Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 08/21/2025
Daniel Hopfer, I: The Bacchanal with a Wine Vat (c. 1515-1530)
All The Usual Plotlines
I claim to live near the center of the universe, overlooking, if not quite inhabiting, it. Leaving never fails to reconvince me just how right this observation seems, for I have yet to encounter a more perfect place, even with all of its obvious blemishes. I reflected this writing week on how I could not have possibly become who and what I am had I been born in any other place or time. The towns we passed through on our toodle to and back from the Midwest clearly showed poorly when compared to where we started, where we knew we were headed at the end of our excursion. In this way, The Muse and I find travel to be enormously reassuring. We are not seeking another new beginning or a second or third-handed fresh start. We know where we belong and feel supremely fortunate for that place to have found us. We returned to find the self-same problems we temporarily abandoned. The sprinklers didn't quite reach as well as we'd assumed they might. Something's fishy about the pond fountain pump. All the usual plotlines reawakened when we crossed our threshold again, thank heavens.
GhostCow
Frederic Remington: The Ghost Dance of 1889–1891,
depicting the Oglala at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, (1890)
"…May the GhostCow continue bellowing."
As The Muse and I have traveled on this epic toodle, we have been noticing the various states of this still tenuous union. We have found unsettling realities prominently displayed alongside the various myths of our American past. We were much more optimistic a hundred years ago, even more so a hundred and fifty. We built to dreams rather than to spec, and though the bulk of those dreams ultimately crashed and burned, we seem to have learned little from those experiences, other than to venerate our ancestors. We don't believe for a second that we might be capable of epic undertakings, as they did. We don't believe that the majority can succeed, and we hold this belief to be self-evident. We try hard to keep the playing field anything but level just as if our children and grandchildren posed an existential threat to us and our once-hallowed way of life.
Kellogg, Idaho, is the home of the Bunker Hill Mine.
FourMoose
John Woodhouse Audubon:
Servus alces, Moose Deer. Old male & young (1845-48)
From: The viviparous quadrupeds of North America
Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. "Servus alces, Moose Deer. Old male & young." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed August 20, 2025. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/38998bd0-c6bd-012f-2ebf-58d385a7bc34
"I will remain satisfied having recalibrated the meaning of a truly happy birthday celebration."
My birthday brought a flood of well-wishes exhorting me to have the best birthday ever. (Thanks to each and every sender!) I'm uncertain if it stands in anyone's power to bestow a perfect birthday on anyone, especially themselves, but I took the wishes with the spirit in which they were given and set about doing my level best to celebrate a happy, if not ecstatic, one. It helped that The Muse and I were mid-toodle, not quite halfway home from some serious roaming. Novelty must be one of the better ways to ensure happiness, for discovery seems to be the sole essential element of true joy for me. I've already done every one of the more traditional and predictable sorts of birthday celebrations: cake, ice cream, party, presents. None of these elements seemed very likely to emerge from my context this year.
We were near Devil's Tower, in the Black Hills region of Eastern Wyoming, so we began my birthday celebration by circumnavigating that remarkable edifice.
SeventyFour
The Bighorn Medicine Wheel (2011)
The rock circle is about 80 feet in diameter, with 28 'spokes' radiating from a central cairn, five cairns around the rim, and a sixth slightly outside the perimeter.
US Forest Service photo.
"We dare not ever insist upon sticking to the plan."
On the occasion of my seventy-fourth birthday today, The Muse and I plan to visit the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, a Plains Indian artifact and sacred site located high in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains, just south of the Montana border. This location could not be less convenient, for it seems well off every well-beaten path. Still, The Muse and I have been wanting to visit this place, and it seems fitting that it becomes the object of my birthday celebration.
We are toodling home from a family function in South Dakota, where The Muse was raised.
