From the bookshelves 80

     Am I in a morbid mood? Another book about events which should not be erased from from the collective memory. And yet . . . Pol Pot, Dafur, Sadam, Sarajevo . . . ? Read also: The Periodic Table, If this Is a Man and The Truce.

Half of Round Valley

      Still playing with this feature of the camera; can't keep the horizon on an even keel

Listening to the radio

sent me to the bookshelves once again. Michael Horovitz at 75

From the bookshelves 78 and 79

     Soon there will no longer be surviving eyewitnesses to the aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the morning of 6 August 1945 at 08:15.

     Masuji Ibuse's powerful novel was also made into an equally moving film. Do NOT confuse this with the Ridley Scott movie of the same name and released in the same year.

No Title

       but you can call me 'Sir' or just plain 'Mister' but I prefer Alan. I've been rummaging the bookshelves again and found some more books I either read long ago, didn't finish or haven't even begun reading . . . 

       Stay tuned as is said in radio land . . .

From the bookshelves 77

What is it about Oxford academics writing for children? But this is not a book for children.  It is a dark tale concerning missing pilgrims and an abbot dissecting cadavers in an effort to find the human soul. John Fuller also published quite a few books of poetry. This is a first American edition published by George Braziller in 1984.

Tempus Fugit II

     On the Welsh coast somewhere near Aberaeron August/September 1991. We made a week long camping trip around the coast of Wales. Now I think there must be lots more pictures of that journey for we stopped at many castles and Kathy was still using her Nikon quite a lot. Here is a shot she took of me in 1982

Somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains, California

Sometimes I sits and thinks . . .

     . . . sometimes I just sits. Here is a blogger, Pranabk in Pune, India, who has been plugging away at this for nearly four years. He is a reader as well.

     And for poetry there's Trinath .

Nothing like a long drive

Salt River Canyon this morning

To Tucson. Why? Why not. To take the recorder to The Folk Shop for repair. I stopped to take pictures on the way mostly of the wildflowers. Some weren't so wild as near Dripping Springs, between Globe and Winkelman on route 77, Arizona Department Of Transportation (ADOT) had seeded the roadside as well as widening the road in places. It's been at least two years since I last drove that road.

Saguaro, cholla and eschscholzia californica

And cottonwood trees by the Gila river in Winkelman were 'snowing' their seed.

Salt River Canyon this evening

Lazy (quarter) day

Chloe is growing . . . fast.

Whiled away the morning browsing Facebook and this great bellringing app. I can brush up on the blue line of methods I once knew and learn a few more useful ones.  The muscle memory for handling a bell is like bicycle riding, once learned never forgotten though it may not be quite as smooth and the listening skills will need brushing up.

I am become . . .

a signpost in the forest called Weblog . . .

A Change of Life. Be sure to read the blog-within-a-blog Papillon's story linked from the sidebar. 

From the bookshelves 76

I shall console myself . . .

with a mug of Earl Grey. This is Frederick the Literate by Charles Wysocki. The humour is in the book titles, and authors.

O, woe . . .

      I have been lusting after a new treble recorder recently and now I have reason to search in earnest. Playing my ebony alto/treble recorder/blockflute at church today I noticed a crack near the wind-way. Oh, I have not been caring for it as well as I should. Has the block swelled too much? Did I knock it in a moment of inattention? Or am I just unlucky? I shall have to consult a recorder expert for a prognosis. Or perhaps a kind reader can offer an opinion from this picture?

Click on the picture for a scary enlargement. The crack ends adjacent to the top of the window (at the moment)

Words

     I finished reading Michael Frayn's novel Headlong which will be discussed at the next Round Valley Book Group  meeting in April and took the time to find out a little more about these words:

soteriology;  
irenic (I've already mentioned eirenic here);
tipstaff, self explanatory really;
lapsarian, the OED quotes a heading from the Dictionary of Christian Theology edited (?) by my theologian name-sake.

     And another painting term to keep chiaoscuro company: grisaille.

