A snarled shout at the door of the subway train from a person keen on politeness–“Say ‘excuse me,’ God damn it!”
Archive for December 2009
The Holiday Spirit – Politeness Rules! (Hmmm….)
December 16, 2009“In the Ukraine”
December 15, 2009Here is another poem which has the dank feel of early winter. It was written after reading about Father Desbois, a French Roman Catholic priest, who has worked in the Ukraine to document the murder of Ukranian jews during the Holocaust. It was brought to mind today by Hanukkah (another shining of light), and the terrible news of a different priest (a Russian Orthodox priest) leading a crowd to attack a Menorrah in Moldava, neighbor to the Ukraine.
In the Ukraine (sixty-some years later, still finding)
Reluctant shovels prod earth;
roots grip hard; growth
took well here, the ground
not trod by paths, boots,
only perhaps by light feet running on a dare,
and the fine dart of swallows,
a swivel of darkness against blue-violet,
evening sky;
the underdirt unfolds in webs
of stems as pale, as green, as bones;
coarse hair that might have grown too, white.
Men pause, leaning against
shovels’ long-grained necks; it feels
like gasoline coming up,
a poison surely
that must come out, that wants to come out,
still burns.
The priest extends his hand, not touching flesh or cloth–
“this was the place?”
His voice reminds them of rock–worn, smooth,
soft, hard, a color that seems to them indeterminate–
at least, they don’t know what it’s called.
Looking down from beneath wool cap, a looser collar
swallows unseen, then digs again.
Too late to bargain.
Yellowed pages rumpled
like the inside of that non-priest’s collar, the returning circle
of neck, have been
produced; the prints of names
(letters quavering like blades of sea grass)–
the smudged “A” of
“AVRAHAM,” the terminal H of
“DEVORAH”–have been again recorded.
Dark eyes’ insistence
on having once seen, has been seen.
Burns coming up, those digging
want to spit it out
but can’t, not here.
All rights reserved, Karin Gustafson.
Bill Compton as Vampire Camel
December 14, 2009
Vampire Bill as Camel
Bill Compton as Camel. I know, it’s weird.
All rights reserved.
Homemade Presents- Forget the Pomander
December 13, 2009As those of you know who read about the “sheep” costume made by/for a young daughter at Halloween, I’m a big believer in home-made celebrations. It’s fun for kids, a great way to hold out against commercialization, and terrific for grandparents who have pretty much all that they need.
That said, coming up with gifts that can be made by very young children can be difficult. Of course, there’s always the picture–the child’s painting or drawing which can be framed, or better yet, converted (commercially) into a plate or mug. (My mother-in-law had a beautiful hors d’oevre plate emblazoned with a vivid shooting scene made by a young grandson, for example.)
But my kids and I tried to come up with things that could be completely made at home.
Our first effort was a set of “pomanders”. These are those oranges stuck with cloves. Supposedly, people like to stick them in drawers to make the drawers smell nice (and not just to hide the pomanders.)
Pomanders are not a terribly satisfying gift. For one thing, they are much harder to make than they look. This is probably not surprising because they look incredibly unimpressive.
We moved on from pomanders to home-made Christmas ornaments. Did you know that you can bake playdoh? You can, but shouldn’t.
If you do not heed this warning (let’s say, because you have no viable sense of smell), you can make some hard-baked cute little blue animals and yellow stars. Remember to leave holes for strings or ribbons with a scissors point or sharp pencil before baking.
Ornaments made from cardboard, colored foil, and glitter (lots and lots and lots of glitter), instead of playdoh, might work out better if you ever want to use your oven again.
Speaking of baking, one of our most enterprising home-made gifts was a gingerbread house. My kids did a few of these at school fairs with graham crakers, canned frosting, and all kinds of gumdrops. These were pretty artificial constructions, however, built with artificial stuff over milk cartons; strictly inedible. Finally, we graduated to the real thing. A gingerbread house baked from dough rolled out into matching rectangles, i.e. walls.
The walls were to be stuck together with sugar glue, not elmers, and, most impressively, were to have stained glass windows, made from powdered hard candy. (Put the hard candy in plastic wrap and hit it with a hammer.)
The project was both amazingly time-consuming and nervewracking. A great deal of extra frosting and an unexpected interior wall was needed in the end, as were several books to hold the walls in place until all the sugar and frosting cemented (about twelvehours)
The end result was amazing. A lit candle could be put inside, and the stained glass windows (not blocked by the unanticipated interior wall) shimmered. It also, eventually, tasted quite good. (Gingerbread has a long shelf life.)
