residing amidst all of the poinsettias, the permanent collection tropical plants lift up their prayers to the glass dome and the heavens beyond.

WIND PRAYER

"Wind Prayer." North Hill, Puyallup, Washington.

Dusk approaches and these trees are finally still. Earlier in the day, during huge gusts of wind, they were bending at 45º about halfway up their trunks.

SEVEN DREAMS

For quite some time I've thought of pursuing a "Cutting In" reading project focused upon some of the work of William T. Vollmann. But Vollmann is so verbose and encyclopedic that the thought of such a reading project is daunting.

However, I recently started reading The Dying Grass, the fifth dream of his Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes series of historical novels. I think this is the starting point for whatever form this Vollmann version of Cutting In ultimately takes.

I've read the other four dreams that have been published to date—one, two, six, and three—and will likely read them again. I tried to start The Dying Grass when it was first published, but got distracted and quit about 100 pages into its 1200 pages of fictionalized narrative of the Nez Perce War. This time, with the notion of cutting in to the text, I caught my rhythm about 80 pages in and have made it deeper into the tale than before. I also have a follow-up book when I complete this initial reading; Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War will be next.

Beyond that, the plan is a bit loose at this point. Perhaps poetry by indigenous writers. Perhaps additional material on the Nez Perce War. Perhaps a field trip or two to areas in the Pacific Northwest where the historical events occurred.

In the immediate, though, there is The Dying Grass that longs to be read. There is its experimental layout. There is its slightly off-kilter presentation of voices that overlap. There is its length and its breadth. I am ready. I am excited. I am cutting in.