Second Trip

Six days after my Beltáin visit, I more or less took the same walk. While May 1st had been sunny, it was only in the upper 50s (F), and while I was by no means the only person out enjoying the weather, the crowds were a little slim. May 6th it was substantially warmer, which meant many more people were out. Here's another shot I took of Midtown; I think it gives a much better sense of the crowds, the traffic, even the noise perhaps. I swear to god I didn't notice the guy in the light blue shirt with the nice shoulders until after I had uploaded this image to my computer, but he's a nice bit of scenery too, isn't he.
One of the aspects of Spring that surprises and delights me every year is how quickly things change. I'll admit I was bit sad to realize the violets were already their way out, but there was something new happening, something I don't remember ever noticing before. See those seed pods in the photo to the left? They were the cause of it all. The type of tree they come from lines the main drive in Central Park starting at the south entrance. As I walked in, there seemed to be a silvery rain falling everywhere. I tried to get photos of it, but was never successful. The image below comes the closest; if you look at the dark green of the bushes, you might notice some white flecks. That was the best I could do. It does nothing to give you a sense of how full the air was of them, how beautiful the shimmer was as they fell, conjuring up rain, snow, and something completely magical. I don't know what kind of tree they come from. My tree and plant expert people? Are any of these shots clear and close enough to tell you what the tree is? (See image of seeds still on the tree, below)

The shimmery rainfall was only part of their charm. They were on the ground in such numbers (seriously I don't remember seeing ANY evidence of them a week earlier) that they piled up in drifts; when the wind blew them, they'd skitter across the tarmac making a sound like rain on a rooftop. Several times they made little dirt devils too. The image above is the closest I came to capturing one of those. Considering how central these things were to my experience that day, they certainly don't lend themselves well to photography. Or at least they don't to my level of ability. Video might come closer, but I bet it would still flatten the whole experience.

I'd say at least a third of the violets from the previous week were gone. Thanks to friend Greg I now knew how to get my camera to do close-ups. In the image at left, look at the blossoms just up and to the right of center; they come closest to being the right color, though they're still a bit too blue. Other than using the macrofocus, I didn't do anything differently, so I don't know why these get closer. Is it as simple as them being in sunlight rather than shade? The photo that best captured the color is also a close-up, but is very blurry. I still can only get so close if I want the camera to focus. Intimacy issues, apparently. But are they mine or the camera's?

This one also gets closer to the right shade, but is still not quite right.

Leaving the violets, on my way to the lilacs, I was once again stopped by the lemony, intoxicating scent I mentioned last time, though now I couldn't see any blossoms causing it. In my search though, I found this single blossom. No idea what it is either (it definitely was not providing the scent), but I loved how tiny it was. That's why I put my hand in the photo, to give you a sense of scale. Apparently my focusing abilities deteriorate once again when using the camera one handed. I ask my nature experts, any idea what this is? I'd say it was not planted deliberately by humans, it definitely has the look of being a volunteer.

Below is a picture I took of the lilacs, just because I forgot last time. My camera has no difficulty with this shade of purple; this color matches my memory quite well. Yes, I think sunlight might be the big difference. That reminds me of another realization I had re: violets. One of the reasons I'm fond of them is that they're shade lovers, like me.

For a third time, I ask anyone who knows to tell me what this flowering vine ( upper right) is. I see it on the sides of buildings in Manhattan occasionally. It gives off a strong, heavy scent that I don't find appealing, but I bet it works a treat at getting the plant propagated. Here again the camera captured the color accurately, I would day. Maybe it just handles the blue scale better. Is it wisteria? I suppose I could go look that up. It's something like that, I think. I knew the name of it once. This is the sort of flower I would expect to love, musky scent notwithstanding. Extravagant blossoms in the purple range, exuberant growth, yet I'm largely unmoved by them. Weird. Nothing against them, mind you, they just don't excite me the way lavender, lilacs and violets do. Or crocuses for that matter, though I think part of my appreciation for them is rooted in the knowledge that when they show up, violets are not far away.

