Into my mailbox a few weeks ago came an enquiry from our landlord.... did we wish to extend our lease another year? The new start date will be August 1st, which happens to be my 60th birthday.
There's not much mileage conversationally in angst-ing over aging, I find. It's irrelevant to the young and gets no sympathy from people further down the path. But I can write it in my own blog for Pete's sake can't I?! I'm approaching this milestone with a mixture of shock (looking in the mirror) and awe (not having expected to get this far, coming from a very dodgy gene pool) and the predictable resolve to live a healthier life, be a nicer person etc etc while covertly reaching for a wine glass. Nothing new here.
So YES, we do want to extend our lease thank you, and I took a walk around in the sunshine to think about things and be grateful for the approach of both another decade and another year here in NY.
Dear Diary
To anyone who can identify with an up and down life, it should come as no surprise that my last, somewhat euphoric post was promptly followed by a 6 month slump. In the interests of adhering to the premise of my blog..... memory joggers with a view to my future befuddled self.... I've decided I ought to do a quick round up of some highs and lows and hit reset.
Where was I? In the sun drinking coffee outside the Flatiron building without a care in the world?
Yes! But behind the scenes, very sadly and for different reasons, neither Frankie nor Smokie came too.
What else? Well I had to leave almost straight away to go to a 5 day art workshop in Northern California where I met my lovely Facebook friend from Ireland, Pauline Agnew, for the first time. She was one of the teachers. I think it was an excellent workshop, in fact I know it was. However, for me it was way too much of a stretch on top of the move to NY, cat deaths and a whistle stop tour of friends and family in England. I had no A game left to bring. It was a bit demoralizing really because I felt completely displaced and couldn't concentrate on painting at all .... up a mountain suddenly with a bunch of strangers 3,000 miles from home, sleeping in a very rustic "cottage" in the grounds of a convent. No car, no tv, no internet and no way of getting to a coffee shop. Boy, did I feel stranded! I berated myself soundly for being shallow etc while surviving by playing a lot of Candy Crush. Thank goodness for my iPhone and Pauline's thoughtful addition of wine to the materials list!
The retreat Center in N California, manned by nuns
My temporary home
Painting demo by Melinda Cootsana
David flew out to join me afterwards for a much needed little vacation, never been so glad to see him. We stayed in Monterey in a room with a balcony hovering over the bay, went to sleep and woke each day to the lovely sound of sea lions honking, and discovered how absolutely beautiful Carmel beach is...... paradise!!! So that all ended happily.
Breakfast each morning, too hot to sit outside!
Home again, quick breath and then straight off to another art workshop, this time in a rather gritty area of Brooklyn, with the very wonderful Flora Bowley who teaches "Intuitive Painting". We own a few of her paintings and I was looking forward to meeting her. This time my daughter, Chloe, went with me which was a much better idea. Once again, no A game to bring artistically, but it didn't matter as much this time as it was one of those "there's no right or wrong" approaches. Plus she starts each session with a peaceful meditation and reflective time, just what my addled brain needed.
Flora at work, she completes a painting demo during every workshop
"Honoring the Paintings" ceremony at the end
2 of Flora Bowley's paintings brightening the house in N Virginia
On the homefront, it was quite an ongoing challenge filling an apartment with a load of stuff and making it feel like a personal space. It all took time to arrive and assemble itself into a friendly formation. We slept on a mattress on the floor for 2 months like the good old student days until the bed frame was delivered.
I didn't notice until we moved here how many people out on the streets of New York are struggling back to their apartments weighed down with heavy household items that would normally be tossed casually into the back of a car. You can have things delivered or take a cab but it does't always feel worth it.... you buy a mop for $15 from Home Depot for instance, are you going to pay another $15 to get it home? Of course not! There's usually a point, around half way, when I vow never, ever, to do this to myself again. David's worse than me, he's determined to get things back under his own steam even if he dies in the attempt....
Setting up home in NY from scratch.....
......David reluctantly admitting defeat and taking a break from lugging that heavy mirror up 5th Ave. We don't need a cab, we're British and made of sterner stuff....
After one too many trips up and down I95 bringing car loads of this and that, it finally feels as if we've arrived. Oh yes..... and we got another cat!
Jimbo ponders his move from the shelter in rural Virginia to a Manhattan apartment.
Flatiron in my back yard
For a long time now I've been plotting and scheming a move to NYC and here we are.... doing it. David shifted his work base from the northern VA suburbs of Washington DC to the Manhattan office and we rented an apartment in the Flatiron district. As easy as that?! Well no, actually behind the scenes it's a logistical nightmare, fraught with angst, second guessing and profound exhaustion. But on the whole it's exactly what I wanted.....an interesting diversion from the "aging in place" scenario (aging somewhere completely different) and a 5 year fling before retirement. So when I'm pounding the concrete walking 5 blocks and back in the searing heat just to buy a light bulb from Home Depot, thinking "who's big idea was THIS?" I have only myself to blame.
