INKtober 2019: Ride

October 28, 2019
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Hang on, Kids. We are about to go on the Ride of Rides.

2019 1028 ride 02

Ride’s over, Folks! But don’t leave just yet, please.

Somewhere in all that noisy mayhem is a TRIPLE-acrostic poem. This one:

Ride Ride Ride

Rapt ball to First–an easy grounder
I‘d like to with the World go rounder. I
Done declared that need for speed
Entangled LIFE to supersede

Why do people pay good money to get on carnival rides and be whirled and tilted and inverted and sped around so much? I suppose there are many reasons. Two of mine are 1) They are the epitome of “in the moment” 2) They provide a means of brief escape from the Real World and its nightmares.

There’s a song by Vanity Fare [sic] called “Hitchin’ a Ride” that’s been playing in my head since I started this page. My brain is an often-wiseacre jukebox, sometimes infuriatingly so, but this time it served me well. Just when I started this very paragraph I went to YouTube, found the song, and it has just finished playing on the laptop I’m typing on. Without my asking, YouTube then queued up “California Dreamin'” by the Mamas and Papas, and that is what is playing now, and California is where I was born, and where many of my family members live. Welcome to The Ride of My Life, Friends. 🙂

PS: Simon and Garfunkel are now singing “The Sound of Silence.” Sometimes Silence is blessed and golden, especially after a long, bumpy ride. 🙂

INKtober prompt: Coat

October 27, 2019
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2019 1027 coat

Friends, you deserve a better visual offering than this, but the World Series game today is more than halfway over and I want to see the rest of the game and it was either get this done too fast or not at all. I will try to take my time tomorrow to make up for this hasty, sloppy pudding of a page.

Coat Rote Mote Note

Covering the Earth a coat of molecules that span
Overcoated O.G. does a Hoodlum if he can
Antics of a coated pervert in a room to let
Take us to a cheesy plate with coat of vinaigrette

clay on its way

October 22, 2019
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At last I am again spinning mud into shape on the potter’s wheel. Here is a wheel’s full of bisqued clay:

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I spent this evening’s class session applying glazes to these pieces. The glaze buckets were marked Turquoise Matte, Turq, Dk Green, and Black. You can tell which ones I glazed black, but not so much the others.

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I helped instructor Jon Higuchi load glaze and bisque kilns, and then I cleaned up the mess I had made in the glaze room. Then it was time to go. No wheel-throwing today, but I’ll make up for it next week. It’s nice to be One With Clay yet again!

Father

October 21, 2019
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Father

My father was improbable. ° He was frightfully young–seventeen–when ° He and my not-yet mother ° Succumbed to that irresistible ° Primal Urge and got my ° Older brother started. Not-yet-Dad ° Was reluctant to step up ° (And I don’t blame him–he ° Was told he had nothing to fear ° And he knew what a Fork ° In the road Marriage ° And Parenthood were.)

But he did step up, ° Leaving some dreams in dust ° And realizing others ° He had not had before.

That is why I exist. And having learned ° Of my improbable origin ° I resolved that any child I conceived ° Would be wanted ever so much.

And the dream I had ° Was realized. I am a father. My daughter ° Is a Miracle. The improbability ° A beneficent Universe grants ° Fulfilled the most important ° Destiny of my life.

My daughter wants no children. ° She dreams her own dreams. ° She has my approval, and applause.