I have never liked the phrase "going for a run," because it seems to imply that there is some sort of Platonic ideal, a run that is out there waiting. Likewise, I've always thought of "going running" as an intimidating activity requiring advance preparation -- the procuring and donning of runners' shoes and runners' duds, maybe even a special watch or water bottle, and probably some sort of public announcement: "Going for a run!", as the runner, hair up and already jogging, heads out the door.
Last summer, I was at Middlebury for seven weeks. Middlebury, VT, for those of you who don't know, can completely elude the eye if you're not watching for it. The landscape goes something like: pasture, pasture, barn, cow, woods, pasture, Middlebury, woods, pasture. What that means is that walking off campus in any direction lands you on a trail within 5 minutes, and these trails are beautiful, through fields and by falls. I was lonely; I hadn't access to my mother or my mother tongue, so I started taking long walks -- 1 hour, 2 hours, sometimes 3 -- every day after classes. And what started happening was that, on certain of these ambles, I'd feel a sudden urge to go faster. At these times, I would, casually and without advance preparation, begin to run. When I no longer felt like going fast, I would slow down. And I had an obvious but late realization (what I call an elevator moment, when you finally think about the phrase enough to get that an elevator is called an elevator because it elevates you): You can run whenever you want. You can stop running whenever you want.
For the past three mornings, I have run, and walked, on the Breezemere Rd. and on a beautiful trail down to the coast. And I plan to keep running every day. I never thought I'd be "a runner," and I still don't think I am. But I have a little bit of the high that also gets peculiarly ascribed to that group -- and I'm feeling new appreciation for a way of being that, as it turns out, is less about the Platonic ideal than the need to go just a little bit faster.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Lazy Sunday...
Never.
Last weeks's "day off" was full of sailing and a late dinner (preceded by the frustrations of failed communications media). Nothing to complain of the day's activities -- just full motion and full company. Today, the dancers are invited over to the Chases' (the many Chases, Nigel this time) for a cookout on the point, with sauna and kayaks. We're about to go grocery shopping. Last night, we heard Paul Sullivan jazz (why do they seat people for this kind of thing?) with a big black woman wailing and a gawky 15 year old with an overdone operatic tone, but a nicer, looser swing once she got rolling. But after coping with a peevish and aggressive primo donno newly introduced to the cast, sitting lumpishly in the quarry with nothing to do or running around covered in a felty piece of turf, labeled an "ideal community member" (that's a big insult), and pulling 13 hour days before finally sitting down to family dinner at 9 and figuring out how to exit (not so hard, they're kind and I can yawn)...well, I'm ready for some down time. I'm ready to be with my family, to fly to Oregon, to catch up with Dara, to head out to the middlest nowhere of this middle of nowhere and sketch, alone.
Not to say that I haven't had amazing experiences. This week:
Monday's pan dance,
Tuesday's live drawing class (my first ever, probably a fuller post on this and other things to come),
Thursday's dancer get-together (hilarious game of "Celebrities," world's best guac, and the cast's good couple: "Don't diss yourself."),
Saturday's bona fide burger and better jazz.
But as you'll see, most of these experiences have nothing to do with my purported purpose in being here. Is that a so what? Or is being seen as less a dancer than anything else a real reason to feel that this is not what I came for? Well, it's not what I came for. I'm focusing more on relationships, and that's been helpful, but it's also dangerous. It's too tied to emotion, too out of my control.
I've made a list of ways I can be helpful. None of them are creative beyond the point of writing PR, but I'm good at writing PR. So I can be helpful. I'm trying to interrogate Alison about ways I can plug in; being active rather than waiting for the thing to come to me. Enjoying small triumphs (oh, but really, do I want to be the girl who's just glad she remembered to pack the emergency peanuts?) The problem is, rehearsal is not the place I'm most useful. And by the end of rehearsal, my plans to write and send a report, figure out all the cues for the dancers, etc. are essentially shot because I can't keep my eyes open, having been on the run from 6:30AM to 7:30PM.
So today (the "day of rest"), is compulsory partying and my own burgeoning to-do list, which has to be done if I am to feel at all useful, imaginative, on-the-ball. It's already rolling away from me ... but there a few causes in which I need to let it roll. To pray, to read, to speak with friends. I can't forget who I am, since it seems the project here is more and more about figuring that out in action. If you've written me, thank you. I mayn't have responded, somnambulist that I am outside the quarry, but it mattered to me, and I will write back soon.
