A Poetic Mantra

Big Frank read this poem today and immediately it asked to be repeated, was, and then again, and again etc. So, it dawned on Big Frank that this was some kind of intuitive mantra - and that is what it is. Say it ten times and you will see what Big Frank means!

Here Now
by Samuel Menashe

Now and again
I am here now
And now is when
I'm here again

Gina's Come and Gone

Big Frank was very happy to have his daughter, Gina, at home for the Thanksgiving holiday. It seems like she hardly got here and then she was gone. We had a great time together sharing the Thanksgiving meal with friends, going to the movies, and just hanging out. She's on her way back to college (hung up in Portland because of fog), but likely (we hope) back in Ashland soon. Big Frank is already looking forward to her return for the Christmas holidays.

The Hidden Source of Support

The Hidden Source of Support
---- Big Frank Dickinson

They told him that the universe was pulling for him. That confused him no end. The universe? Well it certainly had a perverse way of doing so. His life was OK, but if the whole universe was for him - then he ought to be on top - of everything; a stand out with joy dripping out his ears. Perhaps it wasn't the whole but rather only a part. He tried to place the source of support in some singular way. Was it Neptune or Chile or Antarctic ice? All much too far away. His washing machine and toaster were helpful, as were his shoes, but mostly he didn't have a clue. Perhaps that new neighbor - or his mom (no, not her). Was he really that special, or was it all (the whole vast muddle) evenly spread? Nobody, not even the universe cheers for everyone. He wanted to be the universe's favorite - otherwise, what was the point. Still - they said that it liked him; it would all be all right. So he opened his arms, spread them out wide and embraced the whole damn thing . . . at least as much as his arms could bear.

The Face of It

The Convention
---- Big Frank Dickinson

I am at a convention of me's. They have all come to see themselves in others. The membership card is their face. Nobody is allowed to say: "You look like me." Pronouns are a problem: "You look like you" leaves me out; "they look like them" has neither you nor me; and so it goes. Aside from the face, the rest is erased. There are splinter groups scorning, reformers, who claim that the face is not you. This prompts other features to be deleted: nose, eyes, age, race and gender. It is hard to find myself among the attendees. The keynote speaker (he looks like me) tonight will speak on "Identity: The Face of It". There are protesters assembling already. I recognize myself among them.

Prose Poetry

Big Frank has been looking at prose poetry. It may not look like poetry, but it has a lot of the same ingredients; it's just presented in a different way - not so much white space. Below are a couple of examples from two poets who use this form well: Russell Edson and David Shumate.

Trains
by David Shumate

I am seduced by trains. When one moans in the night like some
dragon gone lame, I rise and put on my grandfather's suit. I pack a
small bag, step out onto the porch, and wait in the darkness. I rest
my broad-brimmed hat on my knee. To a passerby I'm a curious
sight—a solitary man sitting in the night. There's something
unsettling about a traveler who doesn't know where he's headed.
You can't predict his next move. In a week you may receive a
postcard from Haiti. Madagascar. You might turn on your
answering machine and hear his voice amid the tumult of a
Bangkok avenue. All afternoon you feel the weight of the things
you've never done. Don't think about it too much. Everything
starts to sound like a train.

Historical Breakfast
by Russell Edson

A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face, tilting it to his mouth. It's historical, he thinks. He scratches his head: another historical event. He really ought to rest, he's making an awful lot of history this morning.
Oh my, now he's buttering toast, another piece of history is being made.
He wonders why it should have fallen on him to be so historical. Others probably just don't have it, he thinks, it is, after all, a talent.
He thinks one of his shoelaces needs tying. Oh well, another important historical event is about to take place. He just can't help it. Perhaps he's taking up too large an area of history? But he has to live, hasn't he? Toast needs buttering and he can't go around with one of his shoelaces needing to be tied, can he?
Certainly it's true, when the 20th century gets written in full it will be mainly about him. That's the way the cookie crumbles--ah, there's a phrase that'll be quoted for centuries to come.
Self-conscious? A little; how can one help it with all those yet-to-be-born eyes of the future watching him?
Uh oh, he feels another historical event coming . . . Ah, there it is, a cup of coffee approaching his face at the end of his arm. If only they could catch it on film, how much it would mean to the future. Oops, spilled it all over his lap. One of those historical accidents that will influence the next thousand years; unpredictable, and really rather uncomfortable . . . But history is never easy, he thinks. . .

