The Woodcarver and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

If you studied economics, process engineering or are an enthusiast of popular psychology, you might have heard of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. It’s alive and well in woodcarving too. Sunk costs are costs you have paid and can’t get back. 

That’s fine if everything works out. But if the project just hasn’t been the success you wished for, the temptation is to keep trying to fix it. Sometimes it can’t be fixed. And that’s the sunk cost fallacy: The belief that just one more project revision will allow the Goony Bird Mk 29 to fly.

I knew the fallacy well. I called it “just one more cut.” The piece will work with one more cut to clean up that angle. Five cuts later, the chip carving is worse off than when I started. I was most familiar with it from chip carving because some of the balance and symmetry of a piece come from all cuts sharing similar geometry; if one facet is out of balance, the carving looks odd.

I saw it a lot more when I started teaching. I start my courses with chip carving to teach tool control and the importance of sharp tools. An occasional student could not stop cutting and adjusting. Rarely did any of this result in a saved piece of work. I described it to my students at WoodenBoat School as “just one more cut.”

Later, over dinner, an engineer in my class told me about the sunk cost fallacy. As I write this, I can think of an eagle I’ve carved that I’d love to take one more cut on. See, it’s pervasive.

Here’s some advice I’ve offered that applies well here:

•  First, turn the carving bottom for the top; how bad is the perceived defect? 
• Second, using a hand mirror, view the work from various perspectives; once again, how bad is the defect? 
• Third, put down the tools and work on something else for the rest of the day. Come back later. 
• Fourth, study the effect of the corrective cut before you do it. What are the chances of that cut fixing the problem? 
• Fifth, when realizing you’ve wasted hours mulling over ten minutes of carving, throw the junk into the kindling bucket and do it right. It’s harder to do the further along the piece is; I’m not telling you that I have no struggles with this.

So, Robert Elliot, a colleague of mine who produces gorgeous Windsor chairs, once scolded me that we can’t just throw everything that had a mistake away. We have to learn how to fix errors. That’s the value of the first steps, knowing what we did wrong, thinking about how it can be fixed, and evaluating if it’s worth fixing. Hopefully, we will learn enough to avoid repeat errors and the frustration of endlessly falling into the sunk cost fallacy. 

Zaida “sits” for her portrait

Although the steam yacht Zaida sits within the frame on the wall, it is not quite complete. More steel wool rubbing is needed on the oil-varnish finish, and the sails’ detailing needs recutting where final sanding is removed it. I also may gold leaf the filigree at the bow. But I needed a break from work and wanted to see how it looked hung the wall.

This is my second run at the Steam Yacht Zaida. I’ve used different techniques and am more satisfied with the outcome.
To be clear, I do not do scale models. This is neither flat art nor scale modeling. It’s very much in line with the 19th century Dioramas that sailors made of the vessels they served on.

Zaida was built in 1910 at the J.S. White yard In Cowes, England. I’ve shown her here as she appears in the builders drawing. The drawing suggested a seriously overrigged arrangement which included a square yard forward and the possibility of a large staysail amidships. I doubt she ever flew that much canvas since she is described as a twin-screw auxiliary schooner.
For this portrait, I’ve reduced the sail plan to something more modest for the deck division to handle. However, at 149 feet in length, she must have had a relatively large crew.

In 1916 Zaida became an auxiliary Patrol vessel in the Royal Navy, armed with six-pound guns. Unfortunately, she was sunk while on patrol near Alexandria that August.

What’s involved in making one of these portraits? First, research, then selective compression of what you will include, and then carving. Research may be as easy as using a builders illustration to figure out the lines for a small sailboat like a small sloop or catboat. But on a larger vessel, especially an older one, research may never yield the sort of completion you wish. For every ship for which a plan exists in a research library or online database, thousands exist only in grainy photos and magazine articles. Sometimes these are the most interesting.

background being leveled

The carving with some of the research material

carving mostly complete

final stages

After research, you must create a plan for the hull, sail, stacks, and other parts. Sometimes commercial parts exist, but other times it all must be fabricated. Then you can start carving, and in many ways, that is the easy part. The total number of hours? For Zaida, about five hours of research, five of design, and fourteen for carving. Finishing is about four hours. So Zaida required about twenty-eight to thirty hours total. Of course, all this varies depending upon the size, research required, and amount of carving and finishing.