Two more times before I left the park I smelled that wonderful, mysterious, citrusy scent. I still have not identified what it is. I'm bad at describing scents, not sure lemony or citrusy is the way to go, but I'll stick with that for now. I briefly wondered if it was simply a whiff of lilac coming from a distance, but I don't think so now. Just not the same scent. I'll have to go back again soon, since presumably whatever it is won't be around much longer. Perhaps that's my final question; does anyone know of something in season right now that has a light, bright scent, not too sweet, not too cloying?

Run! Run for Your Lives!

So this sign was posted on the door of my apartment building. Sounds rather dire, doesn't it? "Imminently perilous to life," and all. And the threat of arrest if we should violate teh vacate order, ooh, scary.

I'd be inclined to take the sign more seriously if it weren't for the fact that I was reading it for the first time on my way OUT of my building the day AFTER it had been posted. Thus right away the sign's credibility got thrown into question since the "this premises has been vacated" assertion was a little inaccurate in the truth department. Meaning it wasn't. True, I mean. Down at the bottom you may be able to make out that the 'floor' in peril is actually the back courtyard. In almost ten years of living here I have stuck my head back there exactly once, for about a minute and a half. There's nothing back there. Tommy says he thinks the cause for concern is a tree growing in the foundation back there that is about to tumble. Okay, that seems like a reasonable thing to get worked up about, but didn't they have a sign that was a little less code red on them? You say the premises have been vacated and will remain so under threat of arrest until such time as the department deems it safe, those of us living here are going to be a bit confused, seeing as no one told us to leave. I'm really pretty certain that if any attempt had been made to inform us we needed to vamoose the night before, any knocking on the door, say, bell ringing, shouting in the stairwell, anything like that, Coltrane would have had a lot to say about it. Tuesday night was not a noisy night in Coltrane's world, so I'm reasonably confident I can assert no attempt was made to evacuate this building. When I got home again to find the sign still up, I had a brief chat with a new neighbor about it, wondering if we should be at all alarmed, and assuming that no news was good news. Maybe not the smartest move to take when it comes to big city living, but it's what we're all going with for now. After some high profile fatal accidents (you've probably heard or read about them) the building commission department is facing some heavy criticism for having been lax or irresponsible in the execution of its duties, so I can't help but wonder if they're going the Chicken Little route anytime anything comes up, just to play it safe. That theory would make more sense if they had actually made us leave though. Or maybe they were just out of the 'stay out of the back courtyard' signs. Even so, couldn't they have posted it closer to the courtyard? Putting up a sign saying 'do not enter, violators will be arrested' on the FRONT DOOR of a building is naturally going to lead me to assume I'm not supposed to go THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR. "Do not enter," I find that unequivocal, so it amuses me that it seems to have no bearing on reality. I've been home since five, Tommy and Ellen arrived without mishap, we've all come and gone as need and whim have dictated. So far, no repercussions.

I was pleasantly surprised that our mail got delivered today. If there was one person who I expected to honor this sign, it was another government employee. Maybe she knew better than I how to interprete the subtleties. The mail was still a disappointment, but that's hardly her fault. I really should be writing more letters. Email has spoiled me.

UPDATE:

So yesterday afternoon an additional document, looking even more official (it had an embossed medallion, so you know it's good), was explicit in saying only the back courtyard had been evacuated, and (Tommy was right) the culprit was a tree eating away at the foundation. I'm not sure what they mean by 'evacuated' since the only creatures living back there that I know of are rats the size of chihuahuas, and feral cats who like to improve the summer nights with their pornographic yowling. If these folks have been moved along, I'd be delighted if they were never allowed to return, but I ain't holding my breath. Ah well. So I am safe in my home. Still not sure why they had to post the notices on the front door. It would have been so easy to put them up, along with police tape, across the narrow entrance to the courtyard itself. I seriously doubt Brian (read the comments) is the only long-time resident of the place who was previously unaware of the courtyard's existence. Better safe than sorry, I suppose, but this is another example of how official warnings get over-looked here. I think many of us, with some justification, start to see things like this as boys crying wolf. There was one day when in the space of three hours I heard three different warning alarms ringing (two in buildings, one in the subway), an no one, including me, took any notice of them. Somehow we all just assumed (rightly, fortunately) they were false alarms. And don't get me started on car alarms. Do they serve ANY purpose these days other than annoying the neighborhood? Maybe they're more useful in non-urban areas.