We chose the Flatiron district for several reasons, it's busy and touristy but it's within walking distance (for hikers such as ourselves) of the office and all our favorite downtown haunts. There's good food and coffee on hand. Plus you can see sky, there's a lovely little city park with music and art events happening and of course there's that omnipresent, iconic Flatiron building overseeing it all.
Here she is in the early morning before the crowds converge. Isn't she beautiful? I have always been vaguely interested in this building but now I have a distinct feeling of falling in love. So elegant and skinny, such stunning architecture just outside my front door. This is where I drink my morning coffee from now on, in the company of a typical city mix of the prosperous and the homeless, the energized and the jaded.
Madison Square Park
Falun Gong, apparently
I'm always impressed by the dedication required to lug a piano to a park
We've gone from this.....
to this.....
Home Sweet Home!
Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle
Ever since we first saw his enormous fantastical chandeliers at the Corcoran in DC I've been a big fan of Dale Chihuly's glasswork. My old post on our Studio 155 exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum last year shows the beautiful amorphous Chihuly glass shapes displayed against the hallway windows there. I'm longing to visit his main working studio in Tacoma,Washington, but it's 3,000 miles away on the west coast, as far away from Virginia as England!
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I did get to Seattle for a few days, which is just north of Tacoma. I was accompanying Chloe to her annual Art Therapy Assoc convention and one of the big attractions for me, other than some quality mother/daughter bonding time, was the new Chihuly gallery on the campus of the 1962 World's Fair. It turned out we arrived a day early for Chloe's sessions (that's my girl!) so we had a whole day free to enjoy ourselves.
The gallery is laid out in separate, themed rooms. Many of the exhibits, such as this one, are in the dark and on a mirrored surface so the reflection is highlighted along with the glass. I should also say they are enormous, this was several feet high and stretched far to the right and the left. It reminds me of flamingoes.
This is a detail of a HUGE one, reminiscent of the chandeliers
This is a ceiling in a walkway between 2 rooms. Everyone was craning their heads up, trying hard to take a photo that would begin to do it justice.
Details from ceiling......
Absolutely gorgeous!
This whole room was taken up by a gondola of glass on a mirrored floor.
These photos are of a massive glass forest you could walk right round.
Some of Chihuly's energetic drawings and paintings are also on display.
By this time it was such a visual overload experience, even the neon exit sign looked pretty special!
In the gift shop the umbrellas had been hung from above to echo the ceiling height exhibits. I quite wish I'd bought one now.
The gallery is called Garden and Glass. The sheer scale of this magnificent room! It's a transition to the outdoor garden exhibits. The weather is rather like Britain..... grey skies and drizzle.
Outside that same room you can see how the landscaping is carefully color co-ordinated with the glass, so the exhibits are quite camouflaged. The photo above shows how the orange of the glass flowers in the transition room behind is echoed by the beautiful foliage. You almost don't notice the massive amethyst tower and the orbs that look like boulders.
The shapes and colors are so organic, sometimes you have to look carefully to see the glass
My lovely daughter! We're in beautiful Seattle and the weather is good enough to eat outdoors. What could be nicer?
No disappointment
This year's July 4th firework display at Wintergreen Resort, VA was like no other I've seen. It had rained on and off all day despite a better forecast, and we wondered whether it would be canceled. Hard to do last minute though as there were bands booked to play, craft stalls, food vendors etc already set up and it's always a very well attended event. So they obviously decided the show must go on.
By 9.30 pm the clouds were low over the ski slope and there must have been a lot of moisture in the air. The fireworks produced their own smoke which got trapped in the atmosphere and the effect was as if they were going off behind a gauze curtain, even the bangs seemed muffled. I thought it was quite a beautiful effect, albeit low key compared to the normal colorful show. The crowd usually "ooooh"s and "aaaaah"s and the occasional child usually has a crying fit, but there was none of that this time, the atmosphere was very subdued.
Chaos, Couture and Impressionism
A visit to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in NY is akin to going to Ikea for me in some ways. Granted, the items on view are beyond comparison, but the effect both have on me is very similar.... 1/ I wanted to be there, 2/ I'm completely overwhelmed, 3/ I can't easily identify the way out of the maze. Instant panicky fatigue sets in.
Last week I had my most positive experience so far at the Met. All the familiar anxiety symptoms were present but it was well worth suffering for. In a very under marketed (in my opinion) way there was a superb juxtaposition of 2 exhibitions, the first one being Chaos to Couture, a fashion exhibit which brilliantly showed how the punk street fashion of the '70s ended up influencing the major fashion houses like Givenchy, Prada etc. Beautiful clothing, room after room of it, ...... the things that you and I were wearing back then, or at least observing, and examples of the way it has since been adopted and re-marketed as high fashion. It was FABULOUS, if you like that sort of thing. A magnificent shrine to the evolution of the People's politically and socially stimulated creativity, factoring in our lack of money which made the black plastic garbage bags, the safety pins and torn, embellished t shirts so attractive as a fashion statement, to the glamorous high end fashion industry's cashing in on it over the subsequent decades.
Why don't I have photos? Because sadly the Met won't allow it and I don't have an iphone to be discreetly rebellious with.
