Ralph Mactell

An argyle sweater got off the train at South Station

And demanded “Streets of London”

So I played it again.

When I looked up at the end

Of the song, 

the man was smiling.

And I realized that he had written

The song I’d just sung for him.

So I just smiled back.

Tunnel Poem Number One

Remembering the Tunnel

In the tunnel I heard a voice calling out

Oh was it human

Or was it just a distant train

Wheels screeching on the rail

Full of people on their way someplace

While here I was

Already at the destination

Sitting on an old metal chair

With a flashlight and a hardhat

Eating a candybar

And otherwise watching 

The great and secret

Show

Finally, the voice grew closer

And there you were in your orange 

Vest and a hardhat of your own

Your legs deeply tanned

And under the orange vest

Your bright white cotton blouse

By the light of my headlamp

You looked like a vision

A strange vision I must admit

Even with the black dust

Smudge on your cheek.

For you I pulled up the other chair

I’ll never forget that you brought wine that night

Just to watch the trains with me.

I just wanted to alert you that my friend Eleanore has a new website.  Go take a look here:
http://www.eleanoremarcey.com/
Its quite delicious!

Drawing with Autodesk Sketchpad for iPod

Over the past few weeks I’ve set for myself the task of making a minimum of three paintings a day on my iPod.  Sometimes in the evening, I’ll make as many as 15 – though usually I prefer to keep it down to a handful, before moving into Photoshop on my laptop to do more involved work.
The iPod images have been more of a creative generator than anything else.  I remembered a series of paintings I did several decades ago inspired by the stone figure known as “Venus of Willendorf”.  For the iPod images, I’ve been using Venus. and a Priapic figure (man with erect member) as the guidelines for the images.  Beyond that, they are colorful and playful, not great art perhaps, but interesting
I’ve been working for a long time with automatic images and writing – that is, not having any fixed ideas when I begin an image or a poem – as a way of tapping in to my subconscious, and learning to play with my mind a bit.  The Autodesk Sketchpad app on my iPod is uniquely suited towards automata.
First, it is very easy to use, and furnishes a myriad of excellent brushes, flexible color palettes, and a direct drawing surface.  I bought a cheap combination touch stylus and ball point pen – and with it, drawing on the iPod Touch is just like drawing or painting on paper. 
Today I’m celebrating my 200th iPod/Sketchpad painting since the beginning of 2012.  Hopefully sometime this year I’ll be able to by a larger tablet (both iPads and Kindle Fires have versions of SketchPad – ) so that I can work on slightly more involved images.  For now, I’m enjoying doing the work on my tiny touchscreen, and making images that are the size of postcards.
Its an interesting corollary to the work I’m doing on my MAWMAP project.  There is a lot of flexibility in the digital imaging that I don’t have when I paint with gouache or watercolor. 
Its also been a great boost to my productivity in the manuscript though, because working with digital tools has allowed me to really expand and improve my drawing and painting skills.  I can try things out on my laptop, desktop, or iPod, and then work up the initial studies into fully painted or inked versions in the manuscript. 
Conversely, I’ve been enjoying the face that I can use digital scanning and character recognition to transfer my hand-written entries in the manuscript into Word or Pages documents with moveable type, so that after the initial automatic writing is finished, I can digitize and begin to edit the raw material into finished poems, stories, essays, or meditations, and then rewrite the finished work into the manuscript.  I’m thinking that the next volume will be a lot of images that were worked up in the digital format transferred into hand techniques. 

Ubik - the antidote to death.

Everything you need comes from a spray can.

In Philip K. Dick's Ubik, one of my favorite Sci-fi novels, everything you need to survive death is in a small aerosol can.  If you have a decent supply of Ubik, when you start feeling run down, or when the world itself starts to run down, you can simply spray some Ubik, and everything is restored - for a time.
In some ways, Ubik seems to be a metaphor for thought.  When our picture of the world becomes faded, if we apply thought to it, if we come at if from a different angle, it becomes refreshed - for a time.
The effect wears off, and so the process has to be repeated.  For some reason, every year after the holidays I feel the need to re-read Ubik.  I just spent a few hours today with my old pal Runciter, and renewed my friendship with the magical spray can.   Why is it that even though I've read the book nearly every year for several decades, it always seems fresh and new to me?  There are always elements of the plot that I've forgotten, bits of character that I don't remember being there before, new dimensions to the puzzle to chew on.  The book hasn't changed.  The book, written during the 1960's is stable.  I recognize the words.  Its the ideas that seem to change from year to year.  Ubik is new each time I read it.

An Interview with a Member of the Order of the Santas Claus.

As you can see, he does, and he doesn't look like Santa Claus.