Making Due with the Tools Ya Got

When commenting on Ben's artwork (he has new stuff up), Shaney teasingly asked if the back view was showing my best side. I laughed when I realized that I was the last person who could answer that question. You see, my experience modeling for sculpture classes have driven home the fact that I've never seen any of the back part of my body from the top of my head to just above my calves (with maybe just a glimpse of the top of my butt) . Unless you are remarkably limber or, I don't know, part owl, you haven't seen yours.

Of course I've seen photos (and other drawings) of my back, and I've been in dressing rooms with double mirrors making sure those new pants don't make my ass look weird, but there has always been the imposition of two dimensions provided by the camera or the mirror. I know we've all been told that two dimensional images don't do full justice to three dimensional things; we've heard that photos and mirrors don't show us our own faces the way other people see them, and we think oh yeah, that makes sense, but secretly we don't really believe it, do we. I mean come ON. We see photos of other people, and we usually think they are accurate portrayals, why not photos of ourselves? We recognize celebrities on the street whom we've previously only seen in two dimensions, this whole thing may sound reasonable but doesn't actually represent how things work in the real world, right? Well, after the first time I modeled for a sculpture class, I became a believer.

Let me explain how posing for a sculpture differs from posing for a painting. For a painting, I stay still, and so do the artists. During my breaks I might get up and wander around looking at the paintings in progress, but when I'm in the pose, if I can see anything, I only see the back of the canvases, and the concentrated looks on the artists' faces.

With sculpture, on the other hand, the model pedestal is usually designed to spin, like a giant lazy susan, and the pose will get rotated one quarter turn every fifteen minutes. If the class is small enough, the individual students may also be working on wheeled tables, so they can zip around the room as needed, working on whatever angle of the pose they want. What does this mean for the model? It means that everyone in the class will at some point be in front of me, looking right in my eyes, and it means I will spend the entire pose staring at miniatures of my own back.

It was my first sculpture pose that finally convinced me three dimensions does lose something when rendered in two. I was looking at my back, in many ways recognizing it, yet also feeling like it was unfamiliar. I had opinions on who had rendered it accurately and who hadn't, and that would seem to refute the assertion I'm making here. The fact is, though, the over-all feeling was one of discombobulation. Here I was getting additional artistic renderings of something that had been following me around all my life. Almost half my body was, at a basic level, unfamiliar. And would remain so.

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Yesterday Dessida and I made the final adjustments to the lights of her show, and walked away feeling like we done good. I've been wanting to describe what we've been working on for all of you for some time now, but when I wasn't working for Dess, or modeling, I wanted to be sleeping. Actually counting up my hours she and I were both surprised at how small the number was; it seems like I've been over there all the time.

Here's what we were doing. Dessida was putting together her thesis show for her MFA in painting. She had painted on huge sheets of heavy-duty watercolor paper in acrylic paint. The smallest of her works measured five feet square. When it came time to consider how to display them and -just as importantly- improve their longevity, one of her instructors encouraged her to use a specific -and apparently pretty rare- archival technique for mounting them.

I wish I knew what the name of this process is. I'm sure it has a name. English is a language of nouns; we love naming things, parts of things, parts of parts, we can't get enough of 'em. But whatever this is called, Dess and I have yet to learn it. Her instructor gave her the name of one archivist who does it, and on her own she was able to rustle up maybe three more in the NYC area. This is not a common technique, whatever it's called. If we were more certain we had been doing it correctly, we could probably start charging a pretty penny, doing this for other people, but that's hard to market when you don't know the name of the process.

Let me describe the steps.

One starts with a stretcher like what is used to mount a canvas painting. Because of the scale of her works, Dessida had to commission stretchers of special dimensions. Then one takes archival cardboard (meaning it is acid-free) and cuts it to fit the interior of the stretcher as smoothly as possible. Naturally the cardboard comes in standardized sheets, and all the stretchers were bigger than the cardboard, so two sheet would have to be cut to the proper dimensions, then held together by a strip of rice paper and white (acid-free) glue on either side of the seam. The cardboard is glued into the stretcher (again with the archival glue), then nailed in, finally for good measure strips of rice paper are glued along the front edges of the cardboard, then wrapped around the wood of the stretchers and glued to the back. The goal is to make a smooth, even surface with no wood or nails bleeding through, since they will age the painting.

