Author: J. Thorp

Camouflage?

/ J. Thorp / 9 Comments

On my commute this morning, I was contemplating herons, and why they fly with their necks folded to a tight S, when cranes stretch long like geese. Any ideas?

I passed a dark pond backed with greening trees and was blessed to watched an egret descend on the water, uncoiling its long neck, heron-style, as dipped its feet lightly in the water. And I thought to myself, Startlingly white! To what end?*

And then occurred to me:

to fish, the egret
is a white cloud in blue skies
over green water

In fairness, it didn’t occur to me in 5-7-5 haiku format, although I do utter phrases of exactly 17 syllables more often that you might reasonably expect or attribute to chance.**

Anyway, it was more like this: an image of a fish from the egret’s viewpoint: bulbous eyes gazing skyward … Aha!

* * * * *

*The Jim-in-my-head talks exactly like this. Be thankful you don’t have to hear him all the time, like I do.

**And this is a prime example of a “poem” that is really just a somewhat interesting sentence with odd line breaks, right, Jinglebob?

Intriguing Little Book

/ J. Thorp / 6 Comments

Last night I read a book in a single sitting. That almost never happens.

Last night marked the fortuitous intersection of a quiet evening alone, the completion of a book on Mongol history, and the call of small book from 1928 called Mr. Blue. It was sent to me unprompted by a friend who has known about the book for years, and according to people better-read than me, is an account of a 20th-century St. Francis figure. OK – I’m late to the Catholic Church and poorly educated regarding the saints. At a glance, the online reviews of the book appear to fluctuate between loving Blue and his attempts to live his understanding of his Catholic faith authentically, and hating Blue for flawed and feel-good notions of Christianity.

Whichever. The more compelling figure, to me, is the narrator, who is admiring and incredulous, who sees wisdom and folly in Blue, who badgers him to make something of himself and yet finds himself almost irresistibly drawn to Blue’s ideas and lifestyle.

I wrote my friend afterward: “blue is what the jim-in-my-head aspires to be; the narrator’s back-and-forth (“blue’s so wrong! blue’s so right!”) is why i’m not more that man. (that, and jodi’s desire not to live in a shipping crate.)

I should say that I don’t literally aspire to be Mr. Blue. I don’t wish to live in a shipping crate, any more than Jodi does. But, like the narrator, I can admire a man whose vision and convictions guide him more than the expectations and norms of society, and who manages to live, more or less happily, beyond worldly concerns like stuff and money.

(Sure it’s a simplistic reading. But I’ve got enough complexity in my world right now.)

I also dig a story about people who try to follow “a Way” in a world that has apparently moved on. Perhaps that’s why (in a very different way) one of my favorite movies as a younger man was Ghost Dog. The faithful, the mafia, and the samurai all have their “Ways” to follow. The world doesn’t always understand or agree with those Ways. And sometimes, people die along the Way.

Good People, a Friend!

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

Yeah, so I’m plugging another blogger. Just found out my children’s author friend and coach Jacqui Robbins (mentioned in a another post last fall) is now blogging in public where we can see it and observe her madness firsthand.

Excellent.

Two things: one, her blog sounds just like she does, which makes me pretty happy, because we don’t cross paths that often, and two, I predict that some of you folks (Ephelba, Minnie … Jinglebob, even) will really enjoy it. Read the May 13th entry first. I’m still laughing.

So take a minute to visit Jacqui’s Room, right next door to Hubba’s House in the menu at the right. And go ahead and comment. It’s great fun. Really!

Like Cats and Dogs

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: Old Boomer spent much of this morning asleep on the fresh-cut grass as I mowed. He doesn’t look for trouble — never has, really, but once when Jodi and I lived in South Dakota, he snapped his dog-chain in a successful bid to kill a stray orange tom cat that liked to hang out in our driveway and stare at him. He’s never cared for cats — but his killer instinct is reserved, it seems, for those felines he actually sees. And when you’re partly blind and mostly asleep, that’s a pretty small number … but even in his younger days, he generally missed them.

the cat
i saw her earlier,
before supper,
westbound through the clover.
boomer was asleep, I think,
or too busy parading about,
bone in his jaws,
to notice
the cat, slate and white
and obvious on the grass—
she crossed over and
vanished in the weeds,
hunting gophers.

and again at sundown,
a ripple in the stems—
she reappears,
slips narrowly
between the high grass
and cement foundation,
close to the house.
boomer lies,
great and soft and
keeping watch,
the wrong direction,
from the porch.

she stops abruptly, yellow
eyes trained upon the dog—
natural adversary, and
a terrier to boot.
he’s killed, she’s sure—
birds, yes, and more recently
a ground squirrel.
once, an orange tom.
she proceeds,
slinks wide of the stoop,
silent and unseen,
save by me.

and later,
the airedale tosses skyward
a bloodied gopher;
cocks his great head
at its unlucky stripes and
wonders how it died.

J. Thorp
08 June 01

Trevvy Logic

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments

I could hide out under there
I just made you say underwear …
– Barenaked Ladies, “Pinch”

Our youngest, three-year-old Trevor, applies a certain, consistent logic to the new words he’s learning in order to figure out what they mean. For example, out of the blue he will proudly announce, “Mom, I know why we say toothbrush – because we clean our teeth with it, and because it’s a brush … toothbrush!”

He applies this equally to simple and compound words, so that the results are often unintentionally nonsensical and funny, e.g. “I know why they’re called suckers … because you suck on them, and because they’re ers!”

So last night we’re enjoying a small dish of ice cream, and he begins: “I know why we say ice cream … because it’s really cold, and because it’s cream – ice cream!”

“That’s right, Trevvy!” says Jodi, and I ask, “Trevor, why do they call it chewing gum?”

“Because you chew it, and because it’s gum!” he says proudly.

“And why,” I ask, “do we call it underwear?”

He stumbles a moment, working it through in his head.

“Because it goes under your pants,” he says, “and then it’s like it’s gone!”

* * * * *

Blogger’s Note: If you aren’t laughing, don’t worry – it took us a moment, too. Homophones are great fun, aren’t they?

Additional Note: On a mostly unrelated note, this morning, Trevor approached Emma, placed his palm on top of his head, and said, “Emma, this is how tall I am. I’m this tall!”