Hi. Been inundated with legal stuff, some re my passed father, some re a Will. I'll comment again in the morning. (Have seen everything, regardless.) I wrote the following in one sitting, and I can't guarantee it'll all 'flow'! But I wanted to post it now, as tomorrow's the last day of October. So bear with any lacks...I try to celebrate every season here, with art or writing (or both), and this is my "October" celebration. I hope it makes sense to you! (I start with August, but I get to October quickly...) Not easy to post an unedited piece, but tomorrow's the 31st, so I hope it's lucid enough to be enjoyable... I'll be back in the morning. Have a great end of October! And thanks, as always, for your wonderful care and visits. I appreciate every one! Mark ------------------ August's end---the gateway to fall---is a teeming time: The earth is golden-amber, and it radiates; the sunsets are spectacular in the Midwest, beaming reds so intense you have to squint your eyes to see them, everything is in song---crickets, who may sing all summer-long, seem at their most aggressive at summer's end with their buzz-saw scratchings and strafing, as pungent as the now-mature plants and fruits soon to fall away for fall. To me, because of their special intensity at summer's end, they're like the theater bells, the heralding bells that summer's soon going to be over, and we should prepare for the fall. Crickets make their noise by rubbing their wings: And they have combs on their wings; so, when they rub them, it's like us rubbing our fingers across a comb: that sound. And over and over, scratch, scratch, strafe, strafe...It's how they say they're open for sex. (Strange way, too. I don't think I'd get very far standing on a street corner flicking my comb...) But, with those little combs, they fill the air with their signature strafing, scratchy calls, which, in late August, seem at their peak: The air is cooler but still warm, the trees and plants are teeming in golds and ambers, everything is fragrant, everything is lush, summer is putting on its most lavish pageant, and insects and birds make such a din, you almost can 'touch' it. It's a glorious time. And, soon all that heat will blow away, and cold winds and rains will come, and fall will begin its pageant---which reaches its peak this month: in October. Now I've written about this before, you might feel I'm repeating myself. But it's a ritual: The trees change, yellows and reds suddenly burst into the world, some trees turn a luminous, hot pink---those hues last a day, but god are they piercing and gorgeous. The smell now is that stinging fragrance of dying leaves, which seem to give up the ghost with a kind of 'sweetening', a honeyed odor like nothing else, to match the honeyed hues everywhere this time of year. In my childhood, that was punctuated with the stinging smell of burning leaves, and their soothing crackles going well into the night. But...no more. It's outlawed around here. Still...the smell of those dying gorgeous leaves, giving up the ghost as they become soil for another season, another generation: It's a sublime smell. And it's one of the reasons I am out every day, busy or lazy, sick or well, in the fall...to breathe in that unique fragrance. And it's the last time of year when things are still lush. And a different lush---not the lush of July or of the Spring: It's the lush of maturity, the final curtain call of nature's fullness before winter, a grand opera and ballet when everything is ablaze in eye-bending hues, and the leaves start carpeting the earth. I mean, imagine: If we threw everything we owned on the ground and just left it there, we'd be arrested! But trees drop everything---and I mean everything---in a matter of weeks; and they don't blink an eye. But as a result, everywhere you walk, crunch, crunch, crunch: that delicious sound of leaves giving their last performance---as music-makers, waiting for us to 'play' them, as a massive set of drums waiting for us to coax out their music. It sounds corny, but it's true. It's just what we do. And even in the high rises of my district---which tower over the trees, I mean they make the trees seem like little weeds, if you view them from on high---even there, the leaves are everywhere, crunching away, carpeting everything. Leaves don't stop for high rises... And the sky---especially now--turns an inimitable silver, that glowing silver-gray that promises eventual winter, but is still glowing with fall. That's the sky out there as I write this. And, even during the day---if it's cloudy (and it is, around now)---it looks like someone turned on night-lights in the sky: It glows. The whole 'ceiling' over your head is a luminous silver. Nothing like it any other time of the year. Another thing I adore about this season... Finally, I was walking this week through the many side streets by my home. My area is loaded with small streets, cul-de-sacs, hidden pathways, even alleys which have opulent mansions tucked away in their corners and caverns, with entrances gushed with vines and flowers and bushes that only a few people see...This is an intensely crammed area, crammed with people, cars, high rises, you name it: And yet, street after street, there are tiny pathways, curved flower-lined walkways, small streets that last all of a block filled with intimate home after intimate home, crammed between high rises and towers. And all these little dwellings scale this massive towering city down to 'human' level, close, intimate, dear: Those little brownstones and red brick mansions and early moderns---which Chicago partially created---bring this looming district down to human level and focus you on the small things, the intimate things. And the endless canopies of trees make you feel like the towers have dissolved into the clouds, and the universe has been whittled down to a glorious, plush, personal, intimate promenade, as if it were decked out with the most lavish scarves, decorative fans and stoles, just for you. I've peopled my gallery with these sights, from every season of the year. But no photos can capture what they feel like. My area is filled wrought iron fences, they're everywhere, holding in one tiny, lush garden after the next; and little pathways between buildings, and tiny courtyards with more flowers, more lush bushes and trees. And several blocks south? Where you get into the heavy high rises---I mean tower after tower (Chicago was the birthplace of the skyscraper, and you never feel it more than in that district)---where the streets are lined with high-end hoity-toity shops (Prada, Gucci, Saks Fifth Avenue, you name it: You walk one block towards that lake, and, voila! Every other building's a small dwelling, with its own little garden teeming in eye-bending reds and purples (and Halloween ghosts and skulls and gravestones), and cul-de-sacs, and intimate courtyards (which you can walk through!), etc etc. Even the high rises are only visible---due to the mass of overhanging trees blocking them out---via their entrances: Suddenly high rises are nothing but sheer glass lobbies, which glow like jewels day and night---esp poignant in late afternoon, when the sky starts to transition to night (the "genius" time of day, according to one author), and the lights start to reflect off the glass, making the streets feel like a series of diamonds, decked out in front of you, for miles. And so it struck me (to draw this to a conclusion): For our time here on earth, we've managed---in the face of all the cruelty and madness of human existence---to pour our most opulent, beauty-laden and love-laden genius all over everything we touch. I've been in countries that were dominated by horrible dictators, but so many streets were still filled with the cornucopia of human beauty and love, flowers out a window, scarves and fabrics hanging over the ledges, the tiny signs of a family gracing the facades, the porches, the walkways. They're like a vast plumage of humanity. You can't avoid that---it's what we do; and it's the spark behind all art, and it'll come out no matter what. So while it was drizzling, and the winds were strong---this week in my town---and it was 40 freezing degrees (4.44 C)---the beauty all around me was eminently warm, immensely welcoming, and gorgeous; and those trees, still full of leaves, make you feel you're walking in a lush outdoor living room, laid out by some hidden royalty who wants you to feel you're as important, at this moment, as anything in the world; and, above everything else, to remind you that you're welcome. In that spirit, let me wish you all a lush, flowering and wonderfully lavish mid-fall. In the ancient world this was a time of auspicious spirits and lush rituals to the living and the dead. It teemed. While winter will soon take over (with its own strange beauty), nature now is in its most sumptuous gowns. And the cold is still filled with lush, warm offerings everywhere. I hope they visit your lives...And Happy halloween everybody! And the end of a sumptuous October... I'll comment more in the morning... ------------------