High Coo

My indignation:
a panning shot through dogwoods,
a black tube, crosshairs.

Haiku

Things are as they seem.
The map is coterminous
with the whole blessed world.

Mitch in Lansing Is Into Turning Pens

And Curtis down in Bakersfield
wants to know how to go from
3 pins to 4 in 240
because his SawStop came with
3 but his outlet is for 4.

Willie, whose picture shows a
whiskery older gent in
suspenders, leaning his belly over
an open-stand DeWalt, opines
that the 4th prong "you can just get rid of"
because it has no function in 240.

Jim in South Delaware, whose
inventory of tools is posted under an
animated Stars and Stripes, snapping
repetitively in some breeze of the
blogosphere, says "not so fast. They
license electricians for a reason."
He has posted just over 2,000 times
this year alone. Each of his posts quotes
Wayne LaPierre defending your right
to shoot intruders with an AR-15.

Chip, writing from a "secure undisclosed
location" "that who am I kidding the fed's
[sic] could find anyways" just spent
four nights in the hospital with "double visions",
and jokes that he should "lay off the corn mash"
before he goes back into his garage
shop where he has over 100 bird
feeders "in the works". He says he
missed good meals and his
"online buddies". He is the Captain of
his local VFW and plays cribbage.

Dale and Elaine, of Davenport, IA
have been married a year
already and are the "proud parents"
of a "bran new" Delta Unisaw.
"This baby really hums", reports Dale.
Elaine can't wait to "tear up some oak".

Geoffrey, from Brighton, has just posted
a detailed side-by-side comparison
of "America's best offering", the Powermatic 66,
with "the world's best tablesaw", the Inca
Deluxe 12, sent "lift-gate" from "the
People's [sic] Republic of Switzerland".
The Inca wins "definitively in all categories".

Marshall from Whitefish follows up
quickly with a critique of Geoffrey's "stilted prose"
and bets "all comers" $100 that Marshall does not,
in fact, have access to both saws, and is, in fact,
"pontificating about which he knows naught".

Tamra, from Lojong Loseling Monastery,
wants to know if anyone can tell her how
to carve the hollow part of a spoon. She writes:
"I assume it can be done, but I can't figure out how
you get a knife in there and make a nice smooth
depression or hole."

Jim in South Delaware is first to respond:
"I didn't know monks had time to carve spoons,
but what you want is a Dremel with a burr grinder.
Be sure to use adequate eye and ear protection
and KEEP YOU HANDS AWAY FROM THE BIT!!!!"

Tamra wants to know: How did they do it in the old days
before they discovered Dremels?

To which Karl in Milwaukee, whose picture shows
a steel-eyed young man leaning his chin into an
old-fashioned paring chisel, cutting dovetails, responds:
"Tamra, do not be mislead! Anyone can hollow
a spoon with a Dremel tool, but only a true
craftswoman, with practice, can use the traditional
hooked knife, which will always produce superior results
in the right hands." He provides a link.

Martin, in Stockton, says he has some of those
knives, but they are properly called "crooked knives".
He's never learned how to use them "ever since
my hands starting shaking so bad.
And this time it aint the DT's!"

Mitch in Lansing is into turning pens. He has
"no skills to speak of" but he loves to "make the shavings fly"
in his "fly-speck shop" "of a Saturday". Right now
he is making some "ball points out of bubinga which
I can't pronounce and can't cut as good as a cub scout".
In his picture, a jolly-looking bearded man of maybe 80
fans a handful of gleaming pens in every color of
wood, and he looks proud.

That Will to Divest

by Kay Ryan
Action creates
a tastefor itself.
Meaning: once
you've swept
the shelves
of spoons
and plates
you kept for guests,
it gets harder
not to also
simplify the larder,
not to dismiss
rooms, not to divest yourself
of all the chairs
but one, not
to test what singleness can bear,
once you've begun.