Fred Blee
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fredblee.bsky.social
Fred Blee
@fredblee.bsky.social
85 followers 43 following 200 posts
Freelance linguist. Armchair anthropologist. Naive post-modernist. Billiards enthusiast. Poet of little repute. Call for estimates.
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fredblee.bsky.social
About to enjoy a lovely little Dad’s Sunset tomato that I picked from the garden last week. It’s been ripening on the counter, and today I think it’s ready. Gardening teaches me about accepting loss, and then throws me a little touch of grace.
About to enjoy a lovely little Dad’s Sunset tomato that I picked from the garden last week. It’s been ripening on the counter, and today I think it’s ready. Gardening teaches me about accepting loss, and then throws me a little touch of grace.
November 8, 2025 at 7:05 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Moonsliver 20250825-1
#photography #altstories
No longer new, the moon was a waxing sliver last night, chasing the sunset. The skyline was already dark, as dark as the future can sometimes look these days, for we are in and age of turmoil. As Gramsci said "The old world is dying and a new world struggles to be born...." Each morning we awake to new occurences of age-old savageries while the perpetrators point their bloody fingers at the victims and justify their deeds with lies, sophistry and sanctimony. The clowns distract the audience while the cutpurses glide through the crowd unfettered. Devilish machines are unleashed, spewing hateful slogans and sowing confusion. Dieties are invoked, propitiated, cursed, denied; blasphemy falls from the lips of the pharisees and the flock murmurs "Amen." "...now is the time of monsters."
August 26, 2025 at 4:52 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Breakwater 20250810-2
#photography #altstories
At nightfall, the freighter still lies at anchor, still waits. All day the crew has busied itself with the waiting, the ten thousand tasks that keep the ship afloat. Tomorrow may mean lading, or only more waiting, but for now there is only the deepening dusk and a day's work done. Some of the crew will sleep, a few will stand watch, and the ten thousand things will be there again come the dawn. And so each day for each of us, whether moored or moving, each on our journey toward the one. May you find safe harbor, good cargo, smooth sailing.
August 11, 2025 at 4:07 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Breakwater 20250810-1
#photography #altstories
Dawn, and the little freighter rides at anchor outside the harbor, awaiting a berth and a cargo. Last night's storm, the torrential rains and the fierce winds, has cleansed and cooled the air, leaving pools of water faintly tincted with the residue of the northern wildfires. The amount of rainfall overnight was truly incredible, over 14" slightly to the north of us and from 4" up everywhere in the metro area. The last day of the State Fair was cancelled and too many folks spent their Sunday trying to salvage what they could. They are calling it a 1,000-year flood, but no one knows whether that should reassure or frighten us. There are too many 1,000-year catastrophes these days.
August 11, 2025 at 3:00 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Sturgeon Moon 20250809-1
#photography #altstories
At dawn, the Sturgeon Moon setting in the west, reddened by the smoke from the wildfires in Canada. The city is quiet this early on a Saturday morning, but for the cries of the gulls and the occasional siren that signifes someone's day is off to a very bad start. Perhaps, though, it will turn out to be only some very bad indigestion, not a coronary, and the patient, after a few hours observation, will be sent home to question whether they over-reacted or not and to wonder if the next time will be the real thing and they will dismiss it and never hear the sirens drawing near, and to ponder on the fragility of existence and the mortal callousness of it all, how there may be no time for goodbyes, or that the goodbyes will stretch through weeks, or months, of suffering. Oh, the moon rises and sets every day, but you, my friend, you get one orbit, one brief transit, one chance to shine. Make time to look up at the Sturgeon Moon, truly listen to the gulls, and send a blessing after every siren.
August 11, 2025 at 2:34 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Breakwater 20270726-1
#photography #altstories
At first light, the gulls begin a shrill murmur. Then one cries out, sharp and short, and they take off, wheeling through the summer morning's flat light. It will rain yet this morning, but for now the air is heavy and warm and the gulls swoop shrieking and shouting for a few minutes before settling down on rooftops and falling silent but for the occasional cry. It as if each morning's start were some astounding event, an occasion for chatter and tumult, until the novelty of it wears off and it becomes just another day. We, however, faced with each fresh miscarriage of justice, each entrenchment of an oppressive status quo, each instance of brutality or cruelty, must not roost and fall silent. We cannot allow the lawlessness, the perfidy, the treachery of those in power to become quotidian, so that our souls become calloused under the saddle of evil rulers. We must cry out, sharp in each morning's air, "This shall not stand." Our complicity must extend only as far as our lack of power, and we always have the power to speak. Resist, my brothers and sisters, and another day will dawn, brighter than this one.