First Impressions

I had the opportunity the other day to sit down and chat with a man who was quick to correct me in my thinking that he was Santa Claus. 
“I am not Santa Claus.  There is no one person who can claim that name.  I am in fact merely a member of a vast and world wide organization called The Order of the Santa’s Claus.  Since we all look relatively the same, as do members of any distinctive service organization, people erroneously think that there is only one of us, despite the clear evidence that this cannot be.  So please, if we accomplish nothing else during this interview, lets clear that up right from the start, shall we?” 
I was surprised at how serious this man seemed.  No trace of the jolly, ho, ho, ho that I’d expected.  Some things resembled the myth I was brought up on, but others were jarringly different. 
This member was dressed in fur trimmed red woolens.  Not a hint of felt anywhere.  The cap, so famous in literature and advertising, was not of felt, but instead was intricately crocheted of a deep red, almost burgundy  tweed.  It was quite impressive.  He said that the fur was real, rabbit fur, he said, but quickly assured me that the bunnies used were not killed for their skins and fur – there were raised, he said, and sheared like sheep, and lived on a delightful free range where they led happy and well fed lives. His beard was long, and impeccably groomed, and his moustache was waxed at the tips and curved up his cheeks.  Despite the fact that his hair was a stark white, he looked to be in his middle-to-late forties, not an old man by any account.  He smelled faintly of pipe tobacco, and on the shelf behind his stately cherry wood desk was a collection of intricately carved Meershaums.  I was once a pipe smoker myself, and the odor brought back pleasant memories of tampers and pouches of Captain Black Gold, and smoke rings hovering in the smoking lounge.
On the lapels of his jacket were eight brass bells, which, he explained, were actually significant of his rank.  Within the organization, he said, eight brass bells made him an officer, but not a highly ranking one.  “Equivalent, perhaps, to an Ensign in your Navy” he said, “Though not graduate of any college.  In the Order, it is only experience and merit that permits advancement.”
When I asked how long it took to achieve his rank, he vehemently shook his head and said “That is for other members only to know!”
I opened my case and took out my camera.  He’d promised me that I could take a picture.  When he saw the camera, he cringed, and shaking his head told me that members of his Order were not permitted to be photographed when, as today, they were in uniform.
“If you meet me in my street clothes, you can photograph me to your heart’s content,” he said.  “But not in uniform. That rule is clear:  When in uniform, we must only be depicted by hand methods, such as drawing or painting.” 
Rather than put him off by asking him to break the rules, I went out to my vehicle and brought in paper and gouache paint.  Making the picture was not difficult, and the time it took allowed us to have a long and deeply informative conversation. 
He couldn’t tell me his real name, nor whether the office he met me in was owned by him or a rental.  He cautioned me that if I tried to find out, I’d be wasting my time “We are very good,” he said, “At remaining hidden when we wish to.”

