INDIAN HILL

Check out these new features on Indian Hill -- The Listening Room , and 'B' Sides --musical posts I'll drop in from time to time.                 Click on the feature just below the blog title, directly above .   Nothing artificial, no additives, au naturel...let me know what you think.  Thanks!

In the next booth--right in my line of sight-- the conversation of the men turned to cremation, burial plans, plots, tombstones and insurance for all of the above  and my chorizo and egg burrito which is normally delicious laid untouched on the plate Old men talking exit strategies--as if they're dealing stocks, antiques maybe, selling short... I turned to the sports page Where there is no news about minor league baseball teams that I like to read so I look at stories of the Lakers who are losing two playoff games in a row Maybe they are getting old, too

Tonight I sit   out on the cold deck at midnight   and smoke a small cigar with   a glass of brandy-- The moon will track the sky Maybe coyotes will howl Trains will rumble and blow their whistles   and hawks will be ready in the morning to do    their work Like all nights   But tonight this is my night

Huc Mazelet Luquiens is a Hawaiian print maker who founded Honolulu's Printmakers, the Island's oldest professional art organization.  I discovered his prints in a hotel when I stayed there years ago and found his prints available at a couple of galleries. I bought three prints from Robyn Buntin of Honolulu. Luquiens is also available at Douglas Frazier Fine Art in Seattle Wa. http://www.frazerfineart.com/SearchE2.asp?At=HucMazeletLuquiens http://www.robynbuntin.com/Polynesian/g_polynesian_ind.asp?ProductID=12531  

With a vibe I'd recalled from some Zen retreat, maybe a restaurant in Big Sur, it stands around the corner from where I live and buy gas and get Starbucks and I'd been by it for twenty years, wondering what it was, this white structure with the wide-terraced entrance.  Sandwiched between a mid-modern apartment complex and a day care center, it's a doctor's office, and I was in it today, referred from the medical center that had diagnosed my bumpy-head, red-blotched burning scalp and forehead as shingles, a nerve inflammation caused by a virus that crawls up nerves from it's dormant hiding place in the spinal column and fires up tingly sensations and more.  Not serious, unless it gets near the eyes.  Where mine is.  And that's where it gets interesting. Ophthalmologists, they work here.  They examine eyes and perform surgeries and help people, in this quiet sanctuary with a lure that I couldn't identify but could vaguely feel. When the doctor came in to check

When the earth shook I was comfortable in my leather chair Not wanting anything Unafraid The power knocking off patio lights,  Stripped branch leaning from winter storms no longer etched in mourning light from the zonked lamp planted in the dirt.  It was off. Smoking a cigarette at sunset--that's the only time--before night falls, and I wondered if the sun would come around in the morning. Nature, having a way with light, shaking of earth.   All things, really.  

On a crisp gray Sunday morning I Jeep down the freeway, averting Easter bunnies hopping lanes and clogging sight-lines, OK--there weren't many, but this cruise-savvy Jeep guy was looking to make Huntington Beach for a walk in the sand, but no.  Freeways bore me now.  Usually I'm a cruise-savvy Jeep guy winging along the 57 to the 60, the numbers blurring into a spaghetti-tangle of asphalt, but the drive no longer intrigues me now .  It takes too long to get anywhere.  U-turn, big guy, around the loop and back into town, stopping at Wolfe's Market; CLOSED.  Down around the corner from the already-buzzing farmer's market where growers gather with anyone with enough coin to hoist a tent-tarp, my old favorite hangout, Some Crust Bakery; CLOSED.   There's Vince, backing out of the space in front of the Crust and I cell-phone him, alert him I'm following, stalking, lurking, and he agrees to pull over in front of The Good Earth where we shake hands in the middle of th