We could fill up *two* Vietnam Veterans Memorials so far with the names of Americans killed by coronavirus. The wall at the Memorial spans 18 years, however. The 115,000 people dead as of tonight’s count left us in less than six months. We will grieve this for generations.
Author: cbcrenshaw
C.B. Crenshaw is a musician, artist, writer, coder, gardener, and maker in Alabama.
Minute Wild
I haven’t been doing a great job lately of promoting my Minute Wild videos, but hey, you can always visit the channel on Youtube. Now with 17 minutes of enriching content! 😉
Maybe you would like to spend a minute alongside the lapping waters of the Gulf of Mexico? I’ve got you.
Need a minute in the woods to recenter? I’ve got you.
Maybe you’d like to visit the lake instead? I’ve got you, too.
I’m always adding more–if by always you mean, say, once or twice a month–so check back every now and then and you’ll probably find something new.
2001: A Shirt Odyssey
I did, at least, manage to screen print (and tie-dye) my first shirt!
Existential Angst
I am not a prolific worker. I swing from one overpowering interest to another, some times multiple times in one day, leaving a trail of bread crumbs of work behind me. Over time, those crumbs have piled pretty high; but the horizon of fascinating new things to think about, to read and write about, to do and make, is no nearer today than it was ten years ago. Maybe one day I can put the crumbs together into a loaf, but the older I get, the less likely it seems.
So here I am. Working on a million things that may never see light. What next?
I don’t have answers tonight, only anxiety.
Minute Wild: Gulf of Mexico at Alligator Point
Hey, the weather can’t always be nice.
Sixteen Pines
Sixteen pines mark my quarantine transect
this little quadrangle a world of worlds
of being and becoming
of platonic forms shaping
future dream etudes where I
spin in Fibonacci circles to see it all
and always fail
These sixteen pines a Myrmidon crew
serving petulant songbirds dashing
from light to shadow
Their songs the hymns of Ithaca
the hymns I have always known
Well, such is the aviary
these sixteen pines
a mighty dialectic
Public Lands No. 1
We use these pull cards at DEP when we check out files. Each one of the file numbers written on this card corresponds to a lease of State-owned lands. I thought it would be neat to take a couple of the old cards that were used up and paint one of the projects someone used the card to work on. I picked the lease number at random. This one ended up being a jetty on submerged lands in Boca Raton. I’ll do an uplands lease next.
Camera Roll: St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge
Barely an hour south of Tallahassee, a magical world awaits. I got a few Minute Wild videos in addition to these photos. Look for those in this space soon.
Historian Frank Laumer, on Biography
The search for another is assuredly a paper trail, a veritable scavenger hunt; an old laundry ticket, a letter to a friend, statistics of a life, a book he read, or better a book he wrote.
Frank Laumer, Introduction to A narrative of the early days and remembrances of Oceola Nikkanochee, prince of Econchatti
Tumbling Tumbleweeds
So I’m doing this whole thing on the Florida “cracker mythos” for my research (don’t ask unless you want the elevator pitch) and wanted to share one of the most important cultural texts of the twentieth century. No joke. Gene Autry absolutely FREAKED OUT Willie and Waylon and half the country music establishment who have provided the soundtrack to the American consensus since the 1950s. This wasn’t the original version–that was recorded by Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers in 1934 and later by Gene Autry in a film of the same name in 1935–but this version is one of the best. Just look at that landscape in the background!
Including this song in the Big Lebowski wasn’t just an ironic joke, either, but that’s probably a different discussion altogether.
C.B. Crenshaw 