Views of Saint Paul from My Kayak

Kayaking Phalen Creek: Reflection and Reality II on Flickr

An unusual kayak tour of Phalen Creek and Lake Phalen in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Click the link below to see more photos:

Reflection and Reality II

A View of Minneapolis from the Railroad Tracks

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Expressions, and Phrases with Examples of Use Written While Purportedly Riding the Paca Lolo Express

digitus impudicus (noun) literally from Latin, impudent finger; the middle finger of the human hand; the bird; the finger; the one finger salute.

Holding the digitus impudicus aloft, with palm inward, and thrusting one's hand toward an adversary is an obscene or aggressive gesture meaning "fuck you" or "fuck off." The use of this notorious hand gesture dates back to Greco-Roman civilization. Although there is no earlier written record of its use, that particular digit may have been impudent since the day Adam tore it from the holster when Eve casually mentioned over osso buco that she might like to see other people.

Of course, it's a great feeling when you let the bird fly, but what about those times when you just can't get the extension. So you sit there in the car window fumbling around with your fingers with your neanderthalic brow drawn and your buck teeth gleaming in the mid-day sun. You reach for the digitus impudicus but all you can muster is the ring finger and it's comical and a little sad. Well, today is another day.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Expressions, and Phrases Chock-a-Block with Sweet Examples of Use

pilgarlic (noun) literally, peeled garlic; a bald-headed man; a bald man who has lost his hair due to disease; a pitiful wretch.

When I was in my early twenties, I drew a lot of cartoons. Many of my cartoons included depictions of bald men with cruel piggy eyes and thick glasses. An acquaintance of my mother-in-law thought I should talk to L. K. Hansen. So I said sure, I'll go talk to him. Well, Jen and I went to meet him and we were confronted by two pilgarlics extraordinaire with thick glasses that made their eyes look like crusty little peanuts. Wow! On that day, I failed to achieve whatever it was that could have been achieved at that meeting.

Even as I inch ineluctably toward pilgarlicdom, I still don't feel bad about doing those cartoons.

What the hell? Why is every block afflicted with one of those pesky guys who fancies himself a property-values expert. You know that guy: the pilgarlic down the block who has been fifty-three years old for thirty-three years; the nosy one with all the brazen suggestions; the one who thinks he owns his view; the one who believes he can gauge the value of good taste; the one who comes around to inspect every neighborhood project within earshot. He's the same oaf who wakes up everybody on Sunday mornings with a leaf blower. That guy should be coaxed into a van with doughnuts for bait, driven far away, and dumped off in the country.

Starkley Duncan's Diatribe

Epoxy Art: Fluid Chromatic # 92

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

A View on the Mississippi in November

A Note from an Artist to Art Gallery Owners and Their Instruments

Recently, I received an offer from a Chelsea gallery to participate in a future exhibition. Here's the deal they're peddling. Artist's featured in this gala event will be allowed to hang three to four paintings each in return for a non-negotiable gallery fee of $2850.00 to cover part? of the costs of advertising, plus the gallery will exact a 50% commission on all sales.

If I accepted the offer, some Manhattanites would get a party with free wine and cheese and, oh, art. The gallery owners would rake in at least $2850.00 from me alone without having to show any proof of effort at all. And the artist? This artist would lose money even if he sold all four painting. It costs me nothing to give my paintings away. But wait! I'd be one of the guests of honor.

Yeah? Fuck it, dude, I'm going kayaking.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Expressions, and Phrases with Terse Examples of Use

lacuna (noun) a hole, cavity, or gap.

The use of lacuna and its plural form, lacunae, is rarely necessary and one could argue that the word should go the way of tommyrot or slubberdegullion. It is, however, an elegant word that adds to the great pageantry of the English language and rolls off the tongue quite nicely indeed.

Lacunae in the historical record spur speculation, speculation spurs controversy, and controversy spurs interest: thus every lacuna in Clio's seamy web is an open invitation for an academic deperately seeking tenure to pile it a little higher.

Throughout the interrogation, glaring lacunae in his alibi spawned dark speculation about his whereabouts on that fateful evening. Sweating profusely under the blinding lights and weaving a tortuous tale, the perp knew he was in deep, deep kimchi.

Throughout the job interview, unexplained lacunae in his job history brought on a line of agressive questioning he had not anticipated. Squirming in his chair, pinned down by the unremitting stare of his tormentor, he knew he had come a cropper.

Epoxy Art: Fluid Chromatic #113

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

Graffitti on the Mississippi

I'm not sure if this graffito (petroglyph) was carved by an American Indian or whether it is much more recent. It is located between Minneapolis and St. Paul. I saw at least one other petroglyph of a snake in the immediate area, but didn't take a photo of it. Next year.

Watergate Marina

The Watergate Marina is a protected little cove just to the left around this rocky shore. When I paddle down to St. Paul, I sometimes sail through thinking about how great it would be to live down there on a houseboat. Then I think about Sausalito.

A melancholy sight. The boats are mostly gone as winter approaches.

Kayaking Around Pike Island

This is a view of the Minnesota River just upstream from its confluence with the Mississippi River. Pike Island is on the left.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose and, at turns, Churlish Guide to Words, Phrases and Junk with Examples of Use Served Up with All the Drippin's

to have no truck with (phrase) to have nothing to do with; to avoid having dealings with.

"Under no circumstances would I be caught dead at a circus, parade, rodeo, renaissance fair, broadway musical. Or for that matter, a bush league baseball game where Tony and Tina keep gallocking around in all their inglorious heinium and just keep cropping up over and over and over like a pack of recrudescent carbuncles. For the love of all that is moley!" intoned the irrepressible churl almost boastfully, "I'll have no truck with any of that!" And then, yeah Steve, his lips fell off.

