Morning Glory

Photographed yesterday at Town & Gown Bistro

"Morning Glories. . . there they

are in the story of [our lives]
bright random useless
year after year . . .
weeds without value
humorous beautiful weeds."

~ Mary Oliver ~

**************

I asked my sibs and cousins if any of them
remembered the way my dad used to say

"Morning Glory!"

when he knocked on our bedroom doors
to wake us up each morning!
We ended up with a lot of fun reminiscences.

**************

My first gardening project:
growing Heavenly Blue Morning Glories
in the backyard at Clover Meadows ~ Summer 1972

Vocabcident

Uh Oh! Are Cathleen & Ben
on the verge of a snaccident?

This term is a recent addition to my vocabulary,
introduced to me by Ben when he was recovering
from jetlag and sent me the following text:

"Oops, had a napcident and just slept for five hours."

Apparently, one can have not just accidents
but any number of -cidents!
E.g., Impulse Buy = Shopcident!
In the course of writing a lot and typing too quickly, I commit numerous typos, resulting in vocabcidents. For example, I accidentally typed "Sortry" when apologizing to my brother Aaron for clogging up his email with some duplicate messages (a dupliccident?).

In response to my apology, Aaron emailed back:
"Sortry" . . . Does that mean you're sorta sorry??? LOL!!!

*****************

Another time, instead of typing signification,
I accidentally omitted the "a," thus yielding significtion.
I was on the verge of correcting my voccabcident but had second thoughts. After all, signi - fiction sounds like an important genre of fiction that we need more of! My friend Len -- artist, poet, and professor -- responded that I should leave it as is, on the basis that "We always need more words!"

So Significtion it is!

Art & P.E.

One of My Grade School Art Projects ~ 1967

When my kids were little, I loved having the chance
to recreate some of my favorite projects with them.

Ben's Version ~ 30 years later ~ 1997

Many thanks to my friend and former Philly neighbor,
artist Robin Gresham - Chin for reminding me of the
joys of grade school art and physical education.

Awhile back on facebook, Robin
asked a most intriguing question:
"What is your first memory of making art?"

Her prompt yielded so many inspiring revelations
and vivid memories, all so creative and nostalgic!
For me, the moment that came to my mind:

Around age 5 (1962), I asked my mom if
I could have the lint from the dryer screen
to use for creating a snow scene in a shoebox.

I wish I could remember how that project
turned out, but, alas, no evidence survives!

From my earliest days, I enjoyed art class about a thousand
times more than I did P.E. However, I loved Robin's post
about the President's Physical Fitness Test and -- even
better -- my favorite gym class sing-along "Chicken Fat"!

"Chicken Fat" was another one of those memories that I
wanted to re-live with my children because it had given
me so much mirth in my own youth, so in the 1990's we
found it on a CD to play in the car while running errands!

First Place? You've gotta be kidding!
My only memories are of failure and humiliation
I didn't even remember that I had all this "Play Day"
memorabilia -- just happened to come across when
searching through my old notebooks for saved art.

More Childhood Art:

Samhain Triumvirate

Harvest View

Don't Shoot My Pig

"Earing"

All Souls ~ Sam's Goblin

O Christmas Tree

Inscrutable Houses

Art "Stuido"

Cityscape

Watercolor by Ben McCartney, age 8 ~ 1998

Facebook

In - Between Times

Elan = momentum

"The sky was a rich, mindless, never - ending blue, like a promise of some ridiculous glory that wasn't really there. . . . The days were clear and beautiful; and, as September [and October!] rolled around, the hateful glare gave way to a certain luminosity, a dusty, golden quality. . . . all the more stirring since it was drifting towards autumn, half - ruined, careless of itself."

from The Goldfinch, 232, 234, 228
by Donna Tartt (American author, b. 1963)

"I like these out-of-season crossings. When you're young you prefer the vulgar months, the fullness of the seasons.* As you grow older you learn to like the in - between times, the months that can't make up their minds. Perhaps it's a way of admitting that things can't ever bear the same certainty again. Or perhaps it's just a way of admitting a preference for empty ferries. . . . The sky is a theatre of possibilities. I am not romanticising."

from Flaubert's Parrot, 83
by Julian Barnes (British author, b. 1946)

Early Autumn Sunset Over Lake Geneva
Lausanne, Switzerland

*Both Anne Lamott and Jimmy Fallon
make similar observations.