July 26, 2025 at 12:17 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Revenant Canoe

Tory Tepp

Tampa, FL & Sauk County, WI

Image made: 20241010

#photography #altstories
This is a piece of art by Tory Tepp called "Revenant Canoe" captured during the Farm/Art DTour 2024 in Sauk County, WI. We had stalked it all the morning of our first day until we stumbled upon it behind the meeting house at the Witwen Tabernacle Church Campground. Despite its attempt to conceal itself behind some reeds, we snapped it standing fully erect and a quarter submerged in a small pond between the North Fork of Honey Creek and Honey Creek proper, apparently its intended posture and habitat. I have to look up revenant to see how a canoe could be so, and it seems this canoe is back from the bottom, a corpse of a canoe that came back as a cabinet. It stands mutely, startling and stark and sharp against the green sward that lay beyond it. And then a finch swoops and hops into the orange and white birdhouse. Suddenly the canoe is no longer a bashful artifact, but one with the landscape. The mirrors become eyes, and a face, not visible to us before, appears in the area below the birdhouses. The lantern becomes a helmet. We see the canoe as a figure crouched on the bank, waiting. We saw a lot of other art that day, took pictures of many pieces, always felt the slight disappointment one can feel because the pictures are never as good as what you saw, like memories. Even when we've adjusted the image and crafted the story, we're not.... there. Because we're here. We keep taking pictures, though, and looking at art installed up to its knees in a Sauk County pond, wondering why Tory Tepp would use the word revenant. Perhaps it really is a salvaged canoe, and all the objects in it found, discarded, and they've come back to tell us "Be kind to each other and to things", for there's a face where you least expect it and art in farmers' fields and a blue canary in the outlet by the light switch who watches over you. I can't suppose that Tory Tepp intended all that, or ever heard that song, but I'd like to think he and I are on the same wavelink, if only a bit.
May 23, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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Mount Antero 20180520-1
#photography #altstories
Mount Antero girdled with early morning clouds while its peak juts into a clear Colorado sky. If you stop your car at a crossroads in the hills across the valley from Antero on a gorgeous spring Sunday morning, you could see something like this. You might just jump out of the car and stand there a bit to soak it all in, forgetiing for a moment the ill temper you left the house in and the chill you'll walk into when you return, all over what? Control, you suppose. But standing in that crossroads you get the inkling that control is overrated, and often illusionary, and the seeds of apology begin to form in your heart. Because one thing the mountain does is humble you. You can be sure this mountain will not come to you at your bidding; you will have to go to it, across that valley, beneath those clouds, up the snow dusted foothills. And it's that way with an apology, too. You have to traverse a valley of apprehension and perhaps receive a frosty reception. Still, they say that regret is the forge of character where ones moral awkwardness is hammered back into plumb and square on memory's adamantine anvil, and you've got to gird up and make what poor amends you can, for only you can do it. Of course, that's pretty much your situation generally: you've got to whistle up your nerve and begin to repay the debt you owe the world and accept the fact that only you can do the work. The mountain isn't going to come to you. The mountain isn't even going to care what you do. The valley is wider to walk across than look across. The clouds may or may not disipate. Nothing is known about the journey ahead, but you get back into the car and drive to a rustic minimart in a hopeless quest to procure gluten-free bread. That failure will do nothing to sweeten the morning, and your mood is dark and fearful despite your time gazing at Mount Antero. Courage, my friend, courage.
May 21, 2025 at 3:46 PM
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Biscuits 20250513-1
#Photography #altstories
In Bentonville, Arkansas there is a restaurant named Conifer that is 100% gluten-free, and they make some of the best buttermilk biscuits you'll ever eat, glutinous or otherwise. On a recent journey through the capitals (and the Capitols) of 4 states (AL, MS, AR and KS), we stopped off in Bentonville, AR to visit the Crystal Bridges museum. Bentonville was a small town until the Waltons became billionaires and the corporation grew astronomically. It is now full of dozens and dozens of modern(-ist) buildings and thousands and thousands of new people. But back to biscuits. When the chef wandered by and greeted us, we praised the biscuits warmly and before our meal was through, chef came back with a photocopy of the maculate kitchen recipe sheet and the admonition that "it will have to be scaled down, of course." The recipe was for 30 big biscuits with variations for cheese and/or garlic. These are plain gluten-free buttermilk biscuits with a sprinkle of sea salt on the top. The museum in Bentonville is top-notch, as well. Gorgeous grounds include a Wright house that was moved from New Jersey. Imagine that. The collection is solely American art, from all periods, so there are lots of portraits of rich white people in the initial rooms, but don't be deterred by that. American art didn't break free until the 20th Century, which is perhaps a controversial but popular opinion, wasn't it?. (Lehmann tag question, rhetorical whimsey, that) There are no two opinions about these biscuits, though. Universally loved and acclaimed. Works of art. Of course, having the necessary resources to dine at Conifer and be served the biscuits, and choosing to do so, is a privilege. Even making them at home is a luxury afforded by the availability of the necessary ingredients and all that butter. Scads of butter... and buttermilk. And so capitalism serves up the biscuit and the bait, and the biscuits are so darn good. I still sleep at night, but my daytimes are troubled. Wish us luck.