A small sloop is relatively quick to do. And small sloops, catboats, and schooners make up most of the portraits. Something like Zaida is for stretching your skills.

Paper and Scissors

I found the wood sitting in the shorts at my favorite hardwood dealer. It was very dark, heavy, and dense. It was mahogany but so dark and heavy that I felt it was a wayward piece of Dominican, not Honduran. It was just what I wanted.
I wanted to create a banner with a distinctive font, Barnhard Modern. I also wanted to give the banner a center and ends that undulate. The result was pleasing. At shows, people run their hands over the banner as a sensual experience, precisely what I wanted.

How do you do this? You must carve banner ends to appear delicate when viewed from a distance. But up close, there needs to be enough heft that they’ll stand up to the abuse they’ll get on a boat’s transom. For a show display, you have to compromise. People are way closer to the carving than they would be in another boat.

Many banners have curvature, but in most, the area which is lettered is flat. On MANDALAY, the field of the lettering undulates. So, the lettering does not stay in the same plane while laying it out or carving it. To experiment with this, I advise using wood no less than 8/4 in thickness. Any less will be too thin for the effect to work.

First, I carved the banner with all its curves and undulations. It’s essential to control your pleasure in removing wood. Easy. Remember that the effect comes from the smoothness of the curves and contours. Abrupt changes will ruin the look. Periodically take a break to place it in natural light. Turn it upside down and see if the movement of the wood flows.
For lettering, you have several options: Old School layout by hand; or New School computer layout in vinyl or paper. I chose a compromise between hand layout and computer layout on paper. The key to the paper template here is that the paper is flat, and the surface is not – hence the title: Paper & Scissors because cutting the paper will allow you to follow the undulating surface.
To follow the undulations, you slice the areas between the letters to get them to lay in the correct planes. As you layout, you also need to adjust the kerning ( distance between the letters). When completed, take the design into natural light, turn it upside down, and check to see if it still looks proportionate and balanced. I left this for a day and returned to it fresh the next morning; rested eyes see mistakes. I also find that taking photos on my phone reveals things my eyes sometimes miss.

After the layout was complete, the letter carving was like any other letter carving project. The finish is about eleven coats of Captain’s Z-Spar rubbed out after the first three priming coats and each succeeding one. The lettering I painted with One-Shot yellow sign paint. Two thin coats are better than a single thick covering.

Although gold leafing is an entirely separate topic, I advise that you do yourself an enormous favor and allow the varnish to cure before gold leafing. Remember that’s cure, not dry. Varnish manufacturers will tell you that varnish dries in twenty-four hours. But that is not the same as curing.

Gold leaf has a nasty tendency to stick to anything. But especially uncured varnish. I frequently allow a week or more for the varnish to cure; move on to another project, and come back later to apply gold leaf.

Acorns to Oaks*

We all want to be instant experts. One of my sensei describes this in terms of the training montages that are standard fare in martial arts movies; the neophyte progresses from clumsy beginner to skilled pro in thirty seconds of cinematic snapshots. The rest of us suffer from dissatisfaction and disappointment from being less than optimal for much longer.
Not every time, but more frequently than I’d like, I get confronted with the unique. And, all of a sudden I am a neophyte once more. Incorporating new materials, using new types of paints, complex constructions, and most especially very small parts that need fabrication all create confrontations with the problematic.

When I was doing banners, quarter boards, transoms, and the odd eagle, the problems were mostly mechanical – design layout, curvature to fit, and calculating shadows in carved lettering.

Boat and ship portraits offer many more issues. I am presenting a practice piece of the very first boat portrait I ever did. Remember, practice pieces are exactly like the rough sketches you do of a subject before you paint – the practice is to work out the approach, shapes, and rendering before you start the actual work. Being that carving is subtractive, this saves you from ruining expensive wood and wasting time.

practice carving of a 19 foot Eltro for a mast hoop portrait

Over the years, I’ve done many portraits. I’ve borrowed techniques from model makers, painters, and illustrators. I’ve also had to develop some tricks of my own. The single most important thing will seem trite: challenge is what differentiates those who are growing from those who are standing still intellectually and as artists.

Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that’s left before fitting into the hoop.