The Book of Changes

     The drift of time .  .  . I have been thinking about a period of my childhood after searching a name on the web.

     I was last at The Orangery in Kelvedon to see the Kelvedon Players production of Lystistrata in, I'm guessing, 1965. Dad was in it of course and Cy and Mary Bartlett. I'm assuming it was directed by Kate Collingwood, one of the founders of the group.

     The Orangery, in the grounds of Felix Hall Park, was converted to a house as were the stables and carriage house, now the Clock House. The ground floor rooms were tall; I was always amazed by the height of the staircase to the regular sized bedrooms upstairs. My sister was employed there as live-in help for a year or so in the late 1950's and I would walk up from the village to play with the children she helped care for. I remember the geese, the oval swimming pool, great shady cedar trees, the spinney, the fruit cage; I remember a Christmas party with tea and magic show and a huge tree with candles. I remember Thomasina the ginger cat catching a  mouse which my sister disected to entertain us children one summer day. I remember playing croquet. I remember the long walk from the village . . .

     The name I Googled was:

Nigel Richmond

Silence

Meet Chloë

     Kathy decided I need another husky . . . oh the joys to come. It has taken us two days to decide on a name. Too much like Zoë? Eh,eh. She's about seven months old . . .

Dydd Dewi Sant

Patron saint of Wales. I like to remember . . . because later this month everyone in this country will think they're Irish for a day. And St Patrick was from south Wales or possibly the north of what is now England . . .

I am now a

Sunflower. Now that I've forgotten what I answered the first time I took the fun quiz again. The questions seem to assume women will answer. What, aren't men gardeners too?

The Enigma

If you happen to browse alan-richardson.blogspot.com here's a clue: Mission _____________, Houston & leader of the pack.

Oh, and here is some interesting, no fascinating, photography by John Suler PhD.

Waking thoughts . . .

     Occasionally I get a friend request on Facebook from someone hoping to find a long lost cousin or friend. This usually leads to a brief exchange to establish that I am not the person they were seeking. I then thought of other encounters with people seeking a relative or a favourite teacher. The first that came to mind happened along Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. I was walking along minding my own business when a car drew up and a lady hailed me. I turned and saw disappointment in her face; she thought I was her estranged son. He must walk bouncily like I do . . .

     Even though most city streets in the USA have sidewalks they are not put to much use. Pedestrians are viewed with some suspicion especially in places like Beverly Hills or Bel Air. I've previously mentioned my liking for maps, haven't I? Thinking of LA got me browsing the 1979 edition of Thomas guide, the taxi drivers' bible, for Los Angeles county . . .

     The second incident is memorable because the person sought was English and it was some time into the telephone conversation before the caller realized I was not the Alan Richardson, a UCLA professor, he remembered. Did he live in Venice too? So not only is there some poor soul out there who walks like I do there is someone else who talks like I do.

Trolling blogs . . .

Six degrees of affinity  

     Just sitting here browsing blogs on Blogger . . . so I stop at a blog every once in a while and explore the author's list of followed blogs. I've randomly collected a list of over two hundred blogs I cannot possibly follow daily. Some I follow publicly; some not. Some blogs puzzle me in that they are quite good but have no public followers and few comments. I've not answered the question, "Why do you blog?" Is it some kind of head banging neurosis? Too much navel gazing. Waffling for the joy of waffling. I awoke this morning thinking of the memories that made me. learning stuff at school which becomes obsolete. Knowing all the little fishing ports around the coast of England and their specialty catches. the towns famous for a particular product: Witney blankets; Coventry gloves was it? Whitby jet; Northampton shoes; Peterborough bricks . . .

Browsing blogs. I started at World of Poot. This brought George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody to my mind.

Anna Lefler is a stand-up comedienne who lives in Santa Monica for whom life just keeps getting weirder.