May 15, 2025 at 2:39 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Spanish Ham 20190406-1
#photography #altstories
The plane from Atlanta arrives in Madrid early on Saturday morning, and, after a metro ride al centro, we find our hotel, drop our bags awaiting checkin time, and wander out for a late breakfast. We find this little place which could offer everything from Dewars to donuts and are soon feasting on castelvetrano olives and manchego, and yes, a slice or two of ham. A few people come in, usually just for coffee, but one intrepid customer has two quick shots of something from a bottle I do not recognize. 10:30 AM on a Saturday? Who am I to judge? No matter where in the world you go, there are folks whose troubles have gotten on top of them, and won't let them up, and you need to be kind to those people, or your luck at finding huge ham haunches will evaporate, and then you'll have more troubles to wrestle with and the cafe will never be open when you need a coffee. That's the way things *should* work, anyway, but too often the heartless knife their way to the top of the hierarchy and spend the rest of their days stepping on anyone who is a perceived threat and making the world a lesser place generally. Those people don't deserve to have jamon iberico in a dive cafe on a non-descript side street in Madrid, and if they did ever show up at this place, the owner would surely be rude to them, and perhaps even ask them to leave. Have no truck with the heartless, he'd say (but in Spanish), and vote them out of office if the opportunity arises. You should wear a red taffeta dress to their funerals. Honk at them in traffic. Mock them to their faces at christenings and other solemn occasions. Pretend not to recognize them when sharing an elevator, and push all the buttons below their stop. Right now, too many heartless are infesting our government at all levels in the US, but the day of judgement is nigh, and then the shoe will be on the other side, and they'll have to eat their own crow and learn a useful trade at a minimum security prison. At least I hope it works out that way.
May 12, 2025 at 7:12 PM
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Trees, Snow, Denver 20180402-1
#photography #altstories
Downtown Denver rises up from the snow-capped pines of Cheesman Park. The park, and the Botanic Garden next to it, is also a burial ground, but not a cemetery. No one has been interred there for well over a hundred years, but not everyone who was buried there has been disinterred, and so there is the occasional accidental exhumation. Not long ago a humerus was found as they made repairs to the Japanese Garden water feature. It always makes the papers when it happens, but no one ever stops to ask whether or not a Japanese Garden in a Rocky Mountain botanic garden is a form of cultural appropriation, or point out that patrons do not get the experience of being in a Japanese garden, but rather that of being in the Japanese Garden in the Denver Botanic Gardens, which is quite another thing, and that experience includes walking over the graves of hundreds, if not a couple thousand, long-dead Denverites. There is near to that garden a long shed full of tiny tortured trees, wherein one can savor an aesthetic frisson akin to satisfying the taste for fois gras, pleasuring in the result of nature perverted. One can’t spend ten minutes enjoying the simulacrum of a Japanese garden without hearing a siren, anyway. What a world we’ve built, on the bones of our dead.
May 12, 2025 at 2:42 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Breakwater 20250509-1
#photography #altstories
The breakwater separates the harbor from the bay and from the lake and from the low clouds on the horizon and from the spectrum of blue, blue twilight sky wherein a pale moon hangs, under which, long ago and in a country far removed, a sailor sat eating dates. Upon the endmost piling of the wharf he sat, fingering one by one the dates from a small bag, sucking the sweetness off each, and spitting the stones into the dark water beneath his feet. God is good, he thought, for giving us dates. And then it occured to him that there was no reason at all for the moon to be there, for the moon to even be. It came and it went and it was fortunate that sometimes it lit up the night so bright one could see as if it were day, but there was no reason for it to be there. Perhaps it is there because God wills it to be there, he thought, but that is as much as to say there is no reason. And it occured to him that the wharf and the warehouses and the port city behind him had no reason to be there either, but they were different. They were human, and like all things human they would pass, dissolve into nothingness eventually. Just as he would. But the moon? Would it too vanish one day? And then the sailor thought of his wife, dead these five years, and the small ache it still gave him to think of her engendered other memories of loss and people gone; his boyhood friends, shipmates, his brother. The sharpest pang of all was at the thought of loss itself, so cruel to beasts with memories. So cruel that it must be part of life itself, as inevitable as moonrise, as voracious as the sea. At least there are dates, he sighed, and put the now empty bag into his pocket and dislodged a sticky fragment from a molar with his tongue. The moon went higher, went buttery bright, and the sailor arose from his perch and went home to bed, humming a snatch from a tune his wife had often whistled. At least there are dates, he thought again, and smiled.
