Blue

Overheard at Magritte exhibition at SFMOMA: "We should use that blue in our hallway"




Popular posts from this blog

Tenant Farming

Image
Tenant Farming I was reminded of my mother's family's background this weekend when we visited the Southern Tenant Farmers Union Museum in Tyronza Arkansas. They, the family of Will and Jessie Daffron, moved about central and northern Alabama farming lands as they went. They had no union. They often struggled and they moved regularly.  I wish they had had a union. They had the close-knit family, but I mean something more than that. Such as  My Granddaddy Daffron wrote all his life. Here is something that has come down to me in typescript (one of the daughters began typing up Granddaddy's "poems" years later and unless somebody else in the family has the original handwritten copy then I am afraid it has disappeared.)  I will date it to 1934 because of the reference to the Bankhead law.  And by the way, "dope" was a term that Granddaddy used for "medicine".   The Hayseeder’s Lament By Will Daffron, Millport Alabama What do you think  About the gin
Read more

THIS IS WHAT MY FATHER SAID OF DYING

  My father, Julius Page Allen, was a man of few words. Maybe as a consequence, I remember many of the things that he said.  He said to me one day, "I just want to wake up dead."  That is a marvelous attitude, thinking on arrival at that moment without thinking about suffering or guilt or any of the other things that often accompany dying.  He had watched many people die. He knew. He knew that dying could come as the conclusion of a long days of suffering and insufferable visits from relatives who check in on you to see if you are dead yet.  As it happens, he woke up on the day of his death. He had a nice breakfast. I think he did a reasonably good job of running a Norelco around his chin. "I'm ready for a nap." He liked a good nap and took one as often as he could.  At any rate, he lay down. I hope he went to sleep. He did not get up. 
Read more

On Matters of Brooms and Sweeping

Image
The title of this blog has left some, maybe more than some, maybe many, has left people wondering about the significance, if any, of sweeping yards.  Sweeping is an old custom and for many people a lost skill. Done properly, sweeping creates a mood, a feel, a culmination of well-put effort. Done poorly, sweeping leaves a mess and causes people to reach for the medicine cabinet. Time was, and not so long ago, sweeping, sweeping with a broom I am speaking of, was an indoor skill (please do not mention "indoor" and "yard" and such--all in due course) that would make quick work of tidying things. Patent offices worldwide must have millions, maybe billions, of replacements for the broom and for the act of sweeping. Some of the claimed replacements are plain silly. Racking my brain I find no replacement of the broom as pleasing as the broom.  Swish is nice. Swish is more agreeable to the ear than vroom. Vroom. Need I describe? Of course not. You agree even if you sell Ele
Read more