Tangents

My week so far has included the rejection of eight poems (though one was a near-miss) and some aggravation (both of the near-to-firing-a-firm kind and the dammit-I-left-my-badge-on-the-piano variety), not to mention truly atrocious fantasy tennis results. But, I seem to be providing pleasure to assorted Kei Nishikori fans, there was plenty of butter and black pepper to mash into the neeps I boiled for supper, and I'm closing my evening with a glass of Beaujolais (slightly rough, but sanding down a bit of jag as I sip) and assorted phrases for pieces.

Also, Rattle published a poem on Sunday, both in text and audio form: "Look at that, you son of a bitch"

I also keep meaning to mention "Some Who Wander Become Lost," which the SFPA posted online a few months ago.

My calendars contain crossouts and calculations. So, for that matter, do the cards and scraps of paper containing what I might write or shape next. In the meantime, there are roses everywhere -- I saw these on Valentine's Day, just as I was about to cross White Station Road:



The back of the card I picked up was blank. It has me wondering about roses not sent. It brings back memories of roses I have sent, and thrown, and pressed, and attempted to propagate (not yet successfully). Not every Emily Dickinson poem pairs up well with "Yellow Rose of Texas" ("So much of Heaven has gone from earth"? No), but it's not as if the ghosts of Amherst or Austin ever insisted on that. Perhaps the roses really want to grow. Perhaps the mallows will survive this morning's freezing fog. There is more than snow between the glass and the huge roses. There is more to work than work. Earlier this week, a colleague and I talked about trading plants later this year -- succulents for peppers. The dog knocked over one of my pots while I was away, and happily hoovered up asparagus stubs two nights ago. Cleaning. Digging. Dreaming.

A name for a new rose: Mozart.
That's what I'd call the first rose on the moon,
If I got there to grow it.

-- Robert Nye, "Travelling to My Second Marriage on the Day of the First Moonshot"

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/126908.html.

1. The urge to create a version of the mushroom-and-cheese "nem" (spring roll) at Boris Bistro.

2. Jars of confiture from Maison Christoph Faure.



3. A program and ticket stubs from this year's Coupe Rogers tournament, where Jeremy Chardy saved about 70,000 match points vs. John Isner, Kei Nishikori scored a tweener lob against David Goffin, Karlovic aced Raonic a bunch of times, and Mikhail Youzhny earned a standing ovation after winning a spectacular point during his loss to Rafael Nadal. We also saw two Djokovic matches, as well as Andy Murray in both singles and doubles.



4. A Rodin exhibition catalogue. So much to revisit and to write about...

5. A list of places for next time -- costume institute, marchés, parcs...

6. A longing to improve my French skillz...

7. as well as my photography and lettering chops, what with being surrounded by so much art inside the hotel as well as on the street and in cathedrals, shops, and galleries...



8. and stories to spin, someday, about jazz in the square across from organ practice in the basilica:



9. An ocean-scented facial mask from a hostess at the Chinese restaurant where we'd just consumed spicy jade tofu and sauteed sweet pea greens. I couldn't help wondering if I really looked crazy-haggard, but I suspect she just couldn't resist the possibility of future sales ("If you like it, come back..."). My companion did in fact enjoy the greens so much that we discussed returning to the restaurant again, but that plan got hosed (so to speak) by rain delays at Stade Uniprix the next afternoon.

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In a bit of synchroncity, today's prompt from Kat McNally is:

What are you really proud that you made happen in 2014, despite the gremlins? And what will you do anyway in 2015?

...and the slip in today's fortune cookie from Chinatown tells me, "Try it, you may like it."



A big first for me this year was covering the Cincinnati Open as credentialed media, for Tennis Buzz. ( Read more... )
(I have been writing a post in my head for some months now about Ma Ingalls hating sewing and yet being fearless about cutting into delicate fabric because she had made so many dresses by the time Laura was old enough to bring home the very pretty lawn. Someday...)

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/93203.html.