"I'll have no truck with that!" the chufferous English popinjay said to a Scotsman of heretofore unparalleled churlishness. He continued superfluously, "and I'll brook no opposition to my aforementioned intention not to have truck with vulpine propositions, perfidious and slippery as they may be." Then they snaggled their teeth at each other across the bloomin' heather.

And, CBS, where the hell is that Carrot Top sit-com I was promised?

A Frosty Morning on the Mississippi

Starkley Duncan's Diatribe: Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Expressions, and Phrases with Examples of Use Written While Doing the Paca Lolo

recrudescent (adjective) recurrent; something that crops up again or reemerges; something persistent, such as a rash, that reappears.

"Dick Cheney? He's like a recrudescent boil on the back of the neck of this nation," said the astute young lady. Then some David Hasselhoff-like dude eating a hamburger off the floor asked, "Is Dick Cheney still here?"

The itchy chuffer humped it to the pharmacy suffering an awful twang. He'd run out of salves and ointments and balms to apply again and again. The pharmacist tore off his specs and declared in voice stentorian and proud, "this recrudescent fungus is almost Dick-Cheney-like in its horrible suction-cuppy tenacity." And then I think one of the Rolling Stones, or was it Elton John, mumbled, "Is Dick Cheney still here?"

So I was talking to this guy the other day at the Friars Club who looked so much like Don Rickles that I'm ninety-nine percent sure it was either him or Ernest Borgnine. I asked him what he thought about the recrudescent Dick Cheney. How he keeps flaring up like a troop of hemorrhoids on the nation's back doorstep. Then Don Rickles, or maybe it was Ernest Borgnine, asked in an irascible tone, Dick Cheney? Is Dick Cheney still here? The man's about as welcome as a fart in a space suit. I mean, don't get me started."

A Note to Hollywood

Isn't it high time we had another Dabney Coleman sit-com?

Epoxy Art: Fluid Chromatic #88

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

An Old Photo of Daisy Doux, the Jack Russell Terrier

My First Studio

Back in 1986 while at college, I lived in a triplex with my brother and a friend across the street from Bierman Field at the University. All I could think about back in those days was painting. I couldn't stand the sight of any of my belongings. I just wanted to be in an empty, impersonal room with canvas and paint.

As summer approached I rented out our living room, the room my pal vacated, and my own bedroom upstairs. Then I moved into the basement where I could live rent free and could afford to paint to my heart's content all summer unencumbered by possessions or distractions.

I lived like a hermit down there, alone and ferile, painting from "morning sun till dine." The girl I was dating at the time would sometimes come to stay on weekends. Often she was my only meaningful contact with the world above ground for days at a time.

I loved my studio. There were rats and centipedes to contend with, but I had my own waterfall when it rained. I removed the glass from the window and stapled a swatch of screen across the opening. The summer was a rainy one. When it rained water cascaded down the wall and pooled around the floor drain. I slept on a foam pad near the window well. At night when thunderstorms rumbled over, the sensation of water spray gently spattering my face would awaken me. I'd get up and paint until dawn. Those were nights to remember.

I Suffered for this Damn Photo

Paddling up the Mississippi the other day, I spotted this immature bald eagle in a tree overhanging the river. I manuevered my kayak into a shallow area and leaned over so that the bottom of the boat was nestled up on the rocks.

I sat there craning my neck upward with the camera pressed to my eye with my finger on the shutter poised to snap a photo the instant the eagle went aerial. This time I was going to get the photo.

Of course, the young eagle decided to hunker down for a while and refused to cooperate. No matter what noise I made it wouldn't budge. As I was sitting there, I heard a boat motor by but was concentrating with every fiber in my being. All of a sudden the boat's wake hit. My kayak started to rock and crash against the rocky bottom. Then the waves started to break over the deck and ice-cold water started to flood the cockpit. At that moment, the eagle decided to fly. I ended up soaked, cold, and all I got was this damned photo.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Expressions, and Phrases with Moderately Protracted Examples of Use

panopticon (noun) literally from the Greek, all seeing or all observable; a round prison designed by the eighteenth century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, in such a way that the actions of the inmates were all visible to their warders; an area where everything can be viewed.

In 1984, George Orwell detailed a near panopticonic society where the smallest betrayal of the state by any given individual could be detected and squelched. Today, through the use of surveillance cameras, businesses and law enforcement agencies have made great strides toward turning many metropolitan areas into virtual panopticons. Whether or not some Orwellian nightmare will be the ultimate result remains to be seen.

To his great discomfiture, the earnest job applicant couldn't help but notice that the interviewer refused to shake his hand. Unaware that the potential employer had turned the company waiting room into a panopticon, the job applicant had conducted a rear-guard action of sorts that left his potential employer in a state of barely contained horror.

Many years ago I worked at Surdyk's Liquor and Cheese Shop. I didn't know it at first, but the owner had a bank of monitors in his office from which he could survey his demesne from every conceivable angle. At first working in a panopticon made me feel self-conscious, but after a couple of weeks I almost forgot I was being watched. Soon I was soon mawing cheese without compunction and with no fear of retribution.

When I was a kid people tried to convince me that the material world was a panopticon for realm of the supernatural. A voyeuristic prying god watched every move I made and scribbled it all down on a big notepad. Santa had a handle on whether I had been naughty or nice. All manner of spirits whose interest I had piqued with my zesty joie de vivre could look on and nod in admiration of my inimitable style. And indeed my own ancestors could presumably gaze down from heaven and wag their heads with dismay at many of the more regrettable and all-together-too-habitual behaviors in my seamy repertoire.