The Interview, Part One

E.T:  How did you become a member of the Order of Santa’s Claus?
S:  I was working on a farm in the northern part of the state. It was a harsh winter, not unlike this year in fact.  I slept in the Pole Barn on the farm, and had to wake up several times during the night in order to feed the fires to keep warm. 
One night, I was having difficulty sleeping.  I got out of bed, stoked the wood in the stove, took a pee, and then went over to look out the window.  It was snowing like heck out there, and the city lights reflecting off the low clouds made it eerily bright outside.  In that light I saw a sleigh with a reindeer yoked to it.  And I heard a voice in my head, saying that it was time to take the reins of the sleigh.  Convinced I was dreaming, I went back to sleep.  In the morning, I found deer prints, and could distinctly see an impression in the snow where the sleigh had been.  That morning, Herman, my boss, told me that I was fired and that I’d have to find someplace else to live.  I got in my jeep and drove to town, not knowing what to do next.  I stopped at the grocery store, and bought a lottery ticket along with my groceries.  Lets just say I won a modest sum, and that is how it all started.
.E.T: A modest sum? Might I ask how much a modest sum is?
S: No, I really shouldn’t tell you the amount.  Moving on, I can say that it was enough to live quite comfortably on for a very long time, if I was careful.  Well, when I collected my earnings, I moved out of that Pole Barn and moved into a house not far from there, which seemed to call to me.  It was in a part of the state where, between the angle of the sun, and the high ridge of rocks around it, the place is always cold.  In fact, there is nearly always snow on the ground. 
Since I’d been living in the Pole Barn at the farm, and since I’d been dreaming of sleighs and reindeer, I decided to call my cold property the North Pole.  After that, things started happening quite fast, you know.
E.T: Things?
S: Yes.  I had more dreams about the reindeer.  Later on I realized that the deer wasn’t a real reindeer, it was a manifestation of something very, very different, but I’ll get to that later. When we move in other circles, sometimes its hard to understand what we see, and our eyes show us something we understand so that we don’t go mad.  That is what that reindeer was – a substitute for a concept that I wasn’t ready to grasp yet. 
S: Then is the Sleigh a concept too?
Not in the same way.  There is a physical manifestation which one could definitely call a sleigh – lets just say that the reindeer represents a higher concept/power/entity, but the sleigh is a real sleigh with certain unusual properties.
E.T: Such as?
S: Well this much I can tell you:  it can take me anywhere, if the job requires it, but it never leaves my workshop.
E.T: I have to ask – and I’m possibly getting ahead of myself.  Are there elves in your workshop?
S: No, I’m a more modern officer of the order.  Some of the traditionals and other older members hold on to the whole elf thing, but I’ve found other ways of doing my work.  I do have a network of people in mundane jobs that help me determine who’s naughty and nice, but I wouldn’t call them elves really, except perhaps in the way that some people consider EMT’s to be angels.  Lets just say that my network is very very helpful.
E.T: Do you make toys and such in your workshop?
S: I’m not a toy monger.  The toy mongers aren’t officers.  I’d call them more lay-brothers, if you’ll, excuse the catholic vernacular.  My job involves much more convoluted and devious gifting, which is well beyond the scope of this interview.  Nice people need not fear my gifts. Nice people are always better off after receiving my gifts. Naughty folks get gifts from me too, but they never like what I bring them. 
E.T:  Are you married?
Yes. All members of the Order are required to marry before the end of their first training year.  He name isn’t Mrs. Claus, that’s something else the myths got wrong.  We married as normal US citizens, under our own names.  She does get to wear a badge for being married to a Seneschal, but everyone thinks its just a pretty locket.
E.T:  How were you invited into the Order?
After I won the lottery and bought the North Pole, I started using my money to do nice things for people I knew.  When I ran out of people I knew, I started doing nice things for other people too. The invitation came after I donated a bunch of computers to an impoverished school up in Portsmouth.  A few days later, a man knocked at my door.  He was bearded, and wore a very elegant burgundy tweed suit, which isn’t identical to this one – but is similar enough to meet the uniform code. 
He told me some small secrets about the order, and asked if I’d experienced any changes in my life recently.  I explained to him about the loss of pigment in my skin and hair, of my attachment to my new home at the north pole.  I told him about my dream of the reindeer, and the voice I heard telling me to take the reins of the sleigh.  He already knew about the lottery winnings, and asked what I intended to do with them. 
After hearing my own plans, he said that if I became affiliated with his group, I would learn how to make those plans happen, much more efficiently and quickly.  He said that my newfound wealth was not an accident and that he knew because of what I’d been doing with it.  And he explained a few things to show me how to increase the wealth, and to make it work for me so that I could continue to give nice gifts to deserving people – forever if I so desired. 
Six months later, I’d earned my first bells.  Oh – I’d better be careful.  If I say anything else about time in the organization, I’ll be in breach of the Uniform Code of Giftgiving Conduct.

E.T:  You say that you are a regional Seneschal. Can you tell me what region you are assigned to?
S: My physical ailment requires that I remain within five hundred miles of the North Pole.  If I travel beyond that, I will lose my enhancements, and cease to be a gifter. So, although I can’t be more specific, you know that I can’t be further than five hundred miles from here.  There are two others in this district too.  I don’t have to do it alone, you see.

E.T:  You said that there are strict guidelines for uniforms, but you have a certain leeway?
S: Well, yes.  I choose my own clothing.  The color is important and I can’t stray from that.  There is a certain look we are going for, but we can vary the theme, within reason.
E.T:    In the Navy, some of the other sailors wore uniforms they bought in the orient – especially dress uniforms of silk, or sharkskin, which looked identical to the official dress uniform, but were much more comfortable.  You mean something like that?
S: Yes, that’s right!

To Be Continued

There is a lot more to our conversations, but I haven’t transcribed them all yet.  I will add the rest as I finish it up.  I am shocked that the organization he described has remained so well hidden over the years. 
He told me that the Order tolerates the whimsical, vapid version of themselves because it adds a veil to their concealment. 
He explained that there are those who, if they knew the full extent of the Order, would seek to end it.
He told me that he could only travel up to 500 miles from his North Pole, but later on in an unguarded moment, he showed me a picture of himself and his wife on a boat, somewhere in the Caribbean, so I know that he isn’t being entirely truthful with me. 
I wonder whether his deceptions are just to conceal specifics about the Order. 
During the next session:  I have to remember to ask him why he has granted me this interview, if the Order is so worried about concealment.  Maybe he assumes that nobody reads these blogs.  In that, mostly, he’d be right.  I’m not exactly the New York Times.
‘(before I left, he let me choose a Pipe to take home with me.  I selected one carved to look like a gargoyle. It will look nice on my computer desk, next to my Star Wars figurines.)

Twenty minute writing exercise: 
A Day on a Page

The song is an onslaught of sound directed at a point so far from here that I have never judged the distance right.  My mouth is infected with the lyric and my voice opens up like a flower to deliver the message. Deep in my chest the fire burns and threatens to engulf me but my breathing cools it and the heat keeps the cords supple and sound rises up and out and fulfills the breathtaking moment. 