My current gig at the Western and Southern Tennis Open was the kick in the pants I needed to get the long-overdue better camera. Here are some of the shots I've been taking with it:

Sara Errani

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova


A marshal, aka security, aka making sure only properly credentialed folk run up and down the stairwell to the player areas and media center.

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/88520.html.

I'm covering the early rounds of the Western and Southern Open for Tennis Buzz, and I have five reports so far at the site. (Several more in progress.) As time permits, and because I can't put all the photos I'm happy with into the posts, I'm also tweeting some snaps (@b_ribbons) and uploading others to Flickr albums. The sets so far:

Sunday practice - Jelena Jankovic
Sunday night doubles - Fognini/Fyrstenberg vs. Garcia-Lopez/Giraldo
Saturday practice - Jelena Jankovic
Friday night - draw party

Over breakfast, I was skimming through the tournament program, which includes a Pete Holtermann interview of Tony Trabert. This paragraph in particular caught my eye (especially in light of Connors's not-too-successful stint with Sharapova last year):

PH: John McEnroe was on your Davis Cup team. What was he like to coach?

TT: John McEnroe played his first Davis Cup ever when I was captain. And he played great. With all sincerity, he was the most coachable player I had on those teams. The only thing I couldn't get him to do was to behave on the court. And I talked to him the whole time about that. He came to all the team meetings, he came to all the team dinners, and when we worked out a strategy for a given match he would use it to a tee. And he was very gifted. Conversely, Connors was not coachable at all.

I am, as always, wishing that I could be in twenty places at once, and at the same time delighted at what I happen to see just running around, even when I don't have my camera handy (or using it wouldn't be appropriate) -- yesterday in the stairwell to/from the players lounge and media center, Stan Wawrinka was walking up (reading his phone, mais oui) as I hurried down. I didn't get to the mixed zone for Monfils because I didn't want to miss Taylor Townsend's conference in the main room:



I also glimpsed her in practice Saturday morning and watched her match against Riske Saturday afternoon. Y'all, she is so much fun to photograph, and a pleasure to listen to, too, what with her great attitude and perspective. She clearly enjoys learning and playing (the gist of her philosophy is that win or lose, she wins, and it's fun), including the figuring out how to keep things basic rather than over-complicating them (as in, during a match, she needs to go for the win rather than riffling through all the options at her disposal). She entered the press room laughing and joking with members of her team, and it ended with laughter as well (someone asked about her hat, and she cheerfully admitted that it was for the look (hadn't gone fishing ever).

Matches start at 11, but there are practices going on even as I type, so it's time to wrap up my prep and head to Lindner. More soon!

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/383767.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

In the July/August issue of the University of Chicago alumni magazine, there was this tidbit:

Max Liberles, AB '61, writes that he still plays tennis at least three times a week (doubles); hits the gym; walks in the Shell Point Retirement Community in Fort Myers, FL; ad works on that '63 Morgan. "I'm working on my cardiologist to let me make a singles comeback try soon, but this is an uphill climb."

I've resumed reading Paul Metzler's Advanced Tennis (rev. ed., Macmillan, 1972). What he says about self-consciousness and concentration applies to so much more than tennis, and maybe I'll quote some of that some other time. But what I bookmarked to blog some months ago was this:

Temper is not a match-winning attribute. Overcome it or you will be carrying a cancer about with you all your tennis days.

You may think you have a quick temper by nature and cannot really be blamed for your actions. If so, it is time you got things straight. Everyone has a temper, even the calmest-looking people. A so-called quick temper is in essence no more than an uncontrolled temper, and in tennis this is not an asset. . . .

People who lose their tempers on tennis courts generally seek to justify themselves in several ways. They explain that they are only wild with themselves, and that no offense is intended to anyone else. They usually say they could scarcely play if they didn't let off steam once in a while. Some add that they cannot get worked up into a winning mood if they have to smile pleasantly all the time.

Displays of temper do give offense to others. Spectators come to see tennis, not tantrums. . . .

You do not have to smile politely all over the place, and you shouldn't try to. It can make you feel like a fool and perhaps even look like one, and it tends to make your play timid and your concentration sloppy. If you are the type who likes to play a tight, taciturn game when really trying to win, by all means do so.

