Abandon the Creeping Meatball

We're just back from the Mount Tremper Headquarters where all these things are in bloom: Evening Primrose, Tansy, Asters, Bee Balm, Butter and Eggs, and Bladder Campion. Asters are of course the big end of the season fireworks. Now, back in Sunnyside where it's sunny and the Burmese Prince is watching Family Guy. Cat Update: Bela is asleep behind the rocking chair, Mina is staring at the couch, and Harry is on the couch staring at Mina. Friend Update: Miles and Rachel had a good weekend at the Manse, Evan is maybe back from Puerto Rico soon, Zoe took Tristan camping, Bruce is busy painting, Rebecca's new book is out and she had a great write-up in the Times last week. Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/books/21book.html 

Beast Update: Beast now chews her toes on a regular basis.

As for us, we find there's no time to do "work" work, and the Duncan book lingers again moving closer to production, but not in production. We've also deferred our enrollment to Farmingdale State College to January. Disappointing, yes, but onward to Object Relations. We're finding that our Beast Object is more of an education than we've ever had anywhere under any circumstance. So, we're spending the year engaged in baby-raising, and then back to work. Our first real "professional" obligation will be a trip to our favorite place, Naropa, in June of 2010. This is something we can sink our teeth into.

Mostly we've found that having a kid reminds us how much we want to abandon the creeping meatball. Poetry Business seems as stupid as ever and the world of Capitalism is even more appalling. Trying to negotiate the subway with an infant at rush hour is a great lesson in the depressingness of Capital. Who is rushing where and why? We've never seen any point to it. People don't need money, they need each other.

We'll be back next week with early September news. Peace out people.

roach assassin needed
hello peops. we need someone to come over on wednesday this week for four hours to clean all the roaches and roach eggs out of the kitchen cupboards. we're trying to de-roach the apartment without the use of a bomb (not easy, but necessary with the little beast in the place). we can pay a modest killing fee ($50) for the job. we can also provide lunch and tea. please email us at ljarnot@gmail.com if you are interested. peace.

Updatus
Hello to Ray, Erik, Whit, Zoe, Soph, Evan and other readers. 90 plus degrees makes for a stay-at-home day and some turkey and sun dried tomato sandwiches on rye bread. We finished Patricia Highsmith's The Small g, which we liked, even though not much happens. Music of the week will be Nina Simone, and probably Ween and Queen (two Beastie favorites). We tried out Gantry State Park in Long Island City, which is great in that clean nazi way, with a big view of big condos and lots of white young couples with babies. And since we are whitish and almost young we kind of fitted in, except for when asked "what building do you live in?" at which point we announced our hoodness to be Sunnyside which is not condo-ville, but such is life. We're trying to go super-organic at the Sunnyside Headquarters as the Beast teethes and begins the journey toward real food. Other news is that we'll be back up to the Mount Tremper Headquarters soon just in time to see the Bee Balm. And then again for September and October mushroom reveries. We plan to take the Beast on at least one mushroom walk with Gary Lincoff this autumn, something to look forward to indeed. Some return to normalcy, no not really, but we did manage a 10 minute jog out w/ Beast and Stroller yesterday morning, and picked up the Racing Form and had a decaf expresso at Starbucks in great middle class fashion. We'll be starting our film and poetry class toward the end of September here in Sunnyside on Sunday afternoons. If anyone's interested please e us. Meanwhile, RD Bio production begins with a mess of bureaucracy including fill out this form and that form and submit it with two copies of this and that and include a disk and permissions for the xerox of your ass all of which we are resisting in the ridiculousness of. We send good wishes to all our peops and we say, as ever, fight the power and eat the rich and quit your day job.

Tomorrow 90 plus degrees

What can one do with a 3 month old when it's 90 plus degrees outside? We will find out tomorrow. We expect we'll be heading to the park. The small beast lifted her head this morning to take a good look around the room like the loch ness monster emerging from the depths. Very amazing activities here. Haba teething rings seem to be the best (organic/German). We just ordered a bunny teether and a rattle. Nap time continues to continue in style— 30 minute cat naps at 9:45, noon, 2:30, and 5:30.  This is being written during the 5:30 cat nap. A cat burglar last night tap tap tapping at the window pane. It was Grace Kelly, no kidding, the gray cat from the apartment downstairs. She made her way out onto the fire escape and to our window at 3 am.  She spent the morning in the bathroom here while we waited for her owner to rouse. Coleridge is on our minds.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge that is. This poem in particular.  Peace out people. We love you all. Most of you.

Frost at Midnight

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again ! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings : save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not ;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.
    But O ! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come !
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams !
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book :
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike !

    Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought !
My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes ! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher ! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
    Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw ; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
    Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
 

Weekly Update
Hello People of the Blog.  Big hellos to Zoe and Whit and the peops in Wales and Jodie and Andrea and Miles and Rachel. Also big hellos to our peops in Buffalo. We'll be in touch, yes. The week went well and we are in the midst of the 12 week growth spurt. A short visit to Providence was the highlight of the week. Visits to our good peops Mike and Pen and Keith and Rosmarie, all happy and healthy. Odd weather here and there— rain, storms, then sun, heat. Central Park is a big hit with our little beast. We go there a couple times a week to charm the other beasts out of the trees. We're looking for moms to hang out with in the NYC area. Please be in touch if you'd like to start a hang-out group. Also we're getting the Duncan book into production and have some work to do on that front. Any young Duncan fanatics out there who would like to mail out permission letters for us? Josh B of Chi are you around? We will back channel you. Books we're reading are Patricia Highsmith's Small G, which is very mommy friendly, e.g., we can read two sentences a day and we don't get bored or lost. Plus we think Patricia Highsmith is the Cat's Pajamas. The book Thomas is eyeing is Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder. Upcoming events = another trip to Mount Tremper toward the end of August. Trout fishing will not be possible this year, but our pal Soph provided us with a bunch of marigold-like this and thats which are doing well in the garden beside the herbs— lavendar, sage, wild thyme, and anise hyssop. Evy and Emily would you like to picnic in the park on Wednesday? Is anyone in New York living communally? We need a big extended family to share dinner-cooking with. We're against New York isolation, especially now that the child has arrived. Dave, I owe you an email. Yuto looks great on Facebook. We'll be back next week with more news of this and that. This is all to say that living is easy (sometimes) in Sunnyside. Peace out Blog Animals.

Week 11 to 12
We still owe emails to the peops in Wales as well as Whit and Zoe. We return to real blog talk tonight, as there is time. Ah, time. It's easier now as our little beast falls asleep at 8-ish after a major cranky period beginning at 6. Let us say that the hours of 6 to 8 are not a barrel of laughs, but are interesting. (Interesting in that it is amazing to watch a baby make sense of transitions between waking and sleeping— such a huge task for a creature that has just woken up into the world. Very awe inspiring.) Meanwhile, Merce Cunningham has left this world, which makes us sad. The comprehensive obituary in the Times is heartening though. What's disheartening is the way the world churns along with all its business business business. Should we move to the cabin in the woods? Possibly. Yesterday on 58th Street and 5th Avenue, a homeless woman crouched on the sidewalk weeping, and there all around was the flow of pedestrians without a care in the world (except shopping). We don't particularly want to live in the world on these terms. Move to the country? Possibly, but that doesn't solve the problem. More daily mindfulness, yes, that's one part of the answer. Hence, less email, more living, and more onwardness, like they say. The goals for the rest of the year are to get the Duncan book into print (or at least out of our hands and into the hands of UCal Monster Press), finish the 100 Hats Project, and start up another correspondence with a death row prisoner. More mindful recycling would be nice too. We do well on the diaper front with our biodegradable gdiaper (it can even be composted!), but plastics— why must the world of shopping be filled with plastic? We still produce too much garbage in the Sunnyside Headquarters. This too must change. Meanwhile, time for grown up sleep too.

week in review
our satan spawn hates the car, so there will be no more car rides. we've given up the silly dream of buying a hybrid vehicle and will be one big happy public transport family. stay tuned for the tale of the pine hill trailways baby. upstate deptford pinks abound, ranuncula recede, sadly we missed the cottonwood/poplar fuzz this summer, looking forward to agile august bee balm. the kid has now trained us to sleep from 10 to noon and from 3:30 to 4:30. no tears, just listening for the yawn cue. any mothers out there w/ dairy and soy intolerant EFB babies? can you do goat milk? we need cheese other than baby neck cheese. cryptic baby talk continues. we oppose SIO with our DD; DH agrees. copy editing of RD begins September 1, let the war begin. shouts out to whit in the south, evan in vt, jodie and andrea up north, miles & rachel da hood, sian & mapes wales, emails coming. peace peops.

Lisablog Weekly

Lisablog becomes a weekly starting now. Sorry for the gaps. Hungry baby. Now outweighs Harry the cat and is in the same weight division as Bela. Bruno opened yesterday. We're going with the hungry baby. Fuck movie theater etiquette. Some stuff online:

 

Trickhouse Magazine, a movie we've been working on with Anne W and Ed  B:

http://www.trickhouse.org/vol5/video/waldmanjarnot.html

Drunken Boat Magazine, a chapter from the RD Book:

http://www.drunkenboat.com/db10/03bla/jarnot/

Harp & Altar Magazine, two chapters from the RD Book:

http://www.harpandaltar.com/home.php?i=6&load=2 

 

Peace out hungry babies. 

 

 

 

 

this and that
Made it out to the Francis Bacon show at the Met, which gets two thumbs up. It's really superb in all ways. We were there on a busy day and the spectators were spooked and silent. It felt like a morgue, in a good bacony way. Now it's sunday and the sun is shining and we are working on mastering the art of holding the rattle. Nothing like a bit of hand-eye coordination to brighten the day. The Mount Tremper Update is thus: ranuncula have taken over the yard (a first this year) and some coral mushrooms are growing in the woods. The trusty deptford pinks are in bloom, as are our lavender plants. The wild thyme we planted in the garden two summers ago has taken over in the best of ways. Also, shout out to the peops. Whit, I still owe you a call.  Will get to you this week. To those we owe emails to, hang tight. We're working on it. Peace out peops.

Evan vs. Moriarty

Yes, Evan scored on his Swiss Family Summer Vacation.

We can't decide which pilgrimage we're more jealous of.