A November Afternoon on the Mississippi River and a New Photo Set on Flickr

Monday was a still, beautiful day. Fortunately, I had the day off and decided to hit the river in my kayak. What an afternoon it was. I saw two eagles, four deer, several herons, an owl, a fox squirrel, and a flock of wild turkeys all in the space of four miles and four hours. Surprisingly, most were willing to pose for pictures. I put up a new photo set on flickr with some of the better wildlife photos I took on that memorable day. Click the link below to see the photos.

An Afternoon on the Mississippi River

Lunch and a Rest just Upstream from Downtown Saint Paul

A Heron Takes Flight on the Mississippi

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Expressions, and Phrases Replete with Examples of Use Drawn from the Warp and Woof of Life

recalcitrant (adjective) uncontrollable, wayward, rebellious, refractory, obstinate, unruly, or ungovernable.


After their team took a nasty drubbing, the recalcitrant soccer hooligans issued out onto the crowded street like a cackle of hyenas. In savage concert, they overturned cars, set trash cans ablaze, and trounced rivals. None to soon, the Johnny Hoppers stormed the stage with truncheons clenched. The crowd cheered to the rhythm of sweet coconut music as the coppers laid down a wild breakbeat bongo on noggins of unusual resonance.


The recalcitrant old terrier, never one to stand on ceremony, blithely hiked up his leg and peed on a table leg while the dinner guests watched in horror.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Expressions, and Phrases Replete with Examples of Use Drawn from the Abyss of Human Existence

feculent (adjective) dirty, unwashed, fetid, filthy, or unclean.

Three callow young men lived in a student-trampled apartment on the outskirts of campus. Hearty late night saturnalias left layers of detritus strewn throughout their feculent abode, deposited like flotsam and jetsam scattered high and dry in the aftermath of a flood. Dead pizza boxes, a graveyard of beer bottles, snuffed cigarette butts, soiled discarded clothing, and a sink full of dishes infested with blue-green mold all proclaimed the execution of a feeble academic effort and gave off a ferocious stink that a niagara of Brut couldn't conceal.

After seeing an expose where the investigators used a special light to show the unholy spatter of body fluids found in the average hotel room, we crawled into the feculent hotel bed with a certain degree of trepidation.

Reflections in Water on a Still Day on an Inlet of the Mississippi

The other day on the river was one of those still days where the water holds a beautiful, near-perfect reflection of the land and sky creating the illusion of an ethereal floating world, illusory and dizzying.


I put up a new photo set on flickr. Some of the photos are regular photos like this one. Others, I combined an image with its mirror image to create an abstract image.


To see the photo set, click here.

Epoxy Art: My Favorite Spiral Painting

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

Encounter with an Old Buck

I met this old buck with a bad eye and broken antler while kayaking through an inlet between the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers down by Pike Island. He and his mate were hiding in the tall weeds. When I approached, he came out to protect her. He advanced with his head down and at first it seemed like I might have an encounter with the business end of his antlers. I stood my ground taking photos all the while. When he got about ten feet away from me, he started to stamp the ground with his front hoof and snort. I backed up into a little grove of saplings and took a few more photos before going on my way.

Starkley Duncan's Diatribe: Bad Shower

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Expressions, and Phrases Replete with Examples of Use Drawn from the Rich Tapestry of Life

outside the pale (expression) outside a territory under the protection and constraints of a system of law upheld by the dominant group in that area; behavior believed to be nefarious, heinous, pernicious, malignant, fell, iniquitous, noxious, ruinous, deleterious, abominable, wayward, perverse, incorrigible, refractory, fractious, cantankerous, iconoclastic, egregious, abberant or deviant from a standard of behavior enforced by an organization of individuals; outside the boundaries of all that is held to be good, decent, orthodox, and just plain right and shit.

to put beyond the pale (expression) to put outside the law; to shun, ostracize, banish, exile, or cast out.

During the late Medieval Period and into the Early Modern Period, Norman and English invaders occupied the territory surrounding Dublin, Ireland. This fluctuating territory became known as the English Pale. The Pale was thus a territory where the rule of English law applied. In stark contrast, the rest of Ireland, bereft of English law, existed in a state of lawlessness, disorder, and suffered a general putrefaction of the body politic. To be put beyond the pale was to be made an outlaw or forced to live outside the protection of the law: to be condemned to live in a rookery of low-born oafs and recalcitrant chuffers whose children's children have produced more than their share of soccer hooligans.

At a press conference in the wake of 9/11, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the terrorists should be "excoriated and put beyond the pale." Vexed Bubbas across the country issued a collective "huh?" Then George Bush, that master of self-made bubbadom, translated the foreigner's eloquence into a language his ilk could understand: "We're gonna smoke 'em out of their holes."

Many a bible-thumping right winger believes that homosexuality is outside the pale. Nevertheless, several of these befuddled bangers have been caught in hot pursuit of some torrid man-on-man action. And the poor buffoons they've duped make excuses for them. That's bush league.

November Paddle on the Mississippi

Today, I paddled from Hidden Falls to downtown St. Paul and back. The current was fairly strong on the way back upstream. I had to criss-cross the river to keep to the leeward side and use the eddies as much as possible.

Attempted Tea on a Sandbar Across from a Bluff on the Mississippi

This pretty little bluff is a popular look-out spot near the terminus of Summit Avenue.

