May 14, 2008
Like a Hurricane ...
At dawn after a fierce Friday night storm, Xena and I went down to the dock, where I nursed a go-cup of coffee and tortured worms while she pondered Zen dog thoughts. The water was muddy and strewn with leaves, branches and other detritus from the previous night’s fury. Crappie and minnows churned and swirled in the diarrhea shallows. This was a very tenuous calm after the storm. The two hounds were still missing, having run off the previous evening before the full fury cut loose. As I fished, I wondered where they were, alternately seething at their insolence and worrying that they were crumpled on the side of the road somewhere.
Then something amazing happened. A gang of blue herons, maybe 10 or 12 in all, invaded the cove in a cacophonous squawking, flapping stormfront of their own. I’ve never seen more than two of them at once, and usually there is just one heron who reins supreme over the cove. But this morning, there was an army, fighting, feeding and presumably mating all around us. It was sublime, causing even Xena to sit up and take notice.
After we settled back in to a becalmed morning punctuated by the herons all around us, Xena and I were startled to hear a splash and rattle on the shore not 20 feet from where we sat on the dock. A heron had approached stealthily, spotted swirling prey, struck and was now gobbling a crappie pelican-like. The Newfy and I exchanged a startled look. The heron paid us no mind, even as Xena rose to her feet to warn him against approaching her dock, and after he was done devouring the fish, he took flight with a hop and a croak.
The sound of leaf blowers and chainsaws rings through the cove as frantic suburban barons try to cleanse their fiefdoms of last night’s blow. And I find myself growing progressively more annoyed at the noise pollution destroying an otherwise supreme spring evening. Moving into suburbia has taken some adjustment on my part. While it’s hard to tell for all the isolating trees and water, we’re nestled in a series of subdivisions, each with that burning desire to impose order on nature that subdivision life seems to breed.
In Hardin Valley, our previous home, the noise nemesis came almost entirely from the road, which was slowly being overrun by the area’s rapacious growth. But subdivisions had yet to strangle our rural stretch of Hardin Valley Road so lawn mowers, weed eaters and leaf blowers were a fairly uncommon annoyance.
Not so now. It seems as if someone somewhere is always running a whining, sputtering, two-stroke gas engine, and as much as I abhor the government-run-amok edicts that seem to emerge from places like California on a regular basis, I’m starting to wonder if bans on leaf blowers and restrictions on noise are such a bad thing …
Tonight, the leaf blowers are out in full flail.
But something more melodious rises up and grabs my ear, pulling me away from thoughts of legislative tyranny against landscaping.
Sitting in a dead poplar, a cardinal sings with the passion of Amy Winehouse right after she’s inhaled crackpipe inspiration.
Cardinals are one of those birds that, despite their brilliant red feathers and regal crests, often go unnoticed. They’re fairly common. But this guy wouldn’t be ignored. Framed in the dead poplar branches with a riotous green background from the canopy of trees covering the hill, he pops up like an instant message from a long lost friend. He’s looking for love, and he’s arrogant enough to believe he can out-wail the moronic drone of the leaf blowers across the cove. What he lacks in decibels he overcomes with finesse.
The leaf blowers disappear. And all I hear is his song.
The prodigal hounds returned, but not without a little help. Someone a subdivision or two away found them and managed to coax Gilligan close enough with an offering of dog food to get a look at his 2006 rabies tag, which prompted a call to Hardin Valley Animal Hospital, which triggered a call to my cell phone. The final domino fell when I called the guy who found the hounds.
Yes. I’ll be right over to get them. Relieved. And angry.
There they were. Standing in the middle of the street, disheveled, hoping for more food. They approached my truck cautiously, wondering if they were going to get kind words or a slap upside the head. I opted for a stern order to get in the back of the F-150. They obliged and spent the rest of the day sleeping off their all-night party and steering clear of me whenever I entered the room. The storm clearly had taken a toll. They were soaked and weary. But they were unscathed.
Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for poor Hurricane, the basset hound Leanne rescued from Katrina’s aftermath in New Orleans. Apparently, the weekend wind brought down tree limbs that compromised her fence. Hurricane stormed out of the safe harbor of the yard and into the path of a car, where he was killed instantly.
In trying to offer condolences to Leanne, and perhaps feeling a bit guilty that my hounds had returned home safely after their illicit sojourn, I feebly offered that while it was sad poor Hurricane was spared from Katrina only to be killed by a car, he had lived his bonus time on the planet to its fullest. What basset wouldn’t want to be part of Leanne’s pack? He was already in doggy heaven …
But what I really wanted to say, and couldn’t quite conjure the words at the time, is that somewhere a cardinal is sitting in a dead poplar tree, singing with all his might, searching for a mate.
Posted by Bob Benz at 2:11 PM | Comments (2)
March 23, 2008
The cove ...
As it gets warmer, I've been spending a lot more time down on the dock, smoking a cigar and watching the dogs froth and churn in the water.
That's where I found myself several nights ago, under a brilliant waxing moon in weather so warm the fish were popping all around me like bubbles in a deep fryer. The hounds had already charged off into the night, not to be seen again until the next morning. Another jailbreak that leaves me wondering where they go, what they do, with their much-coveted freedom. I need to invent a dog GPS or Gilligan Cam at some point so I can snoop on their midnight rambles.
That left me, Xena the noble Newf and the fish soaking in the moonlight when three sharp croaks echoed through the cove, followed immediately by swishing feathers and the sandpaper scraping of claws on shingles. A massive blue heron had alighted on the dock's pitched roof, right in front of me and Xena. He didn't see us. At least not until Xena became very agitated and made it known herons aren't welcome on her dock.
The heron sprang off the roof, flapping and croaking through the moonlight into the shadows on the other side of the cove.
During the day, it's amusing to watch gulls work their way in from the main channel, dive bombing along the way in search of fish, pirouetting on the breeze and trying again. Their ballet is rudely interrupted by a kingfisher as he cackles along inches above the water. My mind instantly slips to an old Pink Floyd lyric ...
"Hear the lark harken to the barking of the dark fox
"Gone to ground.
"See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water.
"And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees."
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2008
The green fairy
Lit Kicks features an informative post by Michael Norris on absinthe, including this description of the feeling it brings on:
"I began to experience a nice, mellow buzz. Unlike whiskey, which tends to dull the senses, absinthe brings about a clarity of mind that is unusual in an alcoholic beverage. I didn’t experience visions or hallucinations, just a feeling of well-being and a sharpening of the senses. The music sounded better than usual."
Apparently, some absinthe is legal in the U.S. now. I had a bartender in San Francisco tell me they had absinthe in stock, but I wasn't willing to pay roughly $50 for a taste. I also wasn't sure if she was talking about real absinthe with wormwood or something more akin to Absente.
I've been ordering mine from a company in the Czech Republic. They tone down the alcohol content a bit but the wormwood is there and it's as good as the absinthe I sampled in Paris and Estonia.
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:51 AM
January 29, 2008
City lights in San Francisco ...
I'm still grinning after reading random lines of Gary Snyder in the Poetry Room at City Lights last night. In a world quickly moving toward e-readers and cell phone novels, it was reassuring to drift among stacks of books and pick up volumes on impulse, graze a few graphs and move on. Wallace Stevens. Hart Crane. Denise Levertov. Lao Tzu. I could almost feel Ferlinghetti's hot, beat breath on the back of my neck as the smell of yellow pages filled the room and the floorboards creaked beneath me.
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:44 AM | Comments (1)
January 18, 2008
Once in a while you can still see the light ...
I generally hate it when the StoryCorps segment comes on NPR in the morning. I'm on the elliptical, so I'm a captive audience. Can't change channels. Just have to suffer through another boring slice-of-life segment.
I was feeling the same way this morning as some 96-year-old woman prattled on about her life. But I was completely floored when she rippled through this truly transcendental close:
"We never know what diseases are going to catch up with us. It's amazing the things that people can live through when they have to. So you get through it, and you get through almost anything. And you live to be 96, and sometimes you wonder why. But then when you look up at the blue sky, you think, it's gonna be alright."