Walking 40 blocks up 5th Avenue the next day it occurred to me to test the theory by looking in all the designer windows. Not a punk inspired garment in sight, not one! I got very excited when Bergdorf Goodman had some definitely '70s derivative stuff in it, but sadly it transpired that they were a sponsor of the exhibition so that didn't count. I do buy into the premise though, the exhibits definitely bear that out. I don't believe that New Yorkers have ever worn that stuff to the extent that Londoners did, and still do.
Window gazing in the sunshine
Didn't I used to know you?
The next door exhibit was entitled Impressionism: Fashion to Modernity.
I was very enthusiastic to see it, mainly because I really appreciated the implied link between the two and also, though on one hand I feel like I've seen too much Impressionism to be very impressed anymore, respect is definitely due.
Apparently it occurred to the Impressionists to paint people in the garments they were wearing at the time, pictures of stylish men and women reflecting the spirit of the age. This caused a considerable outrage in the Art community. Their pictures were banned from major exhibitions and ridiculed for lack of classicism. Who would think it would be so controversial?
Each room of the exhibition was devoted to a theme.... black dresses, white dresses, daydresses, accessories, menswear, umbrellas, corsets.... There were actual garments, as depicted in the paintings, preserved behind glass. It was by far the most endearing glimpse into the lives of the Impressionists I have ever had. They revealed themselves as not only brave, ground breaking artists, but real men and women leading real lives who posed their long suffering family members again and again in different outfits in order to complete a painting and bucked convention as surely as the punks of the 1970s.
My favorite painting in the exhibition, from the Musee D'Orsay, Paris,.... just stunning, the composition and the beautiful light.... In The Conservatory (Madame Bartholome) painted by her husband, an artist I didn't know at all, circa 1881. She died a few years later but he still had her lovely outfit and here it is today in New York.
Eno then….
Brian Eno, New York
….Eno Now
David's birthday last week and we were going to be in NY so I scouted around for something that would interest him. Turned out that there was the perfect event..... an audiovisual installation by Brian Eno and then a related lecture by him at the Great Hall at Cooper Union a few days later.
Problem was, I was late to the party and the lecture was already sold out. So for the first time ever I succumbed and responded to an online ad for tickets at outrageously inflated rates. They arrived overnight in a plain wrapper with no accompanying paperwork, looking as suspicious as can be, but turned out to be legit. (Thank goodness, or it would have been embarrassing at the door) Albeit 5x original price, it was worth every penny. The installation was very interesting but it added a lot to the experience to hear him explain it all.
77 Million Paintings
296 original projected light works, patterns and colors overlaid randomly within a grid, several at a time, very slowly fading in and out in different combinations. Eno's gentle Ambient music is also arbitrarily generated so you never see and hear the same image.
We entered a large, dark warehouse space. There were a few velvet sofas to sit on, a giant projection on the wall and some cones on the floor. It had a rather somber, church like atmosphere.
You can just see the silhouette of 2 people sitting on a sofa several feet from the wall, to get the scale of the projection
It's so gradual I didn't notice the image was changing at first and I thought it was all too minimalist for my jumpy brain to tolerate for long, but gradually I relaxed and began to really enjoy it. We sat down and stayed half an hour or so and as we left I noticed a guy on the sofa behind us was fast asleep and snoring. Eno said over the years he's observed this behavior many times, people will come in and scope it out, maybe with some skepticism, then get interested enough to sit down, then fall fast asleep. (This being a good thing!)
In Hove, UK, a new private hospital has built a permanent small relaxation room showing the installation for patients undergoing cancer treatment to "think, take stock and relax", the thought being that it helps lower anxiety levels, blood pressure and so on. A surgeon commissioned it after noticing his very hyper mother calm down when seeing 77 Million Paintings at a festival. Eno also mentioned that over the years many women have told him they chose his music to give birth to.
We were lucky with the lecture. He said people always want to hear about the past but he prefers to talk about the present and the future. However, he was making an exception in this case and putting this work into the larger context. So we were treated to a very entertaining couple of hours with a slideshow of his life starting right back at childhood, showing many of his early influences (I took note of Mondrian and Terry Riley's IN C as I could see both of those in this work) and the musical and artistic collaborations he's been involved in over the years. A lot of candid, behind the scenes shots of him working with Roxy Music, Fripp, David Byrne, Bowie, U2 etc. And artwork going back to his first prize winning drawing as a child in Woodbridge, Suffolk, through art school in the '70s, to today.
He explained in some detail his creative thought processes and showed slides of how, practically, he sets about putting things into action. As an endorsement of what he espoused..... the idea that you can hold 2 opposing thoughts in your head at once about art, A/ "that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life" and B/ "I could do that!"....... we both came away very inspired to get on with life and just DO things instead of sitting around endlessly thinking about it.
photos.... Fanpop.com, David's illicit Cooper Union shot, a few of the many, many we took in midtown, show handout.
Billy Bragg at the Birchmere
For a self proclaimed journal blogger, I let a lot go under the bridge undocumented. This week was particularly memorable however as we saw Billy Bragg at the Birchmere: a shared table, dinner club type of venue just outside Washington DC. We've seen many favorites there over the last 25 years.... Steeleye, Fairport, String Band, Cowboy Junkies, Bruce Cockburn, Livingston Taylor.... you get the picture.