The Office of Lost Opportunity

The Office of Lost Opportunity
---- Big Frank Dickinson

In the office of lost opportunity there are no current calendars and the clocks all run backwards. Those who come are always late for their appointments, and usually they are turned away with lots of upbrading about if they had only and why didn't they . . . It is not clear why anyone bothers to come here in the first place for to do so is to admit that one blew it; but many seem to want to make that admission. Those who do show up on time expect to be able to review their loss. They are given mirrors and told to look over their shoulders - what they see is seldom consoling and after a few questions about second chances, and how maybe it was all for the best (something this office does not encourage) they head across the street to the Bureau of Lucky Losses for a healthy dose of snythetic happiness, which seems to please them to no end.

The Stake and Big Frank

The stake in the trail was a question mark that puntuated every walk, hike, or run that Big Frank had. There it was . . . just to the west side of the trail, with a small remnant of a chain. He often passed this stake and he often wondered what it meant, and why it was there. Everything happened for a reason, right? What was the reason for the stake? Or was it everything happened for a reason with people, but with stakes - there need not necessarily be a reason. This stake, perhaps, had no explanation; it resulted from nothing - it just was there. No, Big Frank rejected that because no stake drove itself into anything - somebody drove this stake into this trail - that was what it resulted from, just as his pondering resulted from the stake being there, and so . . . he thought it did indeed mean something. At first the cliches emerged: "a stake in the road" - did he have a stake in the road; "stake something on this road" - he was staking his walk on the . . . NO, he was not going to play the cliche game. This stake meant something - it was a symbol that went beyond the cliches, or it was a metaphor for something, or maybe it just wanted to be noticed. That stake then has accomplished its purpose - thus!

Czesław Miłosz's "Road-side Dog"

Big Frank has been reading Milosz's "Road-side Dog", a wonderful small book of poetry, essays, aphorisms and anecdotes. Milosz starts the book with a couple of quotations taken from Lew Shestov, and this reveals much of where he is going with language and the mystery of life, or perhaps the deception of life:

"Perhaps truth by its nature makes communication between people impossible, in any case communication by the intermediary of words. Every one may know it for himself, but in order to enter into relations with his fellowmen he must renounce truth and adopt any conventional lie."
---- Lew Shestov, Penultimate Words, 1911

Here are some excerpts from the book:

The Last Judgment
"The consequences of our actions, Completely unknown, for every one of them enters into a multifaceted relation with circumstance and with the actions of others. An absolutely efficient computer could show us, with a correction for accidents, of course, for how else to calculate the direction taken by a billiard ball after it strikes another? Besides, it is permissible to maintain that nothing happens by accident. Be that as it may, standing before a perfectly computerized balanced sheet of our lives (The Last Judgment), we must be astonished: Can it be that I am responsible for so much evil done against my will? And here, on the other scale, so much good I did not intend and of which I was not aware?"

Meanwhile and Made-Believe
"To get up in the morning and go to work, to be bound to people by the ties of love, friendship, or opposition--and all the time to realize that it was only meanwhile and make-believe. . .

He did not regard kindly this affliction of his. He agreed with the opinion that he should be here--entirely present, in a given place and moment, attentive to the needs of those who were close to him and fulfilling their expectations. To think that they were just for meanwhile and that he practiced with them a make-believe was to harm them, yet he was unable to renounce the thought that, really, he had not time for life with them."

"What is not said, tends to nonexistence."

Inserting a Meaning
". . . And inserting a meaning into one's own life. Something must correspond to something, something must result from something. Perhaps, so that things just pain stupid and dishonest find an explanation."

Thanksgiving

Gratitude
---- Big Frank Dickinson

Do you have to thank someone in order to be thankful?
No, but it could help.

Is the gratitude for you or them?
It is large and contains multitudes.

Will being grateful mean I have work to do?
It's not an intention, it's an accomplishment.

Can I put it on my resume?
It goes under experience..

Is it something that I need to put into words?
They will show you your gifts.

Do I need to include words like blessed, fortunate, and lucky?
Yes, unless you did it all alone and on purpose.

Can the brightness be reckoned without recourse to the dark?
Yes, even if it does not obliterate it entirely.