Wow. The parallelism is almost biblical or Whitmanesque. I stopped churning away on the elliptical and just stood there, astounded by how profound it was.
... in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:48 AM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2007
Aspen solitude
Business travel normally sucks, but last week we held a retreat in Utah, not far from Park City. It was a great trip and gave me a chance to tromp around in the mountains a bit. I'd forgotten how completely, utterly sublime a stand of swaying aspens can be. I tried to capture them with my camera but had only limited success. I uploaded photos of the aspens and our pontoon excursion at Jordanelle State Park here on my Flickr account..
We could smell forest fires that are raging in central Utah while we were there. The smoke and ash added drama to the sky at sunset, but we didn't see any flames firsthand.
As a perfect close to the trip, I managed to snag first-class upgrades on my flights home. Both flew on time. Sometimes the travel gods smile upon me ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2007
The Ruined Cottage
I've been driving past this burned down house for a few weeks now, and it dawned on me that this would make a nice HDR photo set. So I took my camera there around sunset and snapped a series of photos. The house was donated to the fire department, which burned it down for practice. On this lot and the surrounding acreage, a grocery store and drug store soon will sprout, continuing the suburban sprawl that's been choking Hardin Valley for the past several years.
As I shot the photo, a riot of swallows soared overhead, snagging bugs in fits of aerial acrobatics. An occasional car thumped past, the subsonics from its speakers drumming a call to Saturday night parties. And then a hush fell over the fields around me. I started thinking of Wordsworth's poem "The Ruined Cottage" and the moment consumed me ...
"He ceased. Ere long the sun declining shot
A slant and mellow radiance, which began
To fall upon us, while, beneath the trees,
We sate on that low bench: and now we felt,
Admonished thus, the sweet hour coming on.
A linnet warbled from those lofty elms,
A thrush sang loud, and other melodies,
At distance heard, peopled the milder air.
The old Man rose, and, with a sprightly mien
Of hopeful preparation, grasped his staff;
Together casting then a farewell look
Upon those silent walls, we left the shade;
And, ere the stars were visible, had reached
A village-inn, - our evening resting-place. "
Posted by Bob Benz at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2007
Frosty sunrise
The dogs and I got to witness an amazing sunrise at Melton Hill Lake this morning. Xena had ice clinging to her from her frosty dip in the lake and Gilligan and Ozzy where running around like maniacs. There's something about the cold silence of a January morning, pierced by the occasional shriek of birds as they awaken, that is totally sublime. Steam rises up off the water. My mind's as crisp as the dawn. The day can only go downhill from here ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:39 PM | Comments (2)
October 7, 2006
Autumn swoops into Tennessee
I've been traveling a lot lately and haven't run the dogs at the lake for several weeks. Perhaps the wait made this morning one of our best jaunts to Melton Hill in a while.
After several foggy mornings this week, today broke clear and brisk. It was 48 degrees and a full moon cast an incredible pre-sunrise glow on our walk.
As they always do, Ozzy and Gilligan tore off into a field atop the hill, disappearing over a rise to chase rabbits or whatever else caught their fancy. The eastern sky was easing toward dawn, but the sun wasn't up yet. And as I always do, I stood whistling the dogs back to me, faithful Xena panting at my side.
I heard the jangling of Gilligan's tags before I saw the two wayward hounds come over the rise, dew popping off their churning paws like glistening drops of mercury bouncing out of a broken thermometer.
But they weren't alone.
In the sky only a few yards above them, slicing through autumn moonlight, was a small hawk. At first I thought it was an angry crow, rousted by the two hounds. But as it (and they) came closer, I realized it was a hawk, sizing them up as possible breakfast. It followed them all the way in, soaring up to perch in a nearby tree when it realized they were too big to haul off. It apparently didn't see me standing there until after it had alighted, and upon noticing me, it soared off into the morning.
Incredible.