And the taxis drive by and the buses and next door Blue’s puppet is speaking and from somewhere around the corner the sweet aroma of a well rolled joint can be smelled.  

I open my eyes and smile at a wonderful face a golden blonde and I know and its true I have seen her in movies.  But the baby in the stroller and her relaxed smile tell me that she is taking time off.  

Down the street the buses empty out and the Japanese crew of the day will by here soon snapping pictures and smiling and crying out delightedly, having never been to a circus quite like Brattle Square.  

In the twilight I can hear distant drums.  

I smile to see Frank setting up his tightrope.  

Fish the Magician is doing close magic tricks in the doorway of the art gallery.  

Teenage lovers are everywhere, and a few sit down on the brickwork in front of me.  

The actress with the stroller is still smiling and tapping her feet in unison with my thumb picking out a bass line.  

There is a call, and the sound of wheels. 

Directly behind the heads of the lovers a boy on a skateboard hurtles by, barely missing, barely missing them.  

They turn around, the girls in awe, the boys in defensive postures.  Before anyone knows what’s happened the skateboarder has disappeared down the street.  

Wordsworth is closing its doors and the outer lights are coming up.  The sky is deep navy, with a thin, fierce layer of startling orange at the horizon.  

I can smell coffee from Warburtons, Pizza from Bertuccis, perfume as the actress steps forward 

to pick up a CD from my guitar case.  

She looks for a few moments, then puts it back down.  

Now she sits on the brickwork among the teens, and she pushes the stroller back and forth with the baby laughing in it.  Now the neon from the hardware store is on too, and my guitar is tightening up, taking on that more intense and clear stridence it gets when the sun and the temperature fall.  Laughter from over there, where Blue is.  

At the periphery of my hearing Frank bellows “Valerio” and I sing that song, introducing him as it were and simultaneously dismissing the group that was seated.  Now the actress comes over again as I’m putting down my guitar and turning equipment off.  She picks up not one, but two CD’s and asks me to sign them for her.  When I do I ask if she’ll autograph a page in my journal.  And she does and for a moment I share my memory of “Great Moments in Babysitting” and she laughs, surprised that I’ve seen it.  

Then she disappears into the night and I sit on my little plastic stool while Frank builds his crowd, and the last of the teens drifts over to put a few bucks in my basket.  “Was that...” and he says the actresses name, and I say “No, but it really looked like her” to put him off the scent. 

But he’s a smart one and asks “so why did you ask for her autograph?”  I have to laugh a bit at that.  Then I just shake my head and say “they prefer to stay anonymous here.”  

Much later I argue with the teen about why I have to shut down.  “Its only midnight” he says, and I reply “but I’m only legal until 11, and I have to catch a train.” And in the dark, I push my hand truck full of speakers and batteries and footpedals and microphones and the bundle of dollars the tin full of quarters, the single CD I have left, the manuscript I worked on earlier in the day, and satisfied, exhausted, I leave the pee puddled elevator and dash down the platform to catch my train back to Davis and Mikes restaurant, then home.  

Over Coffee

Chapter 10

Over Coffee

Today I went to Billy’s studio.  He said there was something he wanted to discuss with me over coffee.  

If you know Billy then you know that this was meant literally.  

Billy didn’t mean he wanted to drink coffee with me and talk something over.  

What he meant was that he wanted me to climb up on the little wooden bridge he has set up in his studio.  Under the bridge, he has ten fifty pound bags of unroasted coffee beans.  When he says he wants to discuss something over coffee, he really means it. 

Over coffee he asked me how I was. 

Over coffee, I told him I was fine.

Over coffee, he asked me if my daughter was doing okay.

Over coffee, I told him that she was fine.  I also mentioned over coffee that she was becoming a very fine printmaker.

Over coffee, He said he was having problems with an image.  Would I look it over and tell him what I thought.

Over coffee, I told him sure, as soon as we get down from here.  I don’t want to talk about it over coffee. 

So we got down. 

Not over coffee, I looked at his picture.

Not over coffee, I said, “Well this simply looks like crap.”

Not over coffee, Billy smiled and punched me in the nose.

Not over coffee, I hit him back.

Not over coffee, we had a fine little fistfight.

Not over coffee, when Billy had the fight knocked out of him he said

I really needed that, thank you. 

Then we stood up, shook hands and walked into his kitchen, where he put on a pot of coffee. 

Over coffee really (talking it over while drinking coffee this time) we seriously discussed his picture which was, really, quite good.  Over coffee really I told him I didn’t know what his problem was.  Over coffee really, I said if any other artist had painted this picture, he or she would be proud.  Over coffee really If any other artist had expressed this, they’d be rich and famous right now.

Over coffee really he said, but not me, because I don’t want to be rich and famous.

Over coffee really I told him I’d probably like to be famous even for a little while.

