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Does Your Vehicle Pull to One Side When Braking? Here Is What May Be to Blame

A vehicle that pulls either to the left or to the right when brakes are applied can be hard to control. The existence of this condition is therefore something that puts both you and your loved ones at risk. It is because of this that it is usually advisable that you not only detect the source of the problem but also fix it as soon as possible. The following are some of the most common causes of this problem.

Uneven tires

Uneven tire sizes or different inflation tire pressures usually create wheels of different rolling diameters. The force generated by the rolling wheels will therefore vary. As a result, the force that is needed to either slow them or bring them to a complete stop will be different.

However, if your braking system is functioning perfectly and the amount of force applied to the tires is the same, then this force will have different effects on the speed at which the tires rotate. The net braking effect will therefore be different. This is what may be to blame for the pulling-to-one-side condition.

If this is the cause of your braking problem, replacing the uneven tires with those of the same size will solve the problem. Inflating the slightly deflated tires to ensure that all the tires on your vehicle have the same inflation pressure may also work. You can go to a company such as Buettner Tire & Auto to buy tires or for assistance with maintenance.

Sticking brake caliper

For effective braking to take place, the brake fluid has to be forced into the calipers, which then press against a piston that then forces the brake pads and the disc to make contact. If a given caliper gets stuck, it will be less responsive to the fluid pressure from the master cylinder. It may end up engaging the brakes even after the brake pedal has been released. The lack of responsiveness to fluid pressure may also cause it to press less against the piston, something that will then cause a less-than-desirable braking effect. The wheel with the stuck caliper will therefore always be out of sync with the other wheels. The resulting uneven braking is what then causes the vehicle to pull to one side.

To determine whether you have a stuck caliper problem, simply check the brake pads of your vehicle. If they are worn unevenly, then a stuck caliper is likely to blame. In such cases, replacing the defective part is usually enough to get rid of the problem.


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I Guadiani di Atlantide

martedì, gennaio 11, 2005

What kind of girl are you?

You're the innocent girl next door. You are
friendly, cheerful, kind, and happy. You like
to spread your happiness around making people
feel warm and joyous. To do this you like to
bake cookie and muffins while giving kind
compliments. Plus you actually give apples to
your teachers. You're pure and innocent and
most likely haven't broken many rules. Everyone
loves you. How can they not?

What kind of girl are you? (with pix!)
brought to you by Quizilla

Nessun commento:

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Friday, January 14, 2005

Twisting the Knife - Skyscrapers of the Midwest

Clearly, no two people lived identical childhoods.

People had very different experiences. Some people were popular, some were not. Some people had family problem, some did not.

With that said, I believe there are a certain amount of childhood events that, if not literally universal, are pretty close to it.

An embarrassing thing happening at school.

Your parents doing something embarrassing.

Your younger sibling being annoying.

Your older sibling thinking you are annoying.

Basically all these events that, as a child, seem to be really big deals, and even when you look back at them today, you recall that same feeling of how important these events were.

Well, in the new collection by AdHouse of Joshua Cotter's mini-comics, Skyscrapers of the Midwest, we see an assortment of stories that recall these childhood events.

And if thinking of these embarrassing moments in our past sometimes feels like a knife in our side, then what Cotter does in this comic is twist that knife, and make the pain exquisitely felt.

The main stars of the story are two brothers in the early 80s in the Midwest. The conceit is that the brothers are drawn as anthropomorphic animals. Which is a conceit I have never really gotten behind. Even Spiegleman in Maus II sort of mocked the concept, as in Maus II it is clear that the animal faces are just masks for people, masks that Spiegleman thinks he is using because of a fear to get too close to the story.

I do not believe that is what Cotter is doing here, but still, it is a strange conceit. Heck, I do not even know what animal they are supposed to be. Anyone know for sure? Someone told me they are supposed to be cats, but they look more like dogs to me...but not totally.

In either event, whatever they are, Cotter draws them well. But as good as his art is (and it IS good), his strength is certainly his storytelling abilities.

From the fat kid who turns his playground embarassment into an avenue for fun with his imagination (to typically disastrous results), to the abusive father, to the visit to Grandmothers, to the kid who has an embarrassing "accident" at camp, to the kid who does not want to go to Church, and finally, to the kid who has to tell his mother that the "cool" present she bought him will only get him mocked at school....Cotter doesn't just drag out and intensify the trauma of these situations, he manages to make them frightingly realistic. He has the dialogue all down pat. He has the characterizations all down pat.

The book also contains parodies of advertisements and letter pages. There is some particularly harsh ones of cigarette ads. The letter columns are funny, as the person answering them gets steadily more depressed and drunk. Plus, there are amusing ads for random other products.

All in all, while Cotter almost always goes for the painful joke, he does so with a steady and almost surgeon-like quality, so the book reads very well.

It may not be a happy book, but it's certainly an accomplished one.

And at only $5 for the AdHouse collection of the two mini-comics, it is really really worth the money.

Blogger Ed Cunard said...

It's surely a very handsome book. AdHouse is quickly becoming one of my favorite publishers.

1/14/2005 07:47:00 PM
Blogger Brad Curran said...

Can someone explain to me what the "mini" part of mini comics means? Are they called mini comics because they're smaller in physical size than a standard single issue? That's what I assumed when I'd see people talk about them online. I've never actually seen one, because I don't live where anyone actually makes them.

1/14/2005 09:51:00 PM
Blogger Brian Cronin said...

Brad, a mini-comic is just a "self-published" comic.

And by self-published, I basically mean photocopied pages stapled together and sold at conventions or local comic shops.

1/15/2005 01:43:00 AM
Blogger Brad Curran said...

What's mini about that? Besides the circulation? I was hoping it was the size of a wallet or something. My fantasies, dashed again. Anyway, that tomfoolery aside, this sounds good, and I'll look for it.

1/15/2005 10:40:00 PM
Blogger Ed Cunard said...

I've seen minicomics small as a box of matches and as big as... well, big. Like a magazine...

1/16/2005 01:11:00 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Huh. Sounds cool. I'll see if my shop has it. Comic shops in Michigan are a helluvalot worse than the Seattle ones.

And, originally, mini-comics were eight or sixteen page fold-overs. And a lot still are. Hence, mini-comics.

1/17/2005 04:24:00 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad you liked it. Enjoyed your review, too.

I don't wanna say "I told ya so," but...

1/20/2005 09:22:00 PM

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Children in privately-run youth goals are being seriously injured whilst being restrained by staff, according to a redacted Ministry of Justice report released to the Director of the children’s rights charity Article 39. The report focuses on four secure training centres (STCs) and two young offender institutions (YOIs) - the worst three of which are all run by G4S.
The report lists ‘restraints-gone-wrong’, where children were injured or suffered breathing difficulties in the process. Rainsbrook SCT - where teenager Gareth Myatt died in 2004 after choking on his own vomit while being restrained - had the highest number of incidents of serious injury caused. One child vomited from a prolonged restraint whilst being held in a seated position similar to the one used on Myatt. Government guidelines classify vomiting during restraint as a medical emergency.
Carolyne Willow, Director of Article 39, has been engaged in legal proceedings against the MoJ for access to an unredacted version of the manual 'Minimising and Managing Physical Restraint', published in 2012, which details the restraint techniques used in STCs and YOIs. However, the Upper Tribunal recently dismissed her appeal in Willow v Information Commissioner & Ministry of Justice [2016], holding that disclosure of the information would threaten the good order and security of prisons, as inmates might develop countermeasures to the techniques. Willow had argued - unsuccessfully - that Article 3(1) of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Childrequired a greater emphasis to be placed on the child’s interests when balancing them against the public interest. (See the Panopticon Blog for further analysis).
It came to light last week that Medway SCT - the subject of a BBC Panorama exposé aired in January this year which showed G4S staff appearing to use excessive force on children - is to betaken over by the Ministry of Justice. Four members of staff had been arrested on charges of child neglect in relation to the allegations, following which G4S announced in February it was selling off the contracts to run Medway, Oakhill SCT, and 13 local authority children’s homes.
Andrew Neilson of the Howard League for Penal Reform had called at the time for SCTs to be shut down completely, calling them a “failed model”. The Ministry of Justice is due to announce the findings of the Independent Improvement Board set up by Michael Gove in response to the Medway allegations, which will detail the future of the centre.
A wider review is currently being conducted into youth justice by Charlie Taylor, former head teacher and child behavioural expert, the final report of which is expected in July. The interim findings (available here) recommend an overhaul of the youth custodial estate, replacing youth prisons with smaller secure schools focusing on education.
Other news
  • In addition to the shambles in Barnet on Polling day, it seems that thousands of women living in safe houses and refuges after fleeing domestic violence may have been disenfranchised.Mehala Osborne, a mother-of-one living in a refuge in Bristol, found it impossible to register anonymously as she could not adduce the required evidence to prove her safety would be at risk if her name and address appeared on the register. She estimates that 70% of women in refuges in Bristol and possibly across the country could be in the same situation. The evidence required for Anonymous Voter Registration is a court order or the attestation of an“authorised person” - a Police Superintendent, a Director of Adult Social Services, or the Director General of the Security Services or National Crime Agency. For many in Osborne’s situation, who have fled their homes quickly, there is no time to source such authorisation. The right to vote is protected by Article 3 Protocol 1 ECHR which states that the UK will “hold free elections … under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature”. Osborne suggests that refuge and safe house management staff ought to be included in the definition of an “authorised person”.
  • Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi last week told a US delegation that human rights in Egypt should not be viewed from a “Western perspective”. Though reportedly keen to emphasise his commitment to democracy, he explained that “differences in domestic and regional conditions” make it difficult to apply the same standards. 237 human rights protestors were arrested last week during a peaceful demonstration in Cairo against the el-Sisi regime, including two journalists - Mahmoud al-Sakka and Amr Badr, who work for the opposition website Bawabet Yanayer - for “spreading false news and endangering national security”. Amnesty International have described el-Sisi’s remarks as “deeply troubling”, saying that “he should stop making excuses … There’s nothing remotely ‘Western’ about basic human rights like the right not to suffer torture or to be able to speak freely without fear of arrest or imprisonment”.
  • Arthur Scargill, the former miners’ union president, has called for an inquiry into the conduct of the South Yorkshire Police at the 1984 ‘Battle of Orgreave’. Thousands of minors clashed with the South Yorkshire police at the coking plant near Rotherham during the year long minors’ strike of 1984-5. A redacted version of the Independent Police Complaints Commission report into Orgreave was released last year, but the Yorkshire Post have now reported that the redacted sections proved the same senior police officers were involved in the aftermath of Orgreave as Hillsborough. Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham recently said that the full truth of policing at Hillsborough would not be known until there is transparency over Orgreave.
  • Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, has ruled that the theft of a piece of cheese and awurstel sausage by a homeless man was not a crime because he acted in “desperate and immediate need of nourishment”. Roman Ostriakov had been sentenced by a lower court in Genoa to six months in jail and €100 fine after being arrested for slipping the sausage and cheese into his pocket when buying breadsticks in the supermarket. The Court of Cassation finally found in his favour, after a three-part trial to determine whether the theft of the food (worth about £3.70) amounted to a crime or not, prompting some commentators to lambaste the country’s notoriously inefficient legal system. Others, however, have lauded the judgment as establishing a “sacrosanct principle” that a small theft out of hunger is not comparable to an act of delinquency, and as an act of humanity which showed that in Italy the right to survive trumps property rights - something which would be “blasphemy in America”.