It reminded me of another hawk-dog encounter a few decades ago, when a beautiful, massive red-tail swooped at my little cocker spaniel pup while we were frolicking in the piney Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. That hawk probably could have made off with the dog, but it saw me as it swooped and veered away.
Can't wait till tomorrow morning ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:19 PM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2005
Grabbing the Red Bull by the horns
Anyone who knows me knows I love a good caffeine buzz. Generally, that comes in the form of a venti Starbucks iced coffee with two extra shots of espresso. The silo, as one co-worker has fearfully dubbed it.
But I've been known to indulge in the occasional "energy drink." Slate has a pretty cool review of these high-test brews, and Red Bull doesn't fair too well.
Posted by Bob Benz at 5:58 PM | Comments (4)
August 28, 2005
Zen and the art of wayward golf balls
So I'm sitting by the pool in Cabo San Lucas, reading Gary Snyder's latest collection of poems, "Danger on the Peaks."
Snyder long has been my favorite among the Beat poets. There's something in his sober, conifer rooted words that speaks to me. Here, he's ruminating on Mount St. Helens, from his first ascent shortly after atom bombs bleached Nagasaki and Hiroshima in nuclear flashes, to his trip the the volcano after it blew its top, reminding us of how tiny we are as we pad along on this planet.
And pop!
Click click clickclickclick.
A wayward golf ball bounces across the patio after escaping from the $200 green fee oceanview golf course, pulling my eyes away from my book. I look at the ball, then look up to see two birds sitting at the brink of the endless poool, taking cool desert drinks in the Mexican sun's fading fury.
I get up, toss the wayward golf ball back toward the green (so conspicuous among the desert foliage) and return to Mout St. Helens.
And again, a Zen golf ball blasts into my mind. This one much closer. Personal.
I rise in anger, spot the women whacking away on the "ladies tee" below and unleash my tiny dimpled fury in their direction.
I pause, waiting for some response to the golf ball missile I just en their way, and out of the ocean breeze, just above the sound of crashing surf, comes their response.
"Thank you."
To me, an act of retaliation. To them, a kind act of retrieval.
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:07 PM | Comments (1)
August 14, 2005
An End to Suffering
I just finished Pankaj Mishra's phenomenal biography of the Buddha, "An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World."
One of the most fascinating parts of the book is the glimpse of Indian history it provides. I knew very little about India and found the details he provides fascinating.
The book is as much about Mishra's travels and travails as it is about the Buddha's journey. In the end, he offers clear, concise descriptions of the Buddha's teachings and puts it in historical context. He delves into some heavy philosophy without drifting into impenetrable abstraction.
The crux of the book asks whether the Buddha can be relevant in a world that's vastly different from the one he was born into in 556 BC. It's one of the better books on Buddhism that I've read and I highly recommend it if you have any interest along these lines ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:27 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2005
God on the wings of geese ...
So I'm doing my usual Saturday morning walk with Xena and Ozzy at Melton Hill Park, but it just isn't working.
Usually, this clears my head, purges work problems and exorcises all those demons that chase me during the week. But no matter how hard I try to move on, my mind keeps cramping with clutter, swollen with technical impotence and my inability to get anything done. Servers and code and content management systems clutter my consciousness.
And suddenly, I hear honking. Four geese fly into the rising sun, gracefully following the contour of the Clinch River as it flows into Melton Hill Lake.
Honk.
Honk ... honk ... honk.
Honk.
Silence.
I stop.
The dogs stop.
No panting. No crunching frozen grass. No honking
The only sound is the Earth gently inhaling a new day as the geese stream into the horizon.
I am of the moment. All else disappears.
So this is Zen ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:50 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2004
Shakin' the tree ...
I know I say this every year, but this year's tree party was the best ever. We had attendees from San Antonio, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg (that's in Pennsyltucky, you know), Virginia and KnoxVegas descend on our evergreen. The hit of the party, though, was Knoxville's own Sara Schwabe and her Yankee Jass Band.
Words really can't describe the mayhem that resulted.
