Concessions, Compromises, Anniversaries

She's been working on the kitchen for a while. New counter tops, new sink; the yellowed, sunflower-patterned wallpaper removed...from both the walls and the cabinet doors. She has plans for the cabinets...and she has managed to pick out (and apply) the purple.

The two cats above the sink came from Margaret Krahenbuhl's estate. Michelle adopted Belle & Jesse James after Margaret died. The two mugs to the right of the cat sculptures were made in Italy. Michelle's mom, Susan (died, Nov 2015) bought them on a trip to San Francisco.



The plate next to the paper-towel dispensor

was a gift from one of the faculty in my department at the University of New Mexico. She did an exchange semester with a professor from Australia and brought it back as a gift.

The floor was redone just a couple of weeks ago. The 35-year-old linoleum was still in good shape, but it's texture was a dirt magnet. She likes a smooth surface that's easy to clean. And after 25 years of hands-and-knees scrubbing (We Germans KNOW how to clean floors!), I was more than happy to see it go.


I have to have meat in the evenings or I get hungry in the middle of the night. Michelle can't stand the smell of cooked meat so we open the doors and turn on the fan to air things out. She doesn't mind it cool and when not attired for work, practically lives in a soft, thick robe.

Breakfast with Trixie

I dislike clothes, except as adornment, and don them only under duress. But I get cold when it drops below 85.

At the dinner table; lamb leg steaks. Doors open, fan on high.

On the 16th we celebrated the 2nd anniversary of the contractualization of our relationship.

Homeward bound on the 16th, I chanced upon this canning jar of eight or ten tulips in Albertson's. Their delicate coloration perfectly evoked the most intimate of erotic delights. Their passion spent, their subtleties evince the myriad permutations of a long-term relationship.

On April 1st we'll celebrate our 29th anniversary of our mutual-admiration association. The card on the table shows a donut hole running to "mate" with a donut. The text says: "You complete me."


We're coming around the far turn with Phoebe. Just a couple remaining details; we hope to depart for warmer climes Thursday....or maybe Friday.

This May Be the Last Time

Arrived Abq 11/16/18.


God, what a shit hole. The most Walmarts per capita.

I've been trying to get Ms. Cook to leave for over 20 years. Her birthday is December 1st, the same day we'll attend the Recycled Art Fair in Santa Fe. I plan to leave the 3rd.


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, oh dear goddess, Please don't let anything keep me longer!!!

There are a few good movies at The Guild Cinema.

At dinner with Michelle 11/17/18.

Smiths - Through the Ages

It was on the Smith River in the Jedediah Redwoods that Smith signed on. 






I'd recently read Patti Smith's 
latest literary effort M Train 
and was fantasizing about us 
traveling together and how I'd call her Smith. 

Then Ms. Cook got ahold of the idea. 

Thus, we have: 



GREAT SMITHS THROUGHOUT HISTORY...

                      Smith Brothers cough drops

Jedediah Smith - Outdoorsman nonpareil












Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) Nicknamed Empress of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s.

                      Dr. Smith - Lost in Space

                                               

                                                    Patti - Singer, songwriter

 Maggie Smith - Actress

Celebrated British actress Maggie Smith starred opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in 'Othello' and won her first Oscar for 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.' She has since earned acclaim for her roles in the 'Harry Potter' films and 'Downton Abbey.'



The Smiths
The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982. The band consisted of vocalist Morrissey, guitarist Johnny Marr, bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce. Critics have called them the most important alternative rock band to emerge from the British independent music scene of the 1980s.

                                                                       Smithsonian...Museum of Natural History

    Blacksmith

Smith...the Cat

in her splendid walking jacket from 

Hyendry comfurt pet products.

Vince's Birthday

In Albuquerque we came together to celebrate Vince's 77th birthday which is April 15th. An unrepentant Luddite, I've been patient with his requests to look stuff up online, but when he wanted to know how to corn beef, I decided it was time. 

I was lucky and found a Dell latitude E6410, in its day the fastest laptop on the market, at NAU surplus. 

He's a superb ranter and bicycles nearly everywhere to spite the oil companies. His '72 Hornet, bought new, is, I suspect, the last one functioning. We share the opinion that a car is a tool, not an ego extension. 

Of the thousands of artists, arts promoters, bureaucrats and media people I worked with he's the only one who became a friend. Michelle Cook (Double El) spotted him at the '93 SW Arts & Crafts Fair in Albuquerque where she too was exhibiting. His paintings, among the most bizarre I've seen, drip with angst. A graduate of Notre Dame, he has a degree in Biology and an M.A. in Political Science.