OldFolks
Henri Koetser: We Grow Old (c. 1900 - c. 1905)
"Not one of us seems to be getting any younger…"
The Muse has always visited her OldFolks when returning to her home country. Her family took the biblical ‘Be Fruitful and Multiply’ exponentially, so there was never any shortage of OldFolks to visit. When we first connected decades ago, there were more than a dozen surviving aunts and uncles, not to mention innumerable cousins, for each aunt and uncle seemed to have left behind at least five children. The Muse could remember all those kids’ names, in birth order, too, as well as odd anecdotes about each family: where they lived and how. I had an odd uncle and aunt, both my dad's step-siblings from different remarriages, but The Muse had an almost intact history.
She would find her way over to visit them in the way that they would have visited in their time.
FairToMiddling
Ben Shahn: Untitled [county fair, central Ohio] (August 1938)
"…some vestigal and rarely-recognized part of me."
Few institutions better typify rural American civilization than the county fair. It was there when my grandfather was a youth, and it has somehow survived well into this post-truth era, though not in any way intact. In my youth, it was an absolutely must-attend affair, one for which schools closed two days after opening so students could attend the opening on Friday, so-called Kids' Day. The farm kids entered competitions to see who'd raised the handsomest chickens, and we townies would attend with friends to haunt the midway and vomit our obligatory corn dog when riding the Tilt-A-Whirl. Later, we'd meet up with a girl and squire her around the place as if we owned it, which, in some ways, we did. I'd wear a paper Rossilini for Governor visor and feel every bit the fully-fledged responsible citizen.
When The Muse was coming up, she entered sewing projects in her fair and garnered purple ribbons, signifying the best.
Entrancing
Lewis Wickes Hine: Italian Family, Chicago (1910)
"Then the subtle and purposeful passion play commences."
A toodle turns utterly different once the toodlers drop in to visit family. At every other stop, our heroes remain the very soul of themselves: reasonable, mature, and experienced. Drop them into a family context, though, and they take on distinctly different forms. Roles they learned decades before resurrect themselves and start playing out in real time before them. The Muse becomes Aunt Amy, and I can't help but become the long-lost Uncle David. The family members we interact with, too, dutifully assume the roles they learned through iteration when they didn't realize they were learning anything, even though nearly thirty years might have passed since we first studied for our original parts. It almost seems not a moment has passed since that first performance, for there it is playing out right in front of us.
A little (or a lot) of effort might bring the performance to consciousness and allow an actor to intervene authentically, to somehow break the role and be there as they are now, rather than how they learned to be then.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 08/14/2025
Benoît-Louis Prévost: Art of Writing, from Encyclopédie (1760)
For Your Interest
I this week made a radical change to my long-established Weekly Writing Summary template. I'd long felt as though I wasn't so much offering a writing summary as an index with which my readers could access the original stories. The summaries, such as they were, didn't summarize very much. This week, while traveling outside my usual box, I experimented with AI, to see if I could appreciate its summarizing ability. I asked it (Grammerly) to summarize one of my stories. I received, after about a second of processing, a crisp and wholly acceptable summary of the story. I was blown away.
I decided to experiment with this facility, wrestling only slightly with the ethical implications of this decision.
Rx
Gordon W. Gahan:
Untitled [Dr. Herman M. Juergens writing prescription] (1965-1968)
"Imagine how fortunate I feel to have been able to barter for a few of those…"
When Roading, the most memorable experiences arise not from planned activities but from inadvertencies: a wrong turn onto a road never intended to be taken, a whim, an obvious mistake. These are the fuel from which the most epic stories emerge and the greatest lessons are taken. If one believes in predestination, it might be easier to insist that some wiser hand guides these, that somebody 'out there' was deliberately teaching you precisely the lesson you most needed exposure to, but these seem more likely random occurrences, with meanings self-imposed, however otherwise profound and unlikely they might seem.
A single degree change in intended trajectory results in a dramatically different destination.
Roading
Hall Thorpe: Home (c. 1919)
"Life continues even when the protagonists are off Roading."