I don't really like colourful blogs I thought this kind of shenanigans was frowned on soon after the hoi-poloi started playing with HTML [Doesn't seem so garish now 4 April '10]. And black as a background colour usually works well only with photographs  That blog no longer has a black background but the type is pale [Edit 4 April '10]

Then there are the very personal public blogs that are up for a while then stop at an interesting point and one wonders, "What is happening in that person's life now?"

And the very private blogs for a select group of invited guests . . . I started one of mine like that and then thought, "What the heck?"

Lexicon

     The English language collects words enough that one may read a new word each day and never exhaust the lexicon. The word I read today which caught my imagination is larrikin which, of course, has to be added to the spell check dictionary. Here's part of the OED article about larrikin:

     The word seems to have originated in Melbourne not long before 1870; but the story that it was evolved by a reporter from an Irish policeman's pronunciation of larking, heard in a Melbourne police-court in 1869, appears to be a figment, no trace of the incident being found in the local papers of the time. (See Morris, Austral Eng., s.v.) A guess that has been proposed is that it is short for Eng. slang leary kinchen. Wright, Suppl. to E.D.D., cites larrikin ‘a mischievous or frolicsome youth’ from informants in Warwickshire and Worcestershire; see also quot. 1882. Cf. E.D.D., Larack (larack about, to ‘lark’ about), cited from C. C. Robinson's Dial. of Leeds (1861).]

Dear diary . . .

     I've been feeling quite happy the past couple of days. Why? I've played on the recorder and hammered dulcimer each morning and the notes I string together begin to sound like music . . .

     The St Peters choirs combined for Ash Wednesday Mass and imposition of ashes; so we had a lineup of four guitars, bass, piano, violin, bouzouki and me on treble/alto recorder for some songs and nine singers . . .

  
Elizaphanian's sermon is a good place to start for Lent.

     Meanwhile I'll just carry on playing music . . . feeding the cats, walking the dog, sending Kathy onto the roof to clear the chimney as the fire stopped drawing properly and we had a smoky house this morning. Cruel man sending his wife up onto the roof. I'm out of the habit of climbing onto high look-outs and have allowed myself the luxury of fear . . . I stop and think. It's the getting down that is the hardest part for me now.

     And now deciding to make a few notes of another kind here . . .

     I might be moved to browse a few more books; finish the third re-reading of The True Deceiver; continue reading the very fat GRANTA 109; breeze on through Homer and Langley and sip some more of the Power of One in which I've read some stark descriptions of bullying and I know there is more cruelty to come . . .

Silence

St Peter's RC church, Springerville. First snapshot on auto . . .

Brand loyalty

    
Upgraded ever so slightly to a newer camera . . . just so I am able to take panoramic shots.

7th Colorado Dulcimer Festival

Wednesday 3 February:

Morning and the weather forecast was not promising and the road condition maps showed lots of amber exclamation marks. Drive with caution. If I was going to Colorado I'd better set off today. Last year I drove up to the festival in one day. Do I take the car or the truck? The car is front wheel drive, good in snow but low and not so comfortable for a long journey. Kathy urged me to take the truck, be comfortable and to take my time . . . oh, and the truck had better come back without a scratch.

Changes of clothes: check. Toiletries: check. Tyre chains: check. Good jacket, gloves, shoes: check. Dulcimer: check. Hammers, tuner etc: check.

I set off about noon. Oh, I need to eat. Stop to pick up a sandwich. Gas tank full? I filled it the day before.

Finally on the road. View north at mile-post 60 on US60 driving east towards Socorro, New Mexico. Lightly snowing.

 

There was only one exclamation point near Magdelena marked on the road advisory map. The VLA seemed to be in hibernation as all the dishes were huddled near the visitor center.

Compare these pictures with the ones I took last May.

