Blog-azic

I was reminded, just last weekend, what my birthday would bring to me. That is, thirty years! Time marches on. I can remember my mother's thirtieth birthday. I was young - perhaps, five or six. The party was thrown by Aunt Berda at her house in the poor section of the West Side. We arrived early, and shouted when my mom walked in the door. Surprise! These bottles also reminded me of my age. To think, one of my first bottles of wine - a brew of Elder and Lemon Balm - has returned to me.

An old bandmate linked to these photos on FB. I had almost forgotten this concert! It was the fall in 2007, a long, and hot autumn. Silo Circuit had asked me to play banjo, and this was one of my first, and truthfully few, shows. We shared the Union's stage with Beat the Devil and Meanz. Jonas Hart captured our image ...

I am not chris tomazic. I don't have his ears, his cochlea, his inferior colliculi, his cortical regions that are so finely tuned to frequency and cordance discrimination. I don't have his motor skills or his tactile sensitivity, which has allowed him to discriminate between pressing too hard and pressing too soft on a particular guitar string. I don't have his years of experience, his knowledge of the staff, or of audio technology. Most of all, I don't have his passion. I can't, won't, and before him, would never dream of playing the same song over and over, no less the same chord. So, here I am to you, not the Chris Tomazic. Not the talent, not the skill, and not the passion that was required to produce the song that you are about to hear. I like to think that I was possibly the inspiration, but that prestigious assignment more than likely belongs to the mountains, to the wind, to quantum physics. My involvement is no more than a mere coincidence of time ...

I returned to my southern home - pelted all the way through North Carolina by rain, rain, and more rain - to a singular surprise. I expected some standing water, having seen it before in heavy rain, but here was more than one mystery to solve ... In the first place, the water is terribly high - alarmingly high - and looking back upon the facts, I do assume that it was at an earlier time even higher. Secondly, that is no my car at the end of the drive! That car, in fact, belongs to some rental car company. That, I was told by the tow operator who picked it up late in the evening. I cannot say at what time the car was stuck. I took this picture at about 5 pm (on Sunday, June 30). The tower told me that all local tow companies had been called to tow cars from the University Mall earlier in the day. He then showed me the puddled water in this car's cabin. NOAA reports that nearly five inches of rain fell from Sunday morning to Monday morning. Indeed, a Rubbermaid near the back ...

One of the first spring flowers I saw, Spring Star Flower, went unidentified for a month or more.  I quickly identified this as Stichwort on a run through Adam's Tract (in Carrboro, NC). However, considering that there appear to be 10 petals instead of 5 deeply cleft petals, I am questioning my original analysis.  After extensive searching online, I confirmed that this fungus (growing on a Red Cedar) is a Cedar-Apple Rust, Gymnosporangiumnidus-avis.  Is this, perhaps, the true and elusive Stichwort?  This delicate herb of stream banks reminds me of Yellow Corydalis.  This sedge is prolific in the woods. 

On my last day of training in Bradenton, FL, I woke up before dawn to make it back to Celery Field one last time. The air was humid but cool, and the skies were clear. The whole western sky was bright, liquid gold. I had to stand behind the roof supports for the shade. The pond seemed fully awake, but there was no great bustle. I heard some cranes trumpet as they flew low towards the rising sun, and there were small birds chirping in the reed grass. On a distant shore, a limpkin walked along. The yellow, decurved bill, the eggy body shape, and the snaky neck reminded me of a Dr. Seuss character. It plodded along in the water, dropping its head down the mucky bottom. After a few minutes of watching, I saw it pull up a mussle and take it on shore to open. "The whole western sky was bright, liquid gold." Off in the distance, a line of trees outlines a peninsula of land in the marsh. Plain above the branches, perched and surveying his territory, sat the Lord of birds. ...

My lunch breaks in Florida were spent surveying the nearby ponds. Watching the surface of the water through binoculars, I could see bubbles rise up to the surface of the dark water. Every so often, something would splash sending out telling ripples. It was clear to me that the water was quite alive. Right outside the office, sheltered by trees at three sides, and located on a dead-end street, was a small pond. It was here that I first spotted an alligator, as I returned after a walk. He swam across the water, partialy submerged, so that no movement from his tail or feet could be seen. As I approached, he sunk low leaving only the tip of his snout and his black eyes above the water. The next day, I went back to find him floating motionless on one side of the pond near the drainage input. In addition to him, I could see two turtles poking just their heads above the water (black and streaked with yellow), a small, diving duck, and a Florida cormorant. I sat on the bank and watche...