WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— BY THEODORE ROETHKE
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Comments on this entry are closed.
The perfect boat for fly fishing? Not that one. The perfect boat for fly fishing is the AuSable River Long Boat (video runs 34 secs.). No motor. Sits low to the water. And allows two fly fishers, and a guide, or three fly fishers, each taking turns poling while the other work the water enticing trout.
YYK
Yeah, It took me watching it the whole way through. I thought to myself, “Self, Girard doesn’t know anything about fly fishing…” Then I saw it. All titles suddenly became quite punny.
I’ve made the perfect fly-fishing boat for my type of fishing. It’s a 15 foot fiberglass tunnel-hulled Riverhawk, with a jack plated 20 hp 4-stroke Yamaha, a 12 volt remote-controlled Minn Kota trolling motor, Lowrance 12″ sonar/gps with side-scan, and 8 foot Power-Pole hydraulic anchor. It will go in less than 12 inches of water. In the Florida Keys, I get out of the boat and wade the mangrove islands, when I want my boat, I use remote controls to lift the anchor, and steer the trolling motor to bring it to me. The boat design allows me to climb in easily, without the boat tipping. Painted in camouflage, it doubles for duck hunting. Easy peasy, nothing greasy.
Possibly the ugliest watercraft I have ever seen.
Is fly-fishing really a thing in Japan?
The level of irony-deficiency in these comments is enough to make you suspect an invasion by Democrats…..
Do not send to ask for whom the boat floats; it floats for thee:
http://americandigest.org/under-the-boat/
OK, is it just me, or does that thing look like it should be attached to a giant zipper?
Thanks, but I’ll stick to my good old 1970’s 12′ aluminum Starcraft with the restored 1955 Johnson 5.5 HP motor and handmade Bimini top on it.
To answer Kevin in PA’s question- yes, but they call it “fry flisheen!”
Looks like a giant bottle opener with a motor.
Fly fishing? I fly fish along small river banks. Not from zipper ships.
Can’t you guy’s read Japanese. Translation: Zip-Fastener Ship
Whatever floats your boat-
Is fly-fishing really a thing in Japan?
Kevin in PA, fly fishing is definitely a thing in Japan. During the height of the season, up in northern Michigan, wading portions of the AuSable or the South Branch of the AuSable, you’ll often see them being floated in those AuSable River Long Boats I mentioned up above. I’ve never found this surprising, as with many art forms the Japanese excel it, they embrace it.
I’m gonna blame it on a senior moment, but it took a while for the pun to sink in over here as well.
Punning is the lowest form of humor and I love it.
When it goes over their heads or when it takes people too long to “get it,” is that an instance of . . . punning above your wait?
Perhaps it’s time for a content warning for Auntie’s posts. I would be content with that, if the alternative is to lock them inside a safe space.
In the past, Auntie would get war from the grammar/spell checkers… but that was Auntie bellum.
Here’s a rough translation of the Japanese regarding the video; “Zipper ship” was inspired by artist Yasuhiro Suzuki, who looked down on Tokyo Bay from the window of an airplane and saw that the ships and wakes traveling in the sea seemed to open the sea like zippers. A “zipper ship” sails along the Sumida River, which has long played a role as a boundary line of the city, and connects the opposite banks while opening the water surface. .. The “Zipper Ship” will make a round trip from Azumabashi on the Sumida River to Sakurabashi from Saturday, October 31st to Sunday, November 8th, from 12:00 to 14:00 . “Zip-Fastener Ship” Cruise: ‘
Curiously clever people, those Japanese.
N’ed too much or not enough, Gerard? 😉
so, the SS Jeff Toobin.
later that day-
https://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/a8306bfe-2fe1-4fd1-96c3-d96729338e7f-1320×660.jpg
“Arguing” about boats is about as sensible as doing the same about female figures or even more dear to me at this age, the superiority of one whitetail rifle caliber over another. And in the case of the latter, I’ll take a properly stoked .257 Roberts with 115 grain Partitions over anything out there. That said….
Fly fishing. The Japanese have only in recent years begun to show an interest in it and in typical Jap fashion they have stuffed the internet with enough hype to make a newcomer think they invented it, refined it and now dominate it. But they didn’t and they don’t.
Anyway, since this is a discussion about the best boat for the fly fisherman, and since I fish with standard length fly rods and with longer ‘switch’ and ‘spey rods’, I’ll chip in and say that it depends upon where you’re fishing and what you’re chasing.
You can literally fish out of anything but….if you are blind casting, an oar manned drift boat that will hold in current works great on northern and western rivers, a 12-14′ aluminum flat bottom with a trolling motor works great for fresh water ponds and lakes and if you are more interested in sight casting, a shallow drift 16′-18′ Hell’s Bay skiff, or any shallow draft poling skiff with a large forward casting deck, equipped with a 25-40 outboard and a poling platform works best of all in coastal marshes and inland bays…anywhere.
I have discovered though that when I’m using switch and spey rods, they have been a little more difficult for me to cast when I’m in a boat. Ostensibly because they load due to water pressure against the near entire length of their required shooting heads, it is a little tricky to maintain that connection if you’re standing on a deck that is 1-2′ above the water.
Show us the view when they flip the tab to the rear!
Owned several drifters, always work my way back to white water Cat Boats,can draft shallow sections,3/4 inchs deep. Puts you into logical places, not casting over duff, rocks and sandbars. Drifters are very good platforms,I’ve just come to recognize the utility of a 12/14 ft pontoon boat with a tramp floor.
Can traverse much bigger water to access generally UN fish able eddies, etcetc. We’ve been a white water family for thirty plus years, our selection of rafts, tube lengths, and frames is key.
So,e folks might find the whitewater boat difficult. Self bailers work ok, but it comes down to what you like.
Interesting boat in the pic, frankly I don’t see much utility in it.
Dirk