As a final note, if you can’t manage a homemade present, kids can at least make wrapping paper. Potatoes can be carved into great printing tools, fingerpaint substituting for ink. (If the potatoes don’t work, “hand” fingerprinted wrapping paper is also pretty terrific.)
Vampire Elephant Santa
December 12, 2009
Vampire Elephant Santa with Dog and Igloo
All rights reserved.
Bill Compton, Sookie Stackhouse, Elephants
December 11, 2009
Bill Compton in Sookie Stackhouse's Hair (as Elephants)
I haven’t seen the HBO series, True Blood, so my depiction of Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton is based solely on the Southern Vampire Mystery Series (by Charlaine Harris), plus my own preference for drawing elephants over humans.
For those who haven’t read the books, Bill the side-burned vampire loves to detangle the long blonde hair of Sookie, the cocktail waitress.
(All rights reserved.)
For elephants without fangs, check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson at Amazon.
Friday! Canine Christmas Tree
December 11, 2009
This one looks good!
Enjoy the weekend.
PS – If you like elephants as well as dogs, check out 1 Missississippi by Karin Gustafson on Amazon.
All rights reserved.
Ten Signs That You Need To Change Something In Your Life
December 10, 20091. You wake up wishing you had a very mild case of swine flu.
2. Despite the two cups of tea, your energy doesn’t kick in till you notice your (old) dog pooping on the carpet.
3. After the clean-up, you do speed yoga, convincing yourself that it’s on the frontier between relaxation techniques and aerobics.
4. Your subway ride (only three stops on the express) is the most restful time of your day. (It somehow beats out the speed yoga.)
5. You re-read vampire novels as you walk from the subway to your office. You are more concerned about being seen by a co-worker than being hit by a car.
6. As you get your first cup of work tea, you can’t help thinking that even a mild case might be okay.
7. After your fourth cup, you are tense enough that, when you get a call from your apartment building, your first thought is that your (old) dog has died. You know that doesn’t make sense—(would the corpse smell already?) And yet you can’t help picturing fur leaking out from under your door. (Yech.)
8. You are too busy to check Robert Pattinson news even just one time.
9. Though when someone gives you (for Christmas) a Robert Pattinson calendar, it really makes your day.
10. You take the local home, happy for the extra stops.
In Search Of Saddle Shoes, Catholicism, Advent Calendars,
December 9, 2009Two things I dearly wished for as a child were (i) to be Catholic, and (ii) to have saddle shoes.
They both represented a certain organization in my mind. (Not organization, as in the Church, or Thom McCann; organization in the sense of order, structure, rhythm.)
Catholicism was represented by the couple of Catholic families on my street. These each had enough children to require regimentation. Rooms were shared; chores were assigned; eating was done only at meals, which were also on a kind of rota. Fish sticks, of course, on Friday—these were not a particular source of envy. Spaghetti on Saturdays. The smell of the sauce emanated from my Catholic neighbor’s kitchen for hours, an unseen tomatoey aura that seemed to heighten the heavy greens of our semi-rural suburbia. My Catholic friend, Susie, came out afterwards with sunsetty orange stains around her mouth.
Saddle shoes seemed in my mind to be Episcopalian. (At least, the two girls I knew who wore them were.) The mothers of these girls, like the Catholic mothers, did not work outside the home. Less stressed than the Catholic mothers (fewer children), they wore their hair with either a schoolgirlish flip or bound in braids, and, on their feet, trim white anklets. (Seriously, anklets.) They organized Brownies, Girl Scouts, volunteer stuff. This, plus the anklets, seemed to give them a clear edge in the saddle shoe department: they knew where to buy them.
I had a working mother, a rarity back then. Yes, she made spaghetti sauce, but not for hours. She wore hose. And was too busy, and guilty (like many working mothers), to maintain a clear structure of delegated tasks.
As I grew older, a working mother myself, my childhood envy of Catholicism and saddle shoes spread to Advent calendars. Setting aside all religious elements, Advent calendars represented patience, organization. If you’re going to have an Advent Calendar for your kids, you need to keep it in a special place, consult it every day, only allow one little square to be opened at a time.
I tried. But some of us veer towards the energetic rather than systematic. We squeeze things in, eating when we are hungry, reading a book all night long. We can hardly wait to wrap a present before we give it, make spaghetti sauce from a jar. And will likely never ever get to wear saddle shoes.
Awww…
ps – for anyone who doesn’t know (I find this hard to imagine), saddle shoes are those beautiful, cow-like, curvy, black and white, or brown and white oxfords.
ManicDDaily 
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