Do I need to be thankful for the dark?
Look at it at glancingly; be thankful for that.

Is gratitude the ladder to happiness.
That's what I've heard.

What does gratitude look like?
It is plump and winks back at you.

Interesting, but, no doubt, unoriginal thoughts

OK, after having been put in my unoriginal place by my brother, I will muse on, in an assumedly unoriginal way. A few recent thoughts, nonetheless. This is on the sensory field that surrounds us. In the old days (let's say 100 years ago to avoid any nitpicking) people's sensory perceptions came at them from the place that they were in. If they were traveling they were surrounded by the sounds that were present in the places that they passed through. If they were out for a walk, or running (probably not so much of that back then) then it would be the sounds of the field, the forest, the city streets, or whatever that filled their ears. If they were were working, it was the sounds of their place of work that surrounded them. Now, with ipods, radio, sterios etc. we can replace the "natural" sounds with our own. Perhaps a better way of putting this would be that we can replace sounds of the places we are in with sounds of our preference - usually music. So, why not visuals also (perhaps this is already beginning to happen with the videos in cars, planes, and trains?). However, why should it stop with movies - why not a full visual display to replace whatever it is that actually surrounds you at whatever moment. With the advent, for example, of self-navigating automobiles the windshield could become a kind of visual screen that could display whatever scene you chose: nature, photographs, movies, paintings, . . . anything. And why stop there, why not replace the tactile sensations that are so unforgetable - the impressions of the seat you are on, for example. Replace them with the most satisfying tactile sensations that you can imagine. Then scent and taste and we will have really entered the virtual world that has little if any relationship to the actual one that surrounds us. This probably would not make any difference because the only real world that you ever live in is the one in your head anyway! OK, there probably has already been a movie on this or some article, so Big Frank is not claiming any originality just marking this as an idea worth contemplating.

Posting and Pasting and Linking and Such

Big Frank has been thinking lately about how much of what we write, read, and talk about is really just a post, past or link to someone else's thoughts. How much of what you share, not what you think necessarily, falls into this category? OK, exclude what Big Frank refers to as your personal itinerary: you know, where you have been lately, who you were with, and what it is that what it is that you are planning to do. Then think about actual exchange of information apart from that. Much of it centers on books you read, stuff you read in the paper or online, movies you saw, or, what you heard on the radio or TV. On the social networking sites and many blogs, the ideas often relayed via links to other people's or organizations presentation of causes, spins, editorials, rants, or other packages of ideas. Think of the last time that you had a conversation and shared an idea (not about your decorating, your yard, your children, your past or upcoming journeys, or your friends and relatives) that was YOURS and not the passing on of something that you read or heard? OK, Big Frank hears your mutterings - "So, smarty pants, what's your distinctly original idea that YOU have to share with us?" Well, actually, this is it! Remember: that's WHAT IT IS!

"With so many options to choose from people find it very difficult to choose at all", is what Barry Schwartz, author of "The Paradox of Choice (click on the link to hear Barry speak on this at TED)" has to say. So what does this have to do with original ideas? Hmmm . . . . this may be a leap, but Big Frank thinks that with sooooo much information out there that people pass on trying to examine anthing in any depth or breadth, rather they just grab what feels good right out of the gate. What does this have to do with original thought? Quite a bit, actually, because thinking is a kind of paradox of choice itself; your mind has a zillion things that it has to choose from at any time, and as a result often opts out and just goes with what is loudest, most persistent, and generally stays on one's mind. The way out of this to real original thought. Well, remember tough love? No, this isn't that. Tough thought require overcoming weakness of will and the ability to limit choices and work with what remains. Not sure if that's an original thought, but Big Frank doesn't know where it came from if it isn't.

Of course, having an original idea means you must have courage, and face the quite real chance that your original idea could be wrong, or misguided, or in some way lame. It takes courage to be creative. And it may appear that Big Frank is contradicting himself in attaching a quotation and link on this, but, so what?

Here's Sir Ken Robinson on all this: "If you are not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original." Listen to Sir Ken at TED on originality here.

What is a Social Adventurer?