Traveling demands a different governing ethic than home ever does. At home, a certain level of control seems possible that traveling renders unlikely. Different comforts satisfy there, too, with novelty and unfamiliarity replacing comforting routine and predictability. For sure, I find traveling enticing, so much so that I have grown to avoid its seduction, insisting that I have pressing business keeping me in my place at home. I contend that I've found my center, and leaving throws me off that balance. I even feign pressing business that might otherwise remain easily deferrable, attempting to deflect the old seduction Roading resurrects. I was once what might have passed as a road warrior, so familiar with airplane schedules that I never had to look them up, gone more than I ever came back.
As with most seductions, I eventually awakened from that dream, however enticing it continued to seem.
HistoryLesson
Arthur Rothstein: Street in Butte, Montana (1939)
Farm Security Administration Photographs
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Street in Butte, Montana" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/32c50bd0-059b-0138-0ab0-4f25bfb71a96
—
"…he very best portrait of our American Dream, and one hell of a HistoryLesson."
The history of the American West comes deeply steeped in myth, though even deeper truths become apparent with any visit. This remains a rough and relatively wild place, with poverty its most obvious characteristic. Small towns tend toward something other than the idyllic. The few cities seem displaced and still largely experimental. The highways connecting places seem mostly empty and in need of considerable repair. The scenery remains breath-taking, even daunting. Those who live there still struggle to survive, let alone thrive, for the economy remains securely stuck in some prior century the inhabitants seem quick to defend. HistoryLessons seem perhaps more apparent to visitors than to residents, who have been the serial victims of many previous attempts to prosper.
Relatively desperate people settled the American West, people fleeing almost certain ruin on the prospect that they might get lucky, or luckier than their birthright alone proved.
DerelictBarns
Claes Jansz Visscher: A Barn, from Landscapes
[Verscheyden aerdige Lanthuysen…] (1620)
"…as our history continues disappearing around us."
I worry some about what will become of the DerelictBarns I have known through my life, for I have grown to rely upon them, and I fear my grandchildren and great-grandchildren might never know they existed. Nobody seems to be building new cathedrals to their critters and hay. Most farmers opt for aluminum pole buildings these days. Back in the day, by which I refer to times long before mine, self-respecting farmers might erect a barn intended to weather the ages, massive edifices with stone foundations and fluted roofs. These proclaimed a deep faith in the future and self-esteem the likes of which seem ever rarer these days.
For me, a townie, DerelictBarns held history that utterly fascinated me.
On_Liberty
Irving S. Underhill (possibly): Statue of Liberty, New York (c. 1928)
"…to never be the same again. Period."
I woke this morning to find myself temporarily off my usual duty. In Navy parlance, this state renders me On_Liberty. I haven't mustered out, and I still retain my responsibilities, though they have been suspended for a limited time so that I might pursue other interests. Somebody else fed my cats last night, a daily responsibility I take most seriously, and they also fed my pond fish. The Muse rigged up water timers and sprinklers to accomplish what I would usually take full responsibility for fulfilling. I left Kurt, our painter, in charge of the never-ending porch refurbishment, and Linda Sue, our longtime friend and house cleaner, in charge of the house. I did not begin yesterday evening crouching around picking up over-ripe apricots I couldn't reach when harvesting that had finally given up and smashed themselves on the driveway. I didn't even cook my own supper, for I was On_Liberty.
My nephew, who served a stint in the Navy, though I didn't, explained to me that most seamen waste what little liberty they get.
Unaiming
Hans Thoma: The Wanderer [Der Wanderer] (1903)
"I will not have heard the news because I wouldn't have been listening for it."
I had become too focused, too purposeful, and so had The Muse, whose role as Port Commissioner often seemed all-consuming. We'd start our days by syncing schedules and end them with a late supper. I would rise ever earlier, and she'd come to bed seemingly ever-later, sometimes not quite asleep yet when my alarm was going off. Life can become all-consuming, more obligatory and predatory than freeing and renewing; hamster wheels with vaunted purposes; debts incurred solely to achieve leverage.