Last weeks's "day off" was full of sailing and a late dinner (preceded by the frustrations of failed communications media). Nothing to complain of the day's activities -- just full motion and full company. Today, the dancers are invited over to the Chases' (the many Chases, Nigel this time) for a cookout on the point, with sauna and kayaks. We're about to go grocery shopping. Last night, we heard Paul Sullivan jazz (why do they seat people for this kind of thing?) with a big black woman wailing and a gawky 15 year old with an overdone operatic tone, but a nicer, looser swing once she got rolling. But after coping with a peevish and aggressive primo donno newly introduced to the cast, sitting lumpishly in the quarry with nothing to do or running around covered in a felty piece of turf, labeled an "ideal community member" (that's a big insult), and pulling 13 hour days before finally sitting down to family dinner at 9 and figuring out how to exit (not so hard, they're kind and I can yawn)...well, I'm ready for some down time. I'm ready to be with my family, to fly to Oregon, to catch up with Dara, to head out to the middlest nowhere of this middle of nowhere and sketch, alone.
Not to say that I haven't had amazing experiences. This week:
Monday's pan dance,
Tuesday's live drawing class (my first ever, probably a fuller post on this and other things to come),
Thursday's dancer get-together (hilarious game of "Celebrities," world's best guac, and the cast's good couple: "Don't diss yourself."),
Saturday's bona fide burger and better jazz.
But as you'll see, most of these experiences have nothing to do with my purported purpose in being here. Is that a so what? Or is being seen as less a dancer than anything else a real reason to feel that this is not what I came for? Well, it's not what I came for. I'm focusing more on relationships, and that's been helpful, but it's also dangerous. It's too tied to emotion, too out of my control.
I've made a list of ways I can be helpful. None of them are creative beyond the point of writing PR, but I'm good at writing PR. So I can be helpful. I'm trying to interrogate Alison about ways I can plug in; being active rather than waiting for the thing to come to me. Enjoying small triumphs (oh, but really, do I want to be the girl who's just glad she remembered to pack the emergency peanuts?) The problem is, rehearsal is not the place I'm most useful. And by the end of rehearsal, my plans to write and send a report, figure out all the cues for the dancers, etc. are essentially shot because I can't keep my eyes open, having been on the run from 6:30AM to 7:30PM.
So today (the "day of rest"), is compulsory partying and my own burgeoning to-do list, which has to be done if I am to feel at all useful, imaginative, on-the-ball. It's already rolling away from me ... but there a few causes in which I need to let it roll. To pray, to read, to speak with friends. I can't forget who I am, since it seems the project here is more and more about figuring that out in action. If you've written me, thank you. I mayn't have responded, somnambulist that I am outside the quarry, but it mattered to me, and I will write back soon.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Visual Aids
Eric readies the mainsail for my maiden voyage aboard the Freda.
Jessiedog pads through our favorite room.
A remembrance of Thimble Summer.
Primordial in the Quarry: The Seaweed Man.
Semi-blind charcoal sketch from my first life drawing class.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Community Building
Thursday night, Franny made dinner at the cabin and I joined the sailing staff for pasta and kielbasa, then square dancing at the yacht club. To me, yacht club sounds shi-shi, but theirs is old Maine, wood cabin, punch and animal crackers and thirteen year old kids. Essentially, a hop. First dance, I was paired with the caller, a middle-aged mustached feller who never looked me in the eye. He did an oddly close swing your partner and an oddly distant promenade. Though a few of us were tipsy, there's not too much trouble to be had at an old-fashioned square, and when the fog rolled in heavy, we rearranged our cars to accommodate the families unable to sail back across the cove.
The Chase's eldest, Becker, has a great bookshelf from which a volume dropped into my hand when I was fumbling about without my glasses - Paris to the Moon, which I'd been planning to read! I've been enjoying it every morning between 7 and 8, with a cup of coffee in the reading chair. Sometimes I mutter in French and Eric asks me for translation. This morning Amelia, nephew Nigel's partner, swung by with snacks for rehearsal and was companionably pleased to find out what I was reading.
The cat, whose name is apparently "Smudge," whom I call "Wonky Cat," brushed up against me for the first time today. Being thus objectified as a convenient back-scratcher has solidified my place in the family.
