Amateur Home Haircut

An amateur home haircut only really counts as such when something goes wrong, right? I grew up with short hair, and though every so often I attempt to grow it longer, my hair grows up and out, never long. 70s big, at best/worst.

In times of stress, I enjoy getting a haircut. Something about sitting in that chair and handing over responsibility for even a short time is freeing for me. (I found that thought -- but traveling on a plane with the pilot in control, I can't be blamed -- in a novel I first read over 40 years ago and recognized my barber chair version about 30 years ago. Peter Gent's North Dallas 40, a worthy read about football and integrity, though perhaps not in obvious ways.)

Now, in this time of stress, I am cutting my own hair. Not the same relief, not the same release. (Something, because I did want that hair cut, but not what I hoped.) So you can imagine that after trimming my hair successfully I might still chase that feeling of relief by cutting a bit more. And I have done so. Felt good too. Snipped a little more and a little more.

Perhaps, I should have stopped sooner, but I don't know. I don't mind short hair. I might agree about the uneven edges though.

Wizard Locks

12/8/15
Two years ago, but still relevant.
A favorite profile pic.
I look my age, and that's not always easy to accept.

You'll find out, my young friends.
MD

Orkney Kine

Orkney kine are not the hairy, furry Scottish cattle that one expects.  They are multicolored, or of various colors, not the ruddy shade you may expect.  And, cattle and sheep alike lie down (lay down--what's that rule?) to avoid the worst of the wind in ways that I am not used to with livestock.  I mean, some sheep and cattle flatten themselves like cats or dogs in the sun.

Once A Boy

Memory Alley . . . .

Just Shy Of Fifty-Two

I've outlived Keats, Shelley, and Byron by a considerable margin with not all that much to show for it.

The heat is on, then, to make the second half-century count.  I embrace the challenge.

Lines: evidence of time passing, though not of any mere passive passage of time.  Maps to the country of character, of mishap and what-have-you.  A lack of sunscreen, certainly; plenty of squinting into the sun, commuting, driving across bridges, kayaking and diving out in the glare.  Pool-time and sea-time too: dried skin from the chlorine and salt.  And all that reading, of course, the concentration above all those pages . . . .  And yet, and this is something I wear with pride: more smiles than anything, frankly.  There's an aspiration, don't you think?  Crease your face with good will and cheer, if you dare.  (I'm smiling as I type that.)

There's a poem by Robert Graves that comes to mind, though he was older when he wrote it.  I'll post it in a day or so.

This year I've written at least one poem worth keeping, and that's a fine judgment, a fine declaration.  More would be better, but then that's homework to be dealt with in the next few months.

Just now, right now, I am toasting all of us with a bit of Bushmills.  Carry on, and live as large as you can.

May the devil . . . oh, you know.  And, here's to King Brian in the interim.  I'm drinking Irish, after all.

"Kindness Flows": More From Archilochos

In time of shame,
Can you spare me the evil?
Kindness flows both ways.
Woman, woman,
Why do you keep me here,
Why this road, of all,
And why do you care at all?

----------

How many times,
How many times,
On the gray sea,
The sea combed
By the wind
Like a wilderness
Of woman's hair,
Have we longed,
Lost in nostalgia,
For the sweetness
Of homecoming.

----------

There's nothing now
We can't expect to happen!
Anything at all, you can bet,
Is ready to jump out at us.
No need to wonder over it.
Father Zeus has turned
Noon to night, blotting out
The sunshine utterly,
Putting cold terror
At the back of the throat.
Let's believe all we hear.
Even that dolphins and cows
Change place, porpoises and goats,
Rams booming along in the offing,
Mackerel nibbing in the hill pastures.
I wouldn't be surprised,
I wouldn't be surprised.

--Archilochos



from Guy Davenport's 7 Greeks: Translations,
A New Directions Book: New York, 1995.

Illustration: outtake from the previous blog entry: "Water Bowl".

Robert Graves: Three Cantrips

RECOGNITION

When on the cliffs we met, by chance,

I startled at your quiet voice

And watched the swallows round you dance

Like children that had made a choice.

Simple it was, as I stood there,

To penetrate the mask you wore,

Your secret lineage to declare

And your lost dignities restore.

Yet thus I earned a poet's fee

So far out-distancing desire

That swallows yell in rage at me

As who would set their world on fire.

--Robert Graves

THE GIFT OF SIGHT

I had long known the diverse tastes of the wood,

Each leaf, each bark, rank earth from every hollow;

Knew the smells of bird's breath and of bat's wing;

Yet sight I lacked; until you stole upon me,

Touching my eyelids with light finger-tips,

The trees blazed out, their colours whirled together,

Nor ever before had I been aware of sky.