The first time I came here was by water. On a spring morning during my freshman year at university, I cast myself into the river in what would be my second and final voyage in a cheap inflatable life raft. As I approached the point, I was losing air pressure fast and made haste quickly to shore. I tugged the flaccid vessel from the water and legged it miles back to the dorm. What a fine day.

A few years later, after a ten-day stopover in the hospital with pneumonia, pleurisy, and blood clots in both legs and my lung, I used to sit on this perch and think about the life I nearly lost. I haunted the shore searching for fossils and sitting near a little waterfall in the ravine weighted with indecision and self-doubt. Death was a little closer and my emotions were elemental and raw. I'll always think about the things that happened that winter and spring until the end, and often.

Recently, I stopped to have tea on this sand bar across the river from the bluff as I had done with Rosie in my pirogue a few years back. I assembled my stove, started water, and sat on a driftwood log. While I poured a packet of gingered powdered milk into the boiling water and I realized that I had forgetten the tea. A tough choice. I could sit on the banks of the Big Muddy drinking hot powdered milk and ginger and grimacing like a schnook. Or I could lay back and do a little woolgathering. As all days are, it was a fine day to reminisce.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Words, Colorful Sayings, and Phrases with Examples of Use Drawn from Real or Imagined Historical Events

rubiconundrum (noun) a puzzling, dangerous, or labyrinthine situation requiring action but having irreversible consequences and repercussions.

This is a term I coined while in graduate school in a time of crippling self-doubt where each decision I made seemed painful, complicated, and final; in a word, rubiconundrical. Rubiconundrum is a portmanteau, a word made from a combination of two words, in this case Rubicon and conundrum.

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar led an army from Gaul to the north bank of the Rubicon River. Fully aware of the fact that to cross the Rubicon with a legion of soldiers was a breach of Roman law and tantamount to a declaration of war against the Republic, the Hairy One paused to weight the consequences of such an act. After some deliberation, he is said to have declared, "alea iacta est," meaning the die is cast or let the die be cast. As he forded the river and began to lead his soggy men toward Rome, he knew that this revolutionary act would lead ineluctably to civil war. Thus Caesar had successfully navigated a daunting rubiconundrum. For his courage, he would shortly become the ruler of Rome. A few short years later, while demonstrating a laissez-faire attitude toward the Ides of March, Caesar was stabbed to death by a bevy of senators. To this day, Caesar's last words remain a seething hotbed of controversy amonst scholars. Some historians contend that he said nothing while others argue that he turned to Brutus and asked, "and you, child?" As I have argued elsewhere, I maintain that his last words before he shuffled off the mortal coil were: "Enjoy every donut!"

Moments after the birth of her only son, Gladys faced a serious rubiconundrum. What to name her son? While she preferred Euple, she quickly realized that it did not rhyme with any words in any catchy way that might help to propel her young'un to the musical stardom she so eagerly desired. In a flash of white hot creative genius that some might call a vision, she saw her son as a grown man on some fantastical stage sporting sideburns from here to ya-ya, spangled with sequins, and performing a series of pelvic contortions each more cattiwampus than the last. The rest is history.

Epoxy Art: Fluid Chromatic #96

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

Chipmunk Rock Sunflower Seed

Chipmunk on the Rocks

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Happenin' Words, Colorful Sayings, and Phrases with Examples of Use Written While Tightening my Own Wig

kazoo accompaniment (colorful expression) an inferior companion to, as a kazoo to a symphony; two or more concordant or discordant features or activities placed in close association with each other with one being of such low quality that it is deleterious to the enjoyment of the other.

I first saw kazoo accompaniment many years ago in the Minnesota Daily used to describe margin notes someone had written in a used textbook.

In lining the margins of his text book with witticisms, the callow freshman thought he was laying down sage for the ages when in reality his assinine asides were a kazoo accompaniment to the text.

The amateur commentators on a disreputable news channel began discussing President Obama's address to the nation before it began. As they showed his speech these shameless hussies and party plankers exploded in gassy blasts of criticism, erupted in fits of cynical bafoonery, and blew their wads with accusations of fascism. Their base and ignorant commentary was a kazoo accompaniment to Obama's thoughtful speech and a stiff slap in the face to common sense itself. It is the nature of kazoo accompaniments to be irksome, and this was a kazoo accompaniment to the core.

Once, in a fit of indecision, I saw a few minutes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? At first I thought the show was a kazoo accompaniment to the Viagra and ExtendZe ads that mercifully punctuated the show's utter stupidity. Then, as I watched for a couple more minutes, their canned antics became a kazoo accompaniment to the sound of me wretching uncontrollably.

The Mendota Bridge

A photo of the Mendota bridge taken from a little canal that runs between the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers and forms one of the borders of Pike Island.



A historic photo showing the construction of the Mendota bridge
A historic photo showing an aerial view of the area around the Mendota bridge
A historic photo showing boats near the Mendota bridge
A historic photo of the Mendota bridge

Edie the Developmentally-Delayed Beagle

Edie began her life in a puppy mill somewhere in the state of New York. The University of Minnesota Veterinary department purchased her for use in research on the efficacy of a new cancer medication. So for the first two or three years of her life, she lived in a small kennel in a little room with nine other individually caged beagles. When they were allowed to romp out in the middle of the room, they would hump each other with gusto in chains of three or four. They were named A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I, and J. Each of the dogs was given the medicine, then bone marrow samples were taken.

Jen saw a sign advertising that the veterinary school was giving the dogs to good homes while she was doing computer support. We felt bad for the poor beagles and decided to adopt the beagle named E, and called her Edie.

