Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Majesty


Looks like a Turner painting, doesn't it?

But, no, it's a photo by our own AndiF's JimF.

And this time, it's sooo not Kansas.


32 comments:

Nancy P said...

G'morning, a few hours early.
Whatcha up to on Wednesday?

Larry Kollar said...

Um, Toto…

Wednesday nights are choir practice, now that fall's back, but who knows what I'll *actually* be up to tomorrow? I guess we'll find out!

Anonymous said...

OK, it's officially tomorrow here.

OMG, the majesty in that picture. Do you think when Andif starts selling these she'll still share them with us for free?

Beth, yes, Cormac does sound familiar as the name for the poetry man. Where'd he go?

Andif, loved the poem you shared. I'm not familiar with that poet but will look for her work. Thanks for that and for letting us know Jen's OK.

Lisa, when I read this poem, I thought about how much fun it would be to use in a classroom. I love the imagery. It is also by Billy Collins.

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water-ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

///
Today, I think I like Billy Collins bestest. :-)

Have a splendiferous day!

AndiF said...

Correction: Photo by JimF

Another opinion: I think it's more like a Moran. [LINK] ;)

Morning all (hi there Electriciy, it's so nice to see you again.

Anonymous said...

It's an Ohh Ahh picture. How fun to wake up and discover I'm in a totally new, beautiful place--at least for a few moments.

Nancy, I am fascinated by the pinball nature of your mind and postings. It's become an addiction to see what's up each morning.

Andi, I was concerned the last two mornings because you weren't there. The day just didn't start quite right and then what a great poem.

Farf and others are so protective keeping track of all that aren't checking in. I'm still trying to figure out if you people know each other face to face or are these mostly cyber friends.

Anon, You've given me my lesson for today! LOVE the poem, it speaks to how my students feel so often. Love all the poems.

I feel like I've been word starved as I read the poetry and can't get enough. I want to run out to the library and check out all the Billy Collins books.(Alas, there is only one)How can that be when I've been doing almost nothing but dealing with words lately? Maybe a reaction to a feeling I'm not finding quite the right words for my story these days.

Weds. Night is when my critique group meets so will get a good shot of energy then.

Waves to all my cyber friends.
Hopes Kimber is doing okay as Houston and the coast digs out from Ike.

Anonymous said...

Art, photography, poetry, whooping cranes, motorcycles, roller derby.
I'm becoming a Renaissance Woman.

Nicola Slade said...

Been to the first autumn meeting of the art workshop I belong to and started p-p-painting a p-p-picture of p-p-purple p-p-peppers. We only get red, green, orange or red peppers here so I pinched the fabulous purple picture off a US blog!

The sun is shining and I should be murdering people but I don't care, I shall go and play with assorted small children instead!
Hasta la vista!

Maria Lima said...

Gorgeous photo - love the snow cloud insinuating itself into the crevasses of the mountains, painting bits of them white. Could be sinister, could be a breath of cooling relief after an overhot summer.

Hi, kids!! Totally thought I'd posted yesterday and subscribed to the comments, but evidently not. Oh well. Kind of how my day went overall.

Andi - glad you have power back.

The signs of fall are sneaking in bit by bit in the DC area. Weather just a bit cooler, a definite taste of nippy air in the a.m. (yay!)

In 3 weeks, Bouchercon!

Have a great Wednesday, folks.

dina said...

Hi, all. What an incredible picture! Most appropriate on this chilly morning.

Maria mentioned Bouchercon - who is going? I will be there though not officially. Hope to see some of you there.

Kelly McCullough said...

Good morning, folks. I love the mountains.

Farf, hope you have a nice practice.

Anon, Andi, thanks for the poetry bites today and yesterday.

Lisa, it's not surprising that the cyber vs. f-to-f range seems a bit confusing as there's a good bit of both with increasing crossover. The cluster I'm a part of started as cyber-friends on a political blog but I know a bunch of folks have since gotten to hang out in person.

Nicola, have fun not killing anybody.

Maria, Dina, you'll have to give us a con report. I've heard good things about Bouchercon.

My agenda for the day:

I'm going to just sit here and drool for starters.

Once I'm actually awake enough to think I'll bike up to Fleet Farm and buy a couple gallons of paint.

Then its back to the corner table and writing -- 1,200 words yesterday which keeps me on my schedule. I'd really like to pick up the pace and get further out in front of that. Maybe after it gets too cold to paint, which is what I'll be doing from the time Laura gets home until dark.

Overnight oatmeal and Empire Keemun for breakfast today which (in combination with focused writing) means I'm almost back to a real fall schedule. I just need to get started on morning treadblogging and I'll be in the groove again.