We had trolls.
We had LBJ.
And we had a hell of a good time. Pictures don't lie.
If you want a little taste of what was going on, check out this video clip. (Quicktime, 2.7MB)
We also had some insanely cool ornaments, ranging from Red Bull in all its frenetic beauty to flu shots to a cheese sandwich with an image of Jesus on it. We also had the ghost of Christmas past, compliments of my favorite ghost hunter.
I can't wait for next year ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:04 PM | Comments (4)
April 20, 2004
A day at church
Xena, Ozzy and I headed to the park extra early on Sunday. It was still dark, but as soon as we drove into the park I knew something was up.
It was infested with boy scouts from Oak Ridge.
But they were all still sleeping soundly. Xena and Ozzy ran up to sniff a bundle of blankets and a sleeping bag, but it didn't even stir.
We set off on a path that was thick with honeysuckle and the occasional stumbumbling bees lumbering to life in the first light of day, trying to shake off a treacly hangover. It made me think of Yeats' incredible lines in The Lake Isle of Innisfree:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
I remember once trying to explain this walk that is my church. The two youngsters who were dogging my steps as surely as Xena and Ozzy that day looked perplexed. Church to them involved walls and a roof, preachers and a congregation. But after a moment, they smiled and understood.
Thoreau would be proud.
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:35 AM
April 3, 2004
Haiku dojo ...
Long time no post. Too much life clouding my creativity, I guess.
This one is worth the wait. Glenbot has launched the Haiku Dojo. Very cool. My favorite so far:
my random thoughts knock
like pebbles on your windshield
tossed by a dump truck
Go Glenbot ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:44 PM | Comments (2)
February 16, 2004
Tesoros Modernos ...
We went to the San Antonio Museum of Art yesterday to see Tesoros Modernos (Modern Treasures), a collection of Latin American masterpieces from the Monterrey collection. It was impressive and included a lot of artists I wasn't familiar with and a few I was. I think my favorite was Alejandro Colunga's "La Muerta de un Loco." Very dark, even disturbing. They also had a piece by Diego Rivera, something from his Cubist period, and a work by Orozco, whom I've always liked.
We took our friend Anita's six-year-old with us, and as we drifted through the gallery, Emma's pink, glitter-splattered shoes clicked across the marble floors in staccato bursts.
"That's pretty," the tap-dancing art critic decreed.
More clicking. "That looks like nothing," she said, standing in front of Cesar Paternosto's "Inti," which is basically an orange canvas with orange rectangles on it.
Then more clicking, and a slip.
"These floors feel like butter."
Emma's antics definitely made the exhibit more fun.
Overall, I really was impressed by the museum. It's one of the best I've been to, probably because it caters to Latin American art. After we looked at Tesoros Modernos, we went through the Nelson Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art. It's an awesome collection that includes pre-Columbian, revolution era and modern works. Several nice pieces by Rivera and Orozco, including Orozco's "Martirio de San Esteban I." It features Saul watching as St. Stephen is stoned to death, suggesting a link to what the church was doing during World War II while Jews were dying in concentration camps. Very moving.
The folk art section also was great. They had molas from the Kuna Indians and lots of Day of the Dead stuff.
I came across one piece that I really liked, though I'm not sure how to categorize it other than to call it contemporary. It had a Pop Art feel to it. It was Enrique Changoya's "Les Adventuras Des Cannibales Des Moderinistas." I made a mental note to look up Changoya and see some of his other work.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2004
Chilling out
I took the dogs up to the lake this morning, despite the 15 degree temperature. I know it sounds completely insane, but I love weather like this -- the dogs darting back and forth across the crunchy ground, the heatless sun yellow on the horizon, each icy breath a mix of pain and exhilaration. Once we were walking for 20 minutes or so, it really wasn't too bad. Good enough, in fact, for Xena to plunge into the lake in pursuit of a flock of geese. Within minutes after she emerged dripping from the water, she turned into the ice Newf.
Now Playing: Nietzche from the album Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia by The Dandy Warhols
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)