Poor little Edie had never run in grass. She would shoot off with abandon only to take a tumble a few strides later. We quickly started to notice that Edie had significant developmental delays, such as being unable to figure out how to get around a tree blocking her path. She peed and pooped in her bed and all over the house without compunction. Her vision was so poor that if you gave her a treat she would just snap wildly at your hand. And, to be honest, she wasn't the sharpest arrow in the quiver.

As the years passed she made slow improvement. She learned some new tricks by watching the other dogs. With a lot of patience and repetition the conditioning of her past faded and she got closer to being a normal dog. She was still a bit of a burden, and not the most fun dog to have, but she had a good time. She had her endearing moments, like when she learned to sit up on her hind legs to ask for attention. She loved a good pat and went wild for a good nosh and a long sniff while out on a walk. After ten years or so, she died of kidney disease. In many ways it was a relief, but we were both happy to know she had some good years after the misery of her youth.

A Great Place for a Cup of Tea

The Racial Melting Pot

One day at work in the archives, I decided to do a little genealogical research on my mother's family. I found a census from the 1920s that listed my great-grandfather, Joseph Latapie; my great-grandmother, Desire "Daisy" Latapie; my grandfather and namesake, Patrick Latapie; and the rest of the children in the family. All are identified as "mulatto." While it is not absolutely concrete evidence, it bolsters what I have always suspected--that I am part black. If this is true, I'm as proud of that part of my heritage as I am any other part.

My great-grandmother Daisy was a petite woman who wore her hair in a chignon, smoked cigarettes rolled with french bread wrappers, sometimes lived with two men at a time, and reportedly had a penchant for black musicians: just the sort of great grandmother I can rally behind.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Recondite Words, Colorful Sayings, and Phrases Richly Embellished with Examples of Use

to woolgather (verb) to daydream; to lose one's self in idle reverie; to stargaze.
woolgatherer (noun) a dreamer or escapist who engages in flights of fancy, lost in thought and lost to the world around him/her; an indolent, dreamy person.

"What! I think my wits are a wool-gathering to-day." Jonathan Swift

The term woolgathering, in its more literal sense, referred to the act of gathering loose hunks of wool that had blown off during the course of sheering sheep. It was thus a relatively mindless task that allowed the woolgatherer ample opportunity to absent his/her mind from the workaday world.

Nestled beneath his outrageously tall bearskin and lost in thought, the young Coldstreamer was taken by surprise at the changing of the guard. So deep was his bout of woolgathering that it took him several strides to hit the silly walk the crowd had gathered to see. He almost expected a reprimand from the Ministry of Silly Walks.

I have spent many a sunny afternoon drifting with the current on the Mississippi in my kayak. One day, lost in the idyllic world of a habitual woolgatherer, I didn't notice a barge coming up behind me until a horn blast shocked me back to coherence. I put some wax on it and got out of the way.

While I was in graduate school, I often needed a break from the straight-jacketing studies at hand. I used to amuse myself by writing epigrams like this one: "Every weaver needs a woolgatherer." Older people often appreciate it, but the twenty-somethings I know tend not to know what the hell I'm talking about.

Vintage Campers

One of my favorite sites to visit when I've got some extra time to woolgather is http://www.vintagecampers.com/ My favorite vintage campers are the old Spartan trailers like this one. I would love to have one of these in my backyard to go out and sit in whenever I feel the urge. I could go out with a cup of coffee on cold fall days and sit at the kitchen table, look out the window, let my eye wander over the interior, and smile with satisfaction. Maybe I'd bring a pen and notepad, maybe not.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Useful Words, Colorful Saying, and Phrases Replete with Examples of Use

to defenestrate (verb) to throw someone or something out the window.

Marcellus Wallace, a man of unexpurgated brutality, had a predilection for getting medieval on the asses of his nemeses. Allegedly Marcellus had once defenestrated Tony Rocky Horror just because the intrepid semi-Somoan had given a foot massage to his woman. The incident was much on the minds of two ill-coiffed goons in his employ, who discussed the matter often and con brio.

When he was a much younger man, professor Lehmberg wrote the lectures he would deliver for the remainder of his long career. Year after year he told the same stories interlarded with the same feeble witticisms, offered up with the same tongue in the same cheek. In one lecture, between his usual butt-cocking attempts to free a glutinous testicle from his thigh, the gelatinous don discussed the Defenestration of Prague, an incident that occurred in seventeenth century Bohemia where the testy denizens of a castle defenestrated some obstreperous foreign dignitaries after some tedious theological quibbling. The catholic church, he would twinkle, claimed the defenestrated men were saved by divine intervention. Having learned how to work the low-brow proclivities of his callow audience, the old reprobate would add with a sly grin and a chuckle, "some thought it had more to do with the pile of horse dung they landed in." The students gave that near-comatose laugh one gives after one has been bored witless for an extended period of time. Hilarity did not ensue.

Chipmunk

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Useful Words, Colorful Saying, and Phrases with Sometimes Scanty Examples of Use

to rusticate (verb) to live in the country; to send to the country; to expel from school, such as a student from university.

After doling out a savage beating on the most frivolous of pretenses, the schoolmaster rusticated Young Rupert Cocking-Johnson to his guardian's country manor where the unhappy young man would again feel the beech in the hands of his dour stepfather.

(Used as an adjective) Thousands upon thousands of hayseeds, rubes, hicks, bumpkins, clodhoppers, and yokels still live rusticated lives of bucolic contentment and unconcern while the rest of the world chases modernity.