Anonymous said...

It DOES look like Moran - I have one of his prints, and love it. Saw an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum years ago - nothing like a room-sized version of his work to give you chills. Nice one, Jim!

Anon, our cormac is around the wires somewhere - he pops in on other listservs occasionally, and has his own blog, which he's been slow to post to recently. But he's around...

Today? Keep trying to figure out what Book 3 is about...I hate when I have to consider mundane things like that when I'm writing. :-)

Wishing I could treadblog like Kelly does...

Off and running. Happy day, y'all!

Nancy P said...

Tra la, farf. Sounds satisfying to be in a choir.

Andi, I had a sneaking suspicion it might be Jim, but I'm always willing to give you credit first. :) I changed the front page.

Anony, have you ever had the chance to hear B.C. in person? He's incredibly charming and his poems are even funnier when he recites them. Go, go, go, if he's ever in your neighborhood.

Lisa, lol! I love pinball machines. Coincidence?

Hey, Dina. I won't be at Bcon this year. (Bouchercon, for the non-mysterians among us, is the grandpappy of all mystery conventions. Held yearly, in a diff. city each year. This year, Baltimore?)

Kelly? What's Fleet Farm? I kinda love that name.

Happy figuring out, Beth!

Nancy P said...

Ooo, Moran is new to me. Nice! But I still vote for the Turner.

Anonymous said...

heh. When I looked at the photo last night I thought - what a great picture! But how out of character for Andi - it looks more like something Jim would have done. I wish I had posted it when I thought it. :) I'm glad electricity has returned to you.

LOVE the Billy Collins anon. I like pretty much all Billy Collins but have never read that one.

Have a good day all.

GhostFolk.com said...

Beth, I got such a kick out of this: Keep trying to figure out what Book 3 is about...I hate when I have to consider mundane things like that when I'm writing.

I have never figured out what a book is about whether I am writing it or reading it.

Kind of like art. I see a little patch of blue in one spot and get lost there. Someone says "Wow, those are beautiful mountains." And I think, "Mountains? Really?"

I can spend a year inside the curtains in the background of a Matisse portrait. And somebody please come get me should I look at a painting with a window in it! I go out that window and stay there.

Same thing with reading. People tell me Moby Dick is about a whale. All I remember is that coffin floating in the sea.

AndiF said...

Maria, it could be a bit sinister since the picture was taken on a spring vacation.

Nancy, I picked that specific Moran because it was also of Zion NP (where the photo was taken) but this one of Yellowstone [LINK] is probably a better support for my and Beth's position.

And morning Beth, Farf, anon, Lisa, Mary, Dina, Nicola, GF.

AndiF said...

Oops ... and Kelly.

And since I'm posting again, here's some red rock with snow from that spring vacation (this time it is mine). [LINK]

Anonymous said...

Great shots, andi - makes me long for the canyonlands..even with that white stuff on them!

Ha, Ghostie! I'm so glad you're back. And understand what I'm saying. :-)

Lisa, I've actually met Nancy, KB, Farf and family, andi and Jim and the pack - and you! A few of us know a few of us in person, but mostly cyber-ly. Then again, when I met these folks, it was like we'd been friends forever since we'd become friends online.

Speaking of KB...is she hiding somewhere with the donuts again?

Nancy P said...

Yes, Moran's painting does look like a Turner.

:p

Larry Kollar said...

Way-ell, choir practice was cancelled! Doesn't mean I'll get to sit down & write much, but who knows, I might? Anyway, I've got the next 8 episodes of FAR Future banged out, and the first line of the one after that, so there's no pressure at the moment.

Anon: *snort* at the BC poem. That's pretty funny. I feel like it's the other way around sometimes, the poem is whacking me with a hose. Especially when it's one of my characters wanting me to write it for her.

Andi, I had a pic very much like that as my computer wallpaper some years back.

Lisa, in this crowd Beth is the only one I've met IRL, and that's because she drove up to visit. :-D

Nicola, sounds good but don't get the jobs mixed up… whoops!

Maria, I had a "don't ride the bike today" moment so I took the car. Good thing I listened; I had light rain all the way to work and there was no rain in the forecast today!

And now my stomach is bellowing something about lunch in the break room fridge. Guess I'd better go.

Kelly McCullough said...

Fleet Farm is sort of like Target for farmers. It's a great big store that has clothes and furniture and snacks and horse troughs and veterinary antibiotics and paint and plumbing supplies and sheetrock and toys and ammunition and so on. It's
a chain and relatively locally owned. The selection isn't very deep but its incredibly broad and its only a bit over three miles from my place which is a nice ride even with a couple of gallons of pain on the rack. And now I really need to get some words on the page so I'm going to go into lurk mode for a couple of hours.