So now we're halfway there. Next one takes the painting, trims it if necessary to fit the stretcher, glues six inch strips of rice paper to the back of the painting on all four sides, so the strips extend past the edge of the painting. Once this has been allowed to dry, the painting is placed on the cardboard, then one soaks the rice with water, stretches the paper taut, and glues it to the back of the stretcher. When the paper dries, everything should be tight as a drum, with the painting floating ontop the cardboard, the only place anything is pinned down is on the back. All this glue is water soluble as well, so the process is supposedly reversible. We may yet have to test that theory on some of the earliest attempts.

Everybody with me so far?

So that is the process as we understood and executed it. From the get-go we were a bit unsure of ourselves. Dessida could never find anyone willing to show her the process. The best she could find was someone who would take time out of her busy schedule just long enough to describe the process. Over the phone. (Any suggestion of snippiness on the part of the archivist is mine, not Dessida's). Then, because she was still finishing up the actual painting part in some cases, Dess handed me these instructions and asked me to make the best of it. It was like a weird game of telephone.

Needless to say we started with the paintings Dess was the least attached to, so as to practice a bit before hitting the big time. And boy did we (I) need it. Wouldn't you say this process sounds rather meticulous? Unforgiving of errors, perhaps? Yeah, me too. I'll ask my real life friends for their opinions, but I'd say that when describing me, 'meticulous' is not, perhaps, the first word that springs to mind. Exacting measurements, not exactly my forte. I mean, I can get them, I just get them very slowly, while chanting to myself constantly that yes an eighth of an inch does fucking matter in this case. Dessida's main reason for thinking of me in relation to this work is the fact that I do a lot in paper mache, so she thought I might have some useful insights when it came to a process involving paper and glue. I don't know that I provided much in the way of new information, but at least I had some sense of just how sturdy and forgiving wet paper can be. Rice paper in particular is very impressive that way, in case you're wondering.

So, a basic lack of knowledge and experience was always lurking there under the surface for both of us. I had started and done a few of the stretcher preparations before Dess finished painting, so the first time she and her sister Michal (who came down from the Berkshires two weekends in a row to help) put one together, she asked me if it looked right. The comedy in this was not lost on any of us. A voice in my head asked "does it bother her that she is asking you if it's correct? It should." Anytime we tackled a new obstacle, this annoying little voice would pipe up, saying that there was probably a really easy way to do what we were making very complicated, but we'd never stumble across it, and no one around us would know to tell us. Time was a'wastin' though, so we just put our heads down, and plowed away.

The two other challenges we faced in this process are common ones to the pursuit of any art, especially in New York: inadequate space, and inadequate tools. The MFA art studios are in the cellar (not to be confused with the basement, or the floor between labeled 'cm' in the elevator: cellar mezzanine?) of the engineering building. All the artists have been encouraged to work on a large scale, so both horizontal and vertical real estate were at a premium. When Dess got her cardboard delivered, storing it upright against the wall of her studio seemed like good sense. Once we started working with it though, we discovered that this had seriously warped it. Figuring out how to measure and cut it accurately, while getting rid of the curve, yet NOT crushing the corregation... this was an interesting dance. Then there was finding space to cut things on a scale of anywhere from 5 to 7 feet (sorry Cooper, I kept saying feet when I meant inches, I was delerious) which usually meant working on the floor of one of the common area studios, or occasionally an out of the way entryway in what, after the fire warden issued a warning, I took to calling the fire-trap. But see, these are cement floors that have been trod by generations of engineers and artists working in a variety of media. We'd sweep, put down cardboard (not the fancy kind), then a layer of something called glassine, which looks and sounds like wax paper, but is much more fancy (and costly) but in the end we were still on a bumpy, dirty cement floor trying to keep the cardboard clean and unflattened while we cut a straight line that couldn't be more than one sixteenth off. Oh, and we wanted the edges to be square, usually. We had an L square, but they aren't a whole hell of a lot of help without a T square and a good drafting board. Well, I came up with all sorts of jury-rigged systems using old wooden bookshelves and faith, but it was all very relative. I really want to see a archiving studio now, I bet they have fancy tables and special sliding blades for making nice clean, square cuts. I bet they have lots of room too. If I wasn't bumping into a wall, I was constantly afraid I was going to put my foot, or the blade, or the corner of a stretcher through someone else's artwork. There was stuff everywhere, a lot of it huge and fairly delicate. The bull in a china shop feeling was a constant during this process. It gave those epic-length head rushes I experienced (while sick) some extra drama. Goody. I love drama.

