Up Early on A Friday

Harrowing the field of memory

This morning, I realized who a direct message (DM) from one of the members of the Board of Directors of the Harold B Gill Foundation was from. Doug Austin, the son of the long-time curator of glass and ceramics at Colonial Williamsburg, was reaching out to talk a bit about the anniversary of his father’s passing. My mother worked as the Registrar at the Department of Collections (and, later, Conservation) with his dad.

Last night, I was visiting with my late father in a library and then in a senior living facility where he was eating alone. We went for a walk on icy sidewalks somewhere that I didn’t recognize afterwards. He was expecting to go out to lunch with one of his former colleagues at the Historic Trades department. It was, as it often is, very real.

Preserving the legacy of those who have gone before is a good bit of what I am doing here on @Substack. I’m very grateful to Doug for getting in touch. We’re all in this together and, so far as I can see, we’re all the same person trying to shake hands with ourselves - to steal a line from Wavy Gravy.

Yesterday, I had a chance to talk with William Lemke about his book, Aging Gratefully.

I’m hoping to breathe new life into the Harrowings Podcast which I have let slide over the past few months, save a few conversations with Everyday Junglist. That leads me to let everyone know that I am breathlessly awaiting the first ever “Stackies” and while the Everyday Junglist seems to be a bit perplexed by the lack of nominations, I think perserverence is the key. Any Stackies are better than no Stackies at all. I personally nominated Holly, ROBERT FRIPP, and Michael Chabon. The latter authored a novel that was made into a film right underfoot while I was winding down my Pittsburgh sojourn. When I arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, it was the first thing I saw at Dagmar with my then-paramour who was then the manager of Athelas, the City Sinfonietta. So it goes.

I have lived a life…

What else wants to emerge out of the Pleroma these days? I don’t know what I’m even thinking. This reminds me of a line in one of Bob Dylan’s songs from “Bye and Bye.”

”Well, I'm scufflin' and I'm shufflin' and I'm walkin' on briars
I'm not even acquainted with my own desires”

“What do you want?” was a question asked of me some years ago. I had no answer. It was devastating. I still don’t know what I want and that brings me to “Highlands” which was on frequent repeat at the engine room of Web500 A/S in the spring and summer of 2002 on Nansensgade K.

I remember sending this to my father who found it depressing. I went back and lived with my parents after the Danish sojourn. A year and 20 days later, I moved to DC to take a gig with Zen Technology, Inc. who had a 10 year contract with the Missile Defense Agency. Naturally, that didn’t last - but I learned a few things and it’s been a good career from then to now. October 20, 2003 through August 2, 2024 - and now this…being the Executive Director of the Harold B Gill Foundation, LLC.

The operative line for me in this one is:

“I’m in Boston Town / In a Restaurant / I got no idea / What I want”

That clinches it. I’m likely to get dressed and out the door in a while. I’ll probably have a similar experience - or at least I hope to do so. “There’s too many people…too many to recall” - that’s a line from “Cold Irons Bound.”

This version comes from the film, Masked and Anonymous, which is worth watching in its entireity. My mindset is pretty well reflected by these expressions. We’re going through a particularly interesting time, so I’m doing all I can to document it for research historians of the future. I want to be a good ancestor and I think it 700 year increments.

I didn’t expect the pleroma to serve this up:

But there it is, and I’m listening. I mentioned to William Lemke yesterday that I use “Silvio” as my entry song to my conversations with Holly Lorien Adams on KSKQ’s Morning Show. I should tune in later today. It’s been a while. Here’s our anniversary interview from 2022. I’d first been on in July 2021. This ties back to the Grateful Dead as Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, and Brent Mydland provided the back up vocals giving particular weight to the line “find out something only dead men know.” A major part of Bob’s motivation for Time Out of Mind came from his reaction to Jerry Garcia’s death and his own near fatal case of pericarditis.

We are such fragile creatures. That any of us endure any length of time is quite remarkable. I think about that often and particularly as I see people come through at Daily Provisions. Meanwhile, I keep returning to The Map at the End of the World:

It emerged from my idea of having a matrix that mapped all the Great Books of the Western World against Melville and Pynchon. From this emerged another third axis:

One place that this has led is here.

This is probably enough for now. I’ll float this out there and see if anyone bothers to notice.

Onward!

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