Big Frank is the organizer of a great meetup called the Social Adventurers. It gives him and the other members in the group the opportunity to meet new people, and to interact on a very real basis with everyone. The group has been meeting for about six months now and has 65 members now! Well, not all come to the actual meetings - the one this evening only had 5, but the encounter was meaningful and amazing in many ways. Five people who had never met before come together, introduce themselves to each other, and then with some limited discussion launch into the evenings activities: role play! The group enacted role plays centering around interpersonal relationships: couples, employer/employee, and parent child. All brought up significant issues that led them to reveal personal issues about themselve, which opened the door to more discussion on those issues, and allowed everyone to really get to know each other. That is a social adventure. The photo above is of the four others beside Big Frank - real Social Adventurers. For those of you in the Spokane area interested in joining - go here and sign up. Our next meetup goes on the road - to The Blue Door Theater for comic improv, followed by refreshments and discussion!

The coffee press and white wine blends

Big Frank has been thinking lately about inconvenient thoughts, red wine stains, and the excessive cost of AA batteries. OK, these are not earth-shaking topics, but they are topics. Let's forget the problem with the batteries - buy rechargeables and the problem is solved. So, what's with the coffee press? We all have had experiences with those pesky inconvenient thoughts - no need to give a list, you all know what they are, and each one of us has his/her own particular species of them. Inconvenient! In other words: thoughts that you would rather NOT have. Let's keep this simple - we are NOT going to be going, now, to visit our therapists, rather we are going to envision a coffee press! The coffe press clarifies the coffee by pushing the grounds to the botton. So, what Big Frank does is to put the image of this coffee press into his mind and then the inconvenient thought is thereby replaced. It is no use to think that you will NOT think the inconvenient thought - that is a sure way to thinking it. Big Frank is not sure whether the purging is effected as a kind of mental metaphor or whether the same result could be effected with any image (for example, a goat) because the mind cannot entertain two thoughts/images at the same time (go ahead and try it - try to envision a coffee press and your heart's desire - at the same time - can't be done). So, skip the visit to the therapist and think coffee press (or goat if that works for you).

Now - white wine. Big Frank has always been mostly a red wine kind of guy. He doesn't have any particular single grape that he favors; rather he likes the blends. However, as was recently pointed out to him rather graphically in Berlin at a late-night soiree; red wine stains your teeth and your tongue (not to mention the corrosive effect the tanins have on your teeth!). There are some ways of addressing this problem - here's one approach. However, while whites can also be corrosive (over the long run), they don't leave you with purple lips. In addition, Big Frank was not aware of the white blends, but he now is. So, he now sips Chardonnay-Marsanne-Sauvignon Blanc or Jean-Luc Colombo les figuieres Cotes Du Rhone (2005) and has the pleasure of the rich smooth taste of the blend without red-mouth. Here are a number of great white blends.

The Little House of Our Desire

That House!
---- Big Frank Dickinson

"Everything was spotless in the little house of our desire,
the clock ticked on and on, happy about
being apprenticed to eternity."
-- John Ashbery

That house was such a small one (in retrospect).
Of course at the time it wasn't; it was (then)
Like the cavernous halls of childhood, which
When revisited later shrinks as
Perceived
That house magnified touch and time,
Rebounding and reverberating
Eternity and infinity dancing till dawn
To the tune of balanced breath, or so it
Seemed
That house was stillness inside a pause within
Which time looped but could not escape,
Like a ship in a bottle forever sailing but
Never touched by the outside elements - they
Thought
That house had rooms inside rooms mirroring rooms
Leading into passages that revealed
New halls where they dallied and strolled
In timeless amplitude of exploration, or so they
Felt
That house, was entered by them, like a distant relative
Who mistaking loneliness for awhile,
Came into the little house, but leary of
The dance of intimacies and spots that tire
Fled.

Inconvenient Thoughts

Inconvenient Thoughts
---- Big Frank Dickinson

Like uninvited guests they come;
Evict them as many times as you will
They'll be back and what makes you feel so dumb
Is the fact that you listen with interest to their swill.

The belief, conviction, holy urge
That she who sits inside your heart today;
Though hers is closed, and you've been purged
Will recant, return, and with you always stay.

The never ending search for that day,
The pages of the calendar flip ahead
January, February, March, . . .May -
Towards not now, but the future instead.

This is what you're gonna do, gonna do,
Gonna do; see the end, the accolades;
Then the delay, today, tomorrow too,
Still the thought it says and overpersuades.

