clown house in boulder

I'm headed to Boulder for clown school the month of September. does anyone have a lead on an apt or room I might rent from a friend, enemy, or ex? I have some cash, so not looking for a freeload. I'll leave the desert early & head east... with undying gratitude. x

Vonnegut.. and so he goes.

Kurt Vonnegut died today at age 84. Author of 1960's-defining novels, bitter & funny and frequently compared to Twain, he complained that he should sue Brown & Williamson Tobacco because he chain-smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes for 60 years and he still hadn't died. Read the NY TImes obit www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12...nnegut.html

R.I.P., Rudie

squashed like a bug by a truck, my beautiful and loyal red BMW R100 Mystic motorcycle is as dead as 2,597 door nails. Rudie - rude boy. oversized teardrop gas tank, narrow tail, hard bags, straight bars. I liked to lean it over far enough to scrape the center stand, and also to ride hands free & standing on the pegs down long gentle hills in san francisco.

riding led eventually to a book I will recommend with highest confidence - Twist of the Wrist II: The Basics of High-Performance motorcycle racing, by Keith Code. yes, the book improved my speed-riding - Code explains in the simplest terms the counter-intuitive physics of a gyro in motion, and what that means for navigating any 2-wheeler at speed. I also like his attitude towards fear: how much of it can one take & still keep your hat on?

reading Code's counter-intuitive instructions for riding at 55 in a 25 mph zone, I realized how appropriate his rules would be if applied to other parts of life - aside from motorcycles. a sample?

when in doubt, accelerate
when the road gets rough, loosen your grip
pick a line in a turn & hold it (follow through)
look at the hole, not the obstacle

riding a two wheeler takes me to the edge of who I know I am. my body in motion in balance in the wind feels like home. poor rudie. the best part of the whole episode was that the accident occured while I was in getting a massage. aside from a bit of a harshed mellow, i rode rudie home thankful, not wishing I was there when it happened. after 12 years together, I miss rudie more than I would have imagined...

help me speak Japanese !

hello... I'm acting in a play where I have a few lines in Japanese & so I am in dire need of someone nice (cute is good too) who will help me with pronunciations etc. call or write anytime... oh yes, the character who speaks Japanese is a seal pup child on the Galapagos Islands. show weekends in April, from the Kurt Vonnegut novel. www.boxcartheatre.org... thanks, x

de Niki, avec amour...

last Friday I went to a lecture about the 1960's-80's visionary artist, feminist, activist, etc. Niki de Saint Phallle. I'd forgotten how much her work touched me 10 years ago when I first saw a number of drawings she'd done when her long-time lover & collaborator died. Friday's addition of her story, and slides of more work have shifted something for me...

while Niki was most famously a sculptor, she was first a painter. in 1961 she started experimenting with constructions that would include bags of paint, which she would then shoot at with a rifle or pistol. I love that all those yahoos enjoying their firearms in the name of art can also thank Niki for blazing a trail.

she said: "In 1961 I shot at: Daddy, all the men, small menr, tall men, important men, fat men, men, my brother, society, church, school, my family, my mother, all the men, Daddy, myself, men again." Niki had a difficult early life, and there's no evidence that she stopped suffering along the way to her death in 2002. still, she very consciously made art to delight and to spread love. last week I found a new inspiration in her life-long commitment to art for justice, peace, and joy. check this wiki link for a good start, then try a google image search en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niki...int_Phalle

viva! los mariachis!

arriving home, cooking always is the best way for me to get re-grounded. next door on Lexington St., my neighbors are rehearsing: playing the saddest, slowest Mexican records I've ever heard. their singing & strumming along bleeds through my walls & fills the back yard with, well, dolor.

of course there are always extenuating circumstances: just back from Phila visiting 2 old folks who've been fighting tooth & nail (to no avail) to stay out of assisted living, my motorcycle was recently run over by a truck (it was parked & I was elsewhere), pulled my back picking it up off the street, choosing a new roommate, strugling.... so today I feel so awful emotionally & physically, that I'm surprised.

this is Home — the sf sun & cool breezes, succulents surrounding the back porch, spaghetti & cauliflower, punching down the 1000 lbs of fermenting Zinfandel grapes in the yard. and the discomfort of not-knowing what comes next, anger & loss. this is mine; and I wouldn't trade with anyone else in the world.

e.e. cummings

when god decided to invent
everything he took one
breath bigger than a circustent
and everything began

when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because

i love the rain!

something about this week is making me feel all warm & cozy & comforted. the grey blue green of the sky & ocean. the steaming smell of wet asphalt that is the same from Buffalo to Bangalore. the damp that nourishes my thirsty skin. and my favorite — raindrops on the roof, gutters, and window panes: a murmuring gamelan in the wash of night through my window - perfect for lounging in the dark with someone naked & quiet. ok, maybe that last part will arrive next week. no rush....

1000 lbs of wine grapes

Today I drove with Steff to Dry Creek Sonoma to pick up 1/2 ton of grapes to make wine. haven't done this since 1998. We drove literally into the field where the guys were picking grapes, and they loaded my 44 gallon fermenters (food-grade plastic trash cans) to the brim with fresh, sweet grapes — 800 lbs Zinfandel, 100 lbs Petite Syrah, 100 lbs Carignan — classic Sonoma Italian field blend.

Best of all, as grower John Teldeschi showed us, we got grapes from his private, non-irragated side of the road. The other side of the road is irrigated so the grapes grow faster & more reliably & these are sold to commercial wineries. we could definitely taste the greater intensity of fruit & sugar in the non-irragated grapes.

I love that we tasted the grapes today, and will taste along the way. when we finally pull a cork from a bottle, we'll be able to identify & recognize some taste aspects that have unchanged from today. that's a nice moment.

well, here we go — crushing, fermentation, pressing, fermentation again, racking, storing, bottling. many hours & a few years until we can enjoy these grapes in a bottle. want to come help Monday morning with the crushing? clean your feet first & jump on in...

waiting for what's next...

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
— from Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencranz & Guildenstern Are Dead"