In-fill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Bricklayers,

 

 

Isn't this nice?  It's a little like yarn bombing, isn't it?  How about a song to accompany it?  There is a space to add an image of your own little brick patches, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patched & Repaired.

 

Hello World,

I have been thinking of you, as always, and I have written a bit more than you see here:  Enough, now, to put a little pile of pages together.  I invite you to take a look here.  It's the Dodo's first publishing effort and we hope, should you acquire a copy, that you will enjoy it!  It's been a very exciting project around here for the last 9 months, and we are opening a special bottle of pink Champagne to celebrate its completion!  Cheers!

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Postal Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Always on My Mind,

 

I think I already mentioned to you  a book I read recently: Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett.  I dearly want you to read it too, because it is such a pleasure to enter its world.  Sometimes, here at the Dodo, the One Who Grows Plants for Sustenance will grow a fabulous melon; a melon that seems to taste of every day it lived, grew, and throve in the sun and wind, damp and wet.  When we are graced with a thing like this, or even if the One Who Cooks for Sustenance makes something startlingly good, I want to run out and yell it from the rafters, I want you to come over, immediately, to have a slice of this melon, or this dish.  To show it to you, to share it with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going Postal is like that melon, and this film clip, from the Library of Congress (which has many fascinating film clips) of postal workers in 1903 is like that melon, too.  Notice, and I know you will, how this fast sorting is humans, is us, working like a computer.  Does it make you feel differently about us?  Computers?  Mail?  The very nature of communication, which is language repeated?  Yes, you are right, everything leads to my favorite question:  What, exactly, are we doing here?  What is the meaning of it all? 

 

I had a months long argument with myself (no, you don't always win that way- in fact, you mostly lose those arguments) in 1994 about meaning.  If things have meaning, I do not know what that meaning is.  However, if things have no meaning, it isn't worth getting up in the morning.  Therefore, all things have meaning.  Or, they don't.  You can decide though, on a day to day basis, when the alarm clock rings.  You can say to yourself:  Does this day, this hour, have meaning? 

 

I can see you are thinking I am being too nihilistic, but that isn't it at all.  Try it, it's fun:  Does this have meaning?  Don't be too hard on yourself if at first you guess wrong a few times, because, as per my argument with myself, which I lost/won, things have meaning, or they don't.  The things that don't have meaning today, should just be laid aside until sometime as they are more useful.  The damnedest things turn out to be useful later on:  chicken wire, chamber pots, Cher, Gilligan's Island (now really, who would ever have thought that show could be useful, could have meaning?), the time your friend wouldn't share a cookie with those boys, a button you put away 20 years ago.  Oh, there is an absolute avalanche of useful and meaningful stuff out there/in here! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charting the Wings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Birders and the Cartographically Inclined,

 

The map is such a beautiful metaphor for time and our journey through it, and it puts us in a position of viewing the larger picture- it pushes us back out, and lets us be but a small stitch in the enormous tapestry.  This, as you know, is why maps show up here regular-like, on the Dodo.  Please enjoy this animated map showing you where your birds have been and where they are going.

 

May the wind be at your back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woodland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This beautiful structure is a pack rat, or wood rat nest.  Read a little about them, if you like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water of Love

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Besprinkled,

 

I hope, wherever you are, you are enjoying a damp, wet, rainy, and/or snowy winter.  Here at the Dodo, we are very satisfied with the mud and the dripping, and this water dropletting reminds me to show you this.

 

Remarkable, no?  To accompany this marvel of the natural world, a poem by William Carlos Williams:

 

 

RAIN

 

As the rain falls

so does

           your love

bathe every

                  open

object of the world--

In houses

the priceless dry

                         rooms

of illicit love

where we live

hear the wash of the

                                rain--

There

          paintings

and fine

             metalware

woven stuffs--

all the whorishness

of our

           delight

sees

from its window

the spring wash

of your love

                      the falling

rain--

The trees

are become

beasts fresh-risen

from the sea--

water

trickles

from the crevices of

their hides--

So my life is spent

                              to keep out love

with which

she rains upon

                         the world

of spring

                    drips

so spreads

                     the words

far apart to let in

                           her love

And running in between

the drops

                   the rain

is a kind physician

                              the rain

of her thoughts over

the ocean

                     every

where

           walking with

invisible swift feet

over

         the helpless

                            waves--

Unworldly love

that has no hope

                            of the world

                            and that

cannot change the world

to its delight--

           The rain

falls upon the earth

and grass and flowers

come

          perfectly

into form from its

                           liquid

clearness

                But love is

unworldly

                and nothing

comes of it but love

following

and falling endlessly

from

          her thoughts

 

 

 

Here also, is a song, to emphasize the wonder of water.  May your rain barrels overflow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crying Over the Same Ol' Spilt Milk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Dodoists,

 

Here, Damen und Herren, is a selfie I borrowed a phone to take:  I send it to you, because it shows the peanut butter cookies I burned while I was on my computer, writing an email expressing my disdain for technology.  It's visual proof of my whole theory:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sad, yes, but not hopeless-  you can make some more cookies.  I will even give you the recipe:

 

Cream together 1 cup of butter with 1 cup each of white and brown sugar.  Add 2 eggs.  Add 1 cup of peanut butter.  Beat it up good.  If your peanut butter wasn't salted, put a little salt in, say 1/2 a teaspoon.  Put 3 cups of flour in along with 2 teaspoons of baking soda.  Form them into balls now, or more easily, after an hour or so in the refrigerator.  Make your ball about the size of an unshelled walnut.  Press into them with a fork, to flatten them some.  Bake them at 350 degrees for 10 to 14 minutes.  DO NOT use any electronic technology while you bake them, or your cookies might suffer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Today.

Dear Fantastic Lover,


Is scarcity and loss our only true love, our only romance?  I woke to find I have been living the fin de siècle for 17 years now.  That is perhaps too much?  I know in your compassion you will allow me my pretend world, and, to return the favor, I grant you permission to live in yours.  Together, I only hope we can make some kind of decent hash out of the leftovers tomorrow.

What do you do, though, when a hole is punched into your wall?  When you see that the size of the room is so small, because you see suddenly beyond the scrim?  I suppose you must stretch, uncomfortably, with difficulty, into this new space, also.  I don't know that I believe in the improvements wrought by growth, by time.  I think it may be complete rot, and all improvements mere illusions.  Always, they tell me, always, try hard, try to improve;  They say; you are getting better, you are improving, you are doing well; considering your skills, your age, the times.

I dreamed all this, and it was true.

I joined a band- you were the leader, and I was terrible, I was supposed to dress scantily and keep the beat, on your right.  Another one, she was to keep it on your left, but she was to wear more.  She was to keep a bit hidden.  Our three voices wavered all over, we could not find any confident note.  They were making a film, also.  We two were to jump off the raised stage, into a lake, into the waters of the unconscious, and this is where we shone:  We were to come up for air, to sing, and to swim, in gasping, short, bursts.  We were to grab at small floating pieces of sodden presents, wrapped with ribbon.  We were excellent at this, we sounded so true, so whole; we were good, just for a camera's moment.

Suddenly, an 8 foot circle of wall broke away, and the water of the lake began to drain through it, and I waved a sorrowful goodbye to our band, to our song, to you.  And there was all that space beyond.  Our song had not really mattered at all, if it was good, or bad, it hadn't even really been at all. 

Is this growth?  Is it improvement?  Is it good?  Is it bad?  I know what you will say, what you would say;  It just is.

Frosted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wheels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A tune to hum.