Over coffee really he said be careful what you wish for.

A Year of 1000 Visions

I’m going to call 2011 the year of 1000 visions.  I’m calling it that because sometimes that’s what it seems like.  Between the work I’ve done on MAWMAP, and the upwards of 800 digital images, and the (nearly 500) pages of written material, I have recorded well over a thousand items.  1000 visions, to be pretentious and overbearing.  So I’m calling the year “A Year of 1000 Visions” and to put them in perspective, I am going to publish a book called “200: Excerpts from The Year of 1000 Visions”.

The book concept is a simple one.  I’m going to pick my favorite 125 images from among my drawings, paintings. photographs and digital images.  I’m also going to select my favorite 75 items of written word. That might be poems, essays, blog entries, or writing exercises. 

I’m going to design a book incorporating all of these elements, and then I am going to self-publish it and sell it online.  I will also prepare an E-book version to sell online for Kindle and other E-readers. 

And finally, I’m going to select my favorite 50 images to merchandise on tee shirts, mugs, and whatever else is available out there. 

My goals are simple.  The first one is to put the work where people can see it, and to create a less nebulous concept than the loose collection of 1000 items embodies.  Second, to use “200” as a launching pad for my updated website and a platform from which to begin offering substantive workshops on Art, Writing, Creativeness, and several other topics. 

The coming year will herald a significant change in how I operate.  For the past few decades, my work has occurred basically behind closed doors.  I’ve been making things – lots of things – without any commercial intent at all. 

Its time for me to harvest what I have planted.

I decided when I was still in High School that I did not want to begin my “:career” until I was in my fifties.  I had just read Anthony Scaduto’s book about Bob Dylan, and was disturbed by the thought that Bob had built a public personae at a very young age, which he then had to live up to for the rest of his life. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I love Bob’s work, all of it.  But what I saw in the A.S. biography was a map to a place that I didn’t want to go. 

I guess you could say I also took Robert Frost’s advice, and took a path less traveled by. 

Over the years I’ve run a large university art gallery. taken a degree in art, learned about ocean Navigation onboard US Naval vessels, played music in the streets of Boston and Cambridge Massachusetts, did some pretty serious gigging too.  I’ve worked as a camp counselor, a kindergarten teacher, a workshop instructor, a trip leader, a recording artist, and a graphic designer. I’ve acted in community theater productions, founded and later disbanded an Artists group, constructed movie theater seats in a factory, answered customer service calls for a Medicare insurance program, mastered both Windows and Mac computers, and spent large periods of time working exclusively on a series of illuminated manuscripts.  During the years I’ve been active, I’ve kept the art and writing to myself.  I wanted to make the work first, and worry about selling it when the time came, and I’m increasingly certain that the time is now. 

I remember a comment that another of my favorite musicians made upon release of an album he’d been working on for ten years.  He commented that he’d made the album on his own, financed it himself, made it without the dictates of any commercial necessity.  Finally, when it was done, he said that now the work was done, he’d do whatever was necessary to sell the product. 

That’s where I’m at now.  Its time to start doing everything I can to sell my product, and to make something of lasting value out of the constituent parts. 

My book, “200: Excerpts from A Year of 1000 Visions” first step on that intention. 

Two years ago I wrote my first (terrible, I might add!) novel, As I write this I am taking a break from writing my second novel, which may prove to be as beastly as the first. Then again, it may be the best thing ever written. I don’t know, and I don’t care, For me its not the product that is important – it’s the making.

Here is the next installment of "Call Me Mr. Green"

Chapter 14

Eating a Wig

Billy says that you can’t eat a wig without milk.  He says that the best way to eat a wig is to put it in a bowl, shake some sugar over it, and then pour on the milk.  I think he’s nuts.  I don’t think that you can eat a wig, unless you are a superhero like one of Stan Lee’s creations.  You’d have to have a special stomach and some kind of mutated mouth and throat that would allow the wig to pass into you. 

Perhaps if you wanted too and you didn’t mind a lot of carbon in your diet you could first burn the wig.  Then you could grind it with a mortar and pestle to make it finer still and then you could add it to some other meal.  I read somewhere about a woman from Chicago who did this with her husband’s ashes. 

She said that he wanted it that way. 

She said that he told her that when they were in bed he spent so much time eating her, but since she didn’t like to return the favor, she had to eat him now that he was dead.  From what I understand, she added all of his ashes to a big pot of chili that she ate over a period of several days.

Apparently, somebody at the police department told her that it was okay to eat her husband.

Maybe this is what the policeman said. 

“Its not your husband anymore, Mrs. Lewis.  Its just some ashes that used to be him.  So if you eat him, say, mixed into a pot of chili, it wouldn’t really be cannibalism, because you wouldn’t be eating the meat of him, only the ashes, the carbon residue.”

Maybe this policeman should be fired.

Chapter 15

Eating a Pig

It’s a lot different if you want to eat a pig.  It is allowed for people to not only kill pigs, but also to skin, slaughter, and devour them.  You are allowed to eat pork chops, for example.  Or ham; you can eat ham with beans, or without.  It doesn’t matter.  Either way it is legal, and its not considered cannibalism, even though there are people who might argue that pigs are people too.

When I eat pigs, I like all the reminders that it was once a pig to be gone.  I don’t like to eat ham hocks for example because you can see the shape of the feet.  A pig’s head would be a horrible thing to eat.  I don’t like pork rinds either.  Or pork tongues, I don’t like or want to eat pork tongues. 

If I saw a pig’s head on the table at a pig roast, I’d probably take the apple out of its mouth, and try to interview him. 

I’d ask him, for example, whether his family is proud of him. I’d ask him, for example, if he’d rather sit at a chair than to lay there on the tray like that.  Of course, I know he wouldn’t answer.  I’m not crazy. 

Pork chops and ham are okay though.  They don’t remind of pigs at all.  I am more than okay with eating pork chops and ham.

Now eating a dog would be different.

My own dog is a mutt, but he looks a lot like a golden retriever.  I treat him well, and he has never tried to eat me, nor I him.  I think that if I were dead and that if he and I were locked in a room, that it would be okay for him to eat me.  But I’d want to make sure I was dead first.  For example, I wouldn’t want to just be passed out, and have my dog eat my hand, say, and then wake up from being passed out to find that I couldn’t paint anymore. 

So I hope dogs don’t eat you if you are just asleep, or only passed out.

I guess it would be okay for a pig to eat me too – but only in the right circumstances.  I wouldn’t want to be served on a platter so everyone can see my fat torso.  Instead, I’d rather be cut up into little stew beef pieces and cooked in a very rich, winey broth. 

I don’t think I’d want to be killed just for that either.  I’d only want them to eat me if I died by other causes, for example disease, or accident. 

And if they don’t want to eat me, that’s okay too.  They can just bury me in a big field and plant a tree in my mouth.

Chapter 16

Over Coffee Again

Billy called up again and said that he wanted to talk to me over coffee. 

I went to his studio, and was surprised to see he had finished a new picture and that it was pretty damn good. 

We got up on the bridge over coffee, and he told me that he had an idea about what I could do with all the money. 

Over coffee he said that it might be a good idea to invest the money in some kind of company.  “A soap company, for example, would be a good, clean investment.”

Over coffee I agreed that a soap company would probably be a good investment. 

Over coffee, I said that I would look in to it.  I will too.  I like soap.  It has always served me well when used as directed.  Other times though, it has not been so helpful, like the time when I tried to make soap shoes.

Chapter 17

The Soap Shoes Incident

On my fourteenth birthday I got a box of soap as a present.  I took the soap back to my room, and put it under my bed.  I was fourteen, and soap isn’t what I really wanted for my birthday.  What I wanted for my birthday was a BB gun, and some new pajamas and a new transistor radio.  I didn’t get any of those things.  Instead, I got a big box of soap.

My dad came up to my room.

“You look disappointed Kiddo!” he said.

I said, “Umm.”

“Well,” my dad said, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

I thought for a moment and then replied, “So – if life gives me soap – I should make soap-ade?”

Dad laughed.

“No, son.  What I mean is that you take what you get, and you make it into something that you really like and want.  Take that soap, for example.  That’s a lot of soap.  You could potentially make it into something new, which would far surpass any other Birthday Presents that anyone has ever given you.”

And on that note, my dad left me there to think it over. 

A little later, I was looking at the soul of my shoe.  I thought that maybe I could make a bunch of shoes out of the soap and that I could then sell those shoes to people who were obsessed with having clean feet.

Then I went over to the box of soap and opened it.  I took out every bar of soap that was in there and took all the paper off of them.  Then I built a little fire in the corner and put a metal bowl on it.  I melted the bars of soap in the metal bowl.  Then I poured the soap into shoe-shaped molds that I made out of some old plaster. 

For straps, I used the ribbons that mom had used to wrap my birthday package.  I have to admit, those were some elegant looking soap sandals that I made.  Teva should start selling a line of sandals, not made of soap, that look like them.  They would be a big hit.

It was raining outside when I took my new shoes out for a test walk.  At first they worked just fine.  And with the rain pounding down, they started to get really foamy. 

They also unfortunately got very slippery and soon I was sliding down the street unable to stop myself.  I slipped and slipped, until I got to the river.  Then I fell into the river and found myself caught in the current.

Luckily for me, the soap floated, because I can’t swim. 

After awhile I managed to get out of the river. 

When I got home, mom pointed at my bubble-shoes and laughed.  “What happened to you?” she asked.

I just took off the shoes and went to my room.  It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if I hadn’t already made all the soap into sandals.  As it was, I couldn’t even take a shower after my ordeal, because I didn’t have any soap.