We went around and around to reach an agreement on the terms of our disengagement, for engagement had become addictive, enlarging responsibilities into imperatives.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 08/07/2025
George Inness: Summer in the Catskills (1867)
Aching To Feel Aimless Again
Each day seems to bring another insult, a fresh example of waste, fraud, and/or abuse. Our incumbent has amply proven himself to be a first-class nincompoop who cannot seem to act according to his own oath of office. He possesses no honor, class, or intelligence. He seems to believe he's above accountability. I keep adding fresh items to his eventual Bill of Particulars, the list of grievous offenses he will one day be charged with when he's finally impeached. He's such a delicate damned flower, unable to handle the truth about anything. He and his minions have created a fictional administration Hell-bent on undermining civilization in favor of a Confederacy of absolute dunces. I bring up all these obvious points that don't really need recounting to admit that I'm weary of it. It doesn't seem like drama. I cannot seem to suspend my gape-mouthed disbelief when each previously unimaginable insult to my morals and my intelligence appears on another front page. I'm suffering from some degree of depression, if only because these days seem so doggone depressive. My optimism often calls in sick. My usual enthusiasm wants a nap. My digestive system barks at me about whatever I consume. I need a change of venue. I've been daydreaming of visiting France and Italy, where sunny days nudged us to ramble aimlessly and fruitfully. I ache to feel aimless again. Over the next two weeks, the Muse and I will be toodling. I will be checking in from presently unknowable locations.
PreppingForEternity
Charles François Daubigny: The Boat Studio, from The Boat Trip (1861)
ABOUT THIS ARTWORK
In order to paint the river landscape scenes that accorded so well with his temperament and taste, Daubigny decided to build a floating studio that could be positioned to afford the best points of view and to capture the varied effects of natural light. The etchings that resulted in the series “The Boat Trip” are an early example of the plein-air aesthetic, a practice of working outdoors that the Impressionists would wholeheartedly embrace.
——
"I'll just witness the final installation."
Even the idea of being away from The Villa for more than a week unsettles me. The Muse wisely suggests we refer to it as a road trip rather than as a vacation, and to the extent that such a second-order reframing soothes me, this works! I will not undertake this excursion as if it were a reward for diligently working, but as a much more pedestrian toodle a little further afield than usual. To maintain this illusion, we plan to avoid driving on freeways. The Muse was raised just south of US Highway 12 in NE South Dakota. I was raised just south of the same highway in SE Washington State. Between these two locations lies what now amounts to an ancient route across Montana and South Dakota, one trucks abandoned in favor of the Interstates. Twelve hundred and fifty miles of two-lane blacktop: small towns, scenery, and, with luck, some sanity.
Preparing to leave remains a challenge.
UnderGawd
Unknown Indonesian artist from Central Java:
God Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles (9th/10th century)
"…no enforcement mechanism other than the usual tacit coercion has yet been codified into statute. Yet."
Perhaps the definitive element of American citizenship lies in its relationship to God. (I've thoughtfully included a picture of a prominent god above, the Hindu god Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles so that we can share a visual example of a prominent god.) "Real" Americans believe themselves to operate "Under God," as stated in the amended Pledge of Allegiance to our flag. The author of the pledge originally proposed it as an antidote to the influence of immigration from Southern Europe, which was popularly believed to be threatening to dilute genuine American values. He intended schoolchildren to recite it, and it contained no mention of God.
The Federal Government standardized the pledge during WWII, but it still held no reference to God.
MsCommunication
Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita): yellow submarine (1967)
Inscriptions and Marks
Signed: l.c. in black ink (ball point): Corita
inscription: Printed quote reads: MAKE LOVE NOT WAR / VIETNAM / What has it done to the home of the brave? AND OUR FRIENDS ARE ALL ABOARD MANY MORE THAN LIVE NEXT DOOR Lennon McCartney
-Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund
-© Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
"Vacation is the final stage of denial."