Vegas.... are we having fun yet?
David had been in Las Vegas a few days at the annual company/customer shindig. I include this photo in case anyone wonders why I don't go with him. He assures me they were handed these props purely for the shoot.
Anyway.... I picked him up at the airport, he recovered a little and then we hit the rush hour beltway traffic. It wasn't ideal timing but it was worth the effort. Quite a considerable cultural contrast, straight from the extraordinary glitziness of Vegas to the down to earthness of a Billy Bragg concert.... part overt Socialist political rally as we sing about Power of the Unions backed by the "anti Fascist rhythm section", part stand up comedy act as he is very funny, part tear jerker as he still throws in the occasional poignant love song just to throw you off guard. He didn't seem to have changed much since the "80s when we last saw him in Leeds. A bit older, (he mentioned his full beard "hiding a multitude of chins")
You'd think the audience for a Billy Bragg concert would be pretty self selecting but it turned out the young couple we were sitting with were both Republicans. "I just don't agree with that" said the mild mannered, beautiful Stephanie, a Capitol Hill lobbyist from Alabama, when he talked about the British National Health System and the inability of the rest of the world to understand America's reluctance to provide universal health care for its citizens.
Proof, possibly, of the incendiary effect of such an unusually (for here) left wing tone to the evening was a little skirmish at a table near us of the "F... you" "No, F.... YOU" variety. That sort of thing just never happens normally.
This concert was one of those times I feel as if a neurosurgeon has stuck a probe into my brain and touched a little area that stimulates my Britishness as if to remind me it's my "real self". The rest of the time I feel like an American with a British accent.
After the show we joined the line for the meet and greet. We told Billy Bragg the first time we left our daughter with a babysitter was to see him in concert. She's 30 now. You can see that we were a lot more excited than he was, but he couldn't have been nicer.
he patient smile of a seasoned after show hand shaker.
On the way home David accidentally crossed a bridge into the city. It's easily done, especially when you're jet lagged..... one false move and there's no way out of the situation, you've just got to add another 15 minutes onto your ETA back home. I snapped this picture of the Lincoln Memorial out of the car window to take my mind off it, in the interest of maintaining marital harmony.
The Sublime to the Ridiculous
I am much better at planning ahead than seizing the day, a lot of time can drift emptily by while I make detailed itineraries for the future. After a typical post weekend Monday slump yesterday, consisting of too much desultory Facebook monitoring and NPR, I hit on a new way to counteract it: instead of the bucket list approach, which I find can trigger a little demotivating depression, I decided to designate one day a week as a vacation day..... what would I do today if I'd gone to a lot of trouble and expense to be here?
My number one choice would have been to see the Durer exhibition at the National Gallery but DC was a zoo because the Supreme Court was debating same sex marriage and thousands of people were demonstrating for and against. That in itself could have been interesting, but we live in (officially now) the worst area in the country for traffic and I just was not up for that.
So, a mixture of reliving last week's light show and homesickness for England led me to the Cathedral.
Shades of home! But this "neogothic" cathedral, the sixth largest in the world, was only completed in 1990.
This is the mandala "Rose window", (seen from the front on the exterior shot). On a sunny day it projects its image beautifully onto the nearby wall.
One of my favorites, although it's modern design is out of synch with the rest of them, this is the Space Window. It incorporates a piece of lunar rock from the Sea Of Tranquillity donated to the Cathedral by NASA in 1974. The rock, in the center of the top circle, is enclosed between 2 pieces of tempered glass and sealed with stainless steel in a nitrogen environment to prevent deterioration. Well, that's what Wikipedia says anyway.
There's nothing particularly special about this window except it's position. The sun catches it and sets it on fire. The colors on the left are the reflection on a stone column.
I am always intrigued by the beautiful reflected light patterns on the stone architecture and marble flooring tiles.
These lovely reflections from the top level of windows are on a massive net. It's been strung right across the ceiling of the Cathedral because there's repair work in progress after earthquake damage in 2011.
Scaffolding and "hard hat" areas all around as repair work commences after much fund raising
Some of the pieces that fell off in the earthquake
Outside there are designated parking spaces for Cathedral officials. Next to the Bishop of Washington (awol, but, to be fair, it was lunchtime) I found this interesting job description.....
On behalf of the Ordinary, I would like to thank him for showing up today in his nice silver Lexus :)
Then onwards to the gift shop, full of what my parents used to call "knasty knick knacks". They would not have been disappointed!
Gargoyles and angels are in charge of t shirt sales and taking it very seriously....
....... in with the bibles I found some apocryphal gospels.......
...... a design competition is to be thanked for the Star Wars inspired gargoyle and it is featured very prominently.....
There was a lot more tackiness but I began to feel a little too jaded to record it and it was a relief to step back outside again. In the Bishop's garden I found these very appropriate Lenten roses
To get my shot of the full frontage of the Cathedral I had to keep moving backwards over the lawn until I reached the far fence, whereupon I stumbled upon a most suspicious looking package in the undergrowth. It turned out to be reassuringly labeled on the duct tape. Well, it's not going to say "explosives" is it?
