Mahoosuc

In lieu of a post today, I bring you pictures from my recent backpacking adventure, courtesy of Helen Hougen. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/g.s.albright/Mahoosuc#

P.S. I'm going camping with the grandparents starting tomorrow till Monday. Expect no posts.

Accent

"Well, my sista's nephew, he did it [dancing] professionally, but he hadta quit, 'cause of his calves, ya know. So then he became a Gusa. Ya know what a Gusa is? Yeah, I didn't eitha. He gets up early, and he rides the ferry over ta the Statue of Liberty. He has a dog, and he walks around with the dog chasing the geese away. So they call him a Gusa."

 -Roland, speaking to me in church this morning.

Haiku

I recently heard a piece on NPR postulating that haiku is the new light verse. At first I was reticent. Haiku, when done well, is beautiful, and I would hate to demean a form that boasts such beauty and tradition. But here are a few New Hampshire haiku, some attempts to compress my experiences in the granite state into a few moments.

In the shop, we are
silent, even when the power
tools don't drown us out.

New Hampshire, with lawns
from Oklahoma; with Phil-
-adelphia's air.


From the shop to the
house, we brush flies and sawdust
with the same motions.

Anyone else with moments of their life to share in a 17-syllable poem, often featuring nature imagery, condensing a feeling into a brief moment?

Woodworking Update

(top: the shop. bottom: the train)
I’ve graduated from sanding to more general apprentice tasks: screwing, drilling, use of table, band, and radial arm saws, etc. I’ve also (with supervision) begun creating projects in a start-to-finish kind of way. This is what I love. I’m working on a table. I made two little househould organizer things. And I helped with this train. Most of the planning was done, but I got to make a few decisions about execution (and see the smokestack? I cut that flare by hand!). There's a bench inside for the engineer.

Sawdust

Most of my time in the woodshop these past few days has been time sanding. I have never spent much time sanding, or thinking about sanding, but now I have plenty of time. Sanding is the kind of work that sits pleasantly astride the barrier between tedious work and difficult work. It allows plenty of mental energy for other thought, but requires enough concentration so as not to be monotonous.

Sanding involves changing the wood. In particular, it involves removing wood. Most ways that I have learned to change the wood have involved removing: saws, routers, sanders, planes all remove wood. Even the nail, which ostensibly bonds two pieces of wood together, creates holes in both of them. The removing of the wood occupied my thoughts for a while, until I realized that all that wood was going somewhere.

Now, when I leave the shop, I seem prematurely gray. I have a halo of sawdust, and it builds small cabinets in my nostrils.

Life Update:
I'll be out backpacking from tomorrow until early July. Don't expect posts for a while.

Writing, Address

As you may have gathered from the (fact of the) previous post, I'm safely installed in New Hampshire. In the basement of the house shared by my maternal grandparents, my mother's brother, his wife, and their children. My room shares the basement with my cousin's bedroom, the combination storage and exercise room, and the family room, currently home to a string of world cup soccer games on the TV.

I realize, reading back over this blog, that I dislike much of what I've written here. The content is fine, but the form is lacking. Perhaps this is a result of my too-long hiatus from the craft. Perhaps this awareness arises from my recent re-reading of my favorite practitioners. Whatever the case is, I hope, in the future, to steer this weblog back towards the reason for its creation: keeping in touch with you all, yes, but also Writing.

That will be forthcoming. For now, here's my mailing address, should you be interested in mailing me anything. I will respond to all letters I receive.

Greg Albright
c/o Magan
185 New Orchard Road
Epsom, NH 03234


Banjo Update:
After much tinkering, the banjo is playable. I am learning picking patterns. I am not allowed to practice in the house.

To New Hampshire

I’m leaving for New Hampshire tomorrow. I’ll be living together with my grandparents, my aunt, uncle, and cousins. I’ll be learning woodworking from my (highly accomplished) grandfather. I’ll still have internet, so I will continue to post to this blog. Still, I’m leaving my parents’ house in Allentown, so here are a few pictures from recent times in the city.

And though I won’t be traveling by train, I wanted to share this bit of E.B. White’s prose: “Only after many years did I learn that an escaping train carries away with it nothing vital to my health. Railroad trains are such magnificent objects we commonly mistake them for Destiny.”