Yum (new favorite sign)

I love this sign. This bar is located in the Dingle, in Cumberland, Maryland.
Yes, the wood chuck is a groundhog.
In literary parlance, a dingle is a deep wooded valley or dell.
In contemporary Cumberland, it's an intersection, or what I like to think of as a confluence of streets.

 

I recently scanned some old negatives for a chapbook I'm making and came across this image of my former neighbor Naomi's window. I lived at 195 E. Main Street in Frostburg, Md for a little over a year. She was a major reason why I wanted the apartment. In her mid 80's, nearly deaf and sweet as hell, I would occasionally play the accordion for her, she would give me jars of homemade beef stew, and I photographed her on a number of occasions. She died a few years ago. I'm glad I have these pictures.     

Small Worlds

Former student and good friend, Ed DeWitt, asked if I'd put together a show for the grand opening of the gallery above his camera shop in Cumberland, Maryland. He suggested I do something with all of the unclaimed pictures that were left in the store when he bought it a few years ago. Agreeing that that was a fine idea, I solicited help from he and Kim, and we've put together Small Worlds: Unclaimed Snapshots from DeWitt Camera Centre.

The exhibit will run Sept 10 - Oct 29, with an opening reception on Sat Sept 10, from 5-8 pm.

Finally

Triangular Forest

The last few years I lived in Frostburg I gravitated towards the Carey Run Bird Sanctuary just outside of town in Garrett county. The reason for going there wasn't to see, hear, or think about birds. The destination was a walk through what a handful of us called the mathematical forest. No doubt the result of an effort to reforest an area previously logged or mined, the mathematical forest was a beautifully sloped 10-12 acre stand of the most unnatural stand of pines trees.

Todd in the Mathematical Forest, 2004

Stumbling upon the forest unaware was similar to walking through my first strip mine. It was close to the highway but always dead quiet. A monoculture is a very quiet place- being within one is like being somewhere where everyone is so similar they don't have anything to say to one another. The floor of this forest was blanketed with a thick mulch of pine needles and a fern-ish rhizome that I've never tried to identify.

By the looks of Google's satellite images, a lot of the mathematical forest is gone.
I've circled what is left of it.

Trolling Google maps a few weeks ago I came across this stand of trees not far from our apartment. The invisible-from-the-ground shape of this stand of trees (feminine, no?) hemmed in by CSX tracks on all sides- no doubt promised some kind of magic similar to that of the mathematical forest.


What a treat then that when I showed friends Matt and Kendall this picture Matt suggested we head over there after lunch. We walked over and entered at the Northwestern point of the triangle and traversed nearly all of it.


That's all I'm saying. There's more- a lot more- but for now it gestates. The next time I go there it'll work itself out a little bit more. There is a triangulation here. One of mathematical and triangular forests, strip mines and walks with friends. Come visit and we'll go for a walk.

A Few Highlights from the Weekend (or all the signs in Frostburg that say Frostburg that I came across over the course of the weekend)