It all happens for a reason, oh yeah,
And the reason is a good one too;
The shit you're in's not crap - naah,
In truth of fact it's heavenly do-do.

I'm a special person uniquely different
From all the rest who seem so terribly alike;
And yet their lack of praise I do lament;
Much as shining stars to a northern pike.

All I know is living now, life, awareness,
And the feeling in my hands, warmth of my breath,
But gnawing at my bones is the unfairness
Of what I'm told awaits me: certain death.

Sometimes you get away

Escape
---- Big Frank Dickinson

"Sometimes you get away. This time it's true."
---- Kaskade

You look over your shoulder and sure enough
They're gone: the nagging doubt, the fixed
Obsession, the incompleteness, along with
The killing routine - and all that comes along with them.

Clean away - the great escape; and how did you
Manage this? Well, it was quite simple; you lost yourself.
Otherwise, they'd all be here along with you.
We've all heard that - "I lost myself in thought" or

"I got lost going to Kansas City", or there could be other
Means, other places into which you entered and by getting
Lost - you, ironically, get away. Of course, there is
Some consternation that accompanies the sense of being lost:

How am I going to kill this bear; emerge from the burning car,
Or find my way out of this gunnysack? Or less dramatically,
Seek shelter from the rain, find my wallet, or
Speak the truth despite the shame.

But this is more than made up for by the gains realized:
Ignorance of past burdens, avoidance of what was thought
To be pressing, and generally redefining the moment by
Raising the stakes of the present to obliterate the past.

The car skids across the road, your feet go out from underneath,
The sky lights up above you, or you scramble to do three things at once,
And in all cases your mind runs away, your focus realigns, and
In looking closely at something new, you forget and let go.

All of these are your lucky crises; the floodlight dispelling shadows.
Of course, the forgotten can return when the crisis lifts and the
Present glaring spotlight goes out revealing the hundred
Tiny flashlights alternately coming up quickly from behind.

The Power of Intention

The Power of Intention
---- Big Frank Dickinson

The best of intentions, who doesn't have these?
They sit like birds on a wire, all in a line, but
With the first clap of thunder they scatter;
Do they line up that way ever again?

The call center's associate informs the voice at the
Other end of the line that much as she would like,
The computer won't let her; but in a perfect world
Her intentions would prevai. So where do they go?

Do they recast events in some other dimension;
The world of what was wanted; the well-intentioned
Outcomes, played out as it should have been;
Where the sluggards rise early in spite of weakness of will.

Where the words always come out exactly as you intended,
And are received and understood as conceived;
Where late-night resolutions see the light of day,
And take on a life of their own oblivious to future vacillations.

The power of intentions like dark matter, in this universe, would
Then override the actual, invisibly pulling events toward intended
Outcomes, overpowering the unacted, and leaping the gap
Between what you want to want and what you do.

"That's not what I meant", would never be said.
"Someday I'll get my shit together . . ." would be today.
A world in which the best laid plans would never go awry;
The backward glance always be the promise sought.

In that world would we pine for the unexpected,
Impossible liberation from the rigid rule of want;
Where prospects were uncertain, and what was over
The horizon was unknown and free of our sovereignty?

Time For Some Tunes!

Big Frank has been listening to a lot of music lately and he has one very big recommendation for all you listeners out there (listen to Big Frank, he's talking like he was on the radio or something). Well, as Big Frank was saying - good tunes are hard to find. By that Big Frank means that music aplenty abides but we would all be a lot better off if some of it did not. Sifting through the derivatively and annoying along with the hours and hours and song after song - -leaves Big Frank, and he assumes, you also, gentle listener/reader, is hard work, but someone has to do it. After all that - what up? KASKADE! That's what. Kaskade was born Ryan Raddon and is a dj and record producer. He released his first single in 2001, and every release since then has just gotten better and better. Big Frank recommends his 2006 release entitled: LOVE MYSTERIOUS! Check out a couple of songs from it here: Be Still and (in a slightly more subdued version than what is played on the CD) 4 AM. Listen and you'll be hooked - no other outcome possible - so say Big Frank.

I Sisyphus

This is a pretty good presentation of the modern Sisyphus. Pretty grim; but - look below, at the previous post, for an alternate ending.