Anyone who has attempted to commit a long-term relationship can attest to an occasional communication problem made more difficult by the anesthesia relationships induce. After a decade or two, even the more self-aware seem likely to persuade themselves that they understand what they could never understand. Long proximity bestows no immunity against misunderstanding. It might even render those infrequent occurrences just that much more insidious. The watchman dozes. One might even convince oneself that one can disclose anything without fear of offending, that one's partner represents a bottomless well of understanding. This could never have been the case, though, for regardless of the length or depth of a relationship, the partners remain different people and prone to the occasional bout of serious MsCommunication.
I was never one to subscribe to the notion that women are from Venus and men hail from Mars, though I suspect that gender might engender different perspectives.
DisappointingMyself
Caesar Boëtius van Everdingen: Pan and Syrinx (c. 1644 - c. 1652)
Gallewry Notes:
The nymph Syrinx is on the run, with the forest god Pan, hidden among the dense vegetation, in hot pursuit. Van Everdingen captures the dramatic moment of the metamorphosis as Syrinx implores the river nymphs for help. They transform her into water reeds. Her right foot is already turning green. Disappointed, Pan listens to the wind playing through the tall reeds and subsequently cuts his flute from them.
"…knowing for sure only that I was DissapointingMyself again."
I am perhaps most skilled at DisappointingMyself. Oh, believe me, I remain fully capable of disappointing everyone else, but without intending to disclose even the tiniest bit of personal narcissism, I seem to be most skilled at DisappointingMyself. When I disappoint others, I first DissapointMyself. I hold myself to unrealistic standards, refusing to adjust my metrics to emerging conditions. I hold ideals more than I ever hold ideas. I frequently fail to uphold those ideals in practice. I can't seem to visualize modest ideals. What might they entail? How might I wean myself of my loftier aspirations? On my better days, I seem capable of accepting that I'm only human; on some days, barely so. Even when I set what seem like reasonable goals, I fail to achieve them.
As with any experience, coping's the essence.
Dedicated
Will Hicock Low: Dedication [for Lamia] (1885)
"It's unlikely to kill me now, either."
Much of the work you and I engage in fails to feel all that engaging. Much of it seems mind-numbing if not necessarily self-destructive. I realize, now that realizing no longer matters, what my father was doing when he insisted I mow more lawn than any eight-year-old should ever mow or rake more leaves than I ever believed I could. He was teaching me how to become Dedicated to some outcome. He'd come up the hard way, in a broken home during the Great Depression, and he had learned from a stern grandfather and a nurturing mother, as well as from a ne'er-do-well counterexample of a dad, how to set aside his feelings to accomplish something or not. He told many tales of working in harvest: how hop vines raised welts on his forearms, how green beans fill up a sack too slowly, how he'd shown up early in the morning and worked through midday. These were object lessons intended to inform me about how this world works.
He was an inspiration.
Jaded
Dorothy Dehner: Landscape for Cynics (1945)
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum,
Gift of the Dorothy Dehner Foundation for the Visual Arts
© Dorothy Dehner Foundation for the Visual Arts
"…why they're so confidently leading us into Hell."
We inhabit a time seemingly tailor-made for cynics. The individuals who comprise our administration, who never intended to administer anything, lead the way by steadfastly failing to fulfill the obligations they agreed to when taking their oaths of office. They tend to do the opposite of whatever they promise. The incumbent confuses confabulation with communication. His supporters insist that we should take him seriously, but never literally, whatever that's supposed to mean. The party that long advertised themselves as The Party of Lincoln, family values, and economic conservatism behaves like confederates, pedophiles, and economic ignoramuses in practice. My congressional representative makes no bones about who he believes he's representing, and it's not his constituents, whose interests he's betrayed at every opportunity.
I was no innocent.
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