There are about two years between my first practice piece and my rendering of a cat boat for a mast hoop portrait. Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that’s left before fitting into the hoop.

Easy Pieces

I admit that the sort of non complex carving that happens when I carve a small bowl is pretty alluring. No antsy detail. No pattern that needs to be followed. Just follow the will of the wood.

today I put up a new page on the site for hand carved bowls, but thought that I’d spend a bit of time taking about my favorites . I am kind of hoping that these do not sell at next weeks show. I’ve made the mistake of getting attached to them.

Only a few inches around, the banding on the sides and interior, and the rough lip make this one a favorite just to hold and look at. Made from a piece of cherry firewood.

This second one was also from firewood. I love the subtle grain pattern and the rough lip.

This third bowl was from a slightly larger piece of cherry firewood. I had enough wood to form a bit of a handle. I went experimental and charred the interior with a torch. Before finishing you scrape off most to the char, leaving just blackened wood. There are slight defects in the wood that in my mind make the piece even more interesting.

I’ve done a number of others, and like them, but these are my favorites.

New and Old

We can easily get lost in the weeds talking about tradition in crafts. It’s just hard to avoid observing that technology casts long shadows when you make something and call it traditional. The majority of shops that work with wood use bandsaws, table saws, and jointers. These tools have been around long enough not to ignite a vendetta among purists looking for “traditionally crafted goods.” But the technological landscape is always changing for the craftsperson.
Recently I have been nosing about on the borders. A few years ago, a series of eye surgeries compromised my ability to do certain types of woodcarving, mostly lettering. After surgery, I began to explore what I could and couldn’t conveniently do. The vision changes prompted the carving shop’s move from the old basement workshop into the greenhouse – I needed lots of light. Last year I also began to play around incorporating laser engraving and cutting as an adjunct to my carving.
Some things worked well, and others fell flat. Frankly, it’s all a work in progress. The small sign shown above is one of the projects that worked. Some of the others wound up feeding the woodstove.
Is it traditional? Well, was it traditional when craftspeople and artists began using acrylic paints or using computers to assist them in design?

Years ago, when I worked as an anthropologist, I knew a woman who crafted the most incredible Ukrainian Easter eggs. One afternoon over coffee Elizabeth introduced me to the history of technological innovation in the world of decorated Easter eggs. Over the centuries, dies and methods of preparation changed. But the community accepted the eggs because of the continuity of design and meaning in the community.
Back in the ’80’s colleagues were musing about Cambodian kite makers shifting from traditional fabrics used in Cambodia to the ripstop nylon available to them here in the United States. The maker of traditional Cambodian dance costumes received mention also. One of them had adopted the hot glue gun and factory-made jewelry findings to construct elaborate headdresses and other costume bits. They looked like the old style, but the components and techniques had evolved.

On one project I worked on years ago with boatbuilders, I asked builders what they thought was the central concept that defined the traditional boat. I had expected them to talk about materials, construction techniques, and design. I wasn’t disappointed because they all mentioned those things to one degree or another, but as a group, they said the value placed on the boat by the community that used them was central. One well-known figure I interviewed ( Lance Lee) suggested the term “cherish” as the central concept – the boats were cherished and valued by the community. It was the community of users that made something traditional.

The laser engraver that sits in the basement, and my visual handicap, got me thinking about these things. The concept of craft, especially when labeled traditional, has some minefields laid in it for the artisan. Look beyond technology to intent, the community’s acceptance of the product, and the continuation of design tradition. Sometimes we might be daunted by what we see, but the first carver who moved from a stone or bone tipped tool to one of metal started us on the moving process of technology in arts and craft.

New York Pilot Boat 5

This chest was not in stock long enough for me to do a proper set of photos. It sold at it’s first appearance at the Maine Boatbuilder’s Show to a pair of Boston Harbor pilots who were going to give it as a retirement gift to a colleague. The chest itself was of fairly common pine with teak keys for strength and decorative effect.
The top though, that’s some pine of a different pedigree. The pine tree was felled by the great hurricane of 1938. At the time it came down, it had been the tallest tree in the town of Shirley, Massachusetts. Very probably old growth, the entire top was just a segment of the plank I purchased from the retired dairy farmer, who, in true Yankee fashion, refused to let such a good tree go to waste and made it into planks.