In the Courts
  • Cerf v Turkey  - The Court found a violation of the duty to conduct an effective investigation under the procedural aspect of Article 2 (right to life) into the suspicious death of the applicant’s husband. The applicant’s husband, Serf Cerf, a local politician, was shot outside a café in the town of Yüreğir in 1994 and died on the spot. In 2000, the authorities arrested a man (in the course of operations carried out against Hizbullah, an outlawed organisation in Turkey) who confessed to killing Mr Cerf. Despite criminal proceedings being initiated against him and four others in 2000, they were not concluded until 2009 and 2013. The Court considered the delays to be excessive and incompatible with the State’s obligation under Article 2, which requires proceedings to be initiated promptly and to proceed with reasonable expedition. The delays entailed the conclusion that the investigation had been ineffective.
  • Abdi Mahamud v Malta  - violations of Article 3 and 5. This case concerned a female Somalian asylum seeker detained for more than 16 months in overcrowded conditions, with little privacy and limited access to outdoor exercise. All the care of detained women was carried out by male staff. Ms Mahamud had been detained in May 2012. A decision on her asylum application was not made until December 2012 (when it was rejected). In the meantime she had been frequently hospitalised due several medical conditions. She was interviewed for release on the grounds of ill-health in December 2012, but was not actually released until September 2013. The cumulative effect of the detention conditions was found by the Court to be a violation of Article 3 (degrading treatment); a violation of Article 5 (right to liberty and security) § 1 was found in respect of the length of both periods of detention (seven months pending the asylum decision and the rest pending her removal). The lack of available measure to challenge the lawfulness of her detention was a violation of Article 5 § 4.


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Monday, August 27, 2012

The Moehnke Family Moves to the New World

By Mildred Wallace and Mariam Bluhm Martensen

Gottfried and Anna Dorothea (Malnososki or Mollofskie) Moehnke came to the Sullivan area of Grey County, Ontario, Canada, with their family to find a better life in April 1858. Family records list several towns where they lived in Freidrichstein, Prussia, now in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Province), Poland. They are all within a short distance of each other and east of Hamburg. They sailed from Hamburg and the passenger record includes the following people: Gottfried age 46, Dorothea, wife, age 45, Carl (Charles) age 17, Michael age 14, Justine age 12, Gottfried age 9, Christine age 7, Frederich age 5, Florentine age 2, and Christian 4 months. The place of origin is Friedrichstein, Prussia and his occupation is Landmann (probably farmer).1 The baptismal record of Justine, created at her baptism on June 3, 1872 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church by Pastor Zu Brank, while they were living in Sullivan, also confirms this information.2

This was the time in history when all the able bodied men were being inducted in the Prussian army to fight the many wars of the Aristocrats. Just ten years earlier there had been a revolution in Germany and many reforms had been promised to the people, but never came to pass, so the Prussian people and many other Germans left for America, the land of promise.

They settled in Guelph, Wellington County and later moved to Owen Sound, where they engaged in farming. It’s my belief that Charles Moehnke, a brother of Gottfried, and his family also came with them, as they are buried in Ten O’clock Church graveyard in Clackamas County, Oregon, where Gottfried is buried.

According to the 1861 census of Canada, they lived in Guelph, Wellington County and the family included Gottfried and Anna Mink, both born in about 1812, Charles, Michael, Justine, Gottfried, Christena, Fred, Flora and Christian. They were all born in Prussia and practiced the Lutheran religion, as did many others in this community.  The men worked as laborers. This accounts for all of the children except for Caroline who died in Germany and Louise who was married April 19, 1858 to Michael Schwertz. The next household, is Fred and Justine Mink with a baby Charles, relationship to them is unknown.3 Michael and Louise Schurtz (Schwertz) are also in Guelf, with children: Albert, Louise, Fritz and Charles.4

By the 1871 census of Canada the family was living in Sullivan, Grey County and those listed are Gotfried, Dorothe (Anna), Frederick, Florentiene and Christian. Here Gotfried is a farmer. Charles and Justina Moehnke are listed with children: Charles, Mary, Gusta, Elizabeth, Frederick, and Christian.5

They moved to the United States in 1877, just three years after Grandma Marie Moehnke Heft, granddaughter of Gottfried and Anna was born. Gottfried settled ten miles east of Oregon City, where he bought one hundred acres of land in the woods, which he improved and where he died. His third son Frederick inherited this property.

Gottfried was born May 26, 1812 and died December 14, 1889 at age 77. Anna Dorothea was born December 20, 1812 and died September 25, 1890. Gottfried and Anna Dorothea Moehnke were married on April 19, 1836 in Germany. Aunt Flora Fisher (sister-in-law to Grandpa John Heft by his half brother Alfred Fisher) remembered Dorothea bringing lumps of brown sugar wrapped in a hanky for her grand children.

There were ten children in the family of Gottfried and Anna Dorothea Moehnke who were all born in Germany.

Karolina Moehnke, born August 29, 1834, died as a young child in Germany.

Louise Moehnke, born May 14, 1836 and died March 27, 1928 in Portland, married Michael Schwertz on April 19, 1858. They had eleven children: Louise, Albert, Fredrick C. (Fritz), Charles, Flora, Augustina Grossmueller, Mary Schwichienberg, Michael William, John, David, and Christian.

Charles (Carl or Karl) Moehnke, born March 31, 1840 and died January 1, 1922 in Portland. He married Justina Hettman after they both immigrated to Canada. She died December 31, 1921 after caring for him through an extended illness. They had ten children: Louisa LaDeau, John Alfred, Albertine, Mary Gustina France (Graham), Flora M. Dickey, Charles F. W., William and August C. B. Charles operated the first Beavercreek Post Office and Store. He served as Clackamas County Commissioner from 1888-1892 and was elected Justice of the Peace at Beavercreek 1886. He was one of the first exponents of permanent roads, which met with considerable opposition. In order to demonstrate his theory he built what is believed to be one of the first experimental roads in the west. On a stretch a mile long from Mountain View to the crossing of the Highland road, he constructed a pavement by laying large rocks and filling in with screening gravel. The road is still in use forty years later.6

Michael Moehnke, born October 3, 1842 and died June 1926, married Caroline Fisher on October 14, 1868 in Preston, Waterloo, Ontario. Their marriage record lists Marienwerder, Prussia as their place of birth.7 They had nine children: Flora Frazier, Augusta Jones, Marie Meyers, William Michael, John Gottfried, Christian, David F., Otto E., and Bertha Hibbs. Caroline died in 1888 and he married Katherine McKennett in 1894. Michael died June 2, 1926, and Katherine died July 23, 1935.

Justine Moehnke born September 19, 1844 in Klein Tromnan, Tochlers Westprussia, Prussia, Germany and died July 27, 1875 in Owen Sound. She married Fred Heft, as his second wife, on November 20, 1862 in Owen Sound. He was born in 1837 in Prussia, Germany, and he died in Grey County, Canada in August 18, 1869.8 They had four children: Mary, John, Fred, and Lenna. Her second husband was Karl Fisher. They had Alfred Fisher who married Aunt Flora Bluhm.

Gottfried Moehnke, born June 20, 1847 and died March 11, 1928. He married Mary Zetas, born February 21, 1846 and died December 31, 1930. They had ten children: Albert, Lizzie Bluhm, Robert, John G., Carl (Charles) August, Fred W. (married to Tina Moehnke, Grandma Heft’s sister, who died shortly after marriage), Flora Benson, Lena Priester, Rosa Douglas, and Aguste Reigler (May).

Christena Moehnke, born November 6, 1849 and died February 1, 1927. She married Fredrick (Fritz) Bluhm, born January 19, 1849 and died April 9, 1910. They had nine children: Flora Fisher (married to Grandpa Heft’s half brother Alfred), August, John, Christ G. aka Chris (married to Grandma Heft’s sister Minnie), William F., Arthur G., Cathleen, Elsie, and Della Fisher.

Frederick Moehnke, aka “Fritz”, born March 2, 1852 and died July 22, 1926.6 He married Caroline Slomske, born September 17, 18 and died December 26, 1907. They had ten children: Marie Heft, Amelia Shockley, Herman, John D. Minnie Bluhm, Louise (Lizzie) Kloebe (Koellermeir), Henry, Vina Staben (Koellermeir), Tina Moehnke, and Eva Grover. Fritz’s second wife was Hulda Meibs (nee Fuerstenanau), born August 30, 1872 and died April 11, 1956.9 They married on 11 November 1906. They had three children: Ervin F., Gerhart J., and Walter R.

Flora Moehnke, born December 24, 1854 and died July 2, 1935.10 She married Christian Fisher born and died in 1914. They had six sons: John of La Grande, Joseph of Wallowa, Ben of Brownsville, Otto of Redland, Chris of Beavercreek and Arnold of Oakland.

Christian Moehnke, born December 24, 1857 and died July 28, 1933. He married Mary Heft (grandpa John Heft’s sister), born January 1, 1864 and died 14 May 1894. She left three children which Aunt Lena Heft, her sister, helped to raise. The children were Nora Klinger, Irene Rauch, and Edna Moehnke who was crippled and died at age fifteen.

