Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Peace from P-town, Summer 2010

Having a snooze at Portland's Own Waterfront "Open-Air" Hotel
The conservatives are thrashing pitifully, right now, wrestling with their racist demons, but, you know, I'm just not in much of a mood for ridiculing people.  The itch that ridicule scratches is poison oak of the soul.  Admittedly, there are times when one simply must scratch.  But scratching only leads to inflammation.  Today, I'll just express a sincere wish for success to the non-racists in the Tea Party.  I'm afraid I hold out small hope that they can succeed.

Hemlock up at Lost Lake
The Oregon Country Fair gifted me with a decidedly more serene demeanor.  (The Fair can do that.)  Immersing oneself in hippie culture is the opposite of indulging in ridicule.  It is the aloe balm to heal ridicule's scratching.  Hippie culture encourages expressions of creativity, individuality, and, yes, love.  Ridicule is anger finding vent.

Sandal-tanned feet:  a sure sign that summer has finally arrived
The creative well is run rather dry at the moment.  I've been putting out a lot of material lately.  My usual filler in times like these is politics.  But I simply cannot bring myself to dive back into all of that negativity.  And so, I'm reduced to writing these meandering nothings that I'm actually a bit embarrassed about.  But in order to write, you must write.  So I write.

Lost Lake sky
This post reminds me of a joke Ed Knoph told during our drive down to the Fair.  It went like this:

A farmer had a field near a stream, where lived a cow.

One day, the cow spent two hours scratching herself on a fence post.

The next day, she waded in the stream, eating water weeds.

The day after that, the cow wandered up to the woods at the back of the field.

The day after that, she laid in the grass all day.

Shall I go on?

1 comment:

Dan Binmore said...

I like these better than the politics. Perhaps that's because I entirely empathize with the lack of things to say. I also have a lack of things to do. Once I can have a lack of things to think everything will be perfect.