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The pilot boat itself was pilot number 5 from New York Harbor. Pilot boats had to be extremely fast and able, and this design shows a flexible sail plan and sweet lines. Somewhere I have a slew of pilot boat designs but have not had an opportunity to carve another. Beautiful boats like this are hard to resist.

for a more recent look into New York Harbor pilotage take a look at Tugsters post of a pilot boat mothership: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72558/posts/2868136611

Wood

Wood occupies a central part of our lives. We love our cherry spoons, Mahogany cabinets, and teak deck chairs. As consumers, there is much that you don’t know about your favorite woods.

Smell:

Ash has a sweetish odor, that is uniquely distinctive when you saw it or burn it. Fresh red birch has a scent that takes you back to the best root beers you’ve ever had. Cherry bark smells like tasty cough syrup. And oak has an earthy odor to it. If you work with fresh-cut timber, these are some of the sensations that the tree shares with you, and which the uninitiated remain unaware.

Color:

Love the look of mahogany, the beautiful color of cherry, or walnut? The tree didn’t add them for you. Trees live in a highly competitive environment where organisms are always attacking the tree, looking for a meal. To deter the attacks, trees deposit chemicals into their wood that inhibit insects, bacteria, and fungi. After we cut the timber, those chemicals give us the coloration and some of the wood’s durability.

Toxicity:

Some woods are toxic to us. A wood called Pink Ivory is lovely to look at but is dangerous because of the chemicals in the wood. In use, it needs sealing before it’s safe for us to use. 

Woodworkers need to be especially aware that the dust caused by sanding some species is irritating. Mahogany and teak fall into that category. Not everyone is sensitive, but wearing protective gear is an excellent way of avoiding dermatitis or respiratory issues.

Food Safety:

Normally most of what I’ve mentioned is not too important to the average consumer. There is one area to aware of, and that is treen. Treen ( derived from the word tree) are objects like spoons, spatulas, bowls, and the like. Being that we handle food with them, the potential toxicity should be considered. In North America, woods normally considered food safe are woods like maple, fruitwoods (cherry, plum, pear, and apple) birch, and poplar. I’ve used ash for cutting boards, but not for spoons because it has alternating summer and winter woods ( ring porosity) and might absorb odors and flavors when immersed. Oak, while not toxic, is ring-porous, and can impart it’s earthy taste to foods, so I do not use it.

You might notice that I have not included walnut on my list. I am rather certain that it is food safe, but I rarely use it because there are a good number of people with walnut allergies.

Spalted wood is wood with the patterns of decay caused by fungus visible on the wood. It’s beautiful to look at, but there is a significant debate as to whether or not it is food safe. I do not work with it, in part, because there is a respiratory risk to the woodworker from the spores of the fungus. Yes, many woodworkers claim that the spores can be killed by microwaving or heating the wood. It’s just not a risk I take.

Exotic woods. I stay away from them. For many, there are question marks regarding their food safety, and being that I used to sell commercially, I had product liability to worry about.

If you have questions about any of this, write me, and I’ll try to formulate an intelligent response.

Favorites

My father’s favorite ship was the S.S. President Tyler. He sailed aboard it whenever possible from his first voyage around 1932 till he came ashore in 1946, the year I was born. Several World and Asian cruises made him a genuine China Sailor.
Sailors, merchant or naval, can have deep relationships with their ships. Call it loyalty, affection, longing, or call it what it really can be – romance. I know, I have an ache for a certain ketch I’ll never see again. Women are known to jealous of ships and boats. My first mother in law was jealous of the Cap’ns Psyche. For the sake of peace, she hid it well. My mother was not so diplomatic about my father’s love of the sea, and “that ship.” She had been a sea widow throughout their marriage and two pregnancies. Like many sea widow’s, there came a time when the husband was expected to “swallow the anchor.” More than a few arguments ended with my father threatening to go to the hiring hall and “look for a ship.”
So growing up, the Tyler was a sensitive issue. We’d regularly drive along the Hudson River to where the reserve fleet was anchored. He was looking for the Tyler. My mother was never on any of these excursions.

I had seen my father’s pictures onboard the Tyler, But I had never seen a photo of the ship itself. My mother was famous for editing her life, so it’s more than likely that she disposed of those photos when she threw out dad’s cruise scrapbooks. For her, those were not good times.