Starkley Duncan's Diatribe: Cool

One day I was checking out the posts at fark.com when I saw a link about the word "cool." I followed the link to an article in an Eastern newspaper. The author of the article reiterated the script from this cartoon. I sent an email to the editor declaring in the immortal words of Crusty the Clown, "if this is anyone but Steve Allen you are stealing my bit." I never heard back from him and didn't too much care.

Epoxy Art: Fluid Chromatic # 50

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

On the River Below an Overhanging Tree: Another Eagle Photo

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Boss Words, Colorful Sayings, and Phrases with Examples of Use Written While Flying the Mexican Airlines

cut of your jib (colorful phrase) your attitude, affectations, style, or bearing; your certain je ne sais quoi; your twinkle.

The cut of your jib derives from the distinct shape, and the position of the jib, or triangular sail set just ahead of the foremast on a sailing vessel. By observing the cut of another boat's jib, those of the salty persuasion can tell if a vessel be friend or foe at distance.

In The Big Lebowski, the sarsaparilla-obsessed cowboy narrator said, "I like yer style, dude." If the Cohen brothers had decided to cast a rum hound seventeenth-century English pirate instead of a cow poke, he would have declared, "This auld sea dog be diggin' on the cut of your jib." Then he'd sashay over to the other side of the bar with his curvy blade sticking out like a barber's pole. Then the goofiest looking kid I've ever seen would pour him a pewtery lead cup of rum. Then he'd dragoon some of the effetest actors in cinematic history into singing, "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest. . .." Then suddenly one sturdy brougham would plow up the driveway at a hundred and twenty five miles an hour. Then some total Best-Chetwynde would get out and every fiber of his being would cry out, "It chafes, and baby, it's lodged." Then, despite his I-just-coughed-up-a-suppository-esque demeanor, he'd stifle this wholly distressing and farcical Gilbert and Sullivan badinage baith snell and clean. And, I'd be all like, I can't abide by the cut of his jib. Fade Black.

When I met my wife I said, "I like the cut of your jib," and she knew what I meant.

The first time I saw "cut of your jib" was in an old Kurt Vonnegut novel. I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I have really enjoyed overusing over the years. Thanks for grinning everyone.

Everybody should have a Kurt Vonnegut phase.

A Silly Cartoon

Views from My Cupola on a Fine Fall Day

Today was one of those beautiful windy fall days that make it a pure joy to be alive, and free, and not in pain. Working in my studio today, I played Cavalleria Rusticana and the Psychedelic Furs. I got so nostalgic I drove to the University to take some photos of my old haunts. It was a good day.

Two Views of My Cupola on a Beautiful Fall Day

Tucked beneath the serpentine branches of two gnarled white oaks, my garret studio runs the length of our house. The previous owner was a man of another era who believed that when one is inside, one is inside--and that if one wants to see the outdoors one has just to step out the front door. Thus he had covered up the windows at each end of the attic from the outside with steel siding, along with seven other windows and one door downstairs. When we moved in one of my first horrible undertakings was to restore the windows so that the attic would be usable again. For a few miserable hours I'm glad to have behind me, I clung to a tall ladder with one arm outstretched clutching a whirring circular saw with an abrasive, metal cutting blade. Showers of sparks flew in all directions burning the hair off my arms and buffeting my safety glasses. Slowed by lamentable bouts of cursing, I got the job done.


After remodeling the interior, which is another tale full of sound and fury, I was safely ensconced, nestled under the cozy steep embrace of my tight fastness before the first snows of winter fell. I spent a glorious winter drawing and painting. But as the heat of late spring bore down upon our little house, my wings grew smudgy and moist and began to adhere to cartoons I was drawing. I realized that there still was not enough ventilation, unless I ran the air conditioner all the time.

My first remedy was farcical. I bought an industrial strength fan and inadvertently turned my studio into a wind tunnel that almost saw me clinging to the chimney outstretched like Gilligan in a wind storm. Even set on low, unfettered papers flew from my desk. I started bringing in rocks from the yard to augment my meager supply of paperweights. Then one day, hunched over, back to the blast, cupping my hands and trying to kindle the leaves and stibble of a little verdant inspiration, I burned one of my eyebrows off. Something had to give.

So I built this cupola which provides cool breeze in summer and soft light year around.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Useful Words, Colorful Sayings, and Phrases with Dazzling Examples of Use

homunculus (noun) Literally, little man; fetus; pygmy, squirt, half-pint.

In Manhattan, Mary (Diane Keaton) repeatedly gushed over the unbuckled virility of a former lover, Jeremiah (Wallace Shawn). Even though, according to himself, her present lover Isaac (Woody Allen) possessed amazing sexual technique, she spoke of the fabled Jeremiah in such glowing terms that one had to assume he was a beau hunk of a rare, spectacular, and winning vintage. On an off-chance, Mary and Isaac happened upon him in a store. There stood Wallace Shawn, shorter and balder than Woody, basking in all of his inimitable glory. After Jeremiah had exited stage left, Mary again purred his sexual praises. In a classic line from one of Woody's finest, Isaac burst out, "That homunculus?"

I met Paul Wellstone once, he was a chipper homunculus with a hearty handshake and a disarming smile. I liked him. I'm sorry his life was cut short.

Crummy Photos of Eagles on the River

The eagles were out fishing on the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers this afternoon. When I was out kayaking today, I saw three eagles a few miles upstream from Saint Paul. I managed to get a few photos of this eagle and an immature bald eagle. None of them are particularly good. You can imagine my chagrin when I downloaded the photos and saw that the photo of the eagle taking off is blurry. Holding up a camera to your eye and trying to keep it in focus as the current sweeps you under the tree, all while you try to keep the boat straight by dragging the paddle tucked in your armpit is a challenge. My kayak feels amazingly tippy in these situations.

