up where they put some of those 10,000 lakes ...

vacation time ... no electricity, no running water ... about 17 miles from Canada ... time has come.

astroturf roots and Father Coughlins

"The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty and chaotic. It is difficult to bear the resultant feeling of emptiness, and the vacuum of our minds may only too easily be filled by some big, fantastic notion--political or otherwise--which suddenly seems to illuminate everything and to give meaning and purpose to our existence."

-E.F. Schumacher "Small is Beautiful" (1973)

poem by Mevlana Jalal-e-Din Mevlavi Rumi

[rough translation:

In your soul, there is a life force; seek that life.

In the mountain of your body there is a gem; seek that mine.

Pilgrim, if you seek them,

don't seek outside; seek them in yourself. ]

rereading ...

From "Small is Beautiful" E.F. Schumacher, 1973 (p. 34):

"Next to family, it is work and the relationships established by work that are the true foundations of society. If the foundations are unsound, how could society be sound? And if society is sick, how could it fail to be a danger to peace?"

Schumacher goes on to quote from "Creed or Chaos" (1947):

" 'War is a judgment,' said Dorothy L. Sayers, 'that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe ... Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations.' "

pen + inking flowers

There's something satisfying and magical about drawing in pen and ink.

musica est dei donum optimi

musica universalis, shabda

... makes the heart grow fonder

[Did you ever get the feeling you were born in the wrong century, on the wrong continent?]

Un salon de thé "à la Cour de Rohen" (Paris, 6e) ... a wonderful place to write letters.

Of vacations past ...

... chowder with fresh mussels ... swimming in the rocky cove before the fog lifts ... the soft carpet floor of a hemlock grove ... cool summer, Maine coast

fatto a mano

text, notes, and staves drawn by my hand

Alice in den Städten (Wenders, 1974)

... one of my perpetual top-ten favorite films

No electricity, no running water

Returning to northern Minnesota this year, but to a different cabin. Last year's place was reached only by boat; this year it's a hike-in place nearby.

Through-the-Viewfinder (TtV) experiments

Though the viewfinder of an Anscoflex II with a cardboard chimney, using the macro setting on a Sony Cybershot

In principia ...

Skraeling: native of the north east of America; somewhat derogatory

Geatland: Scandinavia

"A Skraeling in Geatland" ... could be used in reference to someone who relocated to the upper Midwest from New England.