Many years later, I was teaching marine carving at the WoodenBoat School in Maine. Teaching at WoodenBoat is not just an opportunity to learn. It’s an opportunity to grow as a person through the freindhips formed with the individuals you meet there. One year one of my students was a former Master Mariner who worked for the American Bureau of Shipping. We talked about ships one night, and I told him all that I knew of the Tyler and my father’s affection for the ship. I mentioned that I’d love to carve a portrait of the Tyler but could not find enough data to start the project. I thought no more about the conversation, and at the end of the course, said goodbye to my students and returned to Massachusetts.

About three weeks later, a large envelope arrived from the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping). In it was were copies of plans and articles relating to the class of vessel to which the Tyler had belonged; enough to start the portrait. My student had searched the ABS library for the documentation that I needed.

The Tyler was my first large portrait. I can now look at it and see a dozen things that I would and could do differently with twenty years of experience carving portraits. But when you finish a project it’s best to move on, or you’ll never finish.

It sails on my wall with a cherry ocean and sky heading east from Japan or China towards Los Angelos. I think my father is pleased that his ship is restored to an essential place in our lives, through the unexpected kindness of a fellow seaman.

Eagle Eyes

While teaching, I always like to decorate the workshop with carving examples for students to use as a reference. Week-long excursions to teach away from home mean emptying the house of many of my carvings. But samples in three dimensions often are better than pictures or demonstration, and the extra work was worth it.
During one summer course, A student was working on an eagle and suddenly stopped, got up, and went over to an eagle billet head. He picked it up and turned the head away from him. Noticing me watching, he shrugged his shoulders and said: “it was watching me.”
Smiling, I pointed out that he was perfecting the eagle’s body plan and feathers without working on the head, most notably the eye. He asked me why it mattered, and I told him that it was essential to fair the contours of the head and neck into the body, so the eagle looked all of one piece when finished. The head is temporarily attached to the body with a screw while you carve the neck fair to the body.
” But why was it watching me?”
Well, I explained, years ago, while I was first carving eagles, a talented carver from Boothbay Harbor advised me to always start the head before detailing and finish the eye first. There was a practical reason for this. The eye was a delicate piece of work, and if not done right could ruin the whole birdie. He then added that he had been taught to do the eye first so the eagle could oversee the carving’s remainder. ” As I was taught, so am I teaching you.” I then turned the eagle about so it’s beady eyes were on the student. ” Being that you haven’t done the eye first, this birdie’s cousin in watching you.” I can be a first-class pain sometimes.

I carved the eyes on that particular eagle with a “tunnel” eye effect. With that manner of carving, you could get the impression that the eye watches you and moves with you. To someone easily spooked, like my student, it could be an unpleasant sensation.
There are several ways to carve eagle eyes for traditional marine eagles. Please note that if you carve more realistic styles, these will not appeal to you. I’m a nineteenth-century carver stuck in the twenty-first century. Be all modern if you like. Another ships carver reminded me that most people do not get close eough to smell the eagle; all these things in full size are meant to be viewed from a distance. Here are some examples of eyes:

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Twentyone

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The problem with imagination is that it’s boundless. On the wall is a poster telling you that you can do it if you can imagine it. Don’t take it too literally.

Aspirations aside, there are some things only possible with loads of tricks, like telling fortunes. My friend Bill had picked up some tricks of the psychic trade from working with a con artist we knew as John. Bill had a natural talent for reading people, and with the card and vocal tricks he had picked up from John, he was soon a favorite among the weekend influx of suburban kids that regularly hit the Folkie Palace. 

From fortune-telling with the kids to doing it at the Harvard Gardens for beer was a natural progression. “Imagine.” he told me- “I’m doing well while doing good.” At first, he restricted himself to doing readings for friends, but as he grew more confident, he branched out. Lovelorn young ladies came to be a specialty. One attractive woman decided that she wanted Bill’s services exclusively. He demurred politely. She grew insistent. He explained that he was married. She slapped him and walked out.