I always try not to look at birds when I approach them. Usually I don't look because I feel bad about disturbing them, and they seem to have an if-you-don't-look-we-won't-fly policy in place. An eagle's vision is so acute though that I'm sure they can see my beady little eyes darting around my head furtively at a half mile away. It amuses me to think they are facetiously thinking, "yeah right, I don't see what you're doing there, you country-fried rube."

More Photos of Lock and Dam No. 1 on the Mississippi River

Approaching Lock and Dam No. 1 (Ford Dam) with the Street Bridge upstream above the dam.


View while sitting in my kayak waiting for the water to begin to rise to the level of the river above the dam.

A historic photo showing the construction of Lock and Dam No. 1
A historic photo showing the construction of Lock and Dam No. 1
A historic photo showing the construction of Lock and Dam No. 1

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Useful Words, Colorful Saying, and Phrases Replete with Examples of Use

sesquipedalian (adjective) Literally, one and one-half foot or one cubit in length; a long, multisyllabic word or sentence.

The German philosopher and powerful irritant, Immanuel Kant, is renown for convoluted, sesquipedalian sentences that tend to confound those readers used to fluffier fare.

While the writer fully apprehended that her use of sesquipedalian words was viewed with distaste by the advocates of the good-writing-is-simple-writing school of thought, her love of language made their protestations moot.

Gales of droogish laughter thundered through the studio as the late night talk show host burst onto the stage brandishing a jiggly pink sesquipedalian dildo.

Thursten Howell III wondered aloud if the Professor, a notorious sesquipedalian egghead, "bought those words wholesale."

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Useful Words, Colorful Saying, and Phrases Freighted with Lively Examples of Use Certain to Offend Some

to interlard (verb) To insert, scatter, sprinkle, or to fill with (as lard into flour); to pepper, spangle, or freight with something of inferior, foreign or contrasting properties.

The gleefully verbose writer interlarded his essays with such a ferocious crush of sesquipedalian words that all but the hardiest of dictionary-wielding logophiles shook their heads in dismay.

The flock of hip young card-carrying members of the green party rode their bikes slowly down the middle of the street, intent on the discomfiture of commuters trying to get to various destinations in cars. Insults were exchanged, traffic ground to a halt, car horns blazed, and tempers flared. The hipsters perceived each transgression they had just provoked as the resistance of the wicked to the righteous. Their faces were drawn into scowls and their thoughts interlarded with fist-pumping, self-righteous indignation as they mouthed empty platitudes they failed to live up to themselves. Later I saw two of them load their bikes onto the roof of a Subaru Legacy and drive off.

Epoxy Art: Fluid Chromatic #127: Concentric Rings

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

Starkley Duncan's Diatribe with a Scorching Letter to the Editor

This letter to the editor made my day when I read it. Apparently when Marge read the paper, she didn't disapprove of the self-righteous, holier-than-thou articles paid for by cigarette ads. Nor did she have a beef with the decidedly unwholesome pictures of scantily clad women presented as the objects of dark desires, offering to sell their company to any and all takers. But when she read the words, "suck my dick," scribbled by a silly cartoonist in an exceedingly silly cartoon . . . well . . . not on her watch. Then again, maybe Marge is Hulk Hogan's agent.

Fortune Cookie Goodness

What has been implied here?

Sweet Chipmunk

I'm glad to put that sordid little episode behind us.

A Paunchy Haiku for Lars, Definitely Not the Right Number of Syllables

You know, on one hand we shouldn't blame ourselves for our farts, they are just the outgassings of bacteria, with the belching and the farting and the dumping and whatnot these wee murky blighters do.

But when you think about it some more, you go "nah" everybody knows some foods lay the stank down, it's been proven in the parlors, the boudoirs, the tiny enclosed crawlspaces, and phone booths across the nation--or on those special occasions when you wrap yourselves together in cling wrap--and then, oh yeah.

It was brought home to me with particular vehemence when you bent down to pick up a piece of wood the other night at the bonfire, so get over it, man.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Questionable Words, Colorful Sayings, and Phrases Designed to Induce a Moment of Wicked Juvenile Glee

jagged vicious cabbage fart (colorful, if somewhat gauche, phrase) A fart of singular character that rasps the cheeks, assaults the ears, and stings the nose.

While I was in the confessional, the priest unfurled a jagged vicious cabbage fart that tore through his priest hole like an errant porker. The children waiting outside burst into laughter. Regrettably, it would be the least of his public embarrassments. It is the nature of priests to be naughty and he was a priest to the core.

My friend Lars is a sometimes crotchety sometimes recluse. The other day I called him only to hear this message: "Even if I was trapped in a space suit brimming with jagged vicious cabbage farts and taking your call was the only way I could escape my own private Gary, Indiana, I still wouldn't pick up the phone."

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Useful Words, Colorful Sayings, and Phrases with Ripping Good Examples of Use

procrustean (adjective) To force disparate data or experiences to conform to a previously envisaged hypothesis or theory; to skew or modify the data so as to uphold the desired results; to force something to fit a certain standard sometimes by violent or coercive means.