I'm finding a realer friend in Q2's stage manager, who went to Muhlenberg and has been working in NYC. She likes long letters and long books and Gershwin and Nina Simone. She's living by her lonesome in a little cabin, and since I'm rarely alone, and she usually, we're planning to join forces.
Today the dancers, the SM, and I went to the lily pond and swam and lay on the shore, then cleaned up and went to a Very Fancy Dinner in Blue Hill. The first place we tried, Barncastle, was closed because their electricity had suddenly failed. Plan 2: Table, where I had the best risotto of my life - lobster and chevre and 3 kinds of fresh-picked local mushroom (including the same chanterelles Alison and I pluck from the woods). The bites of dessert (deep chocolate torte with sea-salt; ricotta icing on a lemon cake; perfect crême brulee) were similarly divine.
I'm really enjoying the group I'm in. The dancers are interesting people, from a professional cheerleader (a boy one) to his half-Italian girlfriend (not me) to the ballroom dancer and founder of an arts-outreach in Zimbabwe. One has a tattoo of his partner's initials and a beautiful face and the kindest questioning manner; a good teacher. They are very real. They have very real bodies that work for them, that they have trained and demanded and that are imperfect and exciting. I am such a perfectionist - in many ways I've been saddened and corrupted by expecting bodily perfections of myself and never achieving them, by finding a narrow range of beauties in a world of them. I love that I'm seeing these dancers and thinking, look at the strangeness of that body, look at what it can do! It's simultaneously a more deeply aesthetic, artistic, and curious impulse and a more loving one. I don't feel depressed or jealous or other, but welcome, dogged, inspired!
I'm also loving the new community members, whom we met today. A bunch of fun broads! Some are frighteningly recognizable (Alice=Gretchen Hall, Sue=Betty White, Jeannie=Aunt Peggy/Beatrice Arthur), all are a little skewed and enthused. A thing I know. Our transition into working with them was smoother than we anticipated, in part because again, these groups of people are falling into place really well. There's intentionality in it I appreciate, as I appreciate each night planning the morning ahead.
To bed now, because my morning plan includes early tea, that book I'm cuddling, weeding the garden, and my very first sail! And soon, a post on reading habits and local histories, sweet swearing and architectural debate. I'm on the lookout for a coffeeshop in which to write my notes.
The Chase's eldest, Becker, has a great bookshelf from which a volume dropped into my hand when I was fumbling about without my glasses - Paris to the Moon, which I'd been planning to read! I've been enjoying it every morning between 7 and 8, with a cup of coffee in the reading chair. Sometimes I mutter in French and Eric asks me for translation. This morning Amelia, nephew Nigel's partner, swung by with snacks for rehearsal and was companionably pleased to find out what I was reading.
The cat, whose name is apparently "Smudge," whom I call "Wonky Cat," brushed up against me for the first time today. Being thus objectified as a convenient back-scratcher has solidified my place in the family.
I'm finding a realer friend in Q2's stage manager, who went to Muhlenberg and has been working in NYC. She likes long letters and long books and Gershwin and Nina Simone. She's living by her lonesome in a little cabin, and since I'm rarely alone, and she usually, we're planning to join forces.
Today the dancers, the SM, and I went to the lily pond and swam and lay on the shore, then cleaned up and went to a Very Fancy Dinner in Blue Hill. The first place we tried, Barncastle, was closed because their electricity had suddenly failed. Plan 2: Table, where I had the best risotto of my life - lobster and chevre and 3 kinds of fresh-picked local mushroom (including the same chanterelles Alison and I pluck from the woods). The bites of dessert (deep chocolate torte with sea-salt; ricotta icing on a lemon cake; perfect crême brulee) were similarly divine.
I'm really enjoying the group I'm in. The dancers are interesting people, from a professional cheerleader (a boy one) to his half-Italian girlfriend (not me) to the ballroom dancer and founder of an arts-outreach in Zimbabwe. One has a tattoo of his partner's initials and a beautiful face and the kindest questioning manner; a good teacher. They are very real. They have very real bodies that work for them, that they have trained and demanded and that are imperfect and exciting. I am such a perfectionist - in many ways I've been saddened and corrupted by expecting bodily perfections of myself and never achieving them, by finding a narrow range of beauties in a world of them. I love that I'm seeing these dancers and thinking, look at the strangeness of that body, look at what it can do! It's simultaneously a more deeply aesthetic, artistic, and curious impulse and a more loving one. I don't feel depressed or jealous or other, but welcome, dogged, inspired!