Not too much later in walked police Sargent Cappucci with the young woman behind him. We all stood up to give Bill the needed cover to run out past the men’s room and the back door into the alleyway. Knowing that Bill and I were best friends, I got collared. “Tell your little buddy that I ‘m looking for him. Playing with the affections of my niece is something I won’t tolerate.” He shoved me into the booth, and away they walked. Him fuming her crying softly. “His niece.” Said the Teahead of the August Moon. ” Sweet. Bill can always find some way to get us into trouble.”

For the next couple of weeks, we were not in good favor with the residents of Grove Street. It seemed that the entire street attracted more casual police attention than usual. Squad cars were cruising by. Officers were poking around. It curtailed summer parties and other activities. It became common knowledge that we were the cause of this attention. As a group, and as individuals, we got uninvited from everything happening in the neighborhood. People avoided sitting near us in the Harvard Gardens. 

Bill suffered from none of this. He had departed for Baltimore right after the trouble at the Gardens.

As is often the case, we don’t learn from our mistakes unless we suffer from their consequences. In this incident, only Bill’s friends have. So it came as no surprise that no one at the Folkie Palace was willing to contribute to paying the fine to get Bill out of jail in Baltimore.

He had been cutting into the action of the”legitimate” psychics in Downtown Baltimore, and they had tipped off the police. I hitched down, solicited as many of our friends as possible, and got him out.

He was a repentant, Bill. a Bill who promised never to tell a fortune again. Besides, while in the joint, he’d met this great guy who’d taught him how to count cards in Blackjack.

” Wes, have you ever been to Vegas?”

Angel

This little folk art-style angel is a sort of Christmas-time dreamcatcher. It swings above our Christmas tree every year. I carved it one winter years ago when the kids were still little.

Risky Business

Some artists and craft people do one thing without variance their entire careers. In fact, some are very thoroughly tied to the form and tradition of their work, and deviation could bring negative consequences. If you make Windsor chairs, many traditionalists who purchase your output might look askance if you suddenly began experimenting wildly with asymmetric designs, new construction techniques, or polychromed chairs.

However, change does find its way into even the most conservative workshops, albeit gradually. While a few chair shops still rely on whip stave and pedal-powered lathes, the majority have transitioned to electrically powered equipment, striking a balance between tradition and innovation.

In carving, there is room for carvers who use powered tools and traditionalists. I use mostly traditional hand tools in my shop, but my electrical Dremel tool is great for working in crevices and sanding tight corners. The tools are complementary and help me get my work done.

Several years ago, my eyes forced major changes in how I carve. I had a hole in the retina of my right eye, and it needed repair, or I’d lose vision in that eye. One side effect of the repair was that a developing cataract required surgery soon after the macular hole repair. The surgeries, while successful, resulted in visual challenges in the shop. Where my vision focused changed, and in the right eye, the healing left a small amount of scarring that distorted my vision slightly.

The vision changes made me step back from carving until my eyes, and I came to a new understanding of how things worked. I was out of the shop for a bit over six months. When I went back to work, I discovered that there were things I had trouble doing. The worst was small lettering. Anything under an inch was almost impossible, and I had to relearn other aspects of carving detail work.

The small lettering problem bothered me. It wasn’t a significant part of my work, but it became a fixation for some reason. I took a risky step and invested in a laser engraver for small lettering. It has paid off. But as is often the case, when you change one thing, other changes cascade along. Art and craft are esthetic equations. Change one thing, and it changes what appears on the other side of the equals sign. Having opened myself to change in one area, I began to experiment in others. The mixed media carvings I’ve produced are the result. They combine fine laser engraved lettering of text, traditional carving of the vessels, and paint and colored stone for the texture of the waves.

It was a risk that paid off and has started a wave of evolving change in my work. Exactly where it will take me, I don’t know. But that is the nature of risk and change. Outcomes may not be predictable.

1800’s sloop of war

Daily writing prompt

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

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The Subway Ride

It’s a stereotype that New Yorkers mind their own business, stick their noses into the Daily News, and pay no attention to what’s going on on the other side of the subway car. It’s not true. They are very aware of what’s going on and nervously waiting to see if the infection will spread to their area of the car.

It takes a lot of bravery for one person to stand up against a group of thugs. The wild bunch got on at Times Square and are riding up to 241st Street. It’s going to be a long ride. Especially when they are harassing a young woman in the far corner of the car; of course, the Transit Police or NYC’s Finest are nowhere to be seen.