The above family history contains information gathered over many years by various family members, unless otherwise noted. By 1880, five of their children lived in Oregon and by 1900; all eight living children were here. Gottfried and Anna Dorothea had seventy-four known grandchildren.

Getting to know my family has been a wonderful journey that I’m still on. I’ve found some wonderful friends who also happen to be family. Several years ago I was working as a bank teller, when a young woman at my window said, “I know you, but from where?” I looked at her and replied, “I’m sorry but you don’t look familiar to me.” As we continued with the banking she suddenly said, “ You’re in an album in my grandma’s front room.” Startled I asked, “Who is your grandma?” She replied, “Leona Wallace.” Leona is my mother’s cousin and attended a family reunion I attended a couple of years before, where she took the picture. So be careful how you treat people, you never know, they might be a member of your tribe!

Let’s continue with more information about the family.

The 1880 US Census shows the Moehnke family members living in Beaver Creek, Clackamas County, Oregon. The parents and families of six of their children listed are:

Michael, a farmer, and his wife Caroline, with children Flora, Augustina, Mary, William, John, Christian, and David.

Gottfried and his wife Anna. (the parents), he is listed as “does chores on farm.”

Fred, a farmer, and his wife Caroline, with children Fredric, Maria, Amelia, Harmon, John, and Minna.

Charles, a farmer, and his wife Gustina, with children Louisa, John Alfred, Albertine, Mary Gustina, Flora M., Charles F. W., and August C. B.

Michael Schwertz, a farmer, and his wife Louisa, with children Augusta, Mary L. M., and Frederick G.

Christian Fisher, a farmer, and his wife Flora, with children John and William.11

C (Christian) Moehnk, a farm laborer, is single.12

By the 1900 census the parents had passed away, but some of their children continued to farm the land they had settled in Beaver Creek, Oregon. Their families are listed below:

Michael, a farmer, and his wife Catherine, with children Christian C., Otto E., Bertha, Ada C., Eva M., and Ellen C. His wife had ten children and seven were living. He came to the US in 1878, yet his son is listed as born in Oregon in September 1877. She came in 1887 and they have been married five years. Ada, Eva and Ellen are listed as step daughters.

Frederick, a farmer, and his wife Caroline, with children Herman, John D., Minnie D., Henry W., Vina C., and Tena H. His wife had ten children and nine were living. He came to the US in 1878.

Gottfried, farmer, and his wife Mary, with children Charles A., Frederick, Flora, and Rosa. His wife had ten children and ten were living. He came to the US in 1881.

Frederick, a farmer, and Christena Bluhm. She had nine children and they were all living. Their children living with them are Christian, William, Arthur, Adalia D., Elsie and Adiline.

Christian Fisher (indexed Tischer), a farmer, and his wife Floratene, with children Joseph F., Benjamin, Otto W. and Christian E. She had ten children and five were living. They came to the US in 1877.13

Living in West Oregon City, Chas (Charles), is a Saw Mill man, with his wife Christina (Gustina) and his brother (listed as his father) Fred, who is listed as divorced, is also a Saw Mill man. They had been married thirty-eight years and she had nine children and seven were living. Chas came to the US in 1858, Christina in 1875 and Fred in 1875.14

John Heft, a farmer (the son of Fred Heft and Justine Moehnke), was living in Highland, with his wife Mary L. (Moehnke), and their daughters Edith C. and Edna L. She had two children. He came to the US in 1885 and she came in 1877. This census record notes that his parents were born in Canada, but they actually were both born in Germany. It notes that both of her parents were born in Germany.15 This couple is the grandparents of Mildred Wallace. Their marriage, March 1, 1893, was between cousins, children of Justine Moehnke Heft and Frederick Moehnke, sister and brother. Their children born after this census were: Alfred, Earl, Walter and Emerald, Mildred’s mother.16

Living in Portland, Michael Schwertz, a druggist, and his wife Louisa, with no children. She had eleven children and two were living. They are listed as coming to the US in 1855, but probably came after 1861, as the Canadian census that year notes that all of their children were born in Prussia.17

In the 1910 census Chris, a farmer, is living in Highland. He is a widower, with his daughters Nora and Irene, who both were born in Washington. He came to the US in 1875.18

The last name Moehnke, spelled in several variations, continues to be found throughout Clackamas County. The influence of this family greatly impacted the community of Beaver Creek.  In an article found in the Enterprise, in a column named the Mink Mutterings, on January 9, 1891 there is mention of the make up of the town at that time.

“Mink is about eight miles from Oregon City on the head of Beaver Creek. It consists of post office, store, blacksmith shop, chopper, two sawmills and four churches, the last which ought to prove that the people of Mink are a peace loving people. We are also blessed with a brass band which consists of ten pieces, with John Moehnke leader.”19
The Moehnke family contributed to the establishment of the Ten O’Clock church and participated in the building of that church. It was known as St. Peter’s Church and also listed as a congregational church. This was the same name as the Lutheran church they attended in Canada. Later the family decided to build their own church on property owned by Michael Moehnke. This church was known as St. Peter’s Lutheran Church or the Moehnke Church, and is no longer there. It was adjacent to the Moehnke Cemetery, located at North of S. Lower Highland Rd. on S. Carus Rd. Many of the family members are buried there or in St. Peter’s Cemetery. For burial information check out and A good resource for early records is the Clackamas County Historical Society located in Oregon City. The Family History Society features a Research Library in the Museum of the Oregon Territory.20 Additional family information can be found on, and

1 Hamburg Passenger List, Direct Index, Band 2, 28 February 1857-30 November 1858, pg. 51,, accessed 14 April 2011. The original from microfilm
2 Baptismal record of Justine Moehnke in possession of Mildred Wallace.
3 1861 Canada Census, Guelph, Wellington, Canada West, pgs. 10-11, image 457-458,, accessed 8 February 2011.
4 1861 Canada Census, Guelph, Wellington, Canada West, pg. 15, image 462,, accessed 8 February 2011.
5 1871 Canada Census, Sullivan, North Grey County, Ontario, pgs. 17 and 20,, accessed 8 February 2011.
6 Clackamas County History, Portrait and Biographical Record, pg. 485, actual reference unknown.
7 Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1857-1926, Family History microfilm 1030067,, accessed 4 March 2010. Newspaper articles about Michael Moehnke’s death, Oregon City Enterprise, Reel 17, 4 June 1926, pg. 1.
8 Copy of Newspaper article in possession of Mildred Wallace. No identification of publication provided.
9 Oregon Death Index, Clackamas County, Certificate 4635,, accessed 14 April 2011
10 Oregon Death Index, Clackamas County, Certificate 265,, accessed 14 April 2011.
11 1880 US Census, Beaver Creek, Clackamas, Oregon, pgs. 10, 11,, accessed 14 April 2011.
12 1880 US Census, Clackamas, Oregon, pg. 22,, accessed 14 April 2011
13 1900 US Census, Beaver Creek, Clackamas, Oregon, images 7 and 8,, accessed 14 April 2011.
14 1900 US Census, West Oregon City, District 89, Clackamas, Oregon, pg. 13,, accessed 14 April 2011. This census record is very confusing and not indexed properly. Fred would seem to be Charles brother, and Fred also showed up in the census for Beaver Creek, still married.
15 1900 US Census, Highland, District 33, Clackamas, Oregon, pg. 6,, accessed 14 April 2011.
16 Family information provided by Mildred Wallace. Clackamas Legacy, Vol. 11, No. 1, The Enterprise, 17 March 1893, the Mink Mutterings, Clackamas County Historical Society.
17 1900 US Census, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, image 40,, accessed 14 April 2011.
18 1910 US Census, Highland, District 33, Clackamas, Oregon, pg. 6,, accessed 14 April 2011.
19 Clackamas Legacy, Vol. 11, No. 1, The Enterprise, 9 January 1891, the Mink Mutterings, Clackamas County Historical Society.
20 Clackamas County Historical Society,, accessed 14 April 2011.
Originally published in The Bulletin, Genealogical Forum of Oregon, June 2011. I assisted the authors in compiling their story and have permission to reprint it here. They have in their possession other documents, pictures and family keepsakes.

  1. Thank you for posting this.. Walter Roland Moehnke was my great grandfather.

  2. Hi Susan: My Great-Great Grandmother is Augusta Moehnke, b 1839 in Prussia, married William Rutherford in 1858 in Ontario, Canada, and died near Beavercreek, Clackamas County, Oregon. Do you know if there is any connection to this family? The places and dates are all so closely related, it is hard to believe there is no connection.


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February 22, 2015

Taking a Little Break

Well, looking at my last few months it looks like I've already been taking a break and truthfully I have. We had a grandson born on 12/21 and I spent several weeks helping my daughter with him....then I got sick, husband got sick and I visit with my mom in her nursing home on an almost daily basis. Not making excuses but that's just how things are going at this stage of my life and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I'm having major surgery tomorrow (2/23/15) and I will be out of commission for several weeks. I don't want to feel pressured to blog if I don't feel up to it so for now I'm going to just take it easy and get well.

If you feel inclined, I would really appreciate you saying a prayer for me tomorrow around 10:45 a.m. that everything goes well and my recovery is as smooth as possible. See you all later!

February 14, 2015

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Walter, George Wffliam

Noted organist; son of William Henry Walter; born in New York City. When only three years old his talent asserted itself, and at five he played the organ at Trinity Chapel. He studied under James K. Paine in Boston and under Samuel P. Warren in New York, and in 1869 he removed to Washington, D. C., where in 1882 he was made Doctor of Music, by Columbian University. He is an expert on organ construction, and as a player is noted for his t skill in extemporization and in registration. His musical library, containing about eight thousand works, is considered one of the finest in the country.


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Tuesday, 8 June 2010

The Postie brought a Present....

I have been growing my own for many years now, so much so I pride my self with being the instigator of many of my friends new found passion for growing their own too. I used to have an allotment until we moved to our current house and I couldn't keep up with the overgrown garden and the allotment too. The one thing I always grow is tomatoes. Love them. Love the smell of the plants. But not this year. I have been so busy, I just never got around to planting those little seeds. This made me sad.

