Category: Artifacts

I wrapped the presents with blue tape and old drawing sheets.

He tore them with gusto.
Minutes undid two nights of work.

My wife marveled at the flight of four years.
I reminisced about my first renovation at the State.

The kids played.
She enjoyed the gifts more than her brother.

Except the book with a giant spider on the cover.

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I hope we can all agree that the long run is made up of a bunch of short runs.
That seems obvious.
The surprising thing is that we live our short runs as if that isn’t true.

“The long run (and the short runs)” by Seth Godin.

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䷴䷫

On the mountain, a tree: the image of development.

My wife was making cupcakes with the kids.
While pouring batter, I saw a familiar consistency.

“Could we make popsicles with this batter?”

“Popsicles?!”

“Uh, I meant pancakes.”

The kids started chanting.

“Popsicles and Pancakes!”
“Popsicles and Pancakes!”

Standing on a chair, he bounced with each “P”.

“Popsicles and Pancakes!”
“Popsicles and Pancakes!”

That’s enough.
It’s bedtime.

“Popsicles and Pancakes!”
“Popsicles and Pancakes!”

“We have to dance first!”

“Popsicles and Pancakes!”
“Popsicles and Pancakes!”
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The road-runner is one of the mildest-looking and most graceful birds of the desert, but the spring of the wild-cat to crush down a rabbit is not more fierce than the snap of the bird’s beak as he tosses a luckless lizard.

from “Winged Life” in The Desert, by John C. Van Dyke

䷄䷦

“it furthers one to cross great water”

Fifteen years ago, I resisted the smart phone.
Why would I want to be tethered to the internet?

Now, I abstain in public so my enlightened ass can feel “present”.

Snobbery has come full circle.

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literature as an existential fuction, the search for lightness as a reaction to the weight of being.

from “Lightness” in Six Memos for the Next Millenium, by Calvino.

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Another overproofed dough.

Baked anyway.

Sliced thin.

Freeze half.

We’ll toss a third at the duckpond.

The rest to sabotage my diet.

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I couldn’t very well say, “What an awful thing happened,” or “This story is very gruesome,” because I would make a fool of myself. That kind of thing must be left to the readers, not to writers. Otherwise the whole thing goes to pieces.

from “Prose” in Borges on Writing

䷱䷝

Translucent white tape covered the vitamin jar.

Rings of tape banded the table legs.

The seat was covered in florets of tape.

The back had two balls of tape

And a big white smile.

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Once your objective is clear – once you know why – you can begin to prepare your message. Balance everything you plan to say against your objective.

from “Your Objective” in How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds – or Less, by Milo O. Frank

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It’s a short walk between the stairs and the kitchen.

A row of lego creatures lined the path.

Behind them, our cohort of our stuffed animals stood at attention.

I salute the honor guard and slink towards the snacks.

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[The sentence]
It names the world, using the actual names the world already contains.
Perhaps it renames the world.
And this is only the beginning.

from Several short sentences about writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg

䷒䷙

My dad bought a new touchscreen computer.
Today’s zoom call was filled with caricatures on a digital whiteboard.
He drew mice, then a cat.
My daughter caged the cat.
The boy asked for a bear.
My dad drew the head; she added the body.
A racing dog and a silly elephant.
An angry bull and a gorilla.
A fish with a cavernous jaw facing a squiggly worm.
The girl hooked the worm with a fishing line but changed her mind.
She dressed the worm and fish in dark suits with red ties.
She gave them a computer.
My dad added a mouse, with two buttons.

I did the same at her age.
On rice paper.
A black cotton ball with a beak and claws in front of a brood of chicks.

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Rule a big country
the way you cook a small fish.

from “60” in the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (transl. Ursula K. Le Guin)

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A ravenous flock pursued us on the lawn.

We fled.

She was his age, last time we fed the ducks.

Today, the waterfowl waited patiently in the pond.

They’ve learned manners over the pandemic.

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The bottom of the quail’s foot is always itching for the ground ; and he seems never so happy as when leaving the enemy far behind him. His little legs take him through the brush so fast that you cannot keep up with him. Every muscle in him is as tough as a watch-spring.

from “Winged Life” in The Desert by John C. Van Dyke

䷨䷼

Our backyard is a sea of landscape rocks.

A shaded corner harbors a scrawny patch of wild grass.

The boy harvests the grain.

He severs the seeds from their slender stalks with a chipped rock.

It was her idea.

They’ve discovered the stone age.

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Nothing means anything except by having qualities.
The world is woven by thrummed strings.

from “Pronouns & Roles”, by Fred Hatt

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He jumped off a box set of Roald Dahl books onto the ottoman.

He jumped back onto the floor to repeat this routine.

He paused and stared at the hanging light in the center of the room.

He grabbed the box set, placed it on the ottoman, climbed up, stepped on top of the books, and stretched.

He was a few inches short but grabbed my attention.

He didn’t get a second chance.

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For Lucretius, letters were atoms in continual motion, creating the most diverse words and sounds by means of their permutations.

“Lightness”, from Six Memos for the Next Millenium, Italo Calvino

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