After

lath

Remember this?

new bookshelves

The fine craftsmanship of Mike Nicely, general contractor. These particular bookshelves will soon house my poetry collection, but first I have one day more of touch-up work, including a final coat of varnish on the floor. And I must admit a certain reluctance to move all my stuff back in — or even the bare minimum of stuff necessary to make it habitable: chair, table, footstool… The room will never again seem as starkly beautiful and as full of possibilities as it does right now. Or as echoey.

[audio:http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/1/5/600283/Reelin.MP3]

Direct link to the MP3

19 Replies to “After”

  1. Wow, what a transformation. I know what you mean about the zen like simplicity and perfection, about not wanting to touch it but just enjoy the anticipation a bit longer. But you will add your books and furniture little by little – enjoy! And your music sounds awesome in that space.

  2. This is YOU playing?? How wonderful. I love mouth harp (do you call it that over there?) and in an echoey room sounds extraordinary, almost frighteningly intense. The room is indeed ‘starkly beautiful’. Enjoy arranging the poetry.

  3. Thanks, y’all.

    TG, I replaced the question mark with a period. We use the term “harp,” but usually only for blues – and I’m not nearly good enough to play a convincing blues harp, much as I love that style. (Click on the “Audio” category link if you want to hear more of my harmonica playing, such as it is.)

    Lucy, I tried to get the contractor’s dog to sing along yesterday, but she wouldn’t make a peep. There’s an album by the Texas newgrass band Bad Livers, “Horses in the Mines,” where they have a dog on vocals for several of the tracks, and I’ve always wanted to imitate that.

  4. Nice job! I can certainly understand the reluctance to “touch” the fresh creation, but that’s how things go…

  5. Very nice. Bookshelves are the absolute best background. You could do some self-portraits after you get your books up there–you know, the kind on dust jackets with the author in a tweed coat with his books behind him.

  6. I used to have a tweed coat, but I outgrew it. But it didn’t have patches on the elbows – I’d need that.

    Yeah, they had to be deep to have room where the heating pipe was enclosed. Good eye.

  7. Wow. Talk about Making Sense! That’s very cool – I didn’t know you played!

    Bet that lath-and-plaster was heavy to cart outside. I actually like the bare look before paint and carpentry. But it’s a wonderful transformation, and I hope you’ll post a photo of the shelves with the books on them.

  8. Too bad books suck up so much sound.
    Yeah. But without wall-to-wall carpeting, I think it’ll still be much superior acoustically to what I had before.

  9. Anything I could use w/out inducing total sinus system meltdown would be hugely appreciated, thanks.

    Hey, If you’re coming to visit, I’ll have to bottle up my next batch of homebrew. It’s been sitting in the seondary for, like, six weeks now. Mostly because I still have plenty to drink up from the earlier batches.

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