I'm also loving the new community members, whom we met today. A bunch of fun broads! Some are frighteningly recognizable (Alice=Gretchen Hall, Sue=Betty White, Jeannie=Aunt Peggy/Beatrice Arthur), all are a little skewed and enthused. A thing I know. Our transition into working with them was smoother than we anticipated, in part because again, these groups of people are falling into place really well. There's intentionality in it I appreciate, as I appreciate each night planning the morning ahead.
To bed now, because my morning plan includes early tea, that book I'm cuddling, weeding the garden, and my very first sail! And soon, a post on reading habits and local histories, sweet swearing and architectural debate. I'm on the lookout for a coffeeshop in which to write my notes.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Daily Grind
Here's my schedule, as it's unfolding:
Mornings we wake up between 6 and 7. Whoever is up first brews the coffee, and then Alison and Eric and I putter around. Today I was up at 6:30 and took my coffee and books to the porch to get a morning breeze and an ocean view from the couch.
On Monday, Thursday, and Friday (except, as today, when Alison's meetings interfere), we'll be attending corps training from 10-12. They're going through basics -- partnering, weight sharing, lifts, improvisations. Stuff I get, as it's similar to the kind of work I did in '06 at Governor's School. Here's a place where I'm jumping in as often as possible, which Alison supports. (She also thinks I should take salsa classes on Monday nights, which I support.)
On Tuesday mornings, we work at the office/hit the farmer's market/do chores/run errands/take walks. & on Tuesday evenings, we'll go to street dances in Blue Hill, one of the little coastal towns nearby.
On Wednesday mornings, we do "old babe" yoga at Alison's studio, with ball rolling. This is awesome, and results in flexy backs and comfy toes.
Every afternoon, we have rehearsal with the corps dancers 1-6, generally in the elementary school, though we'll begin working at the quarry next week. I make the coffee, take notes, send emails, join the improvs when I can and hang out with cast and crew.
Every weekday we eat dinner at home around 7. Dinner is lengthy and always delicious. Last night we sat on the porch til bedtime, which comes between 10 and 11 every night.
Saturday rehearsals are 10-2 with full cast (musicians, puppeteers, and community members), and take place on site, weather permitting. I anticipate a lot of running around at these rehearsals, as I'll be both assisting Alison and fielding questions from the community members/moving alongside them. (In general, given the age and skill range, these parts fall under "movement" rather than "dance").
Sundays are free. This Sunday, Alison and I plan to work in the garden, and she has promised to show me some of the good beach walks nearby. The Chases sail, so there may some boating as well. And here's when I can read my books and write my letters and speak to friends as I try to find reception in the wilderness/paradise of Maine.
Mornings we wake up between 6 and 7. Whoever is up first brews the coffee, and then Alison and Eric and I putter around. Today I was up at 6:30 and took my coffee and books to the porch to get a morning breeze and an ocean view from the couch.
On Monday, Thursday, and Friday (except, as today, when Alison's meetings interfere), we'll be attending corps training from 10-12. They're going through basics -- partnering, weight sharing, lifts, improvisations. Stuff I get, as it's similar to the kind of work I did in '06 at Governor's School. Here's a place where I'm jumping in as often as possible, which Alison supports. (She also thinks I should take salsa classes on Monday nights, which I support.)
On Tuesday mornings, we work at the office/hit the farmer's market/do chores/run errands/take walks. & on Tuesday evenings, we'll go to street dances in Blue Hill, one of the little coastal towns nearby.
On Wednesday mornings, we do "old babe" yoga at Alison's studio, with ball rolling. This is awesome, and results in flexy backs and comfy toes.
Every afternoon, we have rehearsal with the corps dancers 1-6, generally in the elementary school, though we'll begin working at the quarry next week. I make the coffee, take notes, send emails, join the improvs when I can and hang out with cast and crew.
Every weekday we eat dinner at home around 7. Dinner is lengthy and always delicious. Last night we sat on the porch til bedtime, which comes between 10 and 11 every night.
Saturday rehearsals are 10-2 with full cast (musicians, puppeteers, and community members), and take place on site, weather permitting. I anticipate a lot of running around at these rehearsals, as I'll be both assisting Alison and fielding questions from the community members/moving alongside them. (In general, given the age and skill range, these parts fall under "movement" rather than "dance").