That was the setting one Sunday morning while I was heading home from a gig in the Village. It was about three o’clock, and no one who didn’t have a good reason to travel the old IRT Line was on the train. Anyone with a normal schedule was at home in bed for at least another two or three hours.

But the wild bunch was busy trying to sweet talk a young woman, and when sweet talk failed, they resorted to more physical means of focusing her attention on them. It was then that a frail-looking old man got up and politely asked them to leave the girl alone. “Get the F away, Grandpa, you’ll get hurt!”

The older man paid no attention but continued politely asking that they please leave the girl alone. One of the toughs casually reached out and flat handidly shoved at the old man. The older man seemed to twist sideways, took the wrist, twisted, levered, and bent. The young man was on the deck crying in pain, holding his hand. Wasting no time, the old man stomped the foot of another tough, fisted the next in the temple. And kicked the knee out from under another. When the train stopped, the idiots fled. The old man returned to his seat, and everyone buried their noses deeper into what they were reading. It was so quiet that the smallest of sneezes would have sounded loud. A Transit police officer poked his nose into the car and then left.

It’s been many years since I left New York, but one thing is sure. There are no sure bets on the subway. Most people will look elsewhere, with a gang, but please note that the old Karate sensei peacefully requested that they leave the woman alone. Only when they attacked him did he defend himself. Sometimes, the aggressor is not in control of the situation, but the defender is. As Sun Tzu says, “He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not will be victorious.”

I remember this incident whenever the easy path is to ignore the situation. After all, I was one of the people who buried my nose in my copy of the paper.

Daily writing prompt

Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?

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Illusion

The little eagle’s head has been carved separate from the body. Why?

Tradition is one reason; I learned from others to carve the head and eye first so “The birdie can watch what you are doing.” But the primary reason is that it’s easier to complete the shape and back of the head when it’s not in place. A look at some of the detailed pictures shows that the head looks as though it’s fully carved, but it’s not. No one will ever see the reverse side, so we just create the impression that it’s there.

The body’s pattern has been cut out, so the next step is to attach the head to the body and begin”fairing” the head and body together. When finished, they’ll look like one. At that point, I’ll begin defining the shapes of the feathers, the feather veining, and the final details. After that, I’ll rough out the banner and add the lettering.

Will it stay natural wood with varnish, get painted, or be gilded with 23-carat gold leaf? Usually, that depends on who commissioned the piece and where it will go.

eagle with banner

detail of one of my eagles

Nocturnal

Winter is my least favorite season. I need little excuse to keep the Christmas lights up till Saint Valentine’s Day. They make the nocturnal hours a bit more bearable.

Dreams

Maple syruping ends early, dry and wet cycles are disturbed, and the oceans, always the anchor, are in trouble. These are the things that worry me. I can’t fix most of them, but I can ameliorate some of them. I’ve been working for years on improving the garden soil so my plantings are more drought-resistant. I’ve also rewilded the back of our lot to enhance plant and animal diversity. My war on the lawn has ended in a total loss for the lawn. The front of the house is now totally given over to perennials that don’t get watered.

I am doing better than an old friend. He binges on Jolly Rancher gummies whenever he thinks about the climate. I don’t want his dental bill! But he lives deep within a tract of woodland. His worries revolve around fire seasons. That’s a new turn of phrase in our area of New England. Watching parts of Canada close to us burn last year was more than a bit disturbing; it was an unpleasant wake-up call. That sort of thing happens annually to people thousands of miles away.

My friend says that his sleep remains undisturbed. Except for an occasional dream in which he wakes up in a climate refugee camp.

Wings

Years ago, I had a weird dream. Two of my favorite artists, John Haley Bellamy and Salvador Dali, were sitting with me in a coffeehouse discussing art. I merely sat by and listened while the two masters talked. They were deeply involved in a discussion of exaggeration and distortion in art. At one point, they turned to me and asked what I thought. I opened my mouth to speak but woke from the dream that instant.

I spent more than a few hours thinking about that dream and their discussion. Bellamy was famous for his eagles, and Dali was famous for his surrealistic images. The link seemed to be the way images were portrayed by both artists. There were more similarities than you might think when considering how Bellamy accentuated and distorted eagle necks, wingspan and wing proportions for effect.

I began to experiment with the lessons that the masters relayed to me.

