virtualDavis

After many months, I’ve finally updated the little profile blurb under my photo on Facebook. It used to read, “Those who can, meander. Those who can’t, gallivant.” This genious clot of words encapsulate a mountain of wisdom! I borrowed it from @lexiconehead last winter, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to update it. Nothing worthy! Or worthier… Until today. At last, a new shimmering drip of wisdom has fallen from the twitter spigot to replace my facebook uberstatus: “Storytelling reveals meaning without defining it.” (Hannah Arendt) Eureka! Amen.

via npr.org

Alvin wrote a song called “Everett Ruess” for his 2004 album Ashgrove, and it’s a beautiful tune, sung from the perspective of Ruess himself. A delicate, ambling song, it’s the sort of thing you’d want to hear while driving through the dry, mountainous terrain Ruess wandered decades ago.

via npr.org

If you’re an Everett Ruess fan, you may find it interesting to listen to the interview with Dave Alvin even though it’s dated. This was recorded before the DNA tests were abandoned. Everett Ruess may still be wandering the hills… At least his spirit lives on.

Would you, could you, should you believe it? It’s true. Life’s been happening, oh-so-happening, and I’ve scarcely grazed the surface in my blog. The adventurous will know better, but for you, the sedate, the loyal, the unadventurous, I’ll apply the digits to the keyboard for an instant. No updates. Just a slap-dash drop-in zinger of the here and now.

So to start, how about taking the load off your shoulders and slipping into your ballet slippers for a little shuffle around your desk. Here’s a song and video to inspire the uninspired.

Now that you’ve restored your levity quotient, on to other tidy news-bits. Watched “About Schmidt” two nights ago. Ugh and wow, at once. Downer. And so clever about it. Great work. I highly recommend.

And then, even more delightful, in a different strain altogether and with a far more memorable soundtrack is Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” which will pull you out of your stupor and dazzle you with Parisian psychedelics of a sometimes racy, sometimes quaint, mostly lucid and totally engaging variety. It’s been released NC-17, a tolerable compromise to not cutting the original film. Also check out www.the-dreamers.com which dishes up a cool multi-media digital story complete with creative click navigation.

Also recently picked up Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors: A Memoir. I’d read Sellevision on the suggestion of a friend, a check-in on what young authors are writing and selling. Tripe, I thought at first, but gradually yielded to the entertaining, irreverent prose. A gas! Enough to propel me to purchase Running with Scissors: A Memoir, optimistic that this earlier work will be as engaging. His characters in the novel are all caricatures, and his memoir seems to do the same, despite its apparent status as non-fiction. Verdict’s still out. Thoughts?

Another absolutely sublime morning. I awoke in the midst of a snowstorm, as if someone had upended a vast container full of the lightest, whitest down. As I drank my tea and set up some more eBay auctions, the snow ceased and the sun burst out. Almost an hour later, the ground is covered in fluffy white snow and the sky is blue. This magnificent weather reminds me of my winters in the Southwest. It would snow hard and fast, then the clouds would vanish, leaving a magnificent day to play in the snow and sun…

So today I’ve worked on getting some software listed. It’s funny, as I finally get around to listing all of the things that I’ve unpacked from Paris and no longer need, I’m getting more and more motivated to really “clean house”. There’s just so much I need to get rid of, and eBay may just be the perfect virtual-yard-sale-venue for me to do it. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. I’m getting the hang of listing, doing it all in HTML to avoid using the rather rudimentary template eBay provides. But it still is not such a quick process. Actually, the listing is pretty quick, but the content creation takes some time. Perhaps just a bit more dull to do it for software, but some of the future items will be more fun to write about, I imagine.

So what’re the latest listings? Four software programs:

• Encyclopédie Hachette des Vins de France 2000 Multimedia CD-Rom
• Universal Translator Standard Edition CD-Rom for PC
• Easy Language 17 Language Edition PC/MAC Compatible CD-ROM
• Teacher’s Toolbox Deluxe by AbleSoft PC/MAC Compatible CD-ROM

Okay. Enough procrastination. Back to work on the newsletter, then out to enjoy the splendid day.

So the first step toward lightening the load has begun. A small step, to be sure, but a step nonetheless. My first eBay auction is now underway. An old-ish camera and a lens set that maximizes its utility will soon pass from my ownership to another. Feeling my way. Always difficult to separate oneself from one’s possessions, but my return from Europe and the inevitable winnowing of goods as I turn a Paris home and a Rome home into one small Adirondack home will mean sucking it up and spreading my possessions around. Not certain yet how I’ll proceed, but at first I just want to get a feel for this exciting eBay marketplace. Once I’m a bit more seasoned, I may try to list several items at once. For now, slow and steady. A single bid on the camera so far. Will be curious how many more before it is sold. No reserve, so will probably sell low, despite the value.

On other fronts, had a glorious sunny weekend. Lake Champlain icy blue and rough. The air crisp. Went for a lunch hike up Coon Mtn. with brother, MHD, MHD’s sister, MHD’s nephews. And cocktails and dinner with friends on Saturday evening. A great four mile jog that was more effortless than expected. Writing well again, rewriting early chapters of a novel that one-day-some-day may be completed and forgotten so that I can move on to another. Funny world. A happy, exciting time. Received a wonderful link from a friend who used to live in Rome when I did. You must take a look. If you are at acquainted with Italy, with living in Italy, you will appreciate the humor. I’ve watched and then re-watched, showing my brother as an excuse. Life is good when we remember to laugh. Over and out.

Back in the Adirondacks. Life is good. Though rainy and foggy like my last entry. A nice weekend though. And end of week. Balmy in NYC. A couple of magnificent runs in Central Park. Another in Montclair. On Thursday we went to a splendid evening at the New York Philharmonic. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4, Piano Concerto No. 3 and Symphony No. 5 with Lorin Maazel conducting and Gianluca Cascioli tickling the ivories. Though somehow that expression seems to better fit Fats Domino…

Bought a car on eBay in the hopes that it will solve the mobility, mpg, affordability equation. Time will tell. It’s a cute little Subaru Outback Sport. Green. 30+ mpg and AWD so I’m pretty optimistic. Off to take a two night Defensive Driving Course tomorrow so that my points will be reduced after the speeding ticket in Colorado this summer. Insurance company zing-ed me for that. That and the fact that I’ve been out of the US for several years and not insured. Aaargh. Apparently they’ll drop my rates in six months, but only if I remember to ask them. You better bet I’ll remember!

Going on a full week of good writing sessions. Editing first half dozen chapters of the never-ending-novel in the hopes that I can sustain this focus and manage to continue to prioritize it. Send positive vibes my way. Oh, and my shipment from Paris finally arrived, so I’ve spent two days trying to unpack and find places for all this stuff, wondering which things to keep and which to trot out for eBay-ers to consider for their collections. Need to lighten the load. Hoping that eBay might serve as a good matchmaker. Updates to follow.