Sundays are free. This Sunday, Alison and I plan to work in the garden, and she has promised to show me some of the good beach walks nearby. The Chases sail, so there may some boating as well. And here's when I can read my books and write my letters and speak to friends as I try to find reception in the wilderness/paradise of Maine.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
from the apogee
since sunday, and for the next month, i am alison chase's personal assistant. a co-founder of pilobolus, she recently started her own company, apogee arts, and has been working on a site-specific piece each summer in a quarry in stonington, maine. it's a big community endeavor, with professional dancers offset by kids and old ladies and a steel drum band. in addition to assisting alison (writing press releases, making to-do lists and keeping her on task, lining up schedules, sending emails and doing odd jobs), i'm training with the company and acting as chief of the community players (fielding questions and dancing with them).
i'm installed in the attic room at the chase's gorgeous home in tiny brooksville. lots of wood and warm colors and interesting accents. our families would appreciate the style. there's a fantastic drawing above my head -- a gothic house with a flapping laundry line that her architect husband drew. we (the chases, the dancers) had one of the best dinners ever on our first night: chicken, rice, salad (all with amazing dressings) and blueberry pie courtesy of alison's nephew's wife (she used a whole key lime, little sugar, and low-growing maine blueberries).
we're in the middle of nowhere. i honestly couldn't tell you the direction i came or the streets we took -- seems there were lefts and rights at random, all leading us to a very densely wooded road opening up to this great house.
everybody's been incredibly welcoming. the chase family owns this whole end of the island, a point running out to the water. joining us tonight at dinner were the nephew, wife, and kids, along with alison's daughter frances, who went to bates. i like her. she's an environmental science major, just graduated, at the moment splitting living here and in a cabin down the street, along with trip to visit "her honey," ben, at the summer camp where he's counseling. i think/hope we'll be friends.
there are 3 dogs running around the property, as well as a terrifying grey house cat who was once mangled, then resuscitated, and now is kind of wonky in the head. i've been warned that she scratches.
alison also warned me that she "does not serve breakfast." what that means is just that i have to make my own from the ingredients she bought me. i'm being plied with interesting things. this morning i picked highbush blueberries to add to my gluten-free granola. we stopped at a farmer's market and bought spelt sourdough and veggies, and supplemented them with fresh raspberries and strawberries from a roadside stand.
there will be 10 corps dancers, once matt and the frenchman who'll do the central role, a heron, join us. most are in their 20s, but there are a couple in their 30s, a woman in her forties, and of course, felix the french, who's 69 (with what a record! including, most interesting to me, a couple of productions with john turturro). half/half women/men. plus a stage manager, myself, mia (pronounced mie-uh, co-director/puppet choreographer), nigel (alison's nephew, composer/steel drum band conductor), the puppeteers and community members.
one of the dancers, tawanda, just got his masters in dance, but is most interested in dance theater/grotowski/suzuki/lecoq. he's also living with a williams alum, to whom i'm s'posed to be introduced. cool, no?
all of the dancers, despite their impossibly beautiful, strong and flexy bodies, have been sweet. i spent monday training/improv-ing with the dancers, who graciously supported my participation. i'll be learning so much!
last night, we had dinner with franny, alison's daughter, in her cabin down the street. we 3 had a beautiful meal (complete with prosecco, white whine, or for alison, rum&oj) and franny picked up her laundry from the house and headed back down, with the promise of an invitation to a party later this week at the cabin.
alison shares lots of fun and good advice, and i'm looking forward to becoming better friends with all parts of this little community. in the morning we linger over coffee on a screen porch, grey wood. the view is of a garden, rocks, forest, the coast in the distance. already, i feel at home. imagining a life in community like this, with days creating, nights reading and writing, big meals with friends and early morning walks.
i'm installed in the attic room at the chase's gorgeous home in tiny brooksville. lots of wood and warm colors and interesting accents. our families would appreciate the style. there's a fantastic drawing above my head -- a gothic house with a flapping laundry line that her architect husband drew. we (the chases, the dancers) had one of the best dinners ever on our first night: chicken, rice, salad (all with amazing dressings) and blueberry pie courtesy of alison's nephew's wife (she used a whole key lime, little sugar, and low-growing maine blueberries).
we're in the middle of nowhere. i honestly couldn't tell you the direction i came or the streets we took -- seems there were lefts and rights at random, all leading us to a very densely wooded road opening up to this great house.
