Haiku Monday: Ghost

10.24.2011


Candy corn fangs and 
ghost infested hemlocks; Jack
grins with sweet promise

Haiku Monday is a multi-participant weekly contest. For details please visit Ether Capacious

17 comments:

  1. Great verse, and the new site is beautiful, of course.

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  2. Chick9,

    fantastic sepia photo! youse been busy creatin' haints an' ghosts. Better paint the ceilin' of that new shed haint blue.

    An' very endearin' verse.

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  3. ya changed yore font? I like this one.

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  4. Czar: thank you! I like it in "mosaic" view. Its fantastic. But the best aspect of the new Blogger dynamic views is that for each post, I can determine how best to showcase it by selecting a view default.

    aunty: thank you - don't sepia have a good creep factor - more than black and white do. Halloween was once endearin' - home made costumes and decorations and treats. its getting back to that thanks to "craftism". do a blue ceiling keep out ghosts? whatareyatawkingabout?

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  5. Hey, I might have to try the new blogger interface. I'll copy and past my old template though. This looks great. Love your ghost! and your haiku is positively frightening .. lol. no way i would trust that jack's sweet promise .. seems sinister somwhow.

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  6. did you take this picture? And create the ghost (along with the Haiku, of course.)

    I love it! I agree about getting back to the home made holiday. It's my theme for the rest of the year.

    xoxoxox

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  7. love it - we're scared
    glad you got your old style blog back.
    I love mine too - so happy for the warning not to putz with it. xo S
    & the cowboy (**) & les Gang

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  8. yores is the best visual--

    Ain't'cha ever heered of haint blue? folks pint it on the ceiling of they porches an floors to keep the ghosts out--jes' start lookin' around at ole timey country houses--an' ask a few ole timers.

    In the South Carolina Lowcountry, there's a name for the blue of porch ceiling: haint blue.

    NPR reported:

    "Alphonso Brown, a guide with Gullah Tours in Charleston, S.C., explains that a haint is a spirit or a ghost, and in Charleston, many people also paint the trim on their houses blue to ward off evil spirits.

    Other theories also exist. Some say blue helps extend daylight as dusk begins to fall, and many, including Brown, believe that it helps keep bugs away."

    or, this designer who tells his story:

    "Well, about a year-and-a-half ago, a great friend of mine moved to New Orleans. Within days of his landing there, he turned into a combination of Marie Laveau and Tennessee Williams. In a matter of hours, he'd absorbed all of the lore of that fable-filled city and was spouting it back like a lifetime resident. Anyhow, when he was telling me about his house on about day two, he mentioned that its front porch had a Haint Blue ceiling.

    I'd never heard the term before, but I knew exactly what he meant. Apparently Haint Blue still figures prominently into New Orleans homes. I asked him where it got its name and he said that New Orleanians use that paint color to keep away haints, or or spirits of the dead with bad intentions.

    Well, I did a little digging around, and the practice of painting a porch ceiling blue did start in the American south. The expression Haint Blue comes from the Gullah people of the South Carolina and Georgia low country. They painted the entries to their homes light blue to keep the bad spirits away. The blue color represented water, and as everybody knows, haints can't cross water. "


    so iffin' youse of a mind, jes' type "haint blue" into google images an' about a hunnert porcheswill come up--some is real purty --go see.

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  9. grrherhaha ha

    candy corn fangs :)

    (is that really what those are?!?)

    halloween is always fun and creative with you, c -- have a good one

    × × ×

    /t.

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  10. Whew, now I can get in to comment. Have been having a hard time with the other formats . . .

    What I like best about this photo is that, like all good photos on this theme, it mixes the slightly spooky with the slightly sad with the slightly funny.

    Great haiku, too.

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  11. Yep. Haint blue. Don't know, Chickory, where you stand on the whole Bill Arnett thing (or if it's ever come up with you and Moi), but the early Souls Grown Deep books discuss haint blue, if memory serves.

    And I'm presuming you know about Arnett just because you're, well, Chickory. If not, then never mind.

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  12. Nice "whew," there, Moi. :-0

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  13. czar: i do know Bill Arnett. DId you edit his booK? WHile I was at the High Museum I worked with him on a series for high school students to meet and work with folk artists. Lonnie Holley was the artist we chose and he was wonderful. I also got to meet thorton dial and knew the great Reverend Howard FInster - the pilgrimages up to Summerville will forever remain the better part of the 1980's. Arnetts home was jam packed with art and labrador retrievers.....how do I feel about what he did? Well, I mean, many of these artists would have never been discovered but they never seemed to profit from their art as Bill did. I assume you saw the 60 minutes piece??

    moi: i took dynamic views off for now - once the bugs are worked out I will reenable it. Thanks - im glad you like this ghost - amzing what you can do with some tissue paper and a sharpie. no, its not amazing - but it was available!