There have been no new visits from either Dali or Bellamy yet, but I’ll let you know the next time I meet them at the coffeehouse.

Fountain

On visits to Burlington, Vermont, I’ve found myself fascinated by this fountain in the downtown area.

To the Woods

When you love to do something so much that you do it every evening to unwind you can either develop a nasty habit or become terminally bored with it. Ice cream, beer, reefer, a cigar, brandy, or many other things enjoyed in moderation are lovely, but habitually indulging in them might be problematic. OK, you say, I can see that some of that stuff can be physically harmful but terminally boring?
It’s the problem of paradise – too much of a good thing becomes bad, or boring. Dig back to your days in college, the old neighborhood, or while hanging with your best friends. Every night, you’d get together and do__________. Bet you don’t anymore! It was a passing phase, just something you did with the old gang or had to quit. It’s not something you can’t wait to do anymore.

So, to illustrate, it’s storytime.

I lived in a neighborhood adjacent to one of New York City’s largest parks*. It had sprawling woods stretching north and east and was a fantastic hiking place. It was also a wonderful place for teens to carry a case of beer into the woods, head to the top of a hill, and cook out and drink. We did this often. Or, as the ad said, rinse and repeat. After my expulsion from high school, I wandered downtown permanently and became a habitue of Greenwich Village coffeehouses. My life took a radical turn in the next several years, and it was a long time before I thought of returning to the old neighborhood.
A few years later, I was on the road between Portland, Maine, and Philadelphia. A friend living in New York offered me a studio apartment as a layover spot for the weekend.
Being at loose ends, I hopped on a subway to the old neighborhood. My expectations were to find a place to eat, walk around, and then head back downtown. But I ran into Vinnie. Vinnie informed me that it was Friday night, and the old gang would head to the overlook for a fire and beer. I was amazed. High school was behind us, and I assumed everyone had moved on. Not so.

So I joined Vinnie, Becky, Lola, Jim, Carlos, and a few others at the lookout and watched the summer sun sink over the lip of a bottle of Budweiser. The gathering got a bit loud around nine, and like clockwork, New York’s Finest showed up to chase the crew off the overlook. It was like old times, running and hiding in the woods from the cops. We knew all the good spots, and they didn’t.
Afterward, Vinnie saw me to the train, and invited me back anytime. But I never went. Other things had replaced every Friday in the park for me.

I have a lovely firepit in the yard near the garden. It’s great to light up some firewood on a summer evening, watch the flames dance, and talk. I’ve even shared with my kids some stories about Vinnie and the old gang running from the Keystone Cops through the woods, lurking not three feet from them in some shrubbery while they lurched through the poison ivy.

But we don’t do it every evening. We prefer to keep our treats special and not abuse them until they become ordinary.

*No, not Central Park!

Daily writing prompt

How do you unwind after a demanding day?

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Choose Wisely

I know reasonable, sober, and intelligent people who are into weird TikTok memes, strange conspiracy junk on X, and spend vast amounts of time doing frivolous things on Facebook. None of them are people I’d peg as among those easy to mislead or gullible. That they evidently can’t quench a need for the outre is enough to make me careful about how much social media I consume. After all, if they can fall for that nonsense, am I safe?
Can the bad JuJu mislead me into believing that aliens are among us? Or entice me into idiotic and dangerous pranks? I had enough of that stuff in the ’60s.

Just so you know – I am a proud post-graduate of Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City. I can see a con, jive, or bit of trouble coming from a mile away. I am also no fool, and I realize that some of the people who can’t seem to keep their eyes off TikTok have the same or similar background as me. That scares the living, you know what, out of me.

If they can be pulled into it, so can I.

So, I check Facebook twice a week for updates on friends or to visit a few closed maritime groups – but I rarely spend five minutes doing it.
I have no TikTok account, and I closed my account when Muskmelon took over Twitter. My blog is my only significant point of contact with social media, and I like it that way.

My advice on social media is to find a corner you are comfortable with and engage carefully and judiciously. For me, that corner is my WordPress blog. I can control the interface. I can shut down the crazies. And I can explore at will.
Choose, but choose wisely, as the knight in the Indiana Jones picture said. Now go valiantly forth and sin no more!

Daily writing prompt

How do you use social media?

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