everybody's been incredibly welcoming. the chase family owns this whole end of the island, a point running out to the water. joining us tonight at dinner were the nephew, wife, and kids, along with alison's daughter frances, who went to bates. i like her. she's an environmental science major, just graduated, at the moment splitting living here and in a cabin down the street, along with trip to visit "her honey," ben, at the summer camp where he's counseling. i think/hope we'll be friends.
there are 3 dogs running around the property, as well as a terrifying grey house cat who was once mangled, then resuscitated, and now is kind of wonky in the head. i've been warned that she scratches.
alison also warned me that she "does not serve breakfast." what that means is just that i have to make my own from the ingredients she bought me. i'm being plied with interesting things. this morning i picked highbush blueberries to add to my gluten-free granola. we stopped at a farmer's market and bought spelt sourdough and veggies, and supplemented them with fresh raspberries and strawberries from a roadside stand.
there will be 10 corps dancers, once matt and the frenchman who'll do the central role, a heron, join us. most are in their 20s, but there are a couple in their 30s, a woman in her forties, and of course, felix the french, who's 69 (with what a record! including, most interesting to me, a couple of productions with john turturro). half/half women/men. plus a stage manager, myself, mia (pronounced mie-uh, co-director/puppet choreographer), nigel (alison's nephew, composer/steel drum band conductor), the puppeteers and community members.
one of the dancers, tawanda, just got his masters in dance, but is most interested in dance theater/grotowski/suzuki/lecoq. he's also living with a williams alum, to whom i'm s'posed to be introduced. cool, no?
all of the dancers, despite their impossibly beautiful, strong and flexy bodies, have been sweet. i spent monday training/improv-ing with the dancers, who graciously supported my participation. i'll be learning so much!
last night, we had dinner with franny, alison's daughter, in her cabin down the street. we 3 had a beautiful meal (complete with prosecco, white whine, or for alison, rum&oj) and franny picked up her laundry from the house and headed back down, with the promise of an invitation to a party later this week at the cabin.
alison shares lots of fun and good advice, and i'm looking forward to becoming better friends with all parts of this little community. in the morning we linger over coffee on a screen porch, grey wood. the view is of a garden, rocks, forest, the coast in the distance. already, i feel at home. imagining a life in community like this, with days creating, nights reading and writing, big meals with friends and early morning walks.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Boston, Pt. II
Abbreviation will be necessary, as I'm in rehearsal with lots to report from Maine. Not wanting to neglect what I began...
The end of Boston, visa visit:
- The Boston Public Library, in addition to its travel poster collection (see below), is currently featuring street photography by Jules Aarons, an internationally known BU physicist whose black and white scenes were similarly acclaimed. Check 'em out (I lack time to find and post, but I'll add later if a sudden windfall gives me hours).
- Dioramas of artists in the Wiggins Room at the BPL. Those of Muirhead Bone (what a name!) and his Manhattan Excavation and James Mebey (Dawn: The Canal Patrol Setting Out) are gorgeous. The concept is inserting artists into the settings they made famous. M.B. is placed in such a way as to make the excavation workers look like Lilliputians.
- A little girl (4?) in the wading pool. The other kids were outfitted in bright bathing suits. She didn't have one, and was in her underwear and a gold cross necklace. Her dad was taking pictures as she splashed. A little girl ran over her mother to point out the "naked" girl -- "she's just got underwear!" Other child deeply upset, as of impropriety. When did little kids get a sense that nudity was shameful? Of course she's not wearing anything, she's a baby! The old "if you're covering something, there's something to cover." But there isn't. Just a little girl. It made me sad.
- Old South Church: an historic site, opposite the BPL. Jazz services Thursdays, "The Garden of Eden" providing vegetables to weekly lunches for homeless mothers. I sat in the cool and read the stones on the wall (from 1600s).
- Sargent murals, recently restored, depicting the Judeo-Christian history, pagan gods, sacraments, resurrection. Someday I'll post notes as given at the library. Fascinating symbolism and image. The chaos panels were far more compelling in richness of color and movement than the resurrection panel, which must be what little children see (or grown-ups) when they imagine being bored in heaven. The prophets and Mother Mary - ornate and compelling, steeped in Catholic ritual.
- Lowbrow: 15 cent York patties continued to pay the parking meter while I splashed around and sat by the tortoise and hare statues in Trinity Square. I thought about going to Wendy's. Instead, recognized that time had come to speed out of town by St. James Rd. Straight shot to 90, spilled lime Polar water all over my lap, felt sophisticated.
