tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post6698339562770610152..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: A Wide WildernessUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57157676198215123672012-11-08T13:37:37.696-08:002012-11-08T13:37:37.696-08:00Oh and by the way -- Nin's comment about the O...Oh and by the way -- Nin's comment about the Ohio backyard Deer Hunter touched a nerve. And not only in the deer.<br /><br />The freeway feeder out front would make that mickey mouse deerslayer proud to be an American. Deer killing, next best yankee yahoo pleasure after carbon extraction.<br /><br />One recalls Sarah Palin's congenial invitation, a few years back, to the faux Nicolas Sarkozy (actually a Montreal radio show prankster) to come over to Alaska for a bit of helicopter-borne elk shooting.<br /><br />Right here on our busy traffic frenzied American corner, in our 28 resident years not only six humans (I was meant to be #7 -- the Fatal Accident Team was disappointed however to discover the bloody scraped-up remains still breathing), but countless deer, straying down out of the hills in search of a drink, have been run over. A death sentence for the crime of attempting to cross the street while not in an armoured vehicle. <br /><br />Having got up the rare courage to set foot out of the house during morning rush hour yesterday, I was informed by a neighbour, half-shouting to make himself heard over the steady roar of the metal beast-herd, that the evening before he'd seen a big adult male deer get hit by a speeding motorist on that same friendly corner, flung through the dark air onto the roadside scrabble, and then lie inert there where it had fallen.<br /><br />"I went in and called Animal Control," he said.<br /><br />"I don't know what they did with it, but in the morning it was gone."<br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br />To my knowledge none of the drivers in any of the above incidents was ever cited.<br /><br />The Super-Pac of the Anti-Nature Brigade may have been defeated on Tuesday, but the rifle racks are still loaded and the trigger fingers are still itchy.<br /><br />A guy in the north woods of Vermont who calls himself a poet once bragged to us defiantly (knowing our distaste for animal murdering) that he'd bagged a crew of squirrels he'd caught meddling with his survivalist food cache.<br /><br />Why not just scare 'em away, we asked.<br /><br />"Because they'd just come back," quoth the Mighty Hunter.<br /><br />That's Nature for you. Always just coming back, coming back.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-30781179237155927062012-11-08T12:32:31.083-08:002012-11-08T12:32:31.083-08:00Nabokov had a unique perspective on America, combi...Nabokov had a unique perspective on America, combining the objectivity and distance of a detached observer (a sophisticated and cosmopolitan European) with the familiarity of a traveler who had actually covered much of the continent on the ground and paid close attention to its distinguishing features (especially motels), for many years, before writing with such comic brilliance of those travels.<br /><br />See:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dezimmer.net/LolitaUSA/Map2.htm" rel="nofollow">Map of Nabokov's tours to the West, 1941-1953</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.dezimmer.net/LolitaUSA/Map1.htm" rel="nofollow">Map of the transcontinental trips in Lolita</a>. Click on the red/yellow dot #46 to locate the passage quoted in this post.<br /><br />As to the WPA poster project, it was part of a larger program intended to bring art to the people and the people to art, while also generating a useful bit of income for needy and skilled artists. The program employed hundreds of out-of-work practitioners of the visual arts, ranging from social realists to budding abstractionists (e.g. Jackson Pollock). Their products were not "conceptual" or "theoretical" but actual objects made by actual human hands.<br /><br />See:<br /><br /><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Archives_of_American_Art_-_Employment_and_Activities_poster_for_the_WPA%27s_Federal_Art_Project_-_11772.jpg/831px-Archives_of_American_Art_-_Employment_and_Activities_poster_for_the_WPA%27s_Federal_Art_Project_-_11772.jpg" rel="nofollow">Employment and Activities poster for the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1 January 1936</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-76990467466237412352012-11-08T09:09:55.342-08:002012-11-08T09:09:55.342-08:00The Finest People of the World would never do some...The Finest People of the World would never do something objectionable. Well, actually, everybody I consider the finest are nothing but objectionable. Robbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12312524900784740898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25835509255364284472012-11-08T08:10:44.288-08:002012-11-08T08:10:44.288-08:00Oh yes, and then there are the gas stations that d...Oh yes, and then there are the gas stations that don't allow you to use their bathrooms at all . . . <br /><br />You aren't from these parts, are ye? <br /><br />Oh yeah. That hostility towards the college kids or the Yankees or the city folks or . . . <br /><br />We have this nutcase across the road who shoots deer in his backyard. Yeah, it's legal. Drunk, he's chasing a doe he's been feeding all summer long--with its fawn. Oh, I love this country. Really, I do. Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75526990415236137652012-11-07T23:23:11.325-08:002012-11-07T23:23:11.325-08:00Please be informed that for as long as we manage t...Please be informed that for as long as we manage to hold out here on the ledge of the tottering state known as Hellas, you are all welcome guests at our Milk and Honey (Meli-Gala) House.<br /><br />P.S. The injunction to refrain from throwing any politicians in the toilet bowl is no longer in effect. vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2069188117593651832012-11-07T13:34:48.706-08:002012-11-07T13:34:48.706-08:00Humbert Humbert, almost hungry for his disillusion...Humbert Humbert, almost hungry for his disillusionment, for the taste of disgust.<br /><br />Inventing and disappearing wilderness at the same time, all in Early Disney tints.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/688/national-parks-american-indians-yellowstone" rel="nofollow">Here's how to make a National Park.</a>Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-30128683154185874702012-11-07T12:15:57.326-08:002012-11-07T12:15:57.326-08:00Thanks, Susan.Thanks, Susan.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25109201382179497542012-11-07T08:53:07.276-08:002012-11-07T08:53:07.276-08:00"I took a pillowcase, intending to capture a ..."I took a pillowcase, intending to capture a cloud"<br /><br />So beautiful, Mr. Nabokov would blush at this with pleasure! Nyet?Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2185338366154184922012-11-07T08:22:34.448-08:002012-11-07T08:22:34.448-08:00They were just mountains,
there, in the blue dist...They were just mountains, <br />there, in the blue distance. <br />Later, I heard they were The Smokies<br />and we went there because they were close<br />and gasoline was rationed and the ocean was far away.<br />I took a pillowcase, intending to capture a cloud <br />on Mt. Leconte and bring it home to sleep on. <br />Silly boy. Awake in dreams.<br />Yet they allowed me to believe I could.<br />Did we always think it would stay this way,<br />our wildness?Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-74512315803608912492012-11-07T08:14:43.939-08:002012-11-07T08:14:43.939-08:00Tom,
"Please, Mr. President, don't kill ...Tom,<br /><br />"Please, Mr. President, don't kill our wildlife."<br /><br />11.7 <br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />ridge, golden-crowned sparrow’s oh dear<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> see “drawing after painting,”<br /> boy with a small face <br /><br /> in which each being happens<br /> itself, there, itself<br /><br />cloudless blue sky reflected in channel,<br />sunlit green of pine in tip of sandspit<br /><br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51916518692649302312012-11-07T07:26:05.775-08:002012-11-07T07:26:05.775-08:00the advice at the end of the quoted paragraph is i...the advice at the end of the quoted paragraph is intelligent enough to warn with so much gentleness...:)Sandrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13329747340895757509noreply@blogger.com