81 (True) North

ribboned white line pines aspens grassland farmland cumulus azure sunset crenellated treeline contours shoulders yellow stripe winding road cooler balmy homeward beckoning tires humming thrumping windshield framed maples beech diesel vista valley hillock verdant sienna hunter emerald lime lemon stratus striated shadow visor oak arching yawning yearning coasting hardscape cattle curvilinear hamlet village crossroads straightaway hum highway northward hawk raven sparrow deer scimitar moon speed song

white canvas

As is the character in the latest book by Haruki Murakami, am I colorless? I think not. In fact, my lack of colorlessness, my heated hues of opinion, bias, prejudice, and passion, often define me, not in ways I always prefer. Such is what it is, what I am. No, not colorless. Not colorless like Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, a fictional character who saw himself, at some point in his life, as drab, background, plain, unnoticed. A white canvas.

Speaking of white canvas, over by the Erie Canal trail in Minoa, New York, today I read about Canvass White. Great name. And quite the inventor and among the greatest civil engineers. He patented hydraulic cement. No small invention. Hardly a colorless background sort of guy. Or maybe he was, in his personal life. (I don't know.) Can you imagine, though, how hugely important the Erie Canal was? Sort of like the Internet of its day.

Give a tip of the cap to Canvass White, ye technocrats. Kudos to Canvass White, you bridge-builders, skyscraper builders, and highwaymen.

shorn hills

At the rest stop (cleverly dubbed a text stop by New York State) in Roscoe, along Route 17, a historical and conservation marker poetically declares that "the shorn hills" have grown new timber. The shorn hills. I love it. I really cannot imagine this era producing any sign, historical or not, that employs "the shorn hills" as a phrase.

FUTURE 86

I love that name, Future 86, emblazoned on signs along Route 17 in New York State, bestriding the hills, rivers, valleys, bare trees, and ribboning highway.

Future86.

Great band name.

Or title of a psychic fair that looks to the past and the future.

Future 86.

A Taxonomy of Taxiness

This in today's Syracuse Post-Standard:

"At midafternoon, stickers on entrance doors to the restaurant stated,

' This property has been seized for nonpayment of taxes and is in possession of New York state.' "

Yikes! Would I love to be the lawyer representing that defendant, if the sticker posted on the premises has any bearing on the case.

So, let me parse this parsimoniously: if you want to gain possession of one of the largest states in the Union, the venerable Empire State, just stop paying your taxes?

It's a queer bit of illogical logic, but these are odd times.

Who said grammar ain't important (or impotent, pronounced with the accent on the second syllable for humorous effect)?

Talk about the -tax in syntax!

On (And Off) The Road

The trip with Ballet Daughter (BD) to Saratoga Springs, the place of "health, horses, heritage," the venue of midsummer night's pleasures, and the "scene of the crime," proceeded smoothly, providing an opportunity to muse about family, feelings, and other journeys, with this journey feeling strangely slow-motioned both at the very beginning and at the very end. Make of that what you will metaphorically. (Grammar Lesson: a long sentence is not the same as what laymen call a "run-on sentence"; length has nothing to do with that solecism. A sentence can "run on" for pages and still be legitimate and grammatically correct, and not qualify as a run-on sentence.)

For BD, it occasioned a temporarily tense but ultimately joyful reunion of balletic friends.

I fantasized solitary Saratoga pleasures: smoke a cigar, read the Saturday Times or The Economist, stroll along Broadway. Take in the crowds. Turned out to be too crowded for that. Expensive and hard-to-find parking. I soon wanted out of Dodge.

I settled for the definitely not upscale but tasty Boston Market, sitting at the counter listening to the woeful Giants on XM radio.

Turning left onto Route 9 South, I tried to take the way I had come but got a little lost. In that interim, the Giants' Randy Winn hit a grand slam to narrow the score to 7-6, with satellite radio frustratingly fading in and out. I got onto Interstate 87 in the shimmering sunset but bailed out at Route 5, knowing Route 5 West goes all the way to Buffalo. The motives? A little adventure, a sense of mystery, and why give New York State all that toll money? No, maybe the motive even touches on lostness, the flirtation with danger.

"Good Shepherd, You have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don't get tired of looking for me! I know you won't! For you have found me. All I have to do is stay found." -- Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours

Taking Route 5 was like traveling into the 1950s, into the pre-Thruway world. A slower journey through Niskayuna and into Schenectady (to whom I had just sent a proposal on Friday; coincidentally [or not] I saw some of the routes cited in the proposal as well as the street where the document was sent).

Aquarius Gentlemen's Club, dark and shuttered, no neon to tempt me or others. A McDonald's (coffee as an excuse to use the bathroom, which had to be opened by a counter person; not a good indicator of the neighborhood's safety). Streets lined with vendors and visitors; storefronts and porches. Churches. Hints of better days. I was not afraid, but I knew my limits. Called Apple-of-My-Eye Son (AMES) on cellphone and told him of my wayward trek. Might've scared him a bit; he counseled me to be brief so as to avoid using up the phone's battery. Through Downtown Schenectady and out along the old Erie Canal and Mohawk River, on the opposite side of the faster and sleeker Thruway, the Thruway that provides fewer opportunities for careful observation and up-close human (or other) interaction. Two freight trains, each at least a half-mile long and maybe as much as one mile long, snaking by on my left peeking through treelines and staghorn sumac. The occasional shack, farms, a horse farm that looked like a small boomtown all its own. Dirt drag racing in Fonda or was it Fultonville with locals not wanting to pay peering over fences like a scene depicted by the false and sentimental Norman Rockwell. Amsterdam, its mills long gone. This is the sorry and sturdy heart of Richard Russo Country.

The Giants somehow tie it at 7 in the ninth.

Finally, at Canajoharie, I bailed out. It was all taking too long.

Back on the Thruway.

Back to Modern Life.

The Yankees announcer on trad radio said my boys lost 8-7, in 12.

The rain intermittent and slight enough for the windshield wipers to smear my vision.

Home by 10:30.

Irish Stepdancer Daughter (ISD) performs a flying druidic leap into my arms.

"Daddy!"

Caught.

Safe.

"Will you snuggle?"

"Sure."

There, there.