I was just sitting down for a cup of tea around eleven o'clock when the familiar rattle of the letter box went. Look what the postie brought me!

The lovely Sarah of Noah's Ark Crafts has been growing hundreds of tomato plants with the seeds she got from BBC Dig In Campaign and has very generously been sharing her well grown bounty with her twitter friends. She sent me a very expertly packaged parcel containing six tomato plants, and nestled in between them, I also found a bonus couple of what looks like pepper plants, and another teeny weeny tomato. They have now been potted up and are resting their very weary roots in a tray of water.

I am now very much looking forward to lots of lovely tomatoes this summer with great thanks to Sarah and her generosity!


WARC-Truncated: length

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Descriptive studies have documented poor fetal growth, dysmorphology, and a range of neurobehavioral deficits in infants and children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Although the adverse effects associated with fetal alcohol exposure are well-known and numerous psychosocial interventions have been attempted, many women continue to drink heavily during pregnancy. Because psychosocial interventions are frequently ineffective, NIAAA has highlighted "the potential of maternal dietary supplementation with choline, folate, and other nutrients to interact with alcohol to reduce the risk of FASD" as a priority research area. This proposal is designed to gather feasibility, adherence, and preliminary data on a promising pharmacological intervention that could prevent or mitigate the severity of fetal alcohol-related impairment. Since 1998, we have conducted research on children born to mothers recruited during pregnancy in the Cape Coloured (mixed ancestry) community in Cape Town, South Africa, where there is an unusually high incidence of alcohol abuse and dependence in women of child-bearing age, very heavy alcohol consumption during pregnancy, and one of the highest rates of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in the world. We have identified a strikingly consistent effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on eyeblink conditioning (EBC), a Pavlovian paradigm that involves contingent temporal pairing of a conditioned stimulus (a tone) with an unconditioned stimulus (an air puff). Not a single child with full FAS met criterin for conditioning, compared with 75% of non-exposed controls. Two-thirds of the other heavily exposed children also failed to meet criterion for conditioning. Because infants reach the same terminal levels of conditioning as adults, EBC can provide an early indicator of alcohol-related impairment and an important tool for evaluating the efficacy of a prenatal intervention. Animal studies have shown that choline supplementation during the equivalent of the 3rd trimester of pregnancy can protect against or mitigate some of the damage incurred by fetal alcohol exposure on EBC and cognitive function. We propose to conduct a randomized, double-blind exploratory trial to examine the feasibility of implementing a choline supplementation intervention in pregnancy, assess acceptability and adherence to the intervention protocol by heavy drinkers, obtain data on plasma choline levels in supplemented mothers and placebo controls and on the prevalence of polymorphisms that substantially alter endogenous choline synthesis in this population, and collect preliminary data regarding the efficacy of the intervention in mitigating fetal alcohol effects on infant EBC and other alcohol- related cognitive deficits. Sixty heavy drinking pregnant women from the Cape Coloured community who initiate prenatal care at or before 20 weeks gestation will receive either choline supplementation (n = 30) or placebo (n = 30) twice daily until delivery. Maternal and infant nutritional intake will be evaluated by dietary history and biological assay. Infants will be assessed for birth size, growth, and EBC and neurocognitive function at 6.5 months postpartum.

Public Health Relevance

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and other alcohol-related disorders are an important public health problem worldwide. Informational and psychosocial interventions are often ineffective with women who drink heavily during pregnancy. If this exploratory pharmacological trial demonstrates that the proposed intervention is feasible and provides preliminary evidence that choline supplementation during pregnancy can protect against or mitigate adverse effects of fetal alcohol exposure on eyeblink conditioning and other neurobehavioral outcomes, this study will provide the basis for conducting a large, fully powered randomized clinical trial. Development of an effective pharmacological intervention for pregnant women at risk for delivering an infant with fetal alcohol disorder would represent a major breakthrough in prevention of developmental deficits associated with this disorder.

National Institute of Health (NIH)
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
Application #
Study Section
Health Services Research Review Subcommittee (AA)
Program Officer
Roach, Deidra
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
Budget End
Support Year
Fiscal Year
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Wayne State University
Schools of Medicine
United States
Zip Code
Jacobson, Sandra W; Carter, R Colin; Jacobson, Joseph L (2014) Breastfeeding as a proxy for benefits of parenting skills for later reading readiness and cognitive competence. J Pediatr 164:440-2
Carter, R C; Jacobson, J L; Jacobson, S W (2014) Fertility treatments, maternal intelligence, and child cognition. BJOG 121:1652


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1st Time Buyer’s Guide

Company Pledges

With the third generation of the Cox Family, now managing the business on a daily basis, West Dorset Leisure Holidays have been successfully providing memorable holidays since the early 1970s. Our company pledges include:

  • To listen to your needs and requirements
  • To make our Sales procedure as simple as possible
  • To continually re-invest to maintain and improve the Parks
  • To take care of you, not just when you are choosing your dream Holiday Home, but after you have moved in too
  • To ask for feedback and to take your comments on board so we can continue to improve the service we provide
Caravans for Sale in Dorset

Steps to buying your dream Holiday Home

Step 1 – Find the right Park for you

The most important decision you will make first is to pick the Park that suits you best. Each of our Parks are unique and you will find the right one for you. Visit the Owning on a WDLH Park page to find out more about each of our five Holiday Parks.

Step 2 – Visit the Park

It is important to get a feel for the Park and visit the local area to be sure it is the right location for you. Make an enquiry with our Holiday Home Sales team, who will be happy to meet with you and give you a tour of the Park(s) you are interested in.

Step 3 – Choose your Pitch / Holiday Home

Depending on your budget, you may choose to go for one of our vacant Pitches and pick your own Holiday Home that fits your requirements or you may choose a Holiday Home already sited on a Pitch from the large range of new and ‘pre-loved’ Holiday Homes we have for sale at any given time – view our current Sales List.

Caravans for Sale in Dorset

Step 4 – The little extras

Once you have chosen your dream Holiday Home, the Sales team will be happy to go through any extras available to you, such as your options for a decking and storage box. We are happy to make recommendations and advise you if required. They will also go through the finer details of Holiday Home Ownership with you, such as the running costs, pitch fees, Ramtech alarm and the licence agreement. The team will go through this information with complete clarification to ensure there are no hidden costs and you are fully informed before you make your decision. Pitch fees include rates, water and VAT. The Licence Agreement has been agreed by the British Holiday & Home Parks Association in consultation with the office of fair trading.

Step 5 – Enjoy your Holiday Home

Once everything is finalised, we hope to have you holidaying within 3-4 weeks. You will be pleased to know that there is very little paperwork to complete and our professional in-house ‘siting’ team will ensure that your Holiday Home is prepared on it’s pitch to a very high standard and ready for you to enjoy as soon as possible.

View the Holiday Home Owner’s Essential Information

View the Sales List

Make an enquiry

Find out more about the Parks

View the 2017 Holiday Home Sales Brochure

Caravans for Sale in Dorset

Season Length

The season length for Caravan Holiday Home Owners is 1st March to 30th November every year. In Lodge Holiday Homes at Larkfield Holiday Park, the season is 46 weeks or 10.5 months, with the close period being 6 weeks in January / February – please note these dates vary every year.

At West Dorset Leisure Holidays, we have strong relationships with a number of excellent Holiday Home manufacturers. Please contact the Sales Team who will be happy to go through the list with you and organise viewings of the Holiday Homes we currently have for sale. With years of experience in the leisure and Holiday Home industry, we’ve grown to love these manufactuers. Find out more about them on their websites

ABI – ABI have been building exceptional quality hand-crafted Holiday Homes for over four decades, that generations of British Holiday Makers have enjoyed as their home away from home.

Willerby – For over 70 years Willerby has been the largest manufacturer of Holiday Homes. They love designing the very best homes for Parks not only in the UK but across the world – places you can switch off, kick back and relax.

Swift – Founded in 1964, Swift is the UK’s largest manufacturer of Touring Caravans and Motorhomes and they also created innovative Holiday Homes created to the highest standards.

Carnaby – Carnaby’s mission for the last four decades has been to present a holiday home away from home. Whatever you’re looking for, Carnaby has the perfect solution to fit your lifestyle and budget.

Regal – Regal Holiday Homes take great pride in the level of service they offer their customers and produce fresh, modern and stylish designs for their Caravan Holiday Homes

Victory Leisure Homes – Founded in 2009, Victory Leisure Homes produce Holiday Homes of the highest quality that families are enjoying right now across the UK and Europe

Pemberton – Pemberton Caravans started manufacturing Holiday Homes in the late 1940s and now have over 30 models on offer at the forefront of advances in the design and development of the Holiday Home concept.

Pinelog – Pinelog offer a varied product range and a design service to meet customer’s specific requirements with quality materials, high levels of craftsmanship.

Prestige – Prestige & Homeseeker have over 40 years experience in producing a vast array of high-end Lodges and idyllic Holiday Homes with intelligent designs and groundbreaking creativity.

If you are unable to find your dream Holiday Home from the range of pre-loved and new models we have for sale, there are 2 dealerships located in Bridport who will be happy to help. Surf Bay Leisure display a wide range of new static caravans and provide expert advice. Southern Counties Leisure are distributors for Willerby Holiday Homes and they have a superb reputation for the expertise and service of their Sales department.

Quick Book


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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Claptrap: Notes From Hollywood by Stephen Gyllenhaal

clap·trap n

pompous or important-sounding nonsense (informal)

Never have I struggled so much when reviewing a book as I have with Stephen Gyllenhaal’s first collection of poems, Claptrap: Notes From Hollywood, just out from Cantarabooks. Mr. Gyllenhaal is already well-known for his work as a film director. What is less known is he was an English major at Connecticut's Trinity College and, in keeping with American literary tradition, has continued writing poetry while meeting the demands of raising a family and building a career. I was rooting for him when I opened his book.