His obdurate, flat-out refusal of the computer means I'm enjoying it. He doesn't like beer so I also took back the Sheaf Stout.

He settled for a piece of cake.

L to R...Vince, Michele (One El), Michelle (Double El) Cook and Yerz Trooly.   

Jollility

It was sometime around '94, soon after I took up with the artist and social critic Michelle D. Cook, that I began studying the accordion (the two were NOT coincidental). Perhaps it stems from her love of cats, but  Michelle's sardonic perspective imagined me, a morose German, hopping & skipping in lederhosen while squeezing something. 

She's always been the idea person in our relationship and being well-trained I immediately began my studies. To help me along she purchased a Hero Midget 

and presented it to me on the Solstice. 





As a busy art dealer, I made time to practice while waiting at red lights.  As incentive, Michelle composed a new national anthem. I spent several months learning it. (As you're aware, literary folks are drawn to magazines and journals with the word REVIEW in their title; Bloomsbury Review, The New York Review of Books and The Yale Law & Policy Review are popular. Cats, being the olfactory creatures that they are, get their news via the Cat Odor Review -- which comes via pee-mail.)

NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM

I never progressed beyond C. O. R., but our enthusiasm led us, in 2008,  to attend the Cotati Accordion Festival in Cotati, California. The festival was curated by Renee de la Prade and included the great Duckmandu. 

THE GREAT DUCKMANDU

While surfing the web the other day I stumbled upon Renee's 2015 calendar

 that comes with a music CD. I ordered, paid and went on my way.

Now, a month later, while perusing emails I noticed a paypal receipt. One thing led to another and the following email soon arrived.

I'm sorry for the delay Michael!

I'm very disorganized this year because I moved to Europe and my regular mail-order-filler was on extended vacation, so it's a bit of a scramble. When I publish future editions, (the next will be 2017,) I plan to sign up with either CD Baby or Amazon or both, so that it's easy to fill orders in a timely manner, even when I'm travelling.

Thanks for your patience, thanks for contacting me. I'm sending you a special present along with your original order; you should get a shipping confirmation email with a tracking number within the next few days.

Best wishes,

Renee de la Prade

Renee is in Hamburg, Germany, where she resides with her new (as of August) husband, Ingo. That's Ingo on drums in the first video.


So that brings us to today. I'm in Albuquerque, the armpit of the SW, where Michelle's mother is dying of olde age. And although the sun is shining, it's cold and I felt the need of a bit of jollility. 

I hope you too got a chuckle.










UPDATE:

Susie slid into the otherworld at 11:43 p.m. on Nov 12, mere minutes before what is known as ALL SMIRKETS DAY (Friday the 13th). Smirket, for those unfamiliar, is the proper term for a black cat.

Jake Quinones & Black IPA

I had arrived late to the Taos Plateau and was too tired to drive more than a couple miles off the highway on the rough little dirt road. It'd been a peaceful night but here it was, hardly ten a.m. and already TWO cars had gone by. Where were all these people GOING!! So when Jake Quinones, guide and photographer from Las Cruces, pulled over and stopped, I was ambivalent. But, since I was already standing, I figured I'd try and act civil; I walked over and said hello.

When he offered a beer I hesitated. I mean, some people take offense if you're not enthusiastic about their Bud Lite, don'chyaknow? And since I only drink stout...it seemed a risky moment.

Black IPA....a stout by any other name.

  
But I get ahead of myself. I was sitting there with my pants unzipped, belly done-lopped over and no shirt...like a huge frog on its pad, enjoying the morning and thinking about breakfast when I heard the THIRD damn vehicle approaching!! I zipped up and delivered my best military salute as it trundled by. Unlike the others, this one was proceeding at a stately pace. 

Soon, I heard it coming back. Ambivalence, when anticipating company, as prev mentioned, is my usual response, but artists and guides are always welcome. As we talked, the conversation turned to libations and he mentioned a brewing company Michelle Cook had recently discovered. She had tried their Imperial Java Stout and I had agreed it "qualified."

The Existential Dilemma - Photo by Jake Quinones

So when he produced a black can with nothing more than the Zia symbol and the company's name I recognized the provenance. It claims to be an IPA, but that's just fad-pandering: it's a stout. And a good one at that, even in Colorado.

His photographs have been included in numerous publications; most recently in The Most Dangerous Stagecoach Ride in the World: Butterfield Route in the Fall 2015 issue of Overland Journal. At the time, with some awareness of my appearance, I was reluctant to be photographed, but this has since become a favorite.