Gee, I'm growing up.
The end of Boston, visa visit:
- The Boston Public Library, in addition to its travel poster collection (see below), is currently featuring street photography by Jules Aarons, an internationally known BU physicist whose black and white scenes were similarly acclaimed. Check 'em out (I lack time to find and post, but I'll add later if a sudden windfall gives me hours).
- Dioramas of artists in the Wiggins Room at the BPL. Those of Muirhead Bone (what a name!) and his Manhattan Excavation and James Mebey (Dawn: The Canal Patrol Setting Out) are gorgeous. The concept is inserting artists into the settings they made famous. M.B. is placed in such a way as to make the excavation workers look like Lilliputians.
- A little girl (4?) in the wading pool. The other kids were outfitted in bright bathing suits. She didn't have one, and was in her underwear and a gold cross necklace. Her dad was taking pictures as she splashed. A little girl ran over her mother to point out the "naked" girl -- "she's just got underwear!" Other child deeply upset, as of impropriety. When did little kids get a sense that nudity was shameful? Of course she's not wearing anything, she's a baby! The old "if you're covering something, there's something to cover." But there isn't. Just a little girl. It made me sad.
- Old South Church: an historic site, opposite the BPL. Jazz services Thursdays, "The Garden of Eden" providing vegetables to weekly lunches for homeless mothers. I sat in the cool and read the stones on the wall (from 1600s).
- Sargent murals, recently restored, depicting the Judeo-Christian history, pagan gods, sacraments, resurrection. Someday I'll post notes as given at the library. Fascinating symbolism and image. The chaos panels were far more compelling in richness of color and movement than the resurrection panel, which must be what little children see (or grown-ups) when they imagine being bored in heaven. The prophets and Mother Mary - ornate and compelling, steeped in Catholic ritual.
- Lowbrow: 15 cent York patties continued to pay the parking meter while I splashed around and sat by the tortoise and hare statues in Trinity Square. I thought about going to Wendy's. Instead, recognized that time had come to speed out of town by St. James Rd. Straight shot to 90, spilled lime Polar water all over my lap, felt sophisticated.
Gee, I'm growing up.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Gentle Art of Civilized Living Reaches the Highest Degree of Perfection
Yesterday, I woke up at 4:15 and by 5AM was on the road to Boston for my visa appointment at the French consulate. The drive was gorgeous along Routes 43 and 22 -- mist coming up from the fields and spilling across the road and crows flying through it, great twisted trees by the river, farmhouses and heath. By the time I got to I90, the sun was up and the road was zippy and clear almost all the way. Sat in traffic for the last 45 minutes and negotiated the toll plaza crunch with aplomb. My exit got me one street off the Park Building, and I found a space right in front.
The French consulate is tucked away at the end of a hall on the 7th floor, flanked by a number of corporate offices. First revelation as the elevator doors parted: a huge Williams banner. Turns out the Williams Investment Office is also on Park Building 7th. Kansas, Toto?
I stood with an old Italian man and his son as we waited for the consulate to open. The father had spent 6 years living in Paris, and was at the consulate to collect his pension check. They advised me, in one accent unintelligible and the other distinctly Guido, that Paris was a great city.
Once in, the visa appointment took all of ten minutes and was conducted in English. Like cake. After which, I was free to roam the city. I knew I was near Copley Square, and thus the public library, and after filling up the meter (strategy: buy 15 cent peppermint patties, pay for parking with the change), I followed my nose over one street and up. I followed my eyes to an ornate church all in red brick - Trinity - which was in fact back on the street where I'd begun, and directly facing the library.
Mom had passed on Dad's injunction to visit the Sargent murals (restored!) in the Boston Public, but first I detoured into its current exhibition, vintage travel posters advertising all sorts of exotic locales. "Away We Go!", with posters from the 1920s-50s, featured gorgeous color:
and oddly unappealing taglines:
Also, the incredible story of the Paricutin Volcano, whose birth was witnessed by a farmer in Mexico in 1943 - within a week of the eruption, in what was then a cornfield, the volcano reached a height of five stories. Over eight years, it gained 1400 feet.
Amid invocations of exotic locales and village cultures, mine eye espied this sterling sophisticate:
All while playing "See The USA in Your Chevrolet" and Fred Astaire on "Flying Down to Rio."