I still am. Even after being somewhat taken aback by the substantial introductory material to his book: a Foreword by Hugh Odgen, Mr. Gyllenhaal’s professor and mentor at Trinity College; an Editor’s Preface by Cantara Christopher and Michael Matheny; and an Introduction by Jamie Lee Curtis. I’ve never seen such an abundance of praise inside anyone’s first book. In addition, both the Editor’s Preface and the Introduction implied most poetry written in America today isn’t really very good, and Mr. Gyllenhaal’s poems are the exception to the rule. That assertion raised the bar pretty darn high for my review. As both a contributor to and a reader of The Great American Pinup, I would assert there is plenty of outstanding poetry being written in America today.

That being my opinion, I couldn’t help but react strongly to the editors’ statement that “Poetry in America is no longer the distinguished art it used to be—it’s never read, hardly taught, and almost never practiced with any sort of discipline. Yet people keep stumbling to write it.” The editors related a story of helping edit a recent issue of North American Review. “Now, for those of you who think it’s easy to read through a stack of unsolicited poems and come up with five or six that are at least halfway publishable, think again.” My resistance to Mr. Gyllenhaal’s book was becoming entrenched.

What I discovered while reading Claptrap, though, is a poet in love with language, a love that shines at the heart of every poem. Mr. Gyllenhaal enjoys wordplay, which makes his writing fun to read. The poems are wide-ranging in their subjects—parenthood, family, and social justice among them—and style. Some are improvisatory, some painstakingly crafted.

Mr. Gyllenhaal’s poems are most often self-referential, anecdotal, and drawn from his everyday life. He expresses concern about his relationship with an openly antagonistic neighbor—and his noisy “5am” struggles with his garbage cans—and muses about the world seen through the windshield of his automobile while driving “down Wilshire Blvd./just west of Rodeo Drive.” Hollywood is Mr. Gyllenhaal’s town—the place where he lives and works—hence the subtitle—and Hollywood is a character in this collection.

No book making reference to Hollywood would be complete without making reference to its luxury-car culture, where a woman’s beauty is described, in the poem “Democracy,” as “all past benz/and maseratis.” Hollywood is also a town where wealthy locals are suspicious of a GMC pickup with a “rattling tailgate.” In “Photosynthesis,” the speaker’s suspicion gives way to envy for the young men in the old pickup when he reveals, “Oh, to be that kind of young again/when every oyster spreads its legs for you/and the nails you hit on two by fours/sing out your praise.”

In “Careful There, Pardner,” Mr. Gyllenhaal surprises the reader with revelations about his—and therefore our—ability to jump to conclusions about others. The speaker sits in traffic and, with time on his hands, prejudges the man in the Caddy ahead. He imagines him taking offense to an ad on the side of a bus showing “a joyful black boy billboard prince.” The speaker sees “A Jesse Helms stiffness in the neck,” “fighting/for his Ronald Regan California,/the John Wayne of it all.” The poem ends with him driving by to see there is no angry white man boiling over in the Caddy, but rather “the man/instead/is black/and old/and content.”

While I enjoyed these and other poems for their wit and irony, they never drew me in completely—never convinced me that the writer had a real stake in them. In contrast, Mr. Gyllenhaal is at his best when he writes about subjects closest to his heart, and at the heart of Claptrap is an elegantly choreographed Shakespearean sonnet that I absolutely admire and adore.

It’s the tiny space between my words to you,
the hesitations that were never there before—
I just can’t find an easy way to say what’s true
and touch this thing that reaches to our core.

The beauty of what’s you I knew when you arrived
in blood and tiny fingers, reaching blindly at it all
for I was father to your joy that you’d survived
and blossomed, one from two, into this flesh to call

your own and grow as I began my fall to here
and you so far more than I’d ever dreamed
rose tall, my dear, which makes it all too clear
to me, if only I can see and hear between

the hesitations, words and nearly endless breaths:
to have joyful births, there must be joyful deaths.

When Mr. Gyllenhaal writes about his family his poems ring true. The depth of his thought and feeling is apparent—even when he offers a clever bit of wisdom in “Birth Announcement.”

Birth Announcement

Learn to stand apart,
keep a clean slate,
be pretty:
honey catches flies.

Roll up your sleeves
be a mule to the wounded:
you’ll never
lack for friends or work
or have to consider
that nothing’s here for you.

James Dickey was asked if there was any value in reading a review of one’s own book—or were book reviews only of value to prospective readers. He said the review is only valuable to the writer if the reviewer takes the time to get inside the work, look at it from the inside out. I hope I succeeded in looking at Mr. Gyllenhaal’s poems from the inside out. They are written with care and consciousness and, while Claptrap has its flaws, I hope I’ve responded in kind.

Monday, September 18, 2006

In the following listing the publication dates are mismatched with their versions. Can you arrange them properly? What number 1-21 in the right column matches with A? With B? And so on…

Good luck!

P.S. If you have additional versions of 32 on your shelf do post the version, and the pub date /publisher here—or send it to me via e-mail. Either way…

1969, Vintage: A Division of Random House, The Poems of Catullus, A Bilingual Edition translated by James Michie

Please, Ipsitilla, sugar,

my doll, kid, baby, please

tell me to come this afternoon;

contribute to my ease

by letting no one lock your door,

by staying where you are; what's more,

get set to soothe me, as I choose,

with nine uninterrupted screws.

Whatever gives, don't make me wait:

I'm lying, filled with all I ate,

watching my tunic stand up straight.

1957 Ann Arbor / University of Michigan Press, Catullus. The Complete Poetry, translated by Frank O. Copley

Please, my love, sweet Ipsitilla,

My darling, my own clever girl,

Command my presence at siesta

And if you do, help by ensuring

That no one bolts your outer door

And that you don't go out on impulse

But stay home and prepare for us

Nine uniniterrupted fuctions.

In fact if you're willing command me now.

I lie back after a large lunch

Boring holes in tunic and cloak.

1966, Penguin Classics, THE POEMS OF CATULLUS, Peter Whigham

Call me to you

at siesta

we'll make love

my gold & jewels

my treasure trove

my sweet Ipsithilla,

when you invite

me lock no doors

nor change your mind

& step outside

but stay at home

& in your room

prepare yourself

to come nine times

straight off together,

in fact if you

should want it now

I'll cone at once

for lolling on

the sofa here

with jutting cock

and stuffed with food

I'm ripe for stuffing

my sweet Ipsithilla.

1991, Oxford University Press. World Classics, THE POEMS OF CATULLUS, Guy Lee

4. please, Ipsithilla

my darling, my delight

tell me you'll be home

when I come in the hotly still of noon

tell me and if you tell

be this much kind to me

no lock to block the door

no note "gone out back soon"

stay home and make you ready for me

nine times to feel the pulse of love.

what? you'll be busy?

then tell me now

for I lie full and flat, and feel

love knocking, beating at my passion's door.

1959 Bobbs-Merrill, ODI ET AMO, THE COMPLETE POETRY OF CATULLUS, Roy Arthur Swanson

Dear Ipsitilla, my sweetheart.

My darling, precious, beautiful tart,

Invite me round to be your guest

At noon. Say yes, and i'll request

Another favour: make quite sure

That no one latches the front door

And don't slip out for a breath of air,

But stay inside, please, and prepare

A love-play with nine long acts in it,

No intervals either! Quick, this minute,

Now if you're in the giving mood;

For lying here, full of good food,

I feel a second hunger poke

Up through my tunic and my cloak.

1979, Johns Hopkins, THE POEMS OF CATULLUS, Charles Martin

I entreat you, my sweet Ipsitilla, my darling, my charmer, bid me come and spend the afternoon with you. And if you do bid me, grant me this kindness too,

that no one may bar the panel of your threshhold, nor you yourself have a fancy to go away, but stay at home an have ready for me nine consecutive

copulations. And bid me come at once if you are going to at all: for I'm on my back after lunch, thrusting through tunic and cloak.

1894 Catullus. Carmina. Sir Richard Francis Burton. London. Smithers.[VERSE]

Please, please, please, my darling Ipsithilla,

oh my delicate dish, my clever sweetheart,

please invite me home for the siesta--

and, supposing that you do invite me, make sure

no one happens to bolt and bar your shutters,

and that you don't, on a whim, decide to

go off out: just stay home and prepare for

us nine whole uninterrupted fuckfests.

Fact is, if you're on, ask me at once, I've

lunched, I'm full, flat on my back and bursting

up, up, up, through unershirt and bedclothes!

1894, Catullus. The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers. London. Smithers.[PROSE]

Please, my sweet Ipsithilla, my delight, my charmer: order me to come to you at noon. And if you should order this, it will be useful if no one makes fast the

outer door [against me], and don't be minded to go out, but stay at home and prepare for us nine continuous love-makings. In truth if you are minded, give the

order at once: for breakfast over, I lie supine and ripe, poking through both tunic and cloak.

1913-2005, Harvard University Press, Catullus, tranlated by F.W. Cornish, Loeb Classical Library .[PROSE]

I’ll love my Ipsithilla sweetest,

My desires and my Wit the meetest,

So bid me join thy nap o' noon!

Then (after bidding) add the boon

Undraw thy threshold-bolt none dare,

Lest thou be led afar to fare;

Nay bide at home, for us prepare

Nine-fold continuous love-delights.

But aught do thou to hurry things,

For dinner-full I lie aback,

And gown and tunic through I crack.

2005, University of California Press, The Poems of Catullus, Peter Green

I beg of you, my sweet, my Ipsitilla,

my darling, my sophisticated beauty,

summon me to a midday assignation;

and, if you're willing, do me one big favor:

don't let another client shoot the door bolt,

and don't decide to suddenly go cruising,

but stay at home & get yourself all ready

for nine--yes, nine--successive copulations!

Honestly, if you want it, give the order:

I've eaten, and I'm sated, supinated!

My prick is poking through my cloak & tunic.

1946, The Poems of Catullus, W&W Norton and Company, Horace Gregory

O Mellow, sweet, delicious little

piece, my Ipsithilla,

I love you dearly.

Tell me to come at noon

and I'll come galloping

at your threshold.

Let no one bar the door today

but stay at home, my little one,

to fit yourself for nine long

bouts of love. And if you're so inclined,

call me at once;

my morning meal is over

and I reclining

my tree of life (your bedfellow)

has risen joyfully tearing through my clothes,

impatient to be at you.

2004, Catullus, Poems of Love and Hate, Bloodaxe Press, Josephine Balmer

List, I charge thee, my gentle Ipsithilla,

Lovely ravisher and my dainty mistress,

Say we'll linger a lazy noon together.

