May Raw Notes

Reports from the field

Continuing my experiment publishing my raw notes each month. These are the notes as I write them in the order I write them, before any sequencing or revision. They are my raw materials so to speak, and I come back and repurpose them in various ways over the years.

I was in Paris at the beginning of the month ending my trip with a walk through the flower market on Île de la Cité. A wonderful place I was not aware of. A tapestry of different scents, textures and colours.

Unfortunately I picked up a bug on the flight back, which blossomed into full fledged pneumonia which my medical team was slow to diagnose. I felt like I was drowning in my own lungs. I eventually recovered though, enough to deal with some issues with the house and to work in the garden.

My eldest son Kaito had a photography exhibition at Space Labs during the month. {Re} Recollect Reconnect Repair. The photos were mostly from a road trip he had taken along the coast of Wakayama-ken and around the Inland Sea last October.

Space Labs is one of the most fascinating places to spend time in Vancouver. Among other things it has a large collection of sound equipment, including analog amplifiers. Conversations at Space Lab led to a discussion of LaMonte Young from which I rediscovered his long work The Well Tuned Piano, a response to Bach’s The Well Tempered Clavier. I have been slowly listening to this long piece, which is adjusting my experience of duration and my ability to tune in a wider range of harmonics.

In the middle of the month, my wife, youngest son Kenji (who was visiting from LA) and I went to Galliano Island. We saw three orcas swimming through Montague Harbour the first day and then kayaked around Parker Island to see the forms in the sandstone. Kayaking and on the ferry through Active Pass I was able to pay close attention to the lines that form as currents and water gradients interact.

On the writing front, I spent some time crafting and testing a taxonomy (more of an ontology) that I could use to understand and generate connections between notes. See From notes to sequences. I then used this to generate sequences sequences on writing (and reading) as a hyperobject: Viscosity and Nonlocality (more of these to come).

Will be in Vancouver for all of June. A lot of work to do, on my writing, on the house and garden, and on the professional side, where I will be writing a book with Michael Mansard.

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Fatty acids in the

Oil cling to each other

Slippery thick

Honey pushes out free water

While absorbing into carbon oxygen

And oxygen hydrogen bonds

They hydrophobic oil

Floats above the heavier

Hydrophilic honey

—

Dynamic viscosity is the

Sheer stress over sheer rate

Between layers

—

Viscosity dampens

Flow while creating the conditions

Where flow occurs

—

Our skin slimy

Against each other

Viscous flow

—

Hot and muggy

My legs clammy

Fatigue

—

“It is always the others who die.”

Marcel Duchamp

-

It is always the others

Who die until it isn’t and death

Passes through an infrathin

-

The time between

Rain falling and rain

Absorbed into ground

-

A trigger pulled

And the bullet

Leaving the gun

-

The space between moves

In the end game between

The bishop and king

-

Gaunt cheeks

Full and flaccid

In death’s relax

—

Thankful fevered

In a body sweat cooled

By a stray draft

—

Recording the sound

Of each string on the piano

Apart from the other

—

Insulating the vibrations

Of each violin string

Each from the other

—

Stifling the dull

Hum shared across

The strings

—

A smell from the crotch

Hot water and soap

Smelling clean

—

Awake listening to

Her cough interrupting

Her sleep

—

Home the dog

Looks at me carefully

Smells my feet

—

Late spring cold

Feverish and coughing as

The sun warms our skin

—

Exhausted by sleep

Films the skin

Swallowed whole

—

She says nothing

But coughs wrack

Her breathing

—

In and out

Breath patient as

Waves subside

—

Coughing opening

Out throat coughing

Closing our lungs

—

for 7idansuu (Chales Edenshaw)

Form lines opening

A space enclosing a

Continuous surface

-

One joint transforming

Into another articulates

Connection

-

Splicing one body

Into another a frog

From a bear’s mouth

-

Precise detail in

The double engraved line around

A beaten silver bracelet

-

Fungus man

At the back of the canoe

Paddling

—

Sinus draining

Air passage clear of dust

Something endures

—

for Kathy Acker

The tattoo on the back

Shrunken and the strong arms

Thin as sticks

-

A fish swims

Upstream under a

Garland of flowers

-

The bike the

Leather jacket the

Language burning

—

Begin again the

Chills fever the hacking

Persistent cough

—

Wave length shortens

Near the shore as light

Climbs up the spectrum

—

Thought scales as

Contradictions are removed

Fails inwards

-

Thought contracts as

Contradictions emerge

In close connection

—

Cavitation

Static pressure less

Vapour pressure over

Density and velocity

-

Localised pressure

Overwhelmed by

Dynamic flow

-

Vacuum collapse

Drawing liquid into

Vapour space

—

Cavitation pocking

The propeller as vapour bubbles

Collapse at high temperature

-

Vapour collapse erodes

Any surface it contacts in

Cloud space

-

Vapour bubbles collapse

Into microjets the temperature

Of the sun

—

Ginger peel

Still fragrant

Like skin

—

Coughing till I choke

Then vomit my chest closed

Unable to sleep

—

A deep congestion

Deeper as I drown

In my own lungs

—

Slowly drowning

In my lungs as the coughing

Can’t keep up

—

Listening to her voice

Talking to the dog who is

Listening to her

—

Sound heard inside

The piano a mike on

The iron frame

—

Vibration in the wood

Filtering out the shorter strings

Making the sound whole

—

Listening to the small

Sounds of her hands working

Snip and rasp of thread

—

High spring wearing

A scarf to protect my throat

Healing from pneumonia

—

Puking out

Water and phlegm

I slowly heal

—

Necks stretching up

Then towards each other

Before we start our game

-

Honking ‘hink’ and

‘a honk’ with each other

We play goose

—

Good morning

‘Bow’ ‘Kiss’ ‘Begin’