Chapter 18

Over Coffee Part 3

Over coffee, Billy and I laughed about the soap incident.  “You had better be careful with that money then!” he said.

Over coffee, I asked if he wanted another fistfight, and he just smiled and said oh, no, I’m fine.  Once a week is plenty.

No longer over coffee I walked home and thought about those soap shoes.  I bet there is a way to make soap shoes that don’t make your slide so much.  Maybe soap shoes with leather straps. 

Chapter 19

This is the Chapter in Which Nothing Happens.

Nothing is going to happen in this chapter; so don’t hold your breath. 

Wait for it…

Chapter 20

Ashley’s Mom

When Ashley’s mom came over, I gave her some tea.  We drank tea together in my studio.  I asked her how the nursing job was coming along.  She said it was coming along fine.  

She told me that Ashley wanted to become an artist.  I felt a little proud about this. 

She also told me that Ashley mentioned that I’d come into some money. 

“I guess that’s true,” I said.  “Would you like to have some?”

She said no thanks, that she had plenty of money.  Then she suggested that Ashley might need some for College. 

“But she’s already been to College.” That’s what I said.

“Oh, yes.  When you are right, you are right.”

So, not having much to talk about, we sat there and watched the steam dancing our names over our teacups. 

Eventually, she started to get bored.

“Remember that night in the emergency room?” she asked.

“I sure do,” I replied.

Then she stood up and walked over to me. She sat down on my lap.  Just like always,  I suddenly responded with my strange incentive.  She pulled up her skirt and didn’t let it go to waste.  “Kiss me like a Stranger,” she said.  And I did.

Later on I was painting while she slept on the couch. 

One of the ghosts of the University showed up.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m the ghost of Richard Brautigan.” 

I didn’t believe him of course.  I know that Richard Brautigan is dead, but I also knew that he had not lived in Milwaukee.  Not ever.  So I smiled the smile I save for the worst sort of liars and I said to him “You must be lying.” 

“No,” he said.  “I have been haunting an aero plane traveling between California and Billy Mitchell field.  Somehow today I managed to get off. Now I’m here.”

I just went on painting and refused to listen to the ghost of Richard Brautigan.

He told me he’d come back later.

I went to my bookshelf and found my copy of “In Watermelon Sugar”. 

On the cover was a photograph of Richard Brautigan..  In fact, it was a Photograph of the same Richard Brautigan that I just sent away. 

“Humph,” I said. 

I finished my painting by adding the ghost of Richard Brautigan to it.  He was standing by the refrigerator in the painting, under a bare yellow light bulb, checking to see if there was any butter.  In the picture, Richard Brautigan is thinking about using the butter as a new kind of dental floss. 

I don’t think it will work.

Chapter 21

Season the Day

I tried to explain to Ashley’s mom when she woke up that there was an old saying, “Carpe Diem” and I was trying to remember what it meant in case I wanted to use it in a sentence. 

Ashley’s mom thought about it for a few moments. 

Then a light bulb went on over her head.

“It means season the day!”

That sounded right, but when I tried to understand exactly what that meant, I was a total failure in doing so. 

A little while later, I went into the kitchen and found a bottle of curry.  I used this by sprinkling it on today’s date on the calendar. 

“Now,” I thought, “I have seasoned the day.”

A little later I was painting some more and Ashley’s mom was sleeping some more.  That is the second time I saw that ghost of the University, Richard Brautigan. 

“Its not season the day,” he said.  “Its sneeze the day.  It is a saying that old doctors used before there was actual medicine to use for curing things.  If somebody came to them, these doctors would say “Sneeze the day” in Latin, because a lot of their patients were Mexican, and it sounded more powerful.  “Carpe diem, they would say.  Carpe diem.”  And even though these doctors had no medicine, people felt better!”

I thought long and hard about that.  Finally I looked it up on the Internet.  I found out that both Ashley’s mom and that ghost of the University Richard Brautigan were wrong. 

“Carpe diem” actually means seize the day. 

In fact, the symbolic meaning of Carpe diem is very similar to the advice my dad once gave me.  What Carpe diem means is actually “when you get lemons, make lemonade.” 

A little bit later, I got interested in Ashley’s mom again, so I woke her up with a special touch to a special place.  This time we were both lying on the couch so it was different from the times when she sat on my lap.  I remember wishing, as we both drifted off to sleep, that I could be in two places at once.  If I was, I could have painted the two of us on the couch using my strange incentive. 

Chapter 22

Ashley Again

Ashley stopped by later. 

She had a chameleon with her, on her shoulder.  A small golden chain went from around its neck to her neck.  It was like the two of them were conjoined twins, conjoined by the metal chain.  She looked very pretty today, almost exactly like her mom. 

She took a deep breath and smiled.