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/382540.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

Sunday night:

Husband comes home from movie, squints at my prize money spreadsheet. Me: "I'm being a nerd." Lui: "Just a little." #MixedMarriage

— Peg (@b_ribbons) July 7, 2014

Today:
http://www.changeovertennis.com/accounting-tennis-prize-money/

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/381921.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

I've glimpsed at least two versions of this on Twitter so far:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same pic.twitter.com/brJENv2WpR

— Fatima (@FatimaAsh) July 6, 2014

[The photos depict Roger Federer blowing a kiss to the crowd after one of his Wimbledon victories and after today's loss to Novak Djokovic. The poem has a history with Federer fans, because he and Rafa recorded a reading of it together three years ago or so.]

Coincidentally, I pulled a clipping from a file a few minutes ago where Joni Mitchell calls "If" "just about my favorite poem." In the article, which appeared in the New York Times in 2007 (Working Three Shifts, Plus Outrage Overtime, about her collaboration with the Alberta Ballet). I suspect I saved the article in part because it talks about Mitchell's interdisciplinary interests ("Music, art, dance: Ms. Mitchell calls it 'crop rotation'") and night-owlery (the "'short moment' [the Alberta Ballet's director] had requested turned into one of her inimitable all-nighters..."), and especially because Mitchell and her interviewer (David Yaffe) discuss a song she was working on. Yaffe writes:

There was simply too much to express.

''You've only got so much space, and that's the point,'' she said. ''That's the art. In a very short space, you need pertinent details while knowing what to leave out.'' One song she's still revising is called ''Shine.''

''It starts, 'Shine on Vegas and Wall Street/Place your bets,' '' she said. ''You could write a thousand verses. 'Shine on the dazzling darkness that mends us when we sleep/Shine on what we throw away and what we keep.' I have written about 60 different verses and rhyming couplets to this thing, and I've kept 12. Are they the best ones? I don't know. I could write 60 a week. What are the 12 most important things to illuminate? It's overwhelming.''

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/381419.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

1. Putting together breakfast this morning for a friend from grade school and his wife, which mainly consisted of stopping by Sweet 16th for four to go.

2. The Straight to Ale beer tasting at Woodland Wine Merchant. My favorite was Unobtainium. Rich (their sales manager) was fun to chat with; Tyler talked me into picking up a bottle of Ransom gin (I'm not a fan of most gins, but I do like jenever, and I like whisky, and the Ransom reportedly has elements of both); and staying to the end of the tasting meant that Rich poured me an exceedingly generous portion of Monkeynaut, which I sipped while reading picture books such as Maria Kalman's Chicken Soup, Boots and Sasek's This Is Paris.

Also, a neighbor and I and Rich started chatting about space monkeys (Straight to Ale is based in Huntsville, hence beers named after Laika and the like), and the neighbor reminisced about taking her daughter to the US Space and Rocket Center while the monkeys were still there, and one of the monkeys playing pattycake with her daughter through the barrier for twenty minutes.

Also, another neighbor showed up with a super-sweet lovey-dovey doggie.

3. Speaking of picture books, I happened on Gloria Houston and Barbara Cooney's The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story at the library. It is a beautiful story, with a strong woman who is not its central character and yet is its true heroine.

4. On my walk to the library, I passed a young boy (eight years old or thereabouts) calling out "Have fun at banjo!" to a girl about to enter a house a few doors down. She cheerfully replied, "Thank you!" I just -- this is Nashville, and I have the heart of a mountain troll, and yet, God, it was just so unbelievably cute and real.

5. My micro-poem "Five Finger Frustration" was published by unFold today.

6. Coming home in time to see Roger Federer slam down three aces in a row.

7. Reviewing the proof for the 2014 Dwarf Stars anthology, which will include three of my poems.

8. World Cup mania = soccer on the TVs in waiting rooms and the like. A vast improvement over the usual daytime fare, imnsho.