Record Albums & Live Concerts

A few weeks ago, my friend Don & my brother's friend Jim
asked everyone a nostalgia question:
"What is the earliest album you bought
to which you still listen regularly?"

That was easy! My first album ever,
with my birthday money in May 1974 was
Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits

I must have had $10 to spend that day,
because on that well - remembered shopping trip
I also bought a second album:
Carpenters: A Song For You

Don's next music enquiry:
"Name an album from the wayback to which you
rarely listen, but, whenever you do listen to it,
you think you should listen to it more.

Once again, easy to answer, because Gerry and I had
named such an album only a few days before when a tune
from this album came up in the car on his random playlist:
Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, however, was a gift rather than
a purchase. Both the book (Richard Bach) and the
album (words & music by Neil Diamond) came into my life
for Christmas 1973, presents from my sweet siblings
Bruce and Diane, along with Chicago's first album:
The Chicago Transit Authority

All of the others I have replaced with CDs over the years,
but this one I still have, mounted in a frame on the wall.

*****************
This also seems like a good spot to post my list of live concerts attended.

For some silly reason, the list (as the activity was conducted on facebook) was supposed to include one concert that you didn't go to -- I guess to confuse your friends about your musical tastes. However, I fully intended to attend the Bonnie Raitt concert but did a good deed instead (gave my ticket to someone else).

All in all, I haven't actually been much of a concert - goer over the years, so here is my rather brief list:

1975 ~ Gordon Lightfoot ~ Mississippi River Festival
~ Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

1977 ~ Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Dave Loggins
~ Northeast Missouri State University, Kirksville

1977 ~ Buck White & the Down Home Folks with Ricky Skaggs
~ Northeast Missouri State University, Kirksville

1981 ~ Bonnie Raitt (bought tickets but didn't go)

1983 ~ Rita Coolidge ~ New Orleans

1986 ~ Monkees Reunion Concert (minus Michael Nesmith)
~ University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN
~ with opening acts by Herman’s Hermits, The Grass Roots, and Gary Puckett & the Union Gap. Except that their ranks were greatly reduced, so it was more like Herman's Hermit, The Grass Root, and Gary Puckett & Morgan Fairchild (dating at the time).

1987 ~ Chicago
~ University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN

1999 ~ Tony Bennett ~ Wharton School, Philadelphia, PA

2008 ~ Emmylou Harris ~ Portland Zoo

2012 ~ Ben Harper ~ Edgefield, near Portland

2014 ~ Donny & Marie ~ Las Vegas

2017 ~ Judy Collins ~ Lafayette, IN

2017 ~ Lucinda Williams ~ Purdue University

2023 ~ Ben Folds ~ Paramount Theater,Charlottesville, VA

(updated Tuesday September 19, 2023)

See ~ Also

P.S. Not forgetting Pink Martini & Nicolette Larson!

So It's Monday

Thanks Mitzi Smith & Jen Mann
& Fran Lebowitz

Additional Advice for Monday,
if not for the whole year, at least for this week:

Thanks to my sister Peggy!

September Apples

An Autumn Tradition:
Alastair & Tina's Backyard Apple Tree

A Man's Work

An apple-tree, a cedar and an oak
Grow by the stone house in the rocky field
Where I write poems when my hand's in luck.
The cedar I put in: the rest are wild --

Wind dropped them. Apples strew the autumn ground
With black, sweet - smelling pips. The oak strews air,
Summers with shadow, winters with harsh sound.
The cedar's silent with its fruit to bear.

Winter Is Another Country

If the autumn would
End! If the sweet season,
The late light in the tall trees would
End! If the fragrance, the odor of
Fallen apples, dust on the road,
Water somewhere near, the scent of
Water touching me; if this would end
I could endure the absence in the night,
The hands beyond the reach of hands, the name
Called out and never answered with my name:
The image never seen with sight.
I could endure this all
If autumn ended and the cold light came.

both poems
by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)
in Collected Poems 1917-1982

**************

Auntie Margaret's Amazing
Blenheim Orange Apple Tree

"Apples strew the autumn ground . . . "

The Human Season

The slow and steady progress
of the seasons never ceases to amaze!

