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
FSA/8d22000/8d224008d22491a.tif
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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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