WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
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Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
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The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
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That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
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Remarkably simple and elegant.
Include a few bread bag closures in your bugout bag backpack. They make great clothespins for your paracord clothesline and weigh nothing.
I use an Altoids mini-mint tin to hold them.
Just fold the end of the tape back on itself (sticky sides touching) and you will have a handy tab to pull on next time.
Only in America could I be beset with choices! about how to make the ends of a tape roll more accessible. I’ve been an inveterate end-folder-over for years, but now I’m obligated to give the bread wrapper thingy a try, if only to save that “wasted” bit of folded tape at the end. Hmm, I wonder if I can parlay this into a bit of self-promoting, virture-signaling, save-the-planet revelation… Nah, I’m not woke enough.
You could always proclaim something nasty about the degenerates that feed their families factory bread instead of homecrafting bread. Make sure to say something about gluten free or whole wheat. Mention your brand of bread machine, imported from china by approved globocorp (verify that globocorp participated in pride month and BLM). Finish by being glad not to poison our oceans further with plastic waste.
The virtue signal writes itself (if there was anything hard about it today’s journalists wouldn’t be able to get it done).
Great. Now something else I need to keep around. As if folding over the end of the tape wasn’t good enough.
For fellow painters, altoid tins are great for holding half pans of watercolor or oil paint when getting outdoors to paint. Just attach the pans with sticky magnet pieces. No need to carry a giant case of paints.
Glad those things work on something. It’s pure hell trying to open and close bakery stuff with them. Then on the second or third use one of the little plastic legs breaks off. We ditch that pesky thing first time the bread is opened, then use a twisty tie until the bread is used up.
Aha! We’ve struck the hidden vein of plastic-thing-a-phobia! (We use both at our house; horses for courses, etc.). I had forgotten to mention that there is a subculture of disorder that actively disdains ANY effort to simplify the chore of finding the end of the tape; these hapless folks often embarrass themselves sneering at tape-end sophisticates, online or even in person. By their fruits (and raggedy tape ends) ye shall know them.
I do the same thing. And I keep the twist ties when I throw the empty bread bag away, also.
Fun fact: This time last year, Daughter#2 was employed by the company that makes Duck Tape (not the generic stuff–“duct tape”–but the company that took it’s name from the way we all pronounce it.). And in my garage, I’ve got a bin full of Duck Tapes. Silver Duck Tape (of course). Black Duck Tape. Camo Duck Tape. Peace sign Duck Tape. Clear Duck Tape. The really, really sticky Duck Tape. More Duck Tape than I could possibly ever use. Any time there was an over-run or an artwork that they decided against, it seems like I got a roll of the stuff.
And I bet that an enterprising young man could take that idea of using the bread do-hickey and turn it into a side-hustle, if not a fortune. Get a stock of a bigger gauge plastic and cut out some tabs. Call it “new-and-improved” or “more-bigger-more-better” or something. Package five of them (maybe 3 cents of product) into twenty cents of packaging, and then sell ’em for $5. Instant Amazon.com gazillionairre.
I hate those little things. While I’m at it, can’t they come up with better packaging for cereal?
You have my sympathy. Isn’t eating cereal punishment enough, without struggling with the package?
Sometimes a medical person–just following orders, sir–will ask the incredibly intrusive question “Has anyone recently subjected you to abuse or violence?” Rather than demonstrate my own ability to mete out abuse and violence, I respond sweetly, “Well, I was strongarmed into eating cold cereal last week.”
I’m done answering anything “public health” related in the doctor’s office. They can turn on a stick for all I care.
…While I’m at it, can’t they come up with better packaging for cereal?
My blessed bride, mother of my children and the Official Best Grandmother Ev-ar, has never been graced with patience. And in 38 years of marriage, I think that every single time she’s opened a box of cereal, she’s left a tear halfway down both sides of the interior bag. The idea that one could reach into the kitchen drawer for scissors is completely foreign to her. But nonetheless, she’s a keeper, and I know that my list of faults is longer than hers.
“What can I say except “You’re welcome!””
https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM
THE deeper meaning of bread bag tags.
Only you would find it (the deeper meaning). This is
the way MY brain works, “Why would I want to tie them
together?” It finally dawned on me just now.
I have a wall of tapes in my work shop and not one of them is duct tape like you imagine. BTW, duct tape has never been the stuff you think it is. Why? Because it doesn’t hold very well especially to things that vary in temperature. One of my best friends has been an HVAC mechanic and technician for the past 40 years. He takes a truck full of duct board to a job site and with a few tools, some blueprints, and his knowledge and he fabricates the HVAC duct work for the building. Guess what’s not in his arsenal? Duct tape like you imagine it. He does use tape to seal all of the joints but it is heavy duty paper backed aluminum tape and it works well. Having worked briefly in the HVAC trade back in the early 70’s I can attest that aluminum duct tape is a thing and has been for a long time.
Back to my wall of tape. I don’t use tape a lot. When I need to tape 2 pieces of wood together, that I am going to mill on the lath, saws, or other tools, I usually use packing tape because it holds good and is very thin. I use the Gator brand of packing tape and the roll holder has 2 small plastic arms that prevent the tape from sticking to itself. It’s not perfect. There have been plenty of times when I had to grab an xacto knife to find the end and carefully unroll it and get it behind the little arms again. I have tried the ‘folding it over’ trick and it’s a pain in the ass twice. Folding it over is a pain and then cutting the folded part off is another pain, and waste. Also, the tape has slipped from my fingers while folding it and cutting it off resulting in me reaching for the xacto again. The same would be for the bread clip thing too. A Pain. The only thing that works for me is to not use tape much. srsly My arteries just can’t take the strain.
The bread tab thing is cool, but I use a penny or a nickle, as they’re always right there in my pocket.
Besides, it gives actual “worth” to them- since 2006, it costs 2.41 cents to make a penny, and 11.18 cents to make a nickel. Quarters and other (higher) coin denominations still cost less to make than their face value.
Also, once drilled, pennies and nickels make great washers. And they’re a fraction of the cost.