9. I'm still alive in the Wimbledon men's suicide pool. (I consider making it past the first day an occasion worthy of champagne, and I may well treat myself to a jeroboam if I get to the second week.)

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/84652.html.

Two days ago, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. I had copyediting and lettering targets I'd planned to meet, but I also had a headache, and I haven't gotten past the "eek!" part of the current calligraphy thing, so scrubbing the tub and sanitizing pots and making a new batch of basil toner seemed way, way easier than putting pencil to paper.

Yesterday, I started copyediting after breakfast and worked flat through lunchtime (which almost never happens, because I loooooooove food and get very, very cranky when I'm running on fumes) and didn't stop until 2:45 pm, when I yelped, "Eek!" and rushed out the door to meet my hiking partner. (There are times when I curse pre-scheduled exercise because it disrupts my grooves, but we saw two fawns at the lake, and the ridge that always kicks my ass does seem to be getting slightly easier to climb.)

I worry about losing touch with people. I worry about people dying before I make time to bake the pie and find my crocheting to take over for a long catch-up chat. I worry about not getting around to planting the seeds I bought this year, or the ones I've put in the "plant later" tray because it's already too hot. I worry about the energy evaporating from the sketches of poems I don't have time to amplify or revise right now. I worry that when I finally throw out the bags of tomato seeds my mother tried to preserve -- I tested a few this spring, and nothing came up -- I'll wish I had them on hand a week later when the poem about Rorschach seed patterns on scraps of Bounty finally gels (I could take pictures -- I will take pictures -- but they aren't going to retain the layers or up-closeness of the actual thing. I could keep just one. I could work on the dang poem after all if I'm gonna think aloud about it this much).

I fret about how everything, but everything, expands into a million marigold petals when I touch it. I want to scrape at the scale on my bathroom faucet with a toothpick, and to paint my living room myself, and to redo every inch of my yard. I plan to find the pillow for the cover that's been made out of my wedding dress, and the upholsterer I'd hoped to ask about recovering my dining room chairs has gone out of business. I resent work for taking time away from studying. I am breathless whenever I spend an hour studying, awed at how much more there will always be to learn. I get deep into a manuscript and it reminds me of how much I actually already know, just from the years I've put in and how they've developed that editorial "sixth sense" that tells me when a name is probably misspelled or that something on page 38 isn't in sync with what the author says on page 83, as well as being hyper-conscious of all the little cues and nuances that separate a professionally designed book from a document assembled by an amateur. (Nothing against amateur efforts, mind--as long as the professionals are getting their due.) I miss learning new music, but not enough to rejoin my old ensembles or start the trio I sometimes dream about pulling together.

I am delighted by Cathy Yardley's review of my book. I'm singing along with madrigals in the car to de-rust my voice (I'm leading hymns at the early service this Sunday). I found a Spanish-language copy of Isabel Allende's Zorro at a used bookstore, and gave it to a GA delegate in my congregation to take to Louisville for the library to be established there. I saw that the bookstore had copies of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in both the Reading List and Agriculture sections, and that some of the copies in the Ag section were slightly cheaper, which was intel my hiking partner (and mom of a schoolkid) found useful when she went shopping there a few days later. My E player in fantasy tennis (the delightfully sassy Donna Vekic) has made a surprising run to the semifinals in Birmingham (UK), and I'm still alive in Survival at the Shore (horseracing predictions) -- ranked 1118th, true (my second-best day got negated by a cyberglitch, woe), but I haven't let myself dive deep into researching the ponies, so I'm fine with merely swimming along. Go Chocolate Drops! Go Zealous on the Run! Go Toute Allure! I'm amused by this interview of Charleston chef Robert Stehling, happy to hear reports that Husk Nashville is living up to the hype, and, in the bath, reading a 1996 Baedeker guide to Canada that used to live on the shelves of the Charlotte public library.

(And now it's been more than fifteen minutes since I applied sunscreen, and I've been asked to deliver a shirt and a gallon of water to my favorite motorcycle repair shop. Time to move from inventory to service! :-) )

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/53033.html.