May 10, 2025 at 2:16 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
42.976, -87.919
What might well be an Aermotor 702A lists away from a small shed, surrounded by signs of an active, if weedy, garden.
#photography #altstories
The decrepit windmill leans drunkenly, half its sails gone, clearly defeated in its tilt with the atmosphere. The weeds, too, are winning, edging ever into the garden, relentlessly. Each year the tillable plot grows smaller, and it is still too much for the old couple who have tended it for years, who feasted on its beans and squash and tomatoes, who hoed and watered and mulched, who now are just as liable to topple as they wend among the rows, too frail to tend the land properly. Who will step onto this plot to restore its fecundity? Or will it return to a wildness made unnatural by the foreign species that have bullied their way to dominance. Vine and thistle of whatever provenance will win the day, and prevail when all trace of shed, of windmill, of human, are gone.
May 8, 2025 at 2:15 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Train, Mountain, Boy
#photography #altstories
A young boy presses his face upon the window to watch the Amtrak cars ahead be swallowed by the mountain, just as our car will be soon swallowed and the boy’s head will snap back at the nearness of the stone, and all the passengers will look to each other in the sudden darkness to reassure each other, to reassure themselves. Perhaps we are now merely heading into a dark mountain, and will emerge from the depths, having foiled the trolls and prosecuted the orcs of Pluto, to a verdure where we may safely pasture. Resist.
May 7, 2025 at 1:10 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Train, Mountain, Boy
#photography #altstories
A young boy presses his face upon the window to watch the Amtrak cars ahead be swallowed by the mountain, just as our car will be soon swallowed and the boy’s head will snap back at the nearness of the stone, and all the passengers will look to each other in the sudden darkness to reassure each other, to reassure themselves. Perhaps we are now merely heading into a dark mountain, and will emerge from the depths, having foiled the trolls and prosecuted the orcs of Pluto, to a verdure where we may safely pasture. Resist.
May 7, 2025 at 1:05 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Hey, Rube!!!!
#photography #altstories
Back in the day, there were hundreds of circuses crisscrossing the country, and several of them had winter quarters in Wisconsin. Delavan claims not only to be the birthplace of the Barnum Circus, but the capital of the nation. That summons to mind the present situation, where clowns and sideshow grotesques have pitched their tents and let the voracious beasts from their cages to raven the capital of the nation, in that other capital of the nation. Millions of bumpkins have been gulled by the patter and the promise, hypnotized by the steaming bile issuing from the Hack Narcissus, eighth wonder of the world who walks and golfs and slithers on its belly like a reptile. Be sure to put your two bits down to see the Craven Senator cower before Steve-O the Slug Boy and watch the Elongator crack his whip and as a climactic finish, flog his dead phallus. Of course, women and children are not admitted, or even considered, for that matter. If you’re as tired of this crap as I am, tell everybody you know. They’re probably tired of it too. It can be exciting when the circus comes to town, but you don’t want it to stay.
May 6, 2025 at 2:24 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Moon, skyline, dusk.
#photography #altsrories
The moon’s holding water, and the horizon’s on fire. Milwaukee settles down for the spring night. We’re OK here, but we see our country being run by madmen and tomorrow seems fraught with peril. Hope you are as well as you can be, and you sleep well.
April 30, 2025 at 1:48 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Breakwater 20250415-1
#photography #altstories #resist
Mid-morning on the lake, dark clouds and bright sun and a sharp wind blowing off-shore. Small craft would be advised to stay ashore; toy dogs and people wearing large hats are advised to remain indoors lest a gust send them skittering down sidewalks and perhaps perilously into traffic. I will venture out, cap crammed down and windbreaker zipped, to purchase provender for the week’s repasts. Wish me luck, as I do you. Given the ongoing, slow-motion coup in this country, we’re all going to need it. Well, the rich won’t. But you and I will.
