Friday, June 20, 2025

Matches to Start a Kindling of Insight
May the Light from Your Inner Fireplace Help All Beings
Taoist, Chan Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, Philosophers
Catching Phrases, Inspiring Verses, Koans, Meditations
Indexing, Bibliography, Quotations, Notes, Resources
Research by Michael P. Garofalo

The Fireplace Records
By Michael P. Garofalo

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Text Art: Exhibit 7

Philosophical Fortnights Lettrisme Style Reseau Mondail

Hendrick N. Werkman, 1940

Michael Morris

Movie Poster for "Devil's Harvest" in 1942

Lettrisme Exhibition Booklet

Book Cover for Michael Petry

Alphabet Square by Emmett Williams

TextArt

Concrete Poetry and TextArt Directory and Guide

Exhibits at the Cyber Garden Gazebo

Graphic Arts: Shape Poems: Lettrisme

Sunday TextArt Exhibits

Sunday, June 15, 2025

Father's Day

Michael James Garofalo (1/10/1916-4/2/1997)

My father, Michael James Garofalo, died on April 2nd, around 3 am in 1997.

He had a series of strokes, beginning in 1992, and then, due to complications from diabetes, increasing dementia, old age, inactivity, overeating, a broken hip from a fall, and congestive heart failure ... all led to his death.

In his youth, he was always strong, active, hard working, diligent, and demanding.
He built himself the three houses in which he lived, in starting in 1945.
He and my mom, June, raised three sons.
When he retired, at 62, he was the Chief Piping Engineer at the Fluor Corporation.

He was a Catholic believer. His outlook was conservative, Republican. He worked with all white men in a non-union workplace. He did not think well of people of other races and creeds. He thought all poor people were just lazy and stupid. Compassion and kindness were not high on his list of virtues. He also had a low opinion of women rights. His income was sufficient to provide for us when growing up.

I'd say he was an untreated manic-depressive. After he was 65, he resisted all my many recommendations to consult with better physicians or a counselor. He could be quite stubborn at times with not complying with medical recommendations.

He paid to send me to Catholic Schools, 1st to 12 grade. I was indoctrinated properly by nuns and priests. It was just "get good grades, study, obey, do what we say" everyday.

He liked to travel in the Western Regions and Deserts: Southern California, Nevada, Mexico, Utah, Arizona.

For more Information about my Dad.

He did not read very much. Listened to sports on the radio and right wing talk a lot. Not conversant much with modern thought, and viewed the 1960's changes a low class sinful rot. He spoke in stereotypes and racial slurs a lot. His Italian identity, was touted a lot. Also, he enjoyed bossing others around a lot.

After he retired, he mellowed a bit, and he was really a good grandfather with our two children.

My wife and I cared for him every day, he lived in a Granny Flat apartment next door. We helped him daily from 1993 to 1997.

Frankly, for me, he was hard to love or like at times very much.

I thank him for paying the way in my youth, providing for decent room and board, a good education, a safe home, and providing me with a useful inheritance from him from his final estate.

I'd say he was a decent father, a good provider, but a friend to few.

Yes, I loved my Dad - with Reservations.

Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

Tintern Abbey
Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on
Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798

Excerpt:

"The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by,
To me was all in all. – I cannot paint
What then I was.
The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite: a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. – That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence.
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes."

Friday, June 13, 2025

Hood Canal, WA, Poetry

Hood Canal (Fjord)

Dosewallips State Park
Washington State
June 2025

Turning Left at Quintain Lane
Quintains, Cinquains, Waka, Tankas
650+ Quintains by Mike Garofalo

566.

Highway 101
winds past
Brinnon to Potlach—
from forests to the edge of the seas,
the Hood sea flapping endlessly.

567.

O! Amazed! The pale blue sea—
The Hood Canal’s little waves
slapping the rocky shore.
Happy oysters settling—
Oh! Took my breath away.

568.

The buzz of aircraft
over the red cedars
fading...
a big black ant
crawled over me

569.

No ancient ruins
no famous folks
no documented histories
no great battle scenes—
just fish in the Hood Canal.

570.

Seal Rock campground
concrete picnic bench—
slight breeze
dappled shade
nobody here but me

571.

Heartburn’s heavy
painful stab—
pharmacy had
what I need
Rolaids' Tabs

572.

Occasional red
Pacific Madrone trunk—
roadside decoration
sprinkled amongst
spruce and cedar trees

573.

A couple walking
the Seal Rock path—
he very tall
she very short
hand in hand

574.

Not a single boat
of blue or gray
speeding by
anywhere today—
Monday workday!

575.

Keyboard singing
from the French Suite
or Well Tempered Clavier—
J.S. Bach by Argerich
in the dark woods on MP3s.

576.

Surprisingly,
the campground was empty
these final days
of Spring—
Twilight Zone scene.

577.