The Heliocliff and Planetarium
Word went out this week that Voyager 1, launched in 1977 and carrying the Golden Record of eclectic sounds from Earth.... now approx 11 billion miles from the sun and traveling at a speed of 636 miles a minute.... had just entered interstellar space. This theory was promptly debunked by NASA. Apparently at the time of writing Voyager is still in our solar system, presumed to have entered an in-between space in space, the newly recognized Heliocliff, the edge of the Heliosphere.
Of course there is no useful identifying ribbon to breach and no photographic record. Images such as those of Jupiter and Saturn are a thing of the past as the cameras were turned off in 1990. The interstellar space welcoming party will sadly not be available on YouTube.
Suitably celestial windows at BAM's cafe level, never so appropriate
Also this week, by the sort of meaningless co-incidence that appeals to me greatly, we went to a performance of Planetarium at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I've been SO excited about this I've felt like a child waiting for Christmas. Commissioned by the Barbican in London, the Sydney Opera House and some highbrow people in Holland you've never heard of, it sounds like a modern take on Holst's Planets. Kind of, yes. There's a song for the sun, the moon and all the planets, including poor old Pluto. It's a collaboration of Indie royalty, if you'll pardon the cliche, gone electronic classical: Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly and Bryce Dressner, plus orchestra. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it.
The 30 foot diameter hovering orb, centerpiece of a constantly changing light display
As all these things can be looked up on Wikipedia I will just give my personal take on Sufjan. It's very, very hard to get tickets to see him! He's a quiet celebrity, there's no hype, no publicity, there's no big personality onstage. There's a mind boggling visual element in his concerts and it's an instant sellout whenever word of mouth gets around that he's performing. The experience of seeing him is so much larger than any art installation, so overwhelming, I have no better word than that useful British term "gobsmacked"!
Here are some photos I took, to everyone around me's understandable annoyance. They can't begin to convey the 60 minute brilliant kinetic onslaught, but I'm glad I got them.
After covering the solar system so thoroughly what could be left for an encore? Why, Somewhere Over The Rainbow of course..... perfect!
When the evening was over we were plummeted straight back out into the harsh reality of grungey NY.
Our daughter Chloe and Dan, sitting opposite us on the subway. We wouldn't dream of going without them!
Central Park and a tale of 3 rinks
We had cause for a family celebration last week (our daughter got a new job!) and David had to work in NY, so I tagged along on his business trip. Another incentive was a recent snowfall. Central Park is beautiful in any season, but, for me, the snowy winter days are the best.
It's the scale of the thing that's so arresting, as I think these photographs show.... the people look tiny. You can feel overawed by it. For a start the park itself is massive considering how small Manhattan is, 843 acres. Then there's the height and maturity of the trees, the hilliness and variation in the landscape and of course the fringe of skyscrapers all around the horizon, which you see far more of in winter. Walking round in snow, bundled up in a big wool coat reminds me of the atmosphere of old Woody Allen movies (back in the days when I still admired him) It remains a picture of a life in America I would love to be living..... imagine an apartment with this view!
One evening we did a circular walk from the hotel, taking in the 3 outdoor skating rinks within 15 blocks of each other. It was useful to have a goal rather than wandering aimlessly around. No intention of skating, I'm not up for that, though David probably would if only he had a more agile companion!
Woolman Rink, Central Park, a white light
There's a fairly subdued atmosphere here in the park . A few people doing jumps in an area coned off in the center. I would probably pick this location above the others though, for all the reasons stated above.
he Rockefeller Center, a golden glow
The iconic Rockefeller rink, between 5th and 6th Ave, is still a sight to behold without the Christmas tree and blaze of lights. It wasn't very busy. We got there as the zamboni was resurfacing the ice. As we waited for the skaters to come back and make a more interesting photograph for us it began to snow, so we moved quickly on.
Bryant Park, a pink extravaganza
On 42nd St, just behind the NY Library is Bryant Park. That's the Empire State Building lit up in the background. There was quite a party atmosphere here, much busier, colored lights and louder music. People were having a really good time! This would definitely be the one to choose for the fun factor but lacking the beauty of the park or the grandeur of the Rockefeller.
You couldn't miss this guy hamming it up for the public. His skates had flashing lights and he danced slowly round the rink posing for photos en route. I googled FloNess later and found a few UTube videos of him. He frequents the rinks in winter and the rollerblade areas in summer, equally bizarrely dressed.
This walkway usually looks so tasteful!
Off the ice rink topic, but right in there with the lighting theme, I have to throw this picture in too as the colors struck me as so delicate. Walked past the Bergdorf Goodman windows on 5th Avenue en route from the park to the Rockerfeller Center, thinking they would be a disappointment after the Holiday ones have been dismantled. But no, they were lovely. The theme is novels and this was Animal Farm.