Suits my company? lend a farthing hearing:

See no jealousy make the gate against me,

See no fantasy lead thee out a-roaming.

Keep close chamber; anon in all profusion

Count me kisses again again returning.

Bides thy will? with a sudden haste command me;

Full and wistful, at ease reclin'd, a lover

Here I languish alone, supinely dreaming.

2002, The Complete Poetry of Catullus, The University of Wisconsin Press, David Mulroy

My sweet Hypsithilla, my delight, my merry soul; bid me, like a dear girl, come to you to pass the noon. And if you bid me, add this, that no one bar the gate, that no fancy take you to go abroad, but that you remain at home, and prepare for us no end of amorous delights. But if you agree, summon me immediately, for I am lying on my back after dinner, full, and pampered, and am bursting my tunic and my very cloak.

1866, Stanza 41, Address to Priapus, Algernon Charles Swinburne

XXXII The Rendezvous. To Hypsithilla.

Kind of heart, of beauty bright,

Pleasure's soul, and love's delight,

None by nature graced above thee,

Hypsithilla, let me love thee.

Tell me then, that I shall be

Welcome when I come to thee;

And at noon's inspiring tide

Close thy gate to all beside.

Let no idle wish to roam

Steal thy thought from joys at home;

But prepare thy charms to aid

Every frolic love e'er play'd.

Speed thy message. Day goes fast.

Now's the hour; the banquet's past:

Mid-day suns and goblets flowing

Set my frame with passion glowing.

Spend thee, wanton, fair and free!

Tell me I must haste to thee.

1871, The Poems and Fragments of Catullus, Translated in the Metres of the Original, London: John Murray, Albemarle Street; by Robinson Ellis

My Hypsithilla, charming fair,

My life, my soul, ah! hear my prayer:

The grateful summons quickly send,

And bless at noon, with joy, thy friend.

And if my fair one will comply,

And not her sighing swain deny

Take care the door be then unbarr'd,

And let no spy be on the guard.

And thou, the aim of my desire,

Attend at home my amorous fire.

Prepare to meet repeated joy,

Continued bliss without alloy;

Dissolving still in thy dear arms,

Still raised by thy reviving charms,

To onsets fresh of sprightly pleasure,

Tumultuous joy beyond all measure,

But dally not with my desire,

Nor quash with thy delays of fire,

Bursting with love upon my couch I lie,

Forestalling with desire the distant joy.

1887, Erotica. The Poems of Catullus and Tibullus, and The Vigil of Venus., London George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden, Walter K. Kelly [PROSE]

What broke off the garlands that girt you?

What sundered you spirit and clay?

Weak sins yet alive are as virtue

To the strength of the sins of that day.

For dried is the blood of thy lover,

Ipsithilla, contracted the vein,

Cry aloud 'Will he rise and recover,

Our Lady of Pain?'

Cry aloud; for the old world is broken:

Cry aloud, for the Phrygian is priest,

And rears not the bountiful token

And spreads not the fairly feast.

From the midmost of Ida, from shady

Recesses that murmur at morn,

They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,

A goddess new-born.

And the chaplets of old are above us,

And the oyster bed teems out of reach,

Old poets outsing and outlove us,

And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.

Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city,

With such lips as he sang with, again?

Intercede for us all of thy pity,

Our Lady of Pain.

1887, Erotica. The Poems of Catullus and Tibullus, and The Vigil of Venus., London George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden, Walter K. Kelly (Lamb's verse version)

Be a sweetie, Ipsithilla,

joy and charm personified,

invite me to join in your afternoon nap.

But merely inviting is not enough.

Make certain that nobody locks the door.

Resist your desire to wander the streets.

Stay in the house and prepare to engage

in nine continuous copulations.

If this is agreeable, tell me at once.

I'm lying on my back, digesting my lunch,

and boring a hole in my tunic and cloak.

1887, 1887, Erotica. The Poems of Catullus and Tibullus, and The Vigil of Venus., London George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden, Walter K. Kelly (Anonymous version)

An Afternoon with Ipsitilla

Please, please me, dear Ipsitilla,

my own sweetness, my so clever,

invite me in for siesta

and I'll come -- but at your leisure.

Don't block your passage, fold down flaps,

slip off out for other pleasures.

Hold on, get set, let's fill the gap:

nine full-time, full-on, fuck-fuckings;

just say you're game, just say you will,

you see I've eaten, had my fill,

yet still my lunch-box is bulging.

1996,The erotic spirit: an anthology of poems of sensuality, love, and longing, Shambala Publications, Inc., Sam Hamill

Ipsithilla, baby girl,

Sugar, honey, let me curl

Up with you this afternoon,

Tell me that I can come soon,

Tell me none will bar your door,

That you're not busy, and what's more

That you will wait for me and choose

To give me nine successive screws.

Oh, don't delay, don't make me wait,

I'm resting, stuffed with all I ate,

Feeling my pecker stand up straight.

1970, Catullus, The Complete Poems for American Readers, E.P. Dutton & CO., INC., New York; Reney Myers and Robert J. Ormsby

Please darling, dear Ipsithilla,

All my pleasure, my only attraction,

Order me to you this afternoon.

And if you do order me, please arrange also

That no one shall get in my was as I enter,

And don't you go off either at the last moment.

But stay at home and organize for us

Nine copulations in rapid series.

If there's anything doing, send round immediately;

For here I am, lying in my bed;

I have had my lunch, the thing sticks out of my tunic.

1966, The Poetry of Catullus, Viking Press, C.H. Sisson

My lovely, sweet Ipsithilla,

my delicious, my passion,

call for me this affternoon.

Please send for me so I may come

without question,

And don't sneak off as I enter.

Stay, and wait, and dream up

nine different kinds of copulation

to keep us entertained.

Send for me here, after lunch,

wher I'm supine on my bed

with my cock peeking out from my tunic.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

JOSHUA CLOVER—The Totality For Kids

Reading a book by Joshua Clover is like being stuck in a room with a very intelligent guy who is always talking past you. You are always scrambling to catch up with the last thing said. I get this feeling very frequently from my brother, Dante Schnickelfritz, a self-taught computer geek/expert. When asked for some technical advice, Dante hurtles into variation after variation of possibility, each with its own separate intrigues and technical details. You get the whole picture and more, until one is almost reassured that, given the expansive territory one’s problem may occupy, the seemingly little problem has universal implications.

Clover’s area of expertise is not computers, however. He is an expert in “the image,”and he traffics in these to such a great extent that I suspect many a poetry consumer becomes overwhelmed the way one can become overwhelmed by piped-in music at a department store. Too much stimulus. Can’t buy anything. Ahhhhh!

Perhaps I am just comforted by the presence of very smart people talking passionately about what inhabits their world so that I am not put off by this. It makes me feel at home. More than that, intelligent people talking in a room seems to be an act of courage. People exercising their own thoughts and intelligence and not conforming to some punitive authority seems about as bold today as praising the virtues of Communism during the McCarthy witch hunts. In fact, one can almost picture an official these days retracting a statement made during a Senate hearing because it was made on the basis of its being intelligent.

General Abizaid was in Baghdad on Thursday to meet with Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the American commander in Iraq. Speaking to reporters afterward, he said Iraq was not near civil war, in contrast to comments he made in Senate testimony in Washington this month, in which he said that sectarian violence in Iraq was the worst he had seen and that a civil war was possible. “I think there has been great progress on the security front in Baghdad recently,” General Abizaid said Thursday, according to Reuters.

But I digress. Clover’s intelligence announces itself passionately on the page even while it is being denounced as “icy” by those who purport to have the greatest hearts in poetry. They can’t “feel” him out there being passionate about his vision of the world, a world that includes a lot of damn fine thinking to be used as a tool to access his complicated vision. It is a vision of the world filled with absurd beauty as it is filled with those barely able to grasp the magnitude of this kind of beauty. So, the speaker is talking, articulating through juxtaposed images and rhetorical horseplay, a world that looks a lot like “the city” with its nonsensical juxtapositions that have been brought forth by the play of capital. Is the Clover poem an instance of the author holding up a mirror to the city itself.

“How does the city get put together?” is what Clover seems to be asking again and again in his own constructions. He is meticulous about the image of this city he presents. We venture into the weird interstices with him. Does this make Clover our strange travel guide, our own private image geek who rewards our following him with stale bread crumbs that are difficult to swallow without our holding them in our mouths for a while?

Exhibit A.

Here we see Clover in his bio pic for the book jacket. He appears as the great modernist seen brooding with measurable intensity. Yet Clover is more likely to appear in person in a bowling shirt or a baseball cap, part of the great sea of the unwashed. [Just for the record, I do believe he showers regularly.] But in this photo he exhibits truly perfect placement of the hand on the temple. One almost feels (there’s that word again) subatomic particles of thought colliding with the camera lens. I make fun of this photo only because I suspect its mock seriousness is making fun of us (who might take it seriously). More precisely, I’d say he is letting us in on the joke if only we take the time and spend the precious amount of careful observation we possess). Such is the case in the age of the image. The observer has to bring his/her own punch line. We are tethered to the spectacle via a communication game.

The irony of this image does mark Clover as someone who is heavily invested in the image, who is willing to quickly deconstruct the meaning and value of the image that aspires to power. He understands the power of the image to transform, and he is willing to take the “industry of image” head on . . . well, maybe he slightly parries.

The parrying he does arrives in the form of the rhetorical sleight of hand he employs. As readers we come armed with certain conventions in the language, certain natural turns of phrase that exist. Clover will not permit us to use that kind of easy pass to understanding. He keeps that mechanical engine in the language from running too smoothly. However, he does not leave this engine to rust in the fields. He undermines meaning at the same time he circumscribes it at a different level. And the language is formed with a Tender Buttons-like accuracy. That is to say, the ear is here.

But like intelligence, this kind of playfulness is not the preferred strategy of the day. We live in an age of high seriousness, where people are “all business.” Play in the days of Katyusha rockets, heavy water plants and IEDs (all serious as a pitchfork) comes off as an abomination. If not irresponsible [Are we not the guardians of freedom in the world?]. If this notion runs counter to your sensibility, ask yourself when you heard yourself telling a good American joke. Ya’ know . . . there were these three Americans that walked into a bar and . . .