Procrustean derives from Procrustes, a notorious highwayman of Attica and the son of Poseidon. Legend has it Procrustes lurked around the sacred way like a priest in the choir. Hail fellow and well met, he'd invite his marks back to his penthouse. After a couple of fish tacos, he'd invite them to crash on his bed for the night. Then things would go horribly awry. Procrustes would be all over his poor victim like tacky on Britney Spears. He'd try to stuff them into his bed (hence, Procrustes bed). If they were too short he'd stretch them on some sort of stretching mechanism until they fit the bed. If they were too tall, he reached for the Husqvarna. It was brutal and it went on for far too long. Thank goodness Theseus out Procrustesed Procrustes.

The procrustean tendencies of scientists who are paid to do research to promote a lucretive new medicine don't surprise me. What surprises me is the tendency toward procrustean thought in purportedly open-minded intellectuals.

The procrustean feminist set out to prove that porn is violence toward women. If a given movie didn't fit the procrustean bed she had set out, she reinterpreted it until it did.

Kayaking the Mississippi: Lock and Dam No. 1

I was amazed when I found out that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allows lone kayakers to go through the locks. All you do is pull a cord, wait for the voice at the other end, and ask to go through. Then you paddle into the compartment, a worker throws you a rope, and the compartment fills or empties depending on whether you are going up- or downstream. The first time I went through, I was a little apprehensive. I paddled into this dark caverous space with blackened walls covered with slimy moss. Then the massive doors behind me creaked shut. I felt a little claustrophobic and unsure about how fast the water would surge into the lock. But, the water came in relatively slowly, not churning wildly just roiling. I was paddling again in a few minutes.

I tend to avoid going through the locks. However, I greatly prefer them to some of the atrocious portages I have encountered further upstream on the Mississippi.

Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark

These two stinkers that are still unrepentantly stinkin' up the joint.

Epoxy Art Wallpaper

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.

Trapping Leeches

Chilton Lake, north of Frazee, Minnesota.

When I was thirteen, I was gung ho about making money. I caught frogs and sold them to bait dealers. I mowed lawns to make a few dollars a month. And I got an allowance of 50 cents/week. The coffers weren't full and making chump change couldn't slake my yen to amass a goodly pile of loot.

One day at school a classmate mentioned that he and his father trapped leeches, but he wouldn't tell me any details. I told my dad about it and he asked an acquaintance of his, the uncle of a bait dealer in town, if he knew how it was done. This kindly old guy did and he made free with the sage (which I will pass on in another post to anyone interested in making some extra money).

So I obtained, or made, the requisite stuff, homemade traps and bloody meat, and the hunt was on that Spring. After a few initial failures, I hit pay dirt. I set traps every evening, and checked them every morning. Within a couple of weeks I was catching up to fifteen pounds of leeches, an entire five gallon bucket full of the awful little creathers each day. Seven days a week, I would drag myself out of bed at four in the morning; ride my Solex moped to the lake; check the traps in my little pirogue; and ride home with my leech bucket strapped to the child seat on the back of my moped. If I had school, I was half asleep all day. Every evening, I would put out the traps again baited with fresh bull liver or kidneys the town butcher was generous enough to give me.

For the first month or so, I took my catch to a bait dealer in nearby Perham who always paid me $3.50/lbs in one-dollar bills, which I kept in piles hidden in my underwear drawer between trips to the bank. Then, my dad helped me land a deal to supply all of the stores at a large retail sporting store chain in Fargo, North Dakota. Every week I'd package three hundred dozen leeches in individual styrofoam containers. My dad and I would drive thirty miles to drop them off at the home of "the Gun Man," who gave me six-five cents a dozen for my labors. And, I hung out my own shingle to boot. I put out a sign in the front yard emblazoned with one word, "leechs." By mid-summer, I was clearing $350/week, a vast fortune to a kid from the sticks, living in Northern Minnesota during the late 1970s.

I have many vivid memories that I still conjure up when, if I can't help it, I'm up before the sun rises. I hated cutting up liver. I hated the smell of leeches and the fiberous blobs of bloodless organ meat remaining in the traps. I loved the brisk early dawn moped ride down the old county road and the bumpy, swooshing, windy ride through the hilly farm fields, past the lowing cows, at full throttle. I loved walking through the tussocks in the meadow by the lake and watching the sun rise and set while mucking around in my little boat.

The PBJ Lexicon: A Verbose Guide to Useful Words, Colorful Saying, and Phrases with Sumptuous Examples of Use

put some wax on it (colorful phrase which should be used at every opportunity) Hurry!; shake a leg; put the pedal to the metal; an injunction not to dawdle.

This phrase is derived from the age-old practice of applying wax to surfaces, such as skis, in order to facilitate speed and ease of use by reducing friction. There are many variations to the sentiment communicated therein such as the splashy, if nonsensical, "put some stank on it."

One night two young junior-high hooligans took some tar out of the bucket in the barn and headed down to the municipal liquor store in the sleepy burg of Frazee. They wandered through the darkened parking lot slathering car door handles with the thick black tar, chortling with clandestine glee. Suddenly, one of the little darlings saw a drunken stranger issue from the door of the bar. The incipient hoodlum turned to his pal, who was still spreading some creamy goodness on the inside of a handle, and implored him to "put some wax on it, someone's coming." Then the duo skedaddled out of the lot and high-tailed it toward the river. Behind them, they heard the sloppy yowl of one of their marks cursing at them and swearing all manner of revenge. No tarry-handed sots, no police ever caught them and I'm sure that at this late date a statute of limitations would preclude their arrest. Not that I'm all that familiar with this particular incident or anything.

Epoxy Art: Fluid Chromatic #145: Spiral

Click here to see a slide show of my Fluid Chromatics Epoxy Paintings.