We the shivering people
January 21st marked 2 important occasions, Barack Obama's second Inauguration and Martin Luther King Day. How very appropriate. As we live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC it seems a shame to miss the festivities, but when it comes to mustering up the energy to face the crowds and cold it helps if you're enthusiastic about the result of the election. So we went, of course!
Apart from the very lucky or socially well connected who sit in ticketed areas, it's a question of standing for hours on end in the company of around a million other people in near freezing conditions, watching the proceedings on one of the many giant tv screens. There's always a moment when it crosses my mind it might be a lot more comfortable to be watching at home with a glass of wine. The atmosphere is fantastic though, it's like a big multicultural citywide party. Even if, as we experienced this time, the audio and visuals waver and fluctuate in the high wind like an old am radio connection. It could have caused an angry crowd response under the circumstances but everyone behaved impeccably, straining to see, straining to hear and cheering wildly at the sight of Obama, Biden, Clinton, Beyonce, James Taylor.... anyone, really. After all, we knew it would be on CNN ad nauseam when we got back to our hotel rooms so we could find out later what they actually said. For now it was just enough to stand shoulder to shivering shoulder, being there.
A glimpse of the White House from where we were standing
After the ceremony there's quite a long break while the President and co have a beautiful lunch before the other main event, the parade. The masses who have staked out their places on the parade route since the early morning presumably eat a sandwich as they stoically wait it out. I just don't know how they endure it, I know I couldn't. No photo of them as the whole area is barricaded off. There are only a few streets open to pedestrians and a larger area is closed to traffic. It makes you think how nice it would be if the whole downtown was pedestrianized.
Buses barricading the roads. How very practical!
We walked back into the city along with a few thousand others, heading for our hotel.
Got enough buttons?
This guy was bouncing along on springy stilts.
Our cups runneth over. There was quite an orderly air about everything, even the insufficient trash cans
Now this is how I like to watch a parade......
...... while David gets back down to business as usual.
The turn-down service treat at the hotel, instead of the usual chocolate
Back outside..... Pennsylvania Ave still a car free zone
Did I mention it was cold?!
I haven't commented on the content of Barack Obama's speech, Michelle baring arms, or any of the serious content. Plenty of others will. This was just our rather low key but thoroughly enjoyable experience of an unforgettable day.
An exciting sighting.... Robert E Simon
Today marks the 35th anniversary of the opening of Reston's Used Book Store, an early investor in this "planned community". As we are about to see the demise of our lovely big Barnes and Noble after already losing Borders, Books A Million and Brentanos, it will once again become Reston's only bookstore. (What's left to say about our collective angst in the face of this terminal bookshop disease? I've joined the petition, much good may it do.)
Anyway, at the pleasant little in-store celebration complete with dulcimer player, tasteful looking snacks and discount on all purchases, who should show up but Robert E Simon, the Res in Reston. Local hero, the father of our fair town. I was ready and waiting, camera in hand, hoping he would come. The last time I spotted him he was walking with assistance and deep in conversation, so bounding over to shake his hand seemed inappropriate.
Looking good for 98 years old! I read somewhere he attributes longevity to a gin martini every day. I only wish wine would have such a good effect on me.
Born in 1914, Robert E Simon used proceeds from his family's sale of Carnegie Hall in NY to purchase land 18 miles from Washington DC in Northern Virginia. He had a somewhat utopian ideal for the community that would eventually emerge. Such vision and commitment! But also it had to be a financially viable venture. He intended it to be a place that would be diverse in terms of race and income level, somewhere everyone could live, work and play without commuting. Plenty of open space had to be conserved. Artists would come. These were radical ideas for suburban New Town planning in 1961. No strictly middle class enclave of cookie cutter houses, Reston.
It's worked out pretty well, considering the choppy waters that have flowed under the bridge since then. More on that maybe another time. Back to Mr Simon. Here he sits cast in bronze and wearing his trademark hat outside the bookstore at Lake Anne, the area deemed "historic Reston" to our amusement as Europeans, and where his plans first began to take shape. He lives here now in the end years of his life in the high rise apartment building on the right, overlooking the lake and with a birds-eye-view of his legacy..... the eclectic mix of concerts, organic markets, ukulele festivals and the like that we enjoy throughout the year thanks to him.
Robert E Simon at Lake Anne in the '60s.
Hope springs temporal... Great With Ham
I'm no wine snob, I just happily drink it, but really, Wholefoods, "Great with ham" as an endorsement of sparkling wine?! If only I'd had my camera! Well I did have my phone so I suppose it was just social awkwardness that stopped me recording my enjoyment. There were quite a few of us around the mock champagne aisle on New Year's Eve, scrutinizing the bottles in the busy Reston store. Oh for something recognizable, I don't care if Its Korbel or Moet. All so esoteric and obscure, organic this and imported that, we only have your say-so to rely on and you give us pointers like "great with ham"?! I almost bought a bottle out of curiosity, what does it taste like, green eggs? Pineapple?
Anyway, I was in Wholefoods to pick up a can of black eyed peas, not ham. Having lived 4 years in Texas I've adopted the idea that it's extremely important to eat them on New Years Day to ensure everything goes well in the forseeable future. Some years it seems to have worked, others not so much. I follow the Mennonite recipe in More With Less, lots of cumin and brown sugar along with the magic triangle of onions, celery and carrots, simmered in those all important tomatoes. Welcome delicious New Year, full of good resolutions and unknown possibilities....