Anonymous said...

Anon I need to email both you and Andi. My lesson today using the poetry you two put on the blog worked so well with my students. I started with the dog poem, then on to Introduction to Poetry and finally How to Eat a Poem. I started by playing them a selection from Puccini's Turandot. So got their brains going in a totally new flow. We talked about being open to new experiences. Then I had them write a poem of their own. Blew me away what they wrote. Want to send some samples to Andi and Anon. I have Andi's email. But I can't put online Anon, I'm going to send an email to Nancy she can forward to you. So please email her if she doesn't have your email. I won't get it put together until tomorrow.

Interesting how through Cyber space you have an impact on the youth of Texas. One of the kids asked me at the end of the class why I was being so nice this year.

Nancy, thank you in advance for being in my carrier pidgeon briggade.

Larry Kollar said...

Kelly, that sounds like of like Tractor Supply Co. here. Fun stuff.

Somebody on another blog threw out a comment that gave me a great idea for a short story. I'm going to try writing it down tonight.

Nancy P said...

Hi, everybody I missed earlier.

Far, I'm so glad you are wise enough to listen to that little voice that says, "No motorcycle today, Buddy."

Lisa, that's incredible, about your school and our blog friends. I want to read those poems, too. I don't know if we can get them to Anon without making her not be Anon anymore, so I'll leave that to her (?) to figure out. :)

IRL (in real life), I've met the following "regulars": katiebird, Andif (and Jim F), Kimberly, Beth, Maryb, Dina, ghostfolk, lisa m, and Maria, and I hope I haven't left anybody out. Ghostfolk and katiebird are the only ones I knew pre-blog, and ghost is the only one I knew pre-internet. Oh, and Porch Sally, of course, though she's not really a "regular." Just her porch is.

Anonymous said...

Doggone! I forgot Kimber! We met this past May.

Sorry, Kimber. :-(

Anonymous said...

Lisa, I was hoping you'd tell us what happened if you ever used the poem so I could experience teaching the poem vicariously.

I just shot Nancy an email, so hopefully she'll pass it along to you. I'm excited.

Nancy, I've never seen/heard BC in person, only on the Prairie Home Companion. I enjoyed listening to him read his poems immensely. You're right, it's even better to hear him read the poems.

Nicola, it just doesn't seem fair that someone would be a talented writer AND painter. ;-) Color me jealous. lol

Maria and Dina, Bouchercon sounds wonder. Take good notes for us. :-)

Beth, does poetry man post his work on another web site? I'd like to add it to my favs if so. Would you give me the web address? Thanks.

Kelly, your writing progress amazes me. I can't even think of 12,000 words some days. lol

Ghost, somehow you remembering a coffin in Moby Dick is fitting given your name. :-)

Farf, don't you just love the imagery in that poem? I can't relate to characters whacking me with a hose, but some days (like today) it feels like the job does. :-P

MaryB, that was very intuitive of you to discern the real photographer of that pic. I think both Andif and Jim are very talented.

Really tired, very looonnnggg day here. Maybe I'll go read some poetry and chill out.

Anonymous said...

Bono, our poet is Rick (musing) - check Nancy's blog list for his website. But he doesn't write poetry anywhere else but here...and once we figured out it was him, he stopped.

Maybe you can convince him to start again!

Anonymous said...

Andif, I love, love, love your pix. Heartfelt thanks for sharing them with us. And congrats on getting your electricity back. I was talking to someone today here in NE Ohio who said the electric company is saying his will be out until this weekend. :-{

Anonymous said...

Beth, would you please tell him how much of a fan I am of his poetry?! He's terrific! Any hints about how I could encourage him besides begging. :-)

Anonymous said...

Lisa! I just remembered a book I think you'd really like sharing with your students. It's called, "Love That Dog," by Sharon Creech. The publisher is HarperTrophy. The whole book is a diary/journal a student writes in poetry form not knowing it's poetry. I really enjoyed it. Here is the first entry:

Jack
Room 105 - Miss Stretchberry

September 13

I don't want to
because boys
don't write poetry

Girls do.


///

There's also a companion book called, "Hate That Cat."

boran2 said...

Another beautiful photo, Andi. And with that I guess that the joint is closed.

Anonymous said...

Got really snowed at work and haven't even had time to read the poems from one class yet. Tomorrow I will put some together and send to Nancy. Thanks not so Anon for emailing her.
The assignment began with a picture of Bebo on the couch from an earlier blog day.
So Nancy and her cyber family--thanks for being such a good resource for me.