--Robert Graves

THE SNAP-COMB WILDERNESS

Magic is tangled in a woman's hair

For the enlightenment of male pride.

To slide a comb uxoriously

Through an even swell of tresses undisturbed

By their cascade from an exact parting

Could never hearten or enlighten me--

Not though her eyes were bluer than blue sea.

Magic rules an irreducible jungle

Dark as eclipse and scented with despair,

A stubborn snap-comb wilderness of hair,

Each strand a singular, wild, curling tree.

--Robert Graves

Haunted By Lice: The Power of Suggestion

Here's a poem by Seamus Heaney that my mind can't quite let go of, and I take such grip to be a fine sign of quality and power in any writing. "Vision" is the seventh and final strand of "A Lough Neagh Sequence" from his 1969 volume Door Into The Dark.

I am struck by the "vision" of "hatched fears" resulting from, what, the childhood admonition to comb his hair, an admonition accompanied by an invocation of monstrous, fatal lice. How could the child not imagine the worst, no matter how well or how often he combed his hair. Words and images, particularly, woven into story have tremendous powers, if only to awaken our imaginations, our own dark envisionings.

The "jellied road" haunts my imagination, certainly.

7. VISION

Unless his hair was fine-combed,

The lice, they said, would gang up

Into a mealy rope

And drag him, small, dirty, doomed,

Down to the water. He was

Cautious then in riverbank

Fields. Thick as a birch trunk,

That cable flexed in the grass

Every time the wind passed. Years

Later in the same fields

He stood at night when eels

Moved through the grass like hatched fears

Towards the water. To stand

In one place as the field flowed

Past, a jellied road,

To watch the eels crossing land

Re-wound his world's live girdle.

Phosphorescent, sinewed slime

Continued at his feet. Time

Confirmed the horrid cable.

--Seamus Heaney

I want to echo what surfers say about prime conditions: Not a drop of water out of place, not a word out of place, not a single syllable gone awry. I take it that he drowned, finally, and probably such an end came from too much caution, too many cautionary tales, than from any simple clumsiness by the bankside.

A Glass of Scotch, Shakespeare's Earring, A Good First Novel, and A Big Head

1. Journal Note: Really good day for school and at school--been busy since 4 a.m.--so the Glenlivet in the glass is partly reward and fully earned. Trying to recall what I've read about Shakespeare's earring. The gold ring as a talisman against drowning, a popular hope of the day? Or is that reading too much into and out of The Tempest? Where did I read that? In Fowles' Shipwrecks? Note to self: track the errant thought down. First thing, boss.

2. I'm rereading Ian Rankin's first Rebus book, and I'm enjoying the special pleasure of a solid first novel that is trying really hard to be clever and good. A lesser book would be less enjoyable because of how hard it tries, but Knots and Crosses works, and Rankin's rather noticeable efforts to make this a good experience for his reader is certainly part of the charm. (And I hope my first novel, if I ever complete one, is half as good; no, as good, that's my hope, or better. Why not?)  

(*Note: Ian Rankin had published The Flood before Knots and Crosses, so I'm wrong about the first novel thing here.)

3. A Memory: Two Weeks Ago.

Fellow working the counter at the dive shop down Monterey way as I enter: "Man, your hair just keeps getting bigger and bigger." Maybe he recalled my sudden buzzcut last Spring; maybe he had me confused with another diver.

(If you check the mugshot at the upper right, you'll see the fellow's comment was apt. If you check the mugshot at the lower right, you'll see the buzz. If you care . . . which I don't expect.)

I decided not to ask if Bigger Hair is good or bad. We had a fine conversation, I thought, about his spearfishing with tanks, free diving in general, the dangers of solo diving, and the specific conditions of the day. He recommended against solo diving and pointed out the heavy surf; I listened politely as well as carefully. How do I say it? I may act foolhardy, but I'm no fool? I valued his experience, but I have my own experience, especially free diving solo, to value also.

A grab-bag of thoughts, emptied out at your feet. Still, sometimes a blog entry is more for me than for you. I'll aim higher next time.

P.S. April 30, 2011: I'm shifting my photos for the right-hand column of this blog, so I'll put two "hair" shots just so this entry will make sense.

January 2011 (above): '70s Hair.

April 2010 (below): buzzzzcut.

The Oil of Memory

Vitalis Hair Oil: that's what we used on our hair for school pictures each autumn when my brothers and I were boys. Mom would slick our hair into order, and our pale foreheads would shine in each photo, the only part of our faces not having been browned by the summer sun.

Later, she'd shift us to Protein 29 gel. Dad, I think, stayed true to the Vitalis for years to come.