According to Wikipedia this black eyed peas superstition/belief is recorded in the Talmud. Jewish settlers brought it to Georgia in the 1730s. It became mainstream Southern food at the time of the Civil War, possibly because the marauding Northerners stripped them of all resources except black eyed peas which they considered hog-food. Lucky, eh?!
Here's to 2013! I have tidied my studio, cleared the decks of the results of procrastination, given myself both a stern talking to and the all important encouraging word, and now I'm all set to have a good year. All the best to you too!
Spirited giving
Hot on the heels of Christmas in America comes the barrage of frenzied last minute appeals by mail and email from any charity you've ever given to, theater you've subscribed to, museum you became a member of, hospital you've had an appointment at and dear friend who's dedicating their life to a worthy mission. There's a tax break for charitable contributions here and we can benefit from that until the last day of the year. Inducements come in the form of heartbreaking stories of need and suffering to the gift of a free stamp.
My impulse has always been to give stuff away rather than to sell it. Even in the penniless hippie days things passed easily through my fingers. Then in our early 20s David and I ambled innocently into the evangelical, charismatic kind of churches that teach that tithing 10% of your net income is just the law-given baseline starting point, complete with the curse of Malachi if you "rob God" (yes, really!) According to that teaching you don't officially start giving anything until you've fulfilled your tithe obligation. Our psychological waters were seriously muddied on the subject for many years as a result.
I'm drawn to movements now that encourage you to give freely and annonymously. I like the lightheartedness of leaving books for strangers to find.... www.bookcrossing.com and the free mini libraries cropping up all over the world in mailbox sized replicas of a one roomed schoolhouse on a "take one, leave one" basis ..... www.littlefreelibrary.org.
I belong to a lovely group of enthusiastic givers on Facebook called Art Abandonment. The premise is much like book crossing but with art work. You leave something you've made in a public place. It has a label informing the recipient what the group is about and encouraging them to email the facilitator, then their response is posted on the group page. It's just for fun, hopefully spreading a little happiness here and there.
It's hard to give something away for free, people are wary. Even I balked slightly at finding this wheatgrass in Central Park in the summer. David was all for taking it but we were staying in a hotel and about to go home on the train. It didn't seem at all practical to me so we left it for someone else. But more than that..... I experienced that uneasy, suspicious feeling that maybe it was a set up of some kind. Maybe we were being secretly filmed and our reactions would show up on UTube. But no, I looked it up later and sure enough it's another nice under-groundswell group, nyc.garden-in-a-cup.org
On Christmas Eve we had tickets for a Broadway show that we were unable to get to, another of my mess-ups. We didn't like to think of them being wasted so we approached a few people in the park, trying to give them away. Of course this is hopeless! Everyone's suspicious, thinking there must be a catch or that you're just another hustler, no matter how early on in the conversation you insert the words "free" and "give away". I would probably react exactly the same. In the end we resorted to leaving them on a park bench in the hope that just the right people would come along and be curious and trusting enough to pick them up.
I don't suppose we'll ever know!
No fixed abode Christmas
For the last several years we've spent Christmas in hotels in order to be near our daughter who lives in a small apartment in Astoria, Queens. Her job as an art therapist in the healthcare industry hasn't provided her with enough time off to accommodate a trip down to Virginia. As both our families are in England, unless we face up to the idea of transatlantic travel at peak Holiday times our alternative is to be home alone. The one year we did that I very much regretted it. It's a lot of fun to be in NY at Christmas and we're lucky to be able to go, but increasingly we feel strangely ungrounded. I'm looking forward to actually moving there next year (can't say that without adding a quick chorus of God willing, if all goes well, hopefully etc) No matter how tiny our apartment is we'll darned well have ourselves a tree and I'm cooking dinner!
This year I remembered to take markers and whiled away some time drawing Christmassy sort of mandalas
I've learned to bring a few touches of home to the hotel, ornaments, lights, mince pies and so on, and we have managed to maintain one important family tradition.... the Christmas jigsaw puzzle.
The iconic trees and decorations are at the Rockerfeller Center
but we also appreciated these distinctly less tasteful ones on 6th Ave for their fine reflective quality. It rained quite a bit!
The Salvation Army danced joyfully along to musical soundtracks this year, blasted out of speakers at their feet. This lady at Rockefeller Plaza got everyone singing and dancing with her, she had just the right happy face and attitude for it.
You've got to admire the dedication to making an impression when it comes to hauling a grand piano into Washington Square Park. Hope it paid off.
Whole blog posts elsewhere are devoted to Bergdorf Goodman's amazing windows. The theme this year was BG Follies, very art deco. This was my favorite outfit, a little more punk than most .... she has green satin lined leggings under an embroidered velvet cocktail dress and long green leather opera gloves to match her boots. And of course, the perfect companion!
