I know nothing, and I'm overjoyed

Evening Walk, Pulaski, VA

What is the nature of the search? You ask. Really it is very simple; at least for a fellow like me. So simple that it is often overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a castaway do? Why, he pokes around the neighborhood and doesn’t miss a trick. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

--Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

Weekend in Photos--April 25th, 26th

Saturday, 9 AM--11:30 AM--Alissa and Dylan's Soccer Games








I got up at 6 or so Saturday morning and drove to Harrisonburg to spend Saturday with my kids. They both had soccer games in the morning--Alissa's at 9 o'clock and Dylan's at 10 o'clock.

12:30-3:00-Fun Day at Stone Spring Elementary School




After the game, we went to Alissa and Dylan's elementary school for fun day. I couldn't get many photos because I was busy trying to keep up with the kids as they ran from one game to another. I did get a couple shots when they were on the "moonwalk." In the bottom photo Alissa is posing beside an award winning drawing she did for an art competition.

3:30-6:30 Wandering Around Downtown Harrisonburg









After fun day, the kids went back home so Dylan could take a nap and Alissa could get ready for her dance recital later in the evening. In the break, I maundered around downtown Harrisonburg snapping photos of whatever caught my eye. I took about 75 shots, so I'm limiting my posting to some that are perhaps (or perhaps not) better than the others.

6:45-9:30
I took a few photos at Alissa's dance recital, but none of them turned out well at all. There really wasn't enough light, and I was too far away from the stage. I'm kind of disappointed I didn't get a few good shots of Alissa, but her dance was great.

I started driving home Saturday night, but felt kind of exhausted so I decided to look for a cheap hotel.

I hit the Interstate again this morning. Around Natural Bridge, I got off of I-81 and took Route 11 through Buchanan, where they were staging this Civil War reenactment.

Sunday 10-1

He once was a man of god, before he was taken down a notch

Solid Rock Holiness Church, Pulaski, VA

If you could only stop your heartbeat for one heartbeat

Apple Tree and Old Cars, Stuart, VA

2 poems by Gerald Stern

HEMINGWAY'S HOUSE

I don’t want to go to Hemingway’s house,
let him come to mine, walk in and we’ll do
The Killers at my kitchen table, he with his
back to the Japanese maple, me with my back
to the Maytag, ginger ale for one, white rum
the other; the dragon and the mayfly, death and the knowledge of death,
Monk and Bartók all the same to me.

PLACES YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE

I liked this hotel best because the swimming pool
was on the roof and I was closer by an inch
to the sun that way and there were birds thereby
that fit into the landscape more and flew at
right angles to my elevated body
as I crawled up and down the cement lanes
guided vaguely by the wavering tar; and
I liked the fact that there was a national newspaper
every morning at my door and the rugs were
hideous, and that was that, and they were
poorly laid to boot, and I even tripped
and spilled my coffee following the wrong
red arrow once, but I have had an hour
of mercy at the makeshift desk or in the
lobby, such as it was, and I have had mercy
in places you wouldn't believe, so much that I
am ruthless about it; I started with an orange crate
in my living room, and that was that; I know it was
lit up by a brazen dancer with the torches
growing from her belly, my first mercy.

some of my friends don't know who they belong to, some can't get a single thing to work inside

Untitled (Patrick County Auto Show), Stuart, VA

a shark and dog and now you're laughing, the dog licks the shark dry in your photographing

The Singing Nippers Tour Wagon, Pulaski, VA

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, "Disorder"--3/20/09

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, "My Life's Work"--3/13/09

Bill Callahan's newest, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, is out today.

Also, check out Chris Taylor's webpage--he shot the cover photo for Callahan's album, and he's releasing a book of Callahan photos later this year.

An eagle came over the horizon, shook the branches with its sight

Untitled (Hall Cemetary), Bottom Creek Gorge, VA

Mountain Graveyard
--Robert Morgan

Spore Prose
stone notes
slate tales
sacred cedars
heart earth
asleep please
hated death

August, 1959: Morning Service
--Ron Rash

Beside the open window
on the cemetery side,
I drowsed as Preacher Lusk gripped
his Bible like a bat snagged
from the pentecostal gloom.
In that room where heat clabbered
like churned butter, my eyes closed,
freed my mind into the light
on the window’s other side,
followed the dreamy bell-ring
of Randy Ford's cows across
Licklog Creek to a spring pool
where orange salamanders swirled
and scuttled like flames. It was
not muttered words that urged me
back to that church, nor was it
the hard comfort of pews rowed
like the gravestones of my kin,
but the a cappella hymn
sung by my great-aunt, this years
before the Smithsonian
taped her voice as if the song
of some vanishing species,
which it was, which all songs are,
years before the stroke wrenched her
face into a gnarled silence,
this morning before all that
she led us across Jordan,
and the gravestones leaned as if
even the dead were listening.

I was a stranger, they don't come much stranger

Untitled (E-Z Way Laundrette), Pulaski, VA

The World And I
--Laura Riding

This is not exactly what I mean
Any more than the sun is the sun.
But how to mean more closely
If the sun shines but approximately?
What a world of awkwardness!
What hostile implements of sense!
Perhaps this is as close a meaning
As perhaps becomes such knowing.
Else I think the world and I
Must live together as strangers and die—
A sour love, each doubtful whether
Was ever a thing to love the other.
No, better for both to be nearly sure
Each of each—exactly where
Exactly I and exactly the world
Fail to meet by a moment, and a word.

Things To Do In The Belly Of The Whale
--Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.
Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.
Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.