After poking around the gallery and the courtyard, I headed up the main starcaise, flanked by lions, to the "Puvis de Chavannes Gallery," the second floor corridor whose walls are covered by murals of the nine muses, executed by the aforementioned artist. My pamphlet informs me that the muses are hailing a male figure "representing the 'Genius of Enlightenment'." I do not know whether they mean genius in the modern or Johnsonian sense.
I wandered into a ballroom with fireplace and dark wainscoting and checkered floors ("of Istrian and red Verona marble"). I learned all these things later from pamphlets - I have also learned that it is possible to be married in the Boston Public Library, either in the Abbey Room (the ballroom) or the Bates Reading Room, which spans the length of the building:
I spent an hour here. The inspiration attendant on such a setting is incomprehensible to the self who works on a bunged-up PC in Sawyer Library with its industrial tans and rubber and failing carpets. Long wooden tables and green lampshades enable sketching and marveling and a sense of beautiful, shared scholasticism. Everyone around me is reading or writing, except for two Asian girls (sisters?) at the table to my left. They are busily and efficiently applying makeup, observing one another like mirrors (twins?). One catches me staring. I switch to sketching architecture. I draw a very nice chair back that Dad might've done. I'd show it, but the camera cord eludes me. As does the time. Tune in soon for church history, Sargent murals, dioramas, street photography, and a wading pool. Plus a short rant on the sexual marketing of childhood and more York patties! Don't miss it.
Boston's wonderful.
The French consulate is tucked away at the end of a hall on the 7th floor, flanked by a number of corporate offices. First revelation as the elevator doors parted: a huge Williams banner. Turns out the Williams Investment Office is also on Park Building 7th. Kansas, Toto?
I stood with an old Italian man and his son as we waited for the consulate to open. The father had spent 6 years living in Paris, and was at the consulate to collect his pension check. They advised me, in one accent unintelligible and the other distinctly Guido, that Paris was a great city.
Once in, the visa appointment took all of ten minutes and was conducted in English. Like cake. After which, I was free to roam the city. I knew I was near Copley Square, and thus the public library, and after filling up the meter (strategy: buy 15 cent peppermint patties, pay for parking with the change), I followed my nose over one street and up. I followed my eyes to an ornate church all in red brick - Trinity - which was in fact back on the street where I'd begun, and directly facing the library.
Mom had passed on Dad's injunction to visit the Sargent murals (restored!) in the Boston Public, but first I detoured into its current exhibition, vintage travel posters advertising all sorts of exotic locales. "Away We Go!", with posters from the 1920s-50s, featured gorgeous color:
and oddly unappealing taglines:
Also, the incredible story of the Paricutin Volcano, whose birth was witnessed by a farmer in Mexico in 1943 - within a week of the eruption, in what was then a cornfield, the volcano reached a height of five stories. Over eight years, it gained 1400 feet.
Amid invocations of exotic locales and village cultures, mine eye espied this sterling sophisticate:
All while playing "See The USA in Your Chevrolet" and Fred Astaire on "Flying Down to Rio."
After poking around the gallery and the courtyard, I headed up the main starcaise, flanked by lions, to the "Puvis de Chavannes Gallery," the second floor corridor whose walls are covered by murals of the nine muses, executed by the aforementioned artist. My pamphlet informs me that the muses are hailing a male figure "representing the 'Genius of Enlightenment'." I do not know whether they mean genius in the modern or Johnsonian sense.
I wandered into a ballroom with fireplace and dark wainscoting and checkered floors ("of Istrian and red Verona marble"). I learned all these things later from pamphlets - I have also learned that it is possible to be married in the Boston Public Library, either in the Abbey Room (the ballroom) or the Bates Reading Room, which spans the length of the building:
I spent an hour here. The inspiration attendant on such a setting is incomprehensible to the self who works on a bunged-up PC in Sawyer Library with its industrial tans and rubber and failing carpets. Long wooden tables and green lampshades enable sketching and marveling and a sense of beautiful, shared scholasticism. Everyone around me is reading or writing, except for two Asian girls (sisters?) at the table to my left. They are busily and efficiently applying makeup, observing one another like mirrors (twins?). One catches me staring. I switch to sketching architecture. I draw a very nice chair back that Dad might've done. I'd show it, but the camera cord eludes me. As does the time. Tune in soon for church history, Sargent murals, dioramas, street photography, and a wading pool. Plus a short rant on the sexual marketing of childhood and more York patties! Don't miss it.
Boston's wonderful.
Monday, July 5, 2010
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