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages long ago betid;

Richard II, Act V, scene i

*******
Speaking of old folks and old fires . . .

Immortal Autumn

I speak this poem now with grave and level voice
In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.

I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall
Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.

I praise the fall: it is the human season.
Now
No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,
Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,
Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,

But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows
Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:
There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn
Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.

Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves
And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow
We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know
The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.

It is the human season. On this sterile air
Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.
I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.

I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.

by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)
in Collected Poems 1917-1982

"September sign off . . . "

Both photos by Missouri Photographer Jay Beets
whose photographs have beautified my blog
many times over the past decade. Thanks!

Equinoctial Slideshow

I happened to be in the South of England for the Autumnal
Equinox this year and captured this late summer blossom,
bisected by the equatorial shadow of its neighbor's stamen.

************************

So many stunning photographs appeared throughout the day,
posted by various artistic friends of mine. Here is a
sampling of those which called out, "Equinox!" to me:

"Still Fall Pretty" ~ West Lafayette
by Indiana Mural Artist Craig Martin

"Shadow of a Franklin Lamp
at Independence Hall in Philadelphia;
birthplace of the United States Constitution.
The sun is shining."
by friend, neighbor, writer, and actor Steve Zettler

"On my walk tonite. Corner of Jefferson and Main
Street light, leaves, and concrete." ~ Kirksville
by Missouri Photographer Winston Vanderhoof

And two gorgeous views of the lake at
Thousand Hills State Park, Kirksville:

"Fall . . ."

"Lost Man"

both by Missouri Photographer Jay Beets
whose photographs have beautified my blog
many times over the past decade. Thanks!

Lausanne

Lausanne, Switzerland ~ High above Lake Geneva
at a local fondue restaurant, with windmill feature
A few weeks ago, I wrote to let my friend Jim Barnes know that I would soon be in Lausanne for a couple of days, my first visit to Switzerland! I wondered, did he have any have any tourist tips for me?

No matter what Jim writes, it comes out as poetry, as you can see from his reply:

More than you need to be burdened with! But do take the boat (four or more roundtrips per day?) across the lake to Thonon-les-Bains. Good relaxing half-hour ride, time for wine, tea, thinking. Have lunch in Thonon, away from the dock.

The local fish is (was, at least) excellent, right out of the lake, a little boney though. While you are in Lausanne, drink all the chocolate you can hold. It's the world's best when drunk by the cup thereabouts (un grand chocolat, s'il vous plait! will get you a Large Cup).

Walking Lausanne is a challenge. Best to take the metro up. Great museum at top, on the grand plaza, which had a collection of Nabokov's butterflies when I was there in 1993. Great shopping street, the shopping street for sure, is rue de Bourg, and halfway up the rue, on the premier, above Barnes Realty (no damned kidding!), is a great piazza place. Don't let the graffitied walls fool you. Good food!

If you have a car, do take a drive along the lake to Montreux and there walk along the lake to Chateaux de Chillon. It's a good hike there and back, lots of flowers and villas. If you get to Montreux before noon, your first stop must be for pastry at the Zucher (sit in the back and look out over the lake to les mountains). The pastry is usually well gone by noon.

There is so much I could tell you, Kitti! If there's something particular you are interested in in la Suisse and Lausanne, just ask. We were there last four years ago. There is a great surviving Roman amphitheatre in Avenche (a very small bourg), a nice country-hour's drive from Lausanne or Montreux.

Thanks to Jim for helping me prepare for this amazing opportunity! With only forty - eight hours to spend, I wasn't able to do it all, but I did as much as I could. Hopefully, I will have the good fortune to go again one day!

For more poetry from Jim Barnes

see my recent post:

"With or Without an Epitaph"

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Happy Birthday Running Redbud!

With apologies to my sibs Di & Aaron,
who were already in their pjs when this picture was taken.
Kimberling City, Missouri ~ Summer 1973

My friend Joni and I know just what
Walt Whitman means when he says:

This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

These words from Song of Myself have always
been true for us, confidants since girlhood.