The dog barks

—

Phlegm clear

More fluid

Starting to heal

—

Shaving after

Days of illness

Skin clean

—

Roots in the drainage

Nourish the magnolia’s

Flowering

—

Active Pass to Montague Harbour

Eddies where the

Surfaces elide dispersing

Tension

-

Current lines

Where salinity or temperatures

Begin to touch

-

Water rippling as

The tide drops over

Ledges in the flow

-

Pull on the boat

As it rides over

Different surfaces

-

Life flourishing along

The lines of force dissipating

As nourishment upwells

-

Minnows flickering

Along the line where

Two currents meet

-

Gulls some grebes

A cormorant fishing along

The current lines

-

Tide slipping against

The line of salinity where

The river enters

-

Water flooding over

The ledge drop ripples

Attracting seals

—

Sun coming out

The transplants will

Need water

—

Sick

I give our dog

The salmon skin

—

Covering her

She gentles into

A deeper sleep

—

Covering himself

So that she will not fret

When she wakes up

—

Sleeping propped

Up against gravity

The acid subsides

—

Counting syllables

Ignoring the count

Counting again

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Some reading from the month

I read quite a bit in May, travel and illness can help with that.

Duchamp’s Last Day by Donald Shambroom

Picked this up at Yvon Lambert gallery/bookstore in the Marais, Paris. A place well worth a visit. This book is short but high impact. The story of the last day of Marcel Duchamp’s life and the photo Man Ray made of him soon after he died.

Suspicion by Matsumoto Seicho translated by Jesse Kirkwood

An airport book, I think Heathrow, tight writing, I want to read more of his work.

After Kathy Acker by Chris Kraus

Picked up at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. An intense biography of an intense writer who was never afraid to look at herself and her world.

Cold Spring in Winter (Pas revoir) by Valérie Rouzeau translated by Susan Wicks.

A book of grief and scrap metal. Compelling voice.

Linked Verse in Medieval Japan by H. Mack Horton

This is one of my major reads for 2026. At more than 1,000 pages I will be reading this for a few months. I have been spending a lot of time reading and thinking about renga over the past few years. Horton’s earlier book Song in a Age of Discord: The Journal of Socho is one book that got me started on my current renga focus.

The Philosopher in the Valley by Michael Steinberger

On Alex Karp and Palantir. Know the enemy. How American tech is becoming a force for evil.

The Broken Places by Frances Peck

Vancouver after a major earthquake and the social ruptures that emerge. In the end a hopeful book.

Night and Day by Pierre Alferi translated by Kate Campbell

I had not know that Jacques Derrida’s son was a poet. Still thinking about this book and how the language works in it.

A Guide to Bird Behavior Vol. 1 by David Stokes

Picked up from the Tatlow book exchange. An absolutely wonderful book, I am seeing birds differently and many aspects of their behaviours that were obscure to me have come into focus.

Applause for a Cloud Kamakura Sayumi translated by James Shea

Mainstream modern Japanese haiku. The poems about her husband being hospitalised resonated.

Value Capture by C. Thi Nguyen

Essay, not a book. Goes deep into what happens when we allow externally defined metrics to define value for us and how the needs of large organisations conflict with the individual and smaller communities.

The Future (Futuro) by Marc Augé translated by John Howe

An Italian ethnologists investigation of what the future means at different levels, from grammar to education. Interesting comments on Flaubert.

Hooked by Yuzuki Asako translated by Polly Barton

Bought at Heathrow in part because of the translator. Struggled with this as I did not resonate with any of the characters, but in the end learned something about what it means to be a woman in current Japan.

Worldlines by Daniel Canty

A pamphlet rather than a book, Daniel going into his personal roots and how they shape his writing. A lot of this resonated. Daniel grew up in Lachine, my father in Verdun, and to the extent I grew up in any one place I relate to Saint Lambert.

Carapace Dancer by Natalia Toledo translated by Clare Sullivan

From the Zapotec. Precise poetry from a very different world view and life experience. One of the things I look to poetry for. The figures on the inside and outside of a crab’s shell.

Maintenance of Everything by Stewart Brand

First part of a longer work. On the importance of maintenance at the technical, design and cultural level. Begins with the stories of Robin Knox Johnson, Donald Crowhurst and Bernard Moitessier and the round the world, non stop, single handed race. I learned a lot from this book, and it helped me think about my bicycle and house differently.

As If Raven by Yvonne Blumer

Picked up at the excellent book store on Galliano. Victoria poet. Resonated with the book on bird behaviour.

Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion by Donald Keene

Reread. I had forgotten how much of the political context Keene gives about the Ashikakga Shogunate and Higashiyama culture. The part about gardener Zen’ami I found compelling. Ginkakuji is one of my favourite places. last time I was there they were showing screens by Buson.

The World After Rain by Canisia Lubrin

Another poetry book I picked up on Galliano. Compelling poetry and memories of her mother Anne. A strong Caribbean voice and full of the speech rhythms of those islands but at the same time intensely Toronto and Canadian. Owes a lot to Dionne Brand in a very good way.