sunday animals

It rained last night

took the dog

for our morning walk

and spotted some creatures

Mending a Passenger Pigeon

 

Today I mended this beautiful old book

THE LAST PASSENGER (1956)

about passenger pigeons in Ohio

by James Ralph Johnson

 

This is my Mending Mentor

Captain Mastor:

 

As you may recall

our Mendery was shut down last year

(see posting from December 6, 2011).

However, since then of course

many books have been piling up

needing repairs. 

 

So I'm back in there to help. 

This book needed a spine repair:

 

First I removed the torn spine

Then I cut some headbands

which the original book lacked.

Incidentally, way back when 

we 'overbought' our headband

and ended up with this huge 

cheese-wheel of headband.

Fortunately, I saved it from 

being discarded as it's 

something any Mendery uses

everyday.

 

I weighted down the new spine

with these buckshot filled weights.

 

Here's how the new headband

blurrily looks.

Next I made the new spine. I could have 

gone with either green or gray booktape. 

I chose the gray.

(Once I memorably festooned a book

on American slavery in red white and blue

booktape, quite a patriotic sight.)

I glued down the old spine title.

And voila!

 The Passenger Pigeon returns to the flock!

Raymond DeCapite

I love discovering a new writer.

When Larry Smith was out here

he told me about Raymond DeCapite. 

I read his book THE LOST KING

and was amazed how smoothly 

and poetically he writes. That's 

one of my favorite books now.

Unfortunately DeCapite's books

are very hard to find. When 

Larry left to return to Ohio

he forgot to bring along  his

copy of GO VERY HIGHLY

TRIPPINGLY TO AND FRO.

We just found it inside the 

cushion of our chair

(that chair is notorious for

such behavior). However

before I return it to him 

this gives me a chance to 

read this new book. 

Once again I'm in awe

of DeCapite's writing 

and it's inspiring me on

in my new project too.

Larry Smith is writing 

an essay on DeCapite

(in fact he left some notes

in the book he left behind)

and I'm looking forward 

to knowing more about 

this King of Cleveland writers. 

More about him soon.

Also check out:

http://www.sparklestreet.com/RayDecapite.html

another reading

 

Poet Paul Piper

organized this reading

happening next week. 

***

In case you missed this reading

this is what I said:

“This winter I was minding my own business 

putting together my next book of poetry, 

when I got shanghaied by a dead poet.

I didn’t know anything about Robert Huff at first.

I put aside my manuscript and became a detective.

There’s very little information on Robert Huff.

He taught poetry here at Western for 25 years 

from 1964-1990 and there are a lot of people 

who knew him. I spoke with friends of his

students, poets and artists and eventually I wrote 

a 40 page essay about Huff’s life here in Bellingham.

The irony is, although Huff found someone 

who could pick up on his psychic call to be 

remembered and written about, I have terrible luck 

getting my stories published in magazines.However, 

my essay on him can be seen in Special Collections.”

And this is what I read:

Robert Huff, “Rainbow”

My poems, “Bird Taxi” and “The Packard Hatchery”

Knute Skinner, “The Little Boat”

Robert Huff, “Morning”

 

flowers

 

My daughter Rosa took these photos

a couple weeks ago.

Also good news,

I started writing a new novel.

Maye I'll share some soon.

My Favorite Driveway

 

 This is our driveway yesterday. 

Which reminds me of three

of my favorite Bob Hope films

from 1942, 1947 and 1951:

 

a.k.a 'My Favorite Brunette'

 

lunchtime book

 

sat under the cedar tree

at lunch today to read

A SUMMER WITH TU FU

by Hayden Carruth

printed by Sam Green's 

press, Brooding Heron.