April 15, 2025 at 2:30 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Manipulated Duchamp 20250409-1
#photography #altstories
Marcel Duchamp saw Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” and created this bust of Max Von Sydow pondering his next move… or eternity. (It’s actually Duchamp’s “Cast Alive”, a bronze cast of his head and right forearm in bronze with a portion of an onyx and marble chessboard holding a solitary knight. The image has been mightily manipulated, much as the current idiot-in-chief is doing to the stock market. This manipulation is less harmful and not nearly as lucrative. Duchamp was a keen chess player and I believe there’s a video of him playing chess somewhere, but I may have dreamt it. It’s not often I dream of Duchamp, but when I do, boy howdy, it’s usually a doozy. Once I dreamed that he and I were standing in a men’s room and I turned to him and whispered “Fountain.” The look on his face was priceless, a mixture of delighted surprise and stoic consternation. In the dream, I knew that something big was just around the corner, because next we were standing before a phalanx of reporters who were shouting questions and shoving microphones in our faces, but I woke before I knew what it was. )
April 9, 2025 at 6:42 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Bridge Milwaukee 20250408-1
#photography #altstories
That could be the Holton Bridge over the Milwaukee River, although the angle and light make it look like there’s a much wider expanse traversed. There’s a car just visible on the bridge, a car with a man and his son, heading home from the grocery. It’s Steve’s week to have Tim, and they’re heading home with chicken tenders and Oreos. Steve is wondering whether his ex-wife will be peeved about the Oreos, but decides corn syrup bonding with his boy is more important. Besides, he likes Oreos.
April 9, 2025 at 2:02 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Hands Off: Milwaukee
#Resist
Large crowd of folks throwing shade at Trump, Musk, the GOP and the oligarchy that’s trying to ransack the country. Without due process, we are but slaves. They must fail.
April 5, 2025 at 11:53 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Skyline 20230404-1
#photography #Resist
The Milwaukee skyline on a low horizon with a towering impressionistic sky, all thin white clouds with patches of blue, pale, pale blue.
April 3, 2025 at 5:14 AM
fredblee.bsky.social
Oh, the irony…
April 1, 2025 at 6:19 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Everything’s up to date in Kansas City…

#photography #FDT
The interior end of Andy Goldsworthy’s ‘Walking Wall’ at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO. A fascinating piece of conceptual art, and aesthetically pleasing as well. Foxtrot Delta Tango 👊🇺🇸🔥 ‘Ferment’ by Roxy Paine at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO. Foxtrot Delta Tango 👊🇺🇸🔥 Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO. Foxtrot Delta Tango 👊🇺🇸🔥 One of four Shuttlecocks (1994) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, located on the lawn at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO. Foxtrot Delta Tango 👊🇺🇸🔥
March 29, 2025 at 1:59 PM
fredblee.bsky.social
Photographic record of sights seen on recent journey. Alt texts supply additional information.
#photography
This is Duchamp's "Cast Alive". It was just sitting there in the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO. It might be pointless to describe it, I fear. A bronze cast of a face with some hair above it, resting on a bronze cast of a forearm and hand, the hand, pinkie curled, but spread to support the jaw of the face above it, the arm itself fixed above 3/8ths of a chessboard holding only a bronze knight chess piece, which is less equine than seahorse. Colored and illuminated balls, black spheres with green, orange or yellow lumenescent spherical caps, hanging in an infinite mirror room. We were allowed only one minute of the experience before the warden rapped on the door to shoo us out. We walked around and asked if we could go again. She agreed readily and we walked through it again. One minute though. One minute a time. Then the rapping. Then the shooing. We thought about going a third time, for there was nothing to stop us. The doorkeeper was certainly amenable. But we didn't. We were in the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, AK, and we felt like there were more things to see. A crude wooden sculpture of Elon Musk, dressed as Pinocchio. He looks as if he'd been knocked into a coal bin and then had to rush to the bathroom. It's actually a model made before casting a 30-foot tall bronze statue called "Walking to Boras", a sculpture by Jim Dine, and you'll find it in the Crystal Bridges Museum. The 30-foot high bronze statue stands, funnily enough, in Boras, Sweden. A long journey on foot, but worth it. Elon Musk has out-Pinocchioed the OG. A glass paneled arched ceiling above a long marble staircase, flanked by Roman arches with latticed balustrades. An wooden door is at the top of the stairs. This is in the Arkansas State Capitol, where Orville Faubus was once ensconced as Governor, whence he went to stand in a school doorway and deny entrance to some children. Not only because he thought they were not as human as he was, but because he was very afraid to be a human.
March 15, 2025 at 3:02 AM