Very wet in Socorro as I meandered through the town to get to Interstate 25 North towards Albuquerque. Busy highway, as is usual, from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Then the fun began. Packed snow and ice on the highway. The light was fading, not that it had been great what with the cloud cover, snow showers and patchy fogginess. So I drove the next hundred odd miles to Las Vegas, NM at about 35mph which was probably still too fast for the conditions in places where it was particularly icy. Very little traffic on the road; and dark by now. One, two vehicles off the road. And then I was coming into Las Vegas, NM. Flashing lights, police cars, emergency vehicles attending to a van-conversion flipped onto its roof off the side of the road . . .

Well I was half way; had got to my first destination safely though others weren't so lucky . . .

Thursday 4 February:

Travel day two. Back onto icy Interstate 25. Following an eighteen wheeler at a steady pace all the way to the last rest stop before Raton.  I'd been imagining Raton Pass snow-bound but from the rest stop the road was clear and dry and the view from the top of the pass was (and still is!) beautiful with snow capping the distant Rockies.

 

It was whilst stopping to take this picture I discovered I didn't have an important tool. The tuning hammer/wrench/wrest . . . what to do? I know I'll stop here.

Manitou Springs is near the foot of Pikes Peak. I drove up Pike's Peak in the old Mazda 323 in 1989 . . . but I digress. Other tourist attractions in the area are Seven Falls, Garden of the Gods, and the Cripple Creek gold mines and railroad. 

 

Garden of the Gods is an outcrop of sandstone rock formations.  

Refreshed after a sandwich and postprandial walk I was back on the road: Castle Rock, Denver, Fort Collins. Check in to hotel. Now what? There's a Barns & Noble across the way. I spent the evening browsing and bought E.L. Doctorow's Homer and Langley and a book  the title of which was the title of a film I'd seen. I browsed the blurb and yes this was the book from which the Film was made: The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. Not that I would have any time to be reading . . . .

Friday 5 February: Official day one of the 7th Colorado Dulcimer festival

 The friendly volunteers who greet everyone at the door.

Here are some dulcimers. Where is everyone?

Attending workshops? Without their instruments? This festival is Steve Eulberg's child.

This is Steve playing strathspey Brachanloam.

Music festivals are about the music, the instruments and playing them, and that's what happened. I learned about ornamenting O'Keefe's slide. Joined in the few tunes I knew with a Celtic jam. Most people then watched three mountain dulcimer players compete in the competition the winner of which played during the evening concert which is open to the public.

Cathy Barton-Para taught me that there is a rich tradition of South-Western music suitable for the hammered dulcimer. I actually played in front of a small crowd during the open stage session.

Saturday 6 February: 

Developed a simple arrangement of Nonesuch, a Playford dance tune and joined the beginning jam in the afternoon.

The hammered dulcimer contest had to be decided with a play off for first. All five contestants played very well.

Warming up before the competition.

I joined the beginners jam after lunch; more my speed.

The last workshop I attended was with Steve practicing lots of Scottish snaps whilst learning Brachanloam.

The informal afternoon entertainment was this trio, Meadowlark:

A moment of levity and . . .

then all business before this appreciative gathering:

There is always so much going on. All the mountain dulcimer workshops and the other hammered dulcimer workshops; jams and extras like guitar accompaniment and song circle workshops . . .

But one extra which was new this year was a Sunday song circle led by Steve, Don Pedi, Nina Zanetti, Cathy and Dave Para and only about eight others. Some of the songs I knew but it was quite easy and relaxing to join in anyway. Snow was falling quite heavily for a while on Sunday morning and I was wondering how far I would get . . .

The sky did look cheerful for a moment somewhere between Colorado Springs and Trinidad,CO

But most of the way it looked like this:

Raton Pass was icy and traffic came to a standstill as vehicles that had slid off the road were rescued. Made it over the pass and stayed in Raton for the night and made the final run home today, Monday 8 February . . . .

These pictures are the highlights of todays travel. I do like the contrast of the snow on sandstone.

A gang of elk

  

Escudilla

 

And the snowy hills to the west of Round Valley

No excuses! Just play!

I know I've gone quiet for a few days . . . I'm at the 7th Colorado Dulcimer Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado. Story and pictures to follow.