J for Joni ~ K for Kit

For more about Joni & more about Walt Whitman
see my recent posts

When Women Wore Names

&

The Common Air that Bathes the Globe

For some additional
summertime coincidences & connections,
ranging from Peanuts to Cracker Jacks,
from Portugal to the Outer Banks,
see my previous posts:

Given Life by an Intimate Sun

Every This and That

OBX

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Thanks to my brother - in - law Tom Burrows
for his beautiful photograph of this late summer blossom!

A List of Lists

So Many ~ Ideal Bookshelves ~ Jane Mount

More Lists @ Kitti's Book List

~ Summer 2019 ~

July: To Assume My Humanity

August: Does Nanny Have a Line?

September: Too Sad to Read?

A Lucky Friday

Fairyworld Tablescape Created by my Friend Beata
Friday the 13th needn't be an unlucky day -- not if you believe in gnomes, wizards, fairies, birds that talk, fish that sing -- and the full moon!

Remember David the Gnome, based on the huge book, Gnomes, written by Wil Huygen and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet? The animated cartoon, silly yet endearing, featured the memorable voices of Tom Bosley and Christopher Plummer; and we loved the theme song:

The World Of David The Gnome
~ Opening Theme ~

Look around you
There are many things to see
That some would say
Could never be

These things I know
It's true and I will tell you so
They are there to see
For you and me / If you please

Trolls, and wizards, and fairy kings
Birds that talk and fish that sing
And if your heart is true
Then you will find them too

In every wish and dream and happy home
You will find the kingdom of the gnomes

Music by Javier Losada
Lyrics by Bob Jewett & Jack Maeby
Performed by Normand Groulx

"If your heart is true . . . look for it tonight . . .

Thanks to Joyce McClanahan for all
the best seasonal posters & reminders!

Who Knew?

I just keep thinking about the editors picking this photo for the front of their calendar, and then before the year was out, the buildings no longer existed. I know that all of the New York City Cow Statues are iconic, but this one especially so.

Flight Path (9/11)

A nice day for breakfast outside. Well-practised
by now, birds sing out the end of summer.
On the wall, a marmalade sphinx, unblinking
doesn't miss a twitch in the garden.

In a hurry for Heathrow and bored,
a 747 scratches its dirty fingernails
down the clearblue, blameless sky.
We wince, the birds, the cat and I.

* * *
Across the pond, excited at the prospect ahead
they are up at first light and praying. The drive
out to Logan will be uneventful. At check - in
a girl will thank them and smile: "Have a nice day."

by Liverpool Poet, Roger McGough (b. 1937)
(More McGough, for all seasons . . . )

********************

While working on our record album display, I realized that the Cow Parade Calendar that we have been saving for 18 years, fit right in with Gerry's favorite: Atom Heart Mother. The Taxi Cow appearing on the cover of the calendar does not feature on any of the twelve months inside. Here are a few others:

*****************
Previous 9 / 11 Posts

2009: Not a Normal Day

2010: Poem for Today and Tomorrow

2010: 9 / 11 Retrospective (Fortnightly)

2011: Alabaster Cities

2012: My Country's Heart

2013: On the Eve of that Other Perfect Day

2014: Back Before 9 / 11

2016: The Twain

2019: Who Knew?

My World is Blue

Blue Nude, 1902 ~ Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)
See: Picasso's Blue!

L'amour est bleu
"Blue, blue my world is blue
Blue is my world now I'm without you . . . "

So many lovely versions of this 1967
heart-breaking international hit!
Everyone has a different favorite;
the instrumental rendition is mine.

****************
I often begin the summer with a Ben / Cathleen Post (because of their conveniently timed birthdays: June 2 & June 3). Then -- after three months of beach reading and poolside exercise -- I begin the autumn with a Sam Post (thanks to his Labor Day Weekend birthdate of September 7).

This year, however, I switched it out a little bit. Instead of featuing my sons Ben & Sam, I thought it seemed like a good time to highlight the writing of my nieces Anna & Sara, both of whom are consciousness - raising bloggers on issues of emotional / mental / physical health. Since I concluded the month of May with a guest post from Sara, it seems only properly parallel to open the fall semester with a link to Anna's introspective blog of Life After Loss. Please check out her thoughtful and honest advice on surviving the sorrow of multiple miscarriages and moving forward despite setbacks.

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Blue Nude, 1907 ~ Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)