fourteen

 

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

Naturally I am very excited about all the wonderful mythological creatures to find in Japan and France. But the World is old everywhere. And even here on the Mississippi there's all kinds of glimpses of Faerie to be had. I've seen unicorns! I met fox and skunk here. But, to be honest, mostly it's trolls, especially under all the bridges.

Still, as long as one is careful, and doesn't engage, it's all still pretty neat to see.

 

thirteen

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

Here is a little tree work I have been doing.

I feel that at the final one it starts to really bear fruit...

twelve

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

To celebrate the release of Winnie the Pooh from its terrible prison of copyright, I decided a few years ago that I would rewrite the whole thing here, on clerkmanifesto, in my own way. This turned out... really well! I was surprised. But as with all of the large scale specific projects of clerkmanifesto, I did not finish it. Sticking with something as big as that entails a different kind of work and commitment that always becomes unsuited to the more inspiration based clerkmanifesto. In a different world I suppose an insightful publisher would have called and given me an advance to write the whole rewritten Pooh all the way through, and I would have found joy in doing that as well, but we are in this world, which is why you are reading this, and why cheese is so delicious, and why your foot hurts.

So this then is from a few years ago, maybe? It comes, of course, early in the book. The original is provided for comparison afterward, for the scholars among you.

When you got back to the tree with the umbrella Winnie the Pooh called out: "Whew! There you are." Then he added "The bees definitely suspect something." And then he amended that loudly to "The bees mistakenly suspect something." But that last part he said more to the bees than to you.

"Should I unfurl my umbrella?" You asked.

"That would be great," Pooh said. "But we should do it properly. We need to convince the Queen Bee most of all. Can you see the Queen Bee?" Pooh asked.

"No."

"Ohhhh. That's too bad. Well, maybe open up your umbrella and walk around under it saying 'Oy gevalt, it sure does look like rain is coming!' And I'll sing some kind of song one would expect a cloud to sing."

"If clouds sang?" You asked.

"Exactly!" Pooh exclaimed, delighted by your understanding.

So you walked about wondering if it would rain while Winnie the Pooh sang this little song:

"I am a little cloud,

Trying not to schvitz.

I always sing aloud,

Not meaning to kibitz.

The rain is coming soon dear bees,

It is my cloudy wish,

And now my song must end,

For I am out of Yiddish."

The bees though only seemed to become more excited by Pooh's song. After the first verse one of them even landed on Pooh's nose! So Pooh called down to you. "I just remembered something!" Pooh called down.

"What's that?" You asked.

"I'm vegan." Replied Pooh, sadly.

"You're vegan?" You asked.

"Yes." Pooh answered. "And I don't think these are the vegan kind of bees."

"So they probably don't make the vegan kind of honey?" I asked.

"Yes." Pooh answered. "And that's the kind of honey I like.

"Is it?" You asked, trying to figure it all out.

"Yes." Pooh answered. "So I think I'd better come down."

"How?" You asked.

"I hadn't really thought." Pooh said. So he thought, but not being able to put his head in his paws his thinking wasn't fancy. "Do you have a gun?" Pooh asked.

"Silly bear." You replied.

"Do you see any soft places then?"

"Yes." You said. "I see a soft place."

"I'm going to drop, then." Winnie the Pooh said.

He didn't drop.

"How soft?" He asked.

"It looks pretty soft."

So he dropped.

And he fell.

And he bounced a couple of times.

And then it was over.

"I was the soft place?" Winnie the Pooh asked. "Wasn't I?"

"I have some honey at my house." You said.

"Is it vegan honey?" Pooh asked.

"No."

"Good." Pooh said.

---

"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as soon as you got back to the tree. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered that the bees are now definitely Suspicious."

"Shall I put my umbrella up?" you said.

"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The important bee to deceive is the Queen Bee. Can you see which is the Queen Bee from down there?"

"No."

"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying, 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do what I can by singing a little Cloud Song, such as a cloud might sing.... Go!"

So, while you walked up and down and wondered if it would rain, Winnie-the-Pooh sang this song:

How sweet to be a Cloud

Floating in the Blue!

Every little cloud

Always sings aloud.

"How sweet to be a Cloud

Floating in the Blue!"

It makes him very proud

To be a little cloud.

The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them, indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud for a moment, and then got up again.

---

---

"Christopher—ow!—Robin," called out the cloud.

"Yes?"

"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These are the wrong sort of bees."

"Are they?"

"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort of honey, shouldn't you?"

---

---

"Would they?"

"Yes. So I think I shall come down."

"How?" asked you.

Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go of the string, he would fall—bump—and he didn't like the idea of that. So he thought for a long time, and then he said:

"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you got your gun?"

"Of course I have," you said. "But if I do that, it will spoil the balloon," you said.

"But if you don't," said Pooh, "I shall have to let go, and that would spoil me."

When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you aimed very carefully at the balloon, and fired.

"Ow!" said Pooh.

"Did I miss?" you asked.

"You didn't exactly miss," said Pooh, "but you missed the balloon."

"I'm so sorry," you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the balloon, and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down to the ground.

But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon all that time that they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think—but I am not sure—that that is why he was always called Pooh.

eleven

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

I was telling you the other day about my old t-shirt designs, and I showed you a computer generated, cleaned up version of a dodo design from Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. I also lamented the loss of the other shirts from my quarter century old set of hand painted book shirts, including one referencing Daniel Pinkwater's mostly forgotten classic: The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death.

I'd kind of like to read The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death again, now that I'm mentioning it.

But in the meantime I set about recreating my shirt.

I got it... generally correct. And I do like it, whether entirely accurate or not. I made half a dozen versions of my design, but as with that earlier dodo shirt, I'm going to just go with my favorite here:

ten

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

Some library aquarium pictures for you today. This is a motif I tried before. I think I have still not mastered it, though it has gotten better...

nine

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

Once upon a time, more than 20 years ago, I made a series of t-shirts using fabric markers. My idea was to reference books I was particularly fond of, but in a more oblique way, through imagery, or sometimes through something of note that exists in the world of that novel. I made four designs, which, back then, was the work of many weeks, unlike now, where it is the work of many minutes.

The books I referenced were The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, One for the Money, something I can't remember, and The Eyre Affair. The other three are lost to time, though I really wish I had that avocado one. But I did keep one of them, the one devoted to Jasper Fforde's Eyre Affair (and its sequels, though there were barely any around back then). Once, when he was doing a reading in my town I even got him to sign my shirt!!! He liked my shirt. He even took a picture of it.

Cleaning out my locker at work I found this last of the shirts. The shirt is ill-fitting and old, but the drawn design on it was still clear. I took a photo. Then I asked my AI to make it a little neater and cleaner. Sometimes my AI disappoints me. Sometimes it produces something to work with that can be good with some effort. And sometimes, like with this, it's exactly what I wanted out of the gate.

I thought some about what I wanted to show you in regard to this; the original shirt image, the first successful rendition, or maybe everything altogether, but in the end,  I feel like just putting my best foot forward. So here is the one, finished, clean version of my design. 

I am even thinking I might make a new t-shirt out of it.

eight

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

The memorial floors of my time there have been installed...

seven

 

 

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

"Wedding"

Of all the things I could show you,

If you could see the way her smile makes me feel,

We could change the world,

And not need to.

six

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

I like to think I've left my mark on my library

My mark...

five

  

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

I will miss the storms. Though I suppose everywhere has storms. 

It was 90 degrees out but large chunks of ice were slamming against our windows. We hoped they wouldn't break.

I might not miss that part in particular.