Our miniature decorations, complete with British telephone kiosk ornament from Liz and Alan
David embraces the spirit of Christmas after a helpful mimosa or two for breakfast!
Bucket list by proxy..... Leonard Cohen
It's all very well having a bucket list of your own, but if you're married or have a "significant other" you're loyally involved to some degree in the quest for fulfillment of theirs too. So there we were at Madison Square Gardens last week at a Leonard Cohen concert..... one to strike off David's list. In fact neither of us has an actual list, it's more a question of saying "if I had one, this would be on it"
I have had my own relationship with Leonard Cohen over the decades, I've even seen him perform before at him at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 (not that I remember much about that!) More recently I've chosen to hold him at bay, wary of his ability to trigger those 2 old adversaries, sadness and nostalgia. And to be honest, as irreverent as it is to think this, sometimes his gravely-ness annoys me, much like hearing Henry Kissinger speaking.
However, he was very, VERY good. Friendly and communicative, energetic, enthusiastic, soulful.... he sang every song as if it was as precious to him as it was to the 18,000 strong, cheering assembly. After a very dispiriting, disillusioning experience at a Van Morrison concert a few years ago I don't take that as a given, especially having heard that Leonard Cohen embarked on this massive, exhausting 56 show European and N American tour for reasons of financial distress after being defrauded out of most of his retirement fortune.
Leonard Cohen, age 78
He sang everything you'd want him to sing. He recited A Thousand Kisses Deep as the beautiful poem it is. Onstage, accompanying him perfectly and succeeding in making the tight choreography of their moves look effortless and natural, were Sharon Robinson (a co-writer on some songs) and the 2 wonderful Web sisters. I won't go on.... but catch it if you can in 2013 for sure.
An expensive case of mistaken identity
Just when the Beatles are on our minds here comes the very sad news that Ravi Shankar has died at age 92. He came into the popular music scene in the '60s, bridging the East/West musical cultural gap in what was an exciting new way back then in the days before "world music". He'd lived in Paris as a child and had a brother who danced with Anna Pavlova. Later he worked with an impressive, diverse array of musicians including John Coltrane and Yehudi Menhuin as well as famously teaching George Harrison to play the sitar. Ravi Shankar was there at Monterey, Woodstock and the Concert for Bangladesh. He was very present as we grew up, as is his daughter, Norah Jones, today.
We were excited to have the chance to see him in Washington DC as part of a Kennedy Center concert series in 2011 which celebrated Indian music and culture, but unfortunately he had to cancel because of ill health. All was not lost though..... I noticed his name a few months later as part of the I Meditate NY series at the Lincoln Center and gleefully bought tickets for David and I, daughter Chloe and her boyfriend Dan. I suppose I was too excited to question the "meditate"aspect or look carefully at his name, I just wanted to get good seats asap as it felt as if this might be the last opportunity to see him.
At the concert we were noticeably very definitely in the minority as non-Indians, we were sitting in a sea of beautiful saris. I was surprised but took it in stride. However, when he arrived on stage with no sitar and led us in a guided meditation session it finally dawned on me that this was the wrong Ravi Shankar. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a guru with quite a large following. Ooooops!
Glancing covertly around I think I saw one other couple similarly mortified. We enjoyed the evening anyway of course, couldn't have been more peaceful except for the muffled irreverent giggling from Chloe at my initial aghast expression.
Ravi Shankar
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, very nice man but a whole different scene!
"Count your life by smiles not tears"
It came to my attention that yesterday marked the 32nd anniversary of John Lennon's murder. I've heard it said that, like the assassination of President Kennedy, everyone remembers where they were when they heard that news. Sadly I don't, I must have been very preoccupied. I do however remember where I was when I first heard "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah". I was coming out of my elementary school at the end of the day and a kid was singing it at the top of his voice. The words were so unexpected they struck me and stayed with me until I knew where they came from. Then, like any other baby boom era child, the Beatles and later John and Yoko became an intrinsic part of my evolving into a teenager and long beyond.
I heard that Paul McCartney asked his father for his opinion on the song "She Loves You" and his response was," it would be better, Paul, to say She loves you, yes, yes, yes , " I love that story.... so English!
The first time we visited NY we made a pilgrimage to the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, there are always people there taking photos and leaving tributes.
Imagine no guns….
Weighty Ephemera, 5 vignettes
This summer my mother in law came over from England for a couple of weeks. We were walking in Dumbarton Oaks Gardens, Georgetown, and found this installation of billowing wire mesh and 10,000 Swarovski crystals by Cao called "Cloud Terrace" We were discussing her creative writing project on the subject of ephemera at the time and these were my thoughts on seemingly small events with long lasting consequences.
A conversation never forgotten.........
Our fleeting encounter
in '72
I think of decades later.
A dropped match and a forest fire.......
Absent minded
inattention
causing long range
desolation.
Hasty words destroying self esteem.....
Your rage
and my shame
(I carry the baggage of your unloading)
A mosquito bearing West Nile Virus......
The fragile intrusion,
predictable itch
and shocking
fatal
escalation.
A loveless act and a baby......
The clumsy attempt
of two
to become one
accidentally
equals
three.