Bulletin. Bulletin. This just in: One might have reason to believe that the bio pic is modeled after a similar pose struck by Walter Benjamin, whose Arcades Project serves as an important influence on The Totality For Kids. Benjamin's project as flâneur is very much aligned with Clover's strolls through the imagined space of the city.

Clover’s project is very close to the surrealists without quite going to the extreme of the situationists who seemed to ad hoc everything in the moment. {this said, Clover’s notion of rebuilding the city in bricolage fashion is very much like the notion of Unitary Urbanism that the situationists put forth in 1960). This improvisation is exhilarating but it taxes even the most willing spectators. The Totality For Kids is put together with more precision. There is mortar between every phrase.

Like many a postmodernist after Pound, Clover’s poems are organized as if a series of walks through the city, each time settling on some curious detail of the place and remarking on the history of its construction. It is a teleology of the city. Why is there what there is?

One such poem that almost explicitly takes this theme is “Valiant en Abyme.”The frame within a frame aspect of the title (en abyme is a visual arts term where the design of the whole is contained within a piece, ad infinitum) reinforces that each sentence is a short walk that keeps repeating itself within the larger walk that is the poem itself.

Valiant en Abyme

Our grand peregrinations through these temporary cities,
These pale window box poppies of the laughing class,
Drifting as if time came in the same long dollops as starlight,
Resemble an epic journey as a coffee bean resembles a llama’s foot,
Though the kitchen table may be far from the desert
It’s near in spirit, a yellow oasis before the wind
Starts its restless sweeping of white-flower dust across the lintel,
Marking the fine edge of things like children asleep
At the opera, piled up near the door, summer passing
On its way out. Prince Valiant vowed to sew the horizons
Into a single idea, to put on the blue dress of distance,
Looping past rivers and mountains as one leaps from bed
To bed to make loneliness lonely, the suburbs were for him
A relief, a pageant of calm desire where he settled,
All the king’s horses grazing on forsythia out back
While the evening tilts back out of the night, a kindly drunk
Uncle, and asks you to stay. Was this the end of traveling?
Or just a change in the story over time, as for example how
Tous les chevaux du roi became Josie and the Pussycats
From one version to the next? So all heroes are deranged
By something quite common yet unexpected, a constellation
Redrawn and named again though the stars
Above the porch don’t shift but seem to sink
Through winter’s pitcher of noircotic ink,
Leaving a single streetlight that burned happily,
Thinking it was the sun, after all it was the day
Of the night and turned the world around it,
We were good sentences and forgot where we started.

Of course, the last line suggests that “to obey the walk” is to somehow forget where one started. This last statement is hard to read with regard to tone. I am not sure if Clover is mocking this blind obedience or rather suggesting that the accomplished walker achieves an immediacy with his/her surroundings. This dual valence in the poem is also reflected in the nature of Prince Valiant himself, who though full of valor, moves out to the suburbs which Clover suggests killed a sense of curiosity about the world because everything was so conveniently located.

But I like this poem mainly because it mentions Josie and the Pussycats. Forgive me, I suffer from nostalgia for the endlessly repeated backgrounds of Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

So much goes on a poem like this too. It is its own city. Neologisms like “noircotic” appear. Finding a phrase like “all the king’s horses” and then a few lines later “Tous les chevaux du roi” is like finding a wrapper for a snack item flung on the ground on one street corner and then finding a wrapper for the very same item a couple of blocks later, only all the words are printed in a different language. The interior of the kitchen table comes into view, and nature (stars, the sun, rivers and mountains and white flower-dust) are fixed in the visual field as well.

Many architectural details appear in the poems of The Totality For Kids: facades, windows, doors monuments, walls, glass frontage, verandas, gates, steeples, passageways, stairs, etc,. These give clues that the imaginative space Clover enters into is a citified one. But it also reminds us how constructed our mental spaces are as well as our physical ones. In many instances the move in Clover’s poems towards talking about sentences as though they were construction projects that frustrate the contractor as well as the inhabitant is also a reminder of this. The artifice of Clover’s oeuvre is everywhere.

And I can imagine a certain kind of reader who is put off by this in his work. Such a reader might ask what is authentic, what is to be earnestly grasped and internalized from such a display. The short answer might be: nothing. All is a chain of signifiers, a dance of referents. But this would be too glib for such a reader. Such a reader wants to have something about human experience revealed to him/her. One might offer confusion as a possible human experience that Clover is exploring. However, I suspect this is not the kind of experience that such a reader would be interested in accepting commentary on.

Perhaps the key that would turn the lock for those who seek the experiential from poetry would be that Clover is exploring the nature of data overload, the experience of having one’s mental faculties dulled because of simply too much input. The server crashes from too many simultaneous hits.

Many times I find myself parsing a line several times like I’ve hit some processing snag that makes the cursor on the screen freeze up, unable to move forward. Too, though, I admit the kinds of computing metaphors I have been using might be hollow for those who, in poems, want more from them about how they react to important life events. They might say that how one emotionally reacts to one’s media diet is an important and interesting phenomenon, but it does not define their life. Yet, the reaction to the mediated environment is extremely important for the informed, curious and mediated citizen. Clover is, in some strange way, chronicling the emotional life of an informed citizen, one whose each and every act is not divorced from being a political act. Even the walk through city is political, especially the walk through the city.

Where the gaze falls is a political event. As Clover’s speaker lets his gaze wash over the items in his poems, we, as readers, are invited to feel his emotional reactions to them. Sometimes they are snarky; sometimes they are so incisive as to be tinged with a sense of regret for having had to and being able to articulate them. These kinds of reactions might not be what are commonly referred to as “emotional,” but they do qualify as emotional even if the wincing and the turning away and the wide-eyed horror are the only kinds of behavior one might see from such a tour down the street. If one missed these kinds of “looking” behaviors, one might only think that the speaker was merely “thinking.”

The cover of The Totality For Kids features a kind of Merzbau-influenced structure that might seem the perfect playhouse for a band of juveniles bent on playing tag indoors. It looks like it was put together by a planning commission of ten year olds. In reality it is a model from Constant Nieuwenhuys’s New Babylon series, where he imagined urban renewal based on a space’s use value, its value as a locus of participation rather than its value as commodity.

Clover is adamantly opposed to his language being commodified, much like the Language Poets were. However, unlike the Language Poets, he is not willing to hold up language as the only aesthetic artifact to be discussed. He believes that language maps onto reality. It’s just that that reality is messy. It is fragmentary, hallucinatory, paratactical, prone to slippage of the memory. A poem, then, is constructed much the way the memorial at the former Trade Center Towers has been. It proceeds in fits and starts with many different interests contending for control over the final product.

Clover provides insight on his process in an interview with Chicago Postmodern Poetry when he says:

There are numerous ways to access a promising phrase: reading, thinking, running your mouth. I tend to run my mind over such a phrase for a minute...and then it slips away. A while later, sometimes much later, something else -- an experience, a sensation, another phrase -- calls up that first bit of language, and now there are two things that seem to be somehow part of a complex. That's often when I get the sense that a poem might be beginning. You get past the beginning and into the poem when you find the rhythm that lets you extend substance into space.

The “substance into space” comment lends credence to the notion that Clover’s poetry is the first made explicitly for the building trades.

One of the poems that has appeared frequently in numerous sources isCeriserie. Ceriserie is a term that has mysterious origins for me. I believe it to come from the French for “series series” or a series of series. This, indeed, would explain the structure of this piece. The arc of meaning that jumps across the colon in each “line” is quite often oblique, for example:

Fire: The number between four and five.

Gold leaf: Wedding dress of the verb to have, it reminds you of of.

The poem is reminiscent of Harper’s Index. In that setting the facts become absurd and astonishing at the same time. They become wonders in the art of measuring, the quantifiable run amok. After reading such a list, one realizes that there is no more core data, only the extraneous fact that, when ripped from its context, provides a semblance of insight into our present age. There is not enough to fashion a belief system from the pieces. Yet from these pieces Clover tries to weave a new form (just as city planners must try to forge a city from the shards of the past and a plethora of new building materials).

Is the “series series” a new form for the age of the sound bite (byte?) when the fragmentary substitutes for the fashioned narrative? The fervid associative leap for the refined tautological trope?

One of presumably many pieces in The Totality For Kids that employs the cut-up technique [it’s hard to track down all the sources/samples, and I am not big on that kind of thing] is “Their Ambiguity.” Clover sets up long blocks of prose-like sentences, triple spaced, supposedly culled from Situationist movies, that are constantly digressing from one line to another, yet the swirl of these lines centers around the decontextualization of words and the role of the subject within the drift of the city. Though an I never appears in the poem, a “revolutionary sweetheart” serves as a stand-in, a revolutionary rebuilder of the city and the city of words.

Clover inserts a countertext that runs between the lines of the triple-spaced blocks of prose. In the .mp3 above you can hear how these lines (read by the second voice) are contrapuntal utterances that sometimes underscore voice 1, sometimes undercut voice 1. In all, the piece is a well-developed venture into Situationist detournement, where the bits and pieces of verbal driftwood are assembled to form their own milieu . . . because in that milieu words take on their ambiguity.

Or in Clover’s words from the same Chicago Postmodern Poetry interview:

we're past the moment of choosing between the lyric tradition and the discursive, langpo tradition and that, rather than acceding to this calcified binary, we have to outmaneuver it. However, this does NOT mean simply synthesizing the two, or groovily accepting them both as human activities: the incorporation of vivid, oppositional traditions into a capacious, can't-we-all-just-get-along aesthetic IS the practice of the dominant lyric tradition, and to play it that way is in fact to choose sides.

“Their Ambiguity” is not a synthesis of two apparently divergent dominant trends in contemporary poetics today. “Their Ambiguity” is trying to flank both of these trends and head out into open space, into the open space of the city, where it can tend (contend?) the hegemonic force of its age.

In “The Dark Ages”Clover provides another aesthetic statement about the poem that may have skipped over those who did not attend the class in advanced surrealism like Clover did, when he says:

In poetry the line is something like a lamp-lit way onto which you have just turned, nodding lilies and a couple of desperadoes under the eaves.

