c. 2025 Rod Ice
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(1-25)
Weekends at the Swindle Shack take on a unique character during winter months. My rural neighborhood, populated by residents who work with their hands and survive on a social fringe nearly invisible to those around us, becomes sleepy. Temperatures below freezing, and bouts of lake-effect snowfall, turn our streets into plowed ruts that are often difficult to navigate. The constant din of Pop Country tunes abates temporarily. Noises of pallet boards being screwed together, and diesel trucks laboring to tug loads of rubbish and poorhouse possessions, fades with the season. All these things contribute to a splendid isolation that makes it easier to sit at my desk and work on creative projects. Yet while in this lonely vortex, it becomes particularly easy to peer backward into the past, and reflect on what went before. During such moments, I find myself tipping toward a mood of introspection, and a greater awareness of how far I have traveled. Not only in geographical terms, but also as a voyager through the cultural cosmos.
Generally, that sort of pondering is a habit I avoid in favor of getting work done at the keyboard. But a recent episode of artful experimentation, streamed via a station in Acra, New York, brought harmony between thoughts of yesterday, and my current situation.
When I awakened just after sunrise, the thermometer registered 17 degrees, Fahrenheit. My adopted feline, a plump, patchy, abandoned stray who chose to enter the household by chance over the summer, dozed on the back of our sofa. Once I had begun to make coffee and loosen the arthritic stiffness in my joints, she purred and meowed and stationed herself by the front door. Because of the frosty climate, and swelling ground underneath my home, I had been unable to fully close this portal for about a week. It was simply shut far enough to put its outside edge against the frame. Yet being hinged at an angle, recessed into an inset cubicle of space that formed a small porch, no one passing by could detect this flaw.
My kitty companion had been in the wild for long enough that she eschewed using a litter box. Instead, throughout the day, her choice was to exit for periodic breaks in the yard. Something more akin to a dog than a furry example of her own species. She stood waiting as I hobbled over with a disability cane, and ignored my caveat about the numeric plunge that had occurred overnight. Once set free, she bunny-hopped on a mound of snow at the top of our steps, and disappeared.
Her ritual left me alone inside, with my caffeine reserve and a broadcast of morning news on television. I sat in silence while watching replayed videos of wildfires in California, some of which were perilously close to areas where members of my own family had lived, in past years. The scenes depicted in graphic detail were shocking to witness and chilling, emotionally.
As reporters declared with repetition, it was a hellscape, both apocalyptic and surreal.
From my remote region of Ohio, this environmental calamity seemed very far away, indeed. Removed by distance and also the strata of civilized communities that lay between golden neighborhoods on the Pacific Ocean, and more humble districts south of Lake Erie. But I felt a deep connection with those mourning this tragic collapse. The need for safety and security, for a home base upon which to build a dependable family structure, was universal. Something that any onlooker could view with a tender moment of prayer and sensitivity. To hear of politicking on social media platforms only turned my stomach. I reckoned it was a time to help those in need, and seek healing for all. Not to toss darts at a board, with the hope of a bullseye score.
Sadly, a dark underbelly of vengeance was exposed in this moment of need.
After an hour or more of mentally digesting live reports from the west coast, I felt drained. Yet bound by a citizen duty to be informed, and to offer positive vibrations for the human continuum with my own psychic energy. Then, the big-faced clock perched atop my entertainment center registered a time on Saturday morning marked in my head for several years.
It was now, nearly the moment when a chum from yonder days, a maker of musical deconstruction and performance art, would be working his magic spell via WGXC 90.7 FM. Something that I was able to peruse over the internet.
His ongoing project, titled Radio Wonderland, was a real-time remix of everyday radio signals into something more complex, and funky. A rhythmic dance of deployed sound-bits, interacting with each other and providing a canvas for audio brushstrokes, all moving with purpose.
I moved from the living room to a back office where my computer and file cabinets formed an arch over the workspace. A safe spot where I could listen and marvel at the talent of this contact made so long ago. Someone I first met while serving an apprenticeship at Channel 13, in Ithaca, a city located in the Finger Lakes Region. Though we had not seen each other since sometime in the early 1980’s, our connection remained active.
I sorted through mail left from my last excursion to town, while listening. A personal challenge came from trying to guess which particular word or phrase might inspire a creative burst. I would hang on these sounds, not so much for their lingual content, but as rendered notes and drumbeats, for composing a tonal timeline. In the spirit of weaving a garment, all of these dissected parts ultimately came together as a new creation. That was the yield of every show.
As a spectator, I would hear and attempt to predict what might transpire next.
Once this entertaining half-hour was complete, I realized that my morning had slipped forward, toward noon. There was a scratching at the front door. My catty companion had satisfied her feral desires, and was now ready for a meal from her bowl by the kitchen sinks, and a nap in our household recliner.
I felt strangely reconnected, with emotional energy flowing both east and west in an example of synchronicity. From my heart, to those struggling with the wrath of Mother Nature, in effect. And from my mind, to the nexus made by a kindred spirit, with his unique vision in recycled wavelengths, caught on a vintage, boom-box receiver.
Unsurprisingly, Miss Fur Face did not care too much about the relevance of my personal experience. She was simply glad to find a warm place in my lap. And then, a soft blanket in her favorite chair.
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