    /t: it takes practice, but you'll get it. (make sure the candy corn is warm)

    aunty: i loved all the haint blues that came up on google images. this is a bit of southern superstition i knew nothing of! However, I doubt I i will do this to the shed ceiling as i am hoping my Mom haints me there. and often.

    susan: it was epic getting it back. I had to first revert to the old dashboard where the templates of 2006 are hidden. But I am going to go to dynamic views when they get it together.

    boxer: thats the theme of my christmas studio sale - not just the art, but this year, I am offering beautifully packaged treats. mmmmmmmmm. I already made the salted caramels in a trial run. good. sea salt on the top.

    foam: wait a little while. There are bugs. FOr one, I had a link to auntys haiku page that didnt work unless you clicked on the post title even after the page opened from the snapshot image. also, hard to open comment window. I dont like infinite scrolling because I have a lot of video and animated gifs which make ugly formatting problems. I would have to clean off any post that didnt have a good looking image to. But I DO like it. alot. and look forward to using it.

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  14. Yeah, I was the editor/proofreader/indexer for the Arnetts for about 10 years. Very close with Bill, and somewhat with Paul. I was proofreading the first pages for Souls Grown Deep on his living room floor back in 1995 when they still had an idea of putting the book out for the Olympics. And my brother tells the story of going to Bill's house and seeing Bill's labs asleep on some of the lesser-thought-of Gee's Bend quilts. Some years back, Bill took us on a tour to meet the Alabama artists: Lonnie Holley, Mr. Dial, Joe Minter. We ventured on our own and saw Mose Tolliver and spent a few hours with Charlie Lucas. All great times. Then there's the Jane Fonda meeting, chronicled at the blog.

    Then The Last Folk Hero came out, which I also copyedited. And the Arnetts have never spoken another word to me, although I've tried and tried. I love Bill Arnett, though, faults and all. But to say he's hardheaded would be the year's understatement.

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  15. I didnt read the last folk hero - but in thorton dials documentary he says nice things about bill, as do plenty of the Gee's bend artists. some are also suing the arnetts. I dont know Bill well enough to comment too much on him - he was unusual. I have no doubt that he was instrumental in the rise of southern folk art and raw vision in general. Im mean, damned if you do, damned if you dont! His path is going to be controversial no matter what: race, economics...the set up is bad from the get go if you know what I mean. SO sorry that the book cost you a friendship. Funny we never crossed paths. You must also know Barbara Archer -I took her job at the high when she moved into gallerista mode. SHe was the one who introduced me to Bill. Funny we have never crossed paths!

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  16. czar: did you ever go to Pasquian or whatever saint E O M's joint was called?

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  17. Didn't know Barbara Archer, had no knowledge of St. EOM until this posting. I never dealt with the museums or anyone other than the Arnetts (Bill, Judy, Paul, Matt, Harry) . . . and the artists. I never had any contact with their fourth son.

    But we do have some Bill Alexanders hanging right near some Thornton Dials. Arnett paid me in art all those years. Mose T., JL Sudduth, Bessie Harvey, Son Thomas, a painting from one of Dial's daughters, a few others -- and five Dial paintings/drawings, not the big mixed-media stuff.

    I also scored a few pieces of carved African art from him.

    Of course, he never gave me anything he thought was of real value. But they're pretty valuable to us.

    What I really need is some Chick/9 hanging on my walls.

    We'll talk. The czarina would love your art. I've not told her about your website/blog, as we're already broke enough. I have no doubt that money would come flying in your direction once the floodgates opened.

    Do you happen to know Sarah Hatch? Friend of the czarina's.

    --

    PS: The pieces that blew me away more than anything were Richard Dial's chairs. The czarina took my place on the fabled bus tour (the artists, Jane Fonda, Amiri Baraka, etc.), and one day I got a call from her. She said, "You won't believe who I'm talking to." And she put Richard Dial on the phone. I was so tongue-tied I sounded like a 13-year-old groupie. He was just so humbled that someone was actually paying attention to him.

    http://www.prices4antiques.com/item_images/medium/08/42/09-01.jpg

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