More perambulation on invented streets. As for my habit of walking, I often feel compelled to turn off into the dark alleys that rise to greet me before I arrive at the last period. I do this not out of disgust or paranoia that Clover is belittling my idea of what a poem should be. I do this because I am curious where the little stations of its nouns and the public transportation of its verbs will allow me to go. I do this because in one of those dark tunnels I may befriend a rat.

This gesture on Clover’s part I read as a friendly one, and I am puzzled by those who raise their defenses to him and his work. Perhaps many readers feel exposed to his critical eye. The kind of American he sends up may be them! Others would like him to reveal more overtly biographical information. This failure to reveal slights them, and his work is reduced to that of a savant-like verbal automaton. But as mentioned above, is not his continual glance and bemused stare an invitation to play your own game of looking? Perhaps his work is not acknowledging the ready-made palette of human emotion, but in offering up his glances is this not a call to the reader in how his/her gaze can transform his/her emotional life?

I have questions, however, of my own about Clover’s work or perhaps not about Clover’s work so much but about walks through the city themselves.

Why are walks through the city always so fragmentary?

Though walks through the city are spiritually replenishing, is there any reason to believe that one is easily distinguished from another?

Does a walk through the city ever enter upon an urban pastoral, where the squirrels are sucking the juice out of the fallen oranges in the park before any human has awakened?

If one is innocently followed on a walk through the city, does this change the nature of the walk?

If one walks through the city with a dog, is the dog leading you or are you drifting along the dog’s paths of scent?

Is there a scratch and sniff version of the city?

I must admit when Madonna Anno Domini came out in 1997, I read it, and I was immediately smitten, taken in by the intelligence and ambition of its author whose verbal agility and display was without question able to serve as spectacle. One is turned on to hot guitar players in just this same way.

With The Totality For Kids I was less taken immediately, but this is probably because I am less prone to idol worship these days. However, as I lived with the text I began to see that it was informed by the maturity of its project. It was not just a book comprised of “killer poems,” but a book that painstakingly set out to portray a politics through its poems. The world-view in The Totality For Kids is both sharply critical of a city’s space inscribed by the ruts of capital, and it is wildly idealistic about building a future city concerned with cooperative use-value à la Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti. It is visionary on the scale of Pound (even though Pound was something of a flatulent didact and never referenced cartoons in his work). To encroach on the visionary is one of the highest goals that poetry can aspire to. Perhaps it is this vision which unnerves many readers and listeners even while Clover’s torch is leading them out of the predicament of the modern.

With The Totality For Kids read it once, you’ll admire it. Read it twice, you’ll love it. Read it three times and you’ll begin to organize a movement to undertake its vision (which would mean, of course, muttering strange and obscure things in public—a time when, as Clover states in “Their Ambiguity,””When a poem by Mallarmé becomes the sole explanation for an act of revolt, then poetry and revolution will have overcome their ambiguity”).

Monday, September 4, 2006

Dear Richard,

Just as I finished reading The Silence of Men (CavanKerry Press, 2006) a new friend confided that he’d learned a secret about his father—a secret that shook the foundation on which he’d built his life. He said he wanted to write about it, but didn’t know where to start. I recommended your book. In particular, the poem “After the Funeral.”

After the Funeral

That night, again, I dreamed you were leaving,
but this time I was older, and when I walked you
through the marketplace, and you put down
your suitcase to embrace me, I drew
the silence of all the years you’d been dead to me
around my grief. I wished you gone
and you were. In photographs, I see you
feeding me, your face younger than mine now.
In one, I’m a small bundle on your shoulder,
and the flat of your palm is the world against my back,
teaching me to let go of what is useless. You
have been useless to me. You never knew
the red shepherd I threw my Frisbee for.
In my mind, I matched him stride for stride,
and when he leapt to snatch the floating disc from air,
he called to me and we sailed off, a boy
who could run with wolves, a dog with language
and the gift of flight. I named him Larry,
after you, but true names are secrets,
so I called him Joe.

The metaphorical image of the boy playing Frisbee with his “red shepherd” is poignant and heart-breaking. The poem expresses the paradoxical feelings one has about a loved one who has betrayed them, feelings one will struggle with for a lifetime. The various manifestations of these feelings are well-represented in the poems “Again” and “The Silence of Men.”

I also appreciate the tenderness the speaker shows himself in “After the Funeral,” despite the pain he’s suffered because of his father. This tenderness towards oneself allows, it seems to me, one to feel real empathy for others. In “What I Carry with Me” you write about a friendly conversation between a Sikh cabbie and his Jewish fare, and the tension that rises between them when the cabbie is told the fare’s wife is Muslim. At the end of the ride, the speaker/fare transcends the incident, saying “and because I could imagine/surviving deaths that transformed me//into him, I tipped the driver anyway,/and he said thank you/and I wished him peace.”

This empathy makes authentic your many fine persona poems in this collection, such as “Rachel’s Story” and “Ibrahim’s Story.” In the first, you write in the voice of a female Holocaust survivor, wondering how it was she lived when her daughter and son died: “I’d chosen life. Or had it chosen me?” The second poem is spoken in the voice of a Palestinian man, living in exile in Bethlehem, nostalgic for the times he shared Erev Shabbat dinners with his Jewish friends, “in the years before there was a Jewish State.”

You’ve explored varied and difficult terrain in The Silence of Men and this reader is grateful for your courage. Throughout, I was reminded of Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry (Paris Press, 1996), in which she wrote:

“A poem does invite, it does require. What does it invite? A poem invites you to feel. More than that: it invites you to respond. And better than that: a poem invites a total response. This response is total, but it is reached through the emotions. A fine poem will seize your imagination intellectually—that is, when you reach it, you will reach it intellectually too—but the way is through emotion, through what we call feeling.”

As I was preparing to post this piece, I received an e-mail from the friend I recommended read your book. He had this to say: “I LOVE IT!…his ability to communicate feelings is precisely what I’m hoping to be able to do. It’s great reading.”

I thoroughly enjoyed reading, and thinking about, your poems.

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Some times I scare myself:

On August 14th from a remote locale in Hawaii I post SOME NOTES ON DOING IT YOURSELF: OHMER'S HARDWARE & JACQUI NAYLOR'S THE COLOR 5 where I predict Jacqui will be signed by a label, leaving us and her own label for uncharted but more lucrative waters

On August 18th BMI runs a story, Jacqui Naylor Performs for BMI Staff


text:
Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Eco Friendly Gifts4M Box Robot Kit

4M Box Robot Kit

  • Reusable package box to build your own robot
  • Doodle on the box surface to customize your robot
  • Cool science project
  • Fun and educational

What do you get when you combine creativity, science, and eco-friendliness? Full-circuit fun! This kit reuses its own box-plus included plastic wheels and face parts, an electric motor, an on/off switch, and full instructions-to build a functioning m

List Price: $ 9.99

Price: $ 5.69

Tags:friendly, Gifts4M, robot

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Two Wheels - Six Strings

Random news and thoughts about various two-wheeled projects and music, especially my band, Skull Full Of Blues.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Well, I got the three bikes built, yesterday.  I started working out in the shop at 7:30m A.M. and ended up finishing the last little details on one of the bikes at 10:00 P.M, in my living room.  Two of the bikes have gone home with their owners, and I am waiting to hear back from the third.

So, for fun today, I...built a bike.  Well, I didn't really build it all the way.  I basically just built a "proof of concept".

It started out when I put these wheels on this frame, just to be better able to store it.  I started thinking about some of the "board-track racer" style bikes on the Rat Rod Bikes gallery (it's in my blog list, to the right), and decided to see if I would want to build one up for myself.

So, I shimmed up some cruiser bars, threw on a brake and a chain, and cobbled together a motorcycle-style seat from a seatpost-mounted rack.

Custom upholstery consisting of a dirty shop towel (the only kind I have, right now) and some scrap bar tape.

EDIT:  Does this bike make me look fat?

So, I found it to be rideable.  With a bit of fine-tuning, it would even be useful for cruiser crawls and such.  For instance, a stem shorter than 150mm would certainly make the reach to the bars more manageable.  That said, it would be awesome with an electric motor installed.

Hmmm.  (Chin stroke, chin stroke...)

Now to pack for the upcoming business trip.

At 4:51 PM , Blogger Steve A said...

I presume a REAL one might have a stingray seat.

At 4:55 PM , Blogger Jon said...

Nah. A real Rat Rod builder makes/adapts his own. I've seen guys saw the arm off of an Ashtabula crank, insert the remaining arm into the seat tube, and clamp a saddle to the "spindle" portion of the crank in order to get a low, laid-back seat.

Stingray seats seem to be in the realm of the Lowriders, rather than the Rat Rods.

Would be easier, though.

At 5:34 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree, it needs an electric motor, plus a decent saddle.

At 11:35 PM , Blogger m e l i g r o s a said...

you are a bike building machine!!
I really like that top curve of that one, looks like a comfy ride
cheers :D m

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Latest News

Groundbreaking party announced for Crosstown development

Memphis Business Journal

Meagan Nichols

Once an eyesore in the Memphis skyline, the historic Sears Crosstown building is on its way to a complete revival.

An $80.5 million loan from SunTrust Bank combined with funding from 21 public, private and philanthropic sources and more than $200 million has been secured for project financing.

A groundbreaking party and community rally is planned for Feb. 21 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to kickstart the rebrand of the once abandoned building. That date is exactly 88 years after the original groundbreaking in 1927.

Food, music, a display of artist's renderings and the grand name reveal of the development are all part of the planned festivities. Local artists will also melt down the old radiators from the building as part of an iron pour to make commemorative tiles.

The building is currently 1.5 million square feet, but once the remodel is finished the space will be 1.1 million square feet. The new Crosstown will house restaurants, retail space, a small grocery store, fitness center, health clinics, a charter high school, art center, commercial offices and apartments.

Grinder, Taber & Grinder Inc. is the general contractor for the project.

Tenants that have already leased space include:

Church Health Center
Crosstown Arts
Gestalt Community Schools
Memphis Teacher Residency
Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
A Step Ahead Foundation
Christian Brothers University
City Leadership
The Excel Center
The Poplar Foundation
The Pyramid Peak Foundation
Southern College of Optometry
Crosstown Back Foundation
Teacher Town, USA