The cafe was empty
except for me
eating fried Hamma Hamma oysters—
the perky young waitress
told me her stories

578.

One blooming rhododendron
on a sloped dressed in spiky ferns—
one girl and four boys
waiting for the school bus
coexisting amicably

579.

emptiness hums
a solemn tune
clothed invisibly
hiding in
branches of hanging skies

580.

Rainbow View Falls trail
steep and long
for an 80 year old—
my knees and thighs
ached for two days on.

581.

Mt. Walker flanked
deep Rainbow Falls—
salmon hatchery
on the tiny Quilcene stream,
returning hatchlings to the sea.

582.

The Hood waterways
blurred in hazy mist
dull gray obscured today—
flashes of sunlight
cut through the trees.

583.

From Chimacum
to Quilcene, picturesque
rolling hills of farms—
faster cards
Speed around me!

584.

“DosEwallips” they say
not “Doswallips” like me,
spelled “Dosewallips” correctly—
Saying “pOtato” or “poTato,”
tastes so good either way.

585.

In heated afternoons
I sit in the shadeâ€¦
reading dead poets
still alive
in printed words on paper trees.

586.

Many see them in cloudsâ€¦
faces and animals
appearing and disappearing.
I see them in photographs
as if captured alive.

587.

She told me
“look for the Strawberry Moon”
tonight; above the Hood sea.
I did. The Man in the Moon
was munching plump strawberries.

588.

The road through Sequim—
four lanes fast pass
flat fields of lavender and grass
in the rain shadow of Mt. Olympus,
sunnier, drier, less overcast.

589.

    The tourists nod as they pass
from Port Townsend to Port Angeles
on a straight stretch of Hwy 101—
        sipping a cafe mocha
            on the run.

590.

I’m not in Beijing, Rome,
or Buenos Aries—
just in the Geoduck cafe (in Brinnon),
eating clams, drinking beer,
listening to locals I can understand.

591.

Strawberry Moon
hung low
orange glow
midnight rose
over Lilliwaup Cove

592.

Elk heads stuffed
on the Geoduck Cafe wall.
Still life taxidermy. Hair
bristling. Comatose,
heard the elk's stifled moan.

593.

Codfish battered
and fried. French fries
stale and crisp.
Ketchup and Tartar
sauce for dips. Cold beer.

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Dosewallips State Park, Washington, Camping Day 4

Hood Canal: Adventure II, Day 4

Day 4 Thursday, June 12, 2025

I loaded my car and emptied the yurt/cabin.

I drove home safely from Dosewallips to Vancouver. Clear skies and warmer.
Little traffic until reaching Shelton.

Here are some more photographs of my campground and Dosewallips River area.

Vancouver WA 110 miles north to Olympia

Olympia WA 23 miles north to Shelton

Shelton WA 41 miles north to Brinnon

Shelton WA - Images

Shelton WA - Information

Hood Canal, Fjord, WA

Lake Cushman, WA

Skokomish Twana Native Americans

Skokomish River, WA, Images

Dosewallips State Park WA 39 miles north to Port Townsend

Dosewallips SP Images 13 miles north to Quilcene

Dosewallips SP Campground

Dosewallips River Images

Dosewallips Oyster and Clam Harvesting

Quilcene

Dabob Bay

Port Townsend 215 miles south to Vancouver

Four Days at Grayland: Extensive Travel Guides, Yurt Camping notes, local cities and villages, reports, commentary, Yurt Camping Information, Native American Information. Yurt camping on the coast in Oregon and Washington.

The best book I used to study general travel options for the Hood Canal
for my trip in May 2024 was:
Olympic Peninsula with Olympic National Park. By Jeff Burlingame.
Moon, 5th Edition, 2024.

Books I have found useful in my study of the Native American People of Olympic National Park (fournded in 1938) include:

Olympic Peninsula with Olympic National Park. By Jeff Burlingame. Moon, 5th Edition, 2024.

Images of America: Hood Canal. By Michael Fredson. Arcadia, 2007.

Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula|: Who We Are. By the Olympic Prninsula Intertribal Cultural Advisory Committee. University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. This book covers S'Kallam, Skokomish Twana, Sqaxin, Quinault, Hoh, Quileute, and Makah Native Americans in the area.

The Olympic Peninsula. By Ericka Chickowski. Moon, 2009.

Longstreet Highroad Guide to the Pacific Northwest. By Allan and Elizabeth May. Longstreet, 2000.

Images from the Internet

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Dosewallips State Park, Washington, Camping Day 3

Hood Canal: Adventure II, Day 3

Dosewallips State Park, Washington

Day 3 June 11, 2025

Seal Beach Campground walking. Yurt campground walking. Reading and writing. Shopped at Whitney's Gardens and Nursery in Brinnon. Dinner at Geoduck Restaurant.

Here are some of my photos of the area: