Four Happy Bears, circa 1980something.

So, where were we?

Ah yes, I'm a doodler, it seems, as well as a scribbler.

A real renaissance man.

Be warned, now that I've got access to a scanner and Bloggerbot , you will be seeing more of this. . . stuff.

Assuming, of course, that you are in possession of vision of one sort or another; and that you (whoever you are) return to this blog in future. Assuming, again, that I have a future and am not struck dead before I update this space again.

As a friend of mine once infamously malapropised, "Anything is possible in this infamous universe." (Hi Wendy, wherever you are.)

This statement has been proved endlessly, for instance, by The Bush Junta.

Or, on a more positive note, the simple existence of Redwood trees.

After the carnage described below we are retreating to the solace of the coast just in time. Slipping away in honor of our imminent anniversary (15 years! Where did they go? Somewhere south of Mexico.) , we are exploiting the approaching Holiday Weekend and retreating to The Redwoods and Deetjen's between the mountain and the sea and only 1 between.

Won't be back 'till next week.

Ah.

"I come from a time where the burning of trees was a crime,

I lived by a sea where to be was a thing of true

joy

My people were fair and had sky in their hair

But now they're content to wear stars on their brows."

- Marc Bolan and Tyrannosaurus Rex, track 12: Frowning Atahualpa, from the album of the same 47 words quoted above, 1967 (same as me!) -

Now Marc I am sad to say that I am happy you went away.

Don't come back, don't return to see

How far we've fallen, neither starry browed or even content, we
are no longer your people, we
are killers of trees

for profit.

And loss is all we know.

Of Innocence.

Of Joy.

Of Home.

Of Hope. . .

Almost.

Though the stars have fallen from our heads to the ground
their light dazzled our eyes on the way down.

Some of us (the round bellied Mothers of Earth and wild children of sky, the tales who walk like men,

the friend of children, the strange ones with light in their eyes) can see the value of a tree is found not in coin but friendship.

Dusky bark that was once transformed by light
heaped now in chunks hewn from life
upon the dusty ground, you hurt my sight.


"To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way."

-William Blake, snipped from his (in)famous August 1799 correspondence to the Revd Dr Trusler-

This post dedicated to the Pine tree next door, felled today. You improved not only our view but our spirits.

"I do think that women could make politics irrelevant. By a kind of spontaneous cooperative action, the like of which we have never seen; which is so far from people's ideas of state structure and vital social structure that seems to them like total anarchy. And what it really is, is very subtle forms of inter-relation which do not follow sort of hierachical patterns which is fundamentally patriarchal. The opposite to patriarchy is not matriarchy but fraternity. And I think it's women who are going to have to break this spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation."

- Germaine Greer, circa 1970, as snipped by Sinead O' Connor for the opening track of her 1994 recording, Universal Mother (currently enjoying heavy rotation in my CD player, see below left) -

I had not heard of Germain Greer before I began researching the quote above. I am not surprised to learn, considering the source of my introduction to Ms. Greer was Sinead O' Connor, that she (Germaine Greer) is a controversial figure.

Controversy tends toward quotability, it seems. Germaine Greer again, from Said What this time:

• "Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; it's one of the most charming things about them. "
• "Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It has no mother."
• "Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate?"
• "The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough. "

So, where's the controversy?

The Reasons Why

by

Richard Cody

for

Sarah Cody

No. 5


I love you because,

as that old man

in the parking lot once said,

"The sun sure does shine brighter

when you're walkin' by."

How lucky am I

to know that still brighter glow

when you stop walkin'
and take me in to share your bed.