“I can always tell when you and Mom have been playing games.  I can smell it on the air. “

I snorted at her.  She shouldn’t be aware of such things yet as her mother and I doing that thing we do sometimes.

“Its okay! Said Ashley. “I’m not a kid anymore.  I know what you guys do.”

I relaxed a little because I knew she was right.  Even so I wished she wouldn’t talk about it.  She might not be a kid anymore, but she definitely is a lot younger than her Mom and me.  She is, in fact, young enough to be our daughter.

A little later I went over to see what she was working on.  She had a brand new plate, and she was drawing on it with sugar ink.  The image was one of her chameleon blending into a background patterned with geometric shapes.  Then I went back to my painting.

A little later, I heard her say “Fuck!”

I quickly went over to see what the problem was. 

She was washing her plate under hot water and rubbing it gently, like I showed her the other day.

“Look,” she said.  “It’s all washing off!”

I reached in and took the plate from her. 

“No,” I said. “Look here – and here.” 

She did.  When she did she saw what I saw, that there were tiny deposits of etching ground in what appeared, at a distance, to be large expanses of bare metal.

“Its just that those areas were densely drawn.  You’ll see when you get it in the acid!”

Together, we went to the overhead hood where the acid trays were.  Carefully so as not to splash Ashley placed her etching plate into the acid bath.  I handed her a goose quill from the tin.  Together we bent over the plate and gently she brushed the bubbles forming away with the feather. 

“See?” I said. 

We let it sit in the bath for twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, we each had a cup of tea. 

I went to the marble slab and poured out some vine black pigment and a mass of oil.  I mulled the mix into a very nice slab of ink. 

Then I checked the press to make sure the drum was at an even setting.  Sometimes when Billy comes in he leaves the press all cockeyed. 

Ashley took her plate out of the acid and rinsed it at the sink.  Together, we looked at it closely and now it was obvious that the ground had held and all her marks were there. 

I handed her a can of mineral spirits.  She splashed the plate with it and used a rag to wipe off the etching ground, and dried the plate thoroughly.

When Ashley prints her etchings, she uses a streamlined process.

Instead of using her fingers to spread the ink over the plate, she uses a straight wedge of mat board like a squeegee to spread it.  Then she skips the Tarleton wipe and goes directly to a newspaper, then a hand wipe.

When she was done wiping down the plate, it looked spectacular.

We laid the plate on the press, blotted a fresh sheet of copperplate paper, set it over the plate, and lowered the blankets.  Ashley cranked the press.  We were both breathless waiting to see the print on the other side.  I lifted the blanket so that she could lift the print away. 

It was beautiful.

Chapter 23

How to Make a Sugar lift Etching

Its really not difficult to make a sugar lift etching. 

First you make the sugar ink.  I know of two good ways to make sugar ink.

The first way to make it is to get some very good cane sugar.  In a small dish, heat up half a bottle of India drawing ink.  When it begins to steam, but before it boils, add about two teaspoons of sugar to it, stirring until it is completely dissolved.  Pour the ink from the dish back into the bottle to reconstitute it with the rest of the ink. 

The second way is easier.  Take a bottle of  India drawing ink.  Pour a little bit out to make room for the sugar.  Now, take a bottle of Caro syrup.  Replace what you took out with the syrup.  Close the bottle and shake it vigorously. 

Both of these methods produce workable sugar ink.

The other thing you need to do is to prepare the etching ground.  You can use regular liquid etching ground, but it tends to be a bit thick, and often dries leaving ridges where the brush passes.  This can make the size and shape of your lines distort.  So the best thing to do is to mix your liquid ground with lacquer thinner. 

It is best to test the ground on an old plate.  Paint some on.  If your zinc plate looks like a golden plate, then you have the correct solution.  If your zinc plate looks more brown than metallic, add a little more lacquer thinner to the mixture. 

When both materials are prepared, clean your plate with alcohol and allow it to dry thoroughly.  When it is dry, make a drawing on the plate using a brush or a pen to apply the sugar ink, just as you would draw with regular India drawing ink.  If the ink is sticky, or doesn’t flow well, add a little water, but only enough to make the ink workable. 

When your drawing is finished, allow it to dry. 

Then, using a fresh, clean very soft wide brush, paint a very thin and even coat of your liquid etching ground mixture over it. 

When the etching ground is dry and hard, take your plate over to the sink.  Turn on hot water.  Run the hot water over the plate while gently rubbing with your fingers.  Be careful not to scratch the etching ground with a fingernail or callous. 

Where you have drawn with ink, the ground will crack and lift away from the plate.  Keep rinsing the plate until all the drawn areas have lifted clean.

Proceed then as you would with any etching, using the acid bath and timing you normally use. 

If your drawing included large black areas, you can improve the quality of black on them by adding an aquatint resin to the plate midway through the etching process. 

This will texture the lowest areas of those large black shapes, allowing them to hold ink better. 

Print your plate as normal