I, Sisyphus
Uploaded by Unbearable_Films. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

Sisyphus Takes a Break

Sisyphus Puts Down the Rock
---- Big Frank Dickinson

I'm done with this carrying this rock;
The nobility of the acceptance of pain,
The duration of boredom welcomed,
The tiring repetition of the steps - enough!

I'm open to a new challenge - one that
Can be accomplished in its finality, that
Leads to another or a gap in the sequence of
The previous endless monotony of time.

Putting down rather than picking up
Looking not up nor down,
Catching my breath, not holding it,
Or panting in exertion to pant yet more.

Looking my destiny straight in the eye?
I don't think so - not anymore;
"My destiny": springing from my head
Like Athena from the head of Zeus?

No, because unlike Zeus - this is not wisdom
This is creative speculation, so I now stop
Thinking that replacing the rock with
Anything else is any more meaningful.

I might as well conjure up images of
The afterlife, the reasons of love, or
A model of reality in its totality.
No more leaping out nor pushing up.

Instead, I will sit down, right here,
And embrace the nobility of nothing;
Break the links of cause and effect,
And know only the sound of my breath.

Solipsism taken to the extreme

Big Frank has been travelling and "What It Is" has been dominated by his travels at the expense of poetry, it seems. He's back home again, and so it's time to turn back to poetry. Here is a great poem by Vivay Sashadri called Thought Problem (recently published in the October 12th issue of the New Yorker): think about it!

THOUGHT PROBLEM
---- Vivay Seshadri

How strange would it be if you met yourself on the street?
How strange if you liked yourself,
took yourself in your arms, married your own self,
propagated by techniques known only to you,
and then populated the world? Replicas of you are everywhere.
Some are Arabs. Some are Jews. Some live in yurts. It is
an abomination, but better that your
sweet and scrupulously neat self
emerges at many points on the earth to watch the horned moon rise
than all those dolts out there,
turning into pillars of salt wherever we look.
If we have to have people, let them be you,
spritzing your geraniums, driving yourself to the haberdashery,
killing your supper with a blowgun.
Yes, only in the forest do you feel at peace,
up in the branches and down in the terrifc gorges,
but you've seen through everything else.
You've fled in terror across the frozen lake,
you've found yourself in the sand, the palace,
the prison, the dockside stews;
and long ago, on this same planet, you came home
to an empty house, poured a Scotch-and-soda,
and sat in a recliner in the unlit rumpus room,
puzzled at what became of you.

Torun with Konrad and Aneta

A 15th century Torun grainery.

Big Frank and his son, Konrad making a visit to the renowned astronomer Copernicus' birthplace.

Torun's old city square ("rynek starego miasta")

Konrad and Aneta.

Big Frank on the couch that would NOT turn into a bed!

Big Frank had a terrific time in the old medieval city of Torun, Poland with Konrad and Aneta. Konrad, as usual, was the guide and the driving force behind this trip. He arranged for an apartment for us in the center of the old town. The apartment was terrific, even if the bed that Big Frank slept in collapsed in the middle of the night and could not be repaired. This did not put a damper on anything. The three of us spent a couple of days doing the city up in fine style. We visited the ruins of the castle of the Teutonic Knights that the city of Torun razed in the 15th century. This city was a prosperous grain center, and there are lots of beautiful old 15th century granaries still to be seen. Of course the main attraction in Torun is the home of Copernicus, who was born here. We toured the home in the wake of a group of school kids who were taking copious notes - we took none. We also sampled the other main attraction of Torun - gingerbread ("piernik").

Train to Warsaw

Big Frank saw the snow coming and headed east. Train, train, ("it takes a lot to laugh - it takes a train to cry") - what does that mean? He stayed ahead of the snow, for now. He was on the Berlin - Warszawa Express, a six hour jaunt. He arrived in Warsaw on time and descended onto the platform and then (thinking like he was in an airport) he headed for the main terminal. Meanwhile on the other side of the platform, waiting for him, was his son, Konrad. After much consternation on both sides they eventually met up and headed back to Konrad's for an atypical Polish evening meal: tacos!

The Fulbrighters part ways, but the memories stay!

Big Frank's next stop on his German trip was Frankfurt. This is where the Fulbrighters had their final wind up and then went their separate ways. Big Frank is now back in Berlin, but has very good memories of Frankfurt and all the wonderful people that he spent the last 2 weeks with.