the idea was to patch together a book

i'm not gone yet. prepare to have your socks knocked off. these are from this post on the bittersweet art of cutting up books, to which i was directed to by drawn! and wow. magical. some very special things happening. i'm not going to say anymore because that blog already did such a good job.


Jacqueline Rush Lee


Brian Dettmer


Cara Barer

p.s. - the title of this post is a line from a poem worth reading by david berman called The Night Nurse Essays. forgive me if you consider this a spoiling but these are the last few stanzas of it:

In that case his final words may have been damaged,
dormant expressions clambering out of their graves
with dust on the unstressed syllables,

before he was rudely shoved into the lake.

Pulled down through the cool green chambers,
we like to imagine him struggling awake
and suddenly realizing
he was seeing rain
in its original uncut form.

waxing and waning and waxing again

the other night i had this dream where someone pointed out how huge the moon was and somehow i knew even though i could see the whole thing that it was a new moon and not one about to wane. it was the opacity of the clouds in front of it that made me so sure that what i was seeing was trying to hide. it was big, low and seemed to be lit only slightly from the back. the next morning i woke up at 7 and tried to go for a hike in a grove of silver birches. i read the directions wrong and ended up at a provincial park on the escarpment that i traipsed through with soft feet because of the sign at the entrance that showed red circles around fires and tents but a big green one around a guy with a double barreled rifle. it seemed too early in the season to walk with such trepidation though i really wasn't sure. nothing happened. i did see a lot of quiet bees nestled under blossoms. so in related news, i've decided to start a new blog. time passes and sentiments change and somehow it doesn't seem right to be writing under the guise of apples and insects. not that it was ever really a guise. more like a particularity. in any event, the new blog is a project blog and less a vent space, which means i'll probably resurface around these parts now and again. it's a work in progress so i'll let you know when it's ready to go. i can't get that moon out of my head. my dreams have been so vivid lately.

100 things

a few of them:

1. can you believe they want to make more cuts to the funding of Canada's arts & culture sector? while i was away this summer i met this really lovely Berliner in Dingletown (yes...), Ireland who helped me brood over what makes the Americas so unique. she called it 'pulling from the white,' the opportunity to actively be a part of our own history...we're so new. what helps more to unite a community or maybe even aid the creation of a cohesive national identity than arts & culture? maybe you should think about signing this petition or talking to your local representative of parliament.

2. here's a life artist i currently am really enjoying and laughing with. his name is marc horowitz and i like the things he does. i am not so sure about the library vandalism, but mostly just because i'm more often than not worried that some computer might murder the public library system.

3. today i played something on the piano that made me emote all over the keys.

4. i am going to canoe down this river in a year

dreamland

sonja ahlers

sweet thing

i can't lie, like a lot of other crafty people right now i really really would love to save up for a piece of Wiksten clothing. probably the Orchard House dress (see the sweet red thing below). realistically, the chances of me having that sort of expendable cash at the exact right moment another one of those goes on sale are slim to none. i very much love all of Jenny Gordy's designs. i want to sew so detailed! she inspired me to order the autumn Toast catalogue (all the way from the UK for freeeeee) which i am happy about because it is just the perfect combination of melancholy and pretty. and printed with vegatable ink on recycled paper. little things, right? little momentary recognitions of feeling happy.

hrmhrm.

in other news i just fixed up an old serger and i'm having a creative FREAK OUT!!!!

autumn in iceland

i might drown in rain and falling maple leaves listening to this song by Ólöf Arnalds which you can hear too by clicking on the 'this' and downloading the first song by her off this other blog i have linked to the 'this'. but listen with caution; otherwise come spring there will be dozens of half frozen music lovers thawing with the snow and poking through the paritally rotten ruffage.

in other news, i wanted a piano picture for the last post and i wish i had found this one earlier
"salt & sea piano keys" - evan b. harris

i would write a song

if i could do it so that i could start conversations about things i've known forever but rarely remember. should i release them one at a time or just put together a big list right away? one at a time would probably deliver a little more punch. though they're mostly soft things so such an aggressive turn of phrase is sort of an inaccurate way to speak about them.

1. sitting down at the piano and tired of playing but stay just touching and looking at it. you go to shut it but hold the key door (what are those things called?) hovering just above them so that you can see the numbers at the top of each key. yup, 88 just like there's supposed to be. someone said eighty-eight this morning and i remembered each key's red stamped number.

2. here's another because that was maybe a bad one to start off with. when was the last time you remembered that bears actually sleep for six months of the year!

3. i've now officially decided against the original gradual-release plan. what about caterpillars wrapping themselves up in a homemade cocoon and becoming something entirely different two weeks later.

4. blue whales are so so big.

5. there are cougars in southern ontario. this is not really supposed to be on the list but i forget the rest right now and just remembered about the cougar sighting in lindsay a couple of days ago.