It's hot. Like really hot. I always wish I could get into it more than I do. For a long time I thought it was all about the clothes. You know, wear the right clothes dig the heat more. Nope. I haven't been able to figure that one out. Now I think it's all about swimming. And believe me, there are plenty of perfect places for a cool dip. It's just that the heat seems to swipe all my motivation. For everything, including swimming. Ehh, I'm just in transition - you know from spring to summer. This coming week is my last of the semester. Technically, I'm still waiting for word on my summer teaching schedule but the range of possibilities is pretty narrow.

Feeling influenced and inspired by two things as of late. I've been watching that newish HBO series, Treme. It's a drama based in post-Katrina New Orleans. I know this is TOTALLY cliche, but the music is the main character. Lots of a-maz-ing jazz has left me feeling good. Mix it up with some Bulleit bourbon and we've got a party -- a nice, slow, sweltering party.

The other thing is this idea of a rural life marked by craftsmanship. Welding is coming to an end this week and I'm going to miss it. Not sure how I'll continue since outside of a class it seems kind of impossible to access the machinery. Unless I lived a rural life with a shop and time to play. I read an article in the NY Times this morning about Paul Fuchs. He's a blacksmith, sculptor and musician. Life sounds delightful.


"Across the 30 or so rolling acres of his farm in southwestern Tuscany, the German sculptor and musician Paul Fuchs, 74, cultivates the Giardino dei Suoni, his Garden of Sounds. Weighing tons, his spindly abstractions of steel and bronze — “The Long I,” “Cut Out,” “0 + 1” — inscribe the landscape like quick strokes and squiggles of some titan’s pen.

Apart from the principal dwelling, a stable for the horses and a workshop that sometimes doubles as a gallery, his Tuscan compound has a barn packed with an astonishment of instruments: a thunder sheet here; a suspended assemblage of hollowed-out wooden blocks there; assorted bells, whisks and sticks. There are motorized sound generators too, one outfitted with heavy-duty rubber boots. Mr. Fuchs likes to move among all these at an unhurried pace, spinning out his exotic, hushed yet earthy toccatas.

Mr. Fuchs’s second wife, Gaby, is a carpenter, and together they have three children, all of whom have flown the nest. A woman of many talents, she whips up a rustic plate of pasta garnished with herbs and tomatoes from her garden, converts tracks from vinyl LPs long out of print into handy MP3 files and attends to business correspondence. The Fuchses seldom leave the property now, and their appetite for modern conveniences is selective. They pump their water by hand."

NYTimes, 5/8/11, MATTHEW GUREWITSC