More specifically concerning: nature
5.08.01
5 August 2001, around 14.44.
It all comes down to a matter of contrast (if one wishes to deal with certainties). This dislocation springs, no doubt, from the abrupt difference of colors, the infinite bright variety replaced by a limited palette of infinite subtlety; a harsh chalk (or pastel) quality to the lines converted to a skillful watercolor. Even so, […]
alma mater
18 August 2003, around 20.10.
Dogs aren’t allowed on the trail without a leash, both to prevent them from harassing other hikers and to keep the dogs themselves out of trouble. In places the sound of the river rises up the gravel slope, and thirsty dogs rush down for a drink and cannot reascend; should the owner go down to […]
inquiry (5)
30 August 2003, around 21.15.
Game was plentiful and at times a drove of elk could be seen on Hunchback mountain which at that time was bare of timber. Food consisted of fresh meat they could kill, beans, bacon, potatoes and dried fruit. Together they cut all trees in the valley, mostly alder. One year late in August, they set […]
introductory
12 May 2004, around 17.20.
…once we have recognised that knowledge in itself is good for man, we shall need to invent no pretexts for studying this subject or that; we shall import no extraneous considerations of use or ornament to justify us in learning one thing rather than another. If a certain department of knowledge specially attracts a man, […]
lines written in Oregon
14 April 2006, around 10.54.
by Nabokov
have a rest
13 September 2010, around 12.00.
Tuck the blanket around your feet, lean back in your deck chair. Go and have a rest.
Crambe repetita (29)
1 June 2013, around 11.14.
Roberto Bolaño, 2666.
mulch
24 December 2013, around 14.10.
No snow, sadly. And of course expected – hoped for – snow at the mountain for Christmas; I’m sure there is, too, another few hundred feet further up. The only thing for it is to skate Skarphedin-like across the hardwood floors in stocking’d feet for another cup of tea.
from that other place
17 January 2014, around 20.58.
If one grows up in Oregon, one hears a lot about William Stafford. Always being the sort of person to avoid what other people are talking about (with no regard for its merit or interest), I never read any of his work until just a few months ago – and I expected to sneer even […]
Montaigne 1.36
18 September 2015, around 10.02.
Men in various clothes, ca. 1782, from the Wellcome Collection anachronism Now, all things being exactly furnished else-whence with all necessaries to maintaine this being, it is not to be imagined that we alone should be produced in a defective and indigent estate, yea, and in such a one as cannot be maintained without forrain […]
up to nature
4 September 2016, around 6.02.
Mirror Lake on an overcast day Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. [ . . . ] If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much. –Mary Oliver, ‘How I go to […]
pseudaphoristica (19)
1 February 2017, around 6.58.
weasels.
oneiric
15 July 2017, around 13.32.
The forest is full of noises: the young squirrels clucking and monitoring us, in relay, from the trees; the strange creaking groan, like the slow opening of a door, of the forest settling; then, as we descended, the distant notes of an amateur cornet (or flute) in uncertain melody. No bears or other large mammals […]
at hasard
29 September 2020, around 5.00.
on dogs, walking, running, Mongolia and nature.
a singular philosophy
13 November 2020, around 7.00.
The view from the ridge, circa late summer 2017. The path that I like to walk (and have for some years) is the beginning of a nine-mile trail that goes up to a Forest Service lookout (which I have not yet reached, and probably never will, by that route). The trail climbs a series of […]
unexpected
29 March 2021, around 8.26.
It is, somewhat unexpectedly, snowing. It is quite beautiful.1I am no longer sure what the definition of beauty is, as I have been reading too much philosophy, but by this statement I mean to indicate that the visual perception of the falling snow creates in me a sense of gratification and appreciation, this sense being […]
untold runes
1 June 2021, around 14.05.
The conversion of nothing into something is the task of criticism. Literature is the storehouse of these rescued somethings. In discussing literature one has to use, unfortunately, the same language that one uses in discussing experience. But even so, literature is preferable to experience, since it is for the most part the closest one can […]
unus dies par omni
28 February 2023, around 4.50.
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ. Nature is wont to be hidden. —Heraclitus (Bywater fr. 10) There is snow outside and a fire going in the fireplace. The black dog is asleep, her tail beating against the carpet with the rhythm of her dreams. The sky is louring, pressing down the hill into the white of the trees; […]
canonical
1 November 2023, around 4.25.
Ms. Ludwig XV 7 (83.MR.177), fol. 124v, ca. 1405.1 In a sterling example of the law of unintended consequences, the more officials attempted to limit discretion by heaping up specific details, the more they inadvertently encouraged innovation and interpretation. —Lorraine Daston (Rules, p. 164, on sixteenth century sumptuary laws).This image appeared in Lorraine Daston’s delightful […]