Oh and the exacto knife was probably dull. One might assert that it doesn't say a lot about me that it didn't occur to me to ask if there were any replacement blades, but in my defense I'll say that I'm used to doing things with inadequate tools, there were already so many other obstacles we were tackling, and this was the point when I had that snail-brain virus (I was amazed at how many different names you all had for that malaise, by the way). So being a bear of small brain and generally inclined to assuming things don't work quite right anyway, I just kept sawing away. I don't think I did too much damage to any of the cardboard. As Dessida kept pointing out, we want it to look good now, we'll worry about its place in posterity later.

All in all, I'd say that Dess, her husband Kevin, Michal and I did pretty well. Hanging the large paintings in such a way that they looked level in a gallery with a distinctly warped floor was our last and final challenge. Well, no, the final challenge was doing all that while getting a triptych properly lined up. No, wait, the last challenge was lighting the damn show when none of us really knew how lighting worked. The hope was that my theatrical background would be an asset here, but my knowledge of lighting consists of "ya point an instrument at the stage, then turn it on." Didn't really put me ahead of the pack, have to say.

But we did it. And I think it looks pretty good. More importantly, so does Dess. When I asked her why her professors all encouraged them to make big works when they knew how little studio space they provided, she said the faculty felt it was good practice for working in New York. These are precisely the struggles one will face here anyway, might as well start finding solutions now. I can't argue with that. Everything, I mean everything boils down to real estate here, and few are the artists who have enough space for their needs. I noticed a few years ago that if need be, most of my solo performances could fit in an eight by eight square space. The reason? I was usually creating the work in my living room, rather than renting a studio. Good lesson there.

Anyone in the area want to join me at the reception this Thursday evening? With Dessida's permission I might be able to take photos of some of her paintings.

Beltáin Walk

Work in the studio took a bit longer than expected, and I was wiped out afterwards, so I took a nap before heading out on my May Day walk. First though I had to stop by my Union Halls to deposit some checks. The Equity Building is at 46th between 6th and 7th Avenues. This is a picture I took from the next corner up, as I started up towards Central Park. Yes, Gentle Readers, for you I committed what is possibly the greatest sin a local can be guilty of; I stood in Midtown, and took pictures. Like I was a tourist. I'm surprised no one took away my Metrocard and the keys to my apartment. This photo doesn't quite do justice to the feeling of the place; the crowd looks so small and sedate, the traffic highly manageable. Not so much. Oh, and that poster in the center, of the M&M's? That's not actually a poster, it's a video screen. That image constantly moves and changes. And yes, it's huge, but not as huge as...


THIS. This is the side of the Lehman Brothers Building. They do something with finance. I have a friend who works there as an executive assistant and even she seems a little foggy on what it is they do exactly. Or maybe she just wasn't able to dumb it down enough for me. They're in the business of making money, as near as I can tell. They make truckloads of it, I'm really clear on that. All those letters? They're three stories tall, and these screens keep changing too. Here's another shot of the same wall, about ten seconds later.

Okay I didn't have to be anywhere in a hurry so I was a bit more sedate than is my wont while walking in Midtown, but with all the flashing lights, honking cars, crowds of people, it's easy for me to kick into BRISK SURLY WALKING MAN. Especially when people are STANDING IN MY WAY. I did better today. Like I said, I didn't need to be anywhere at any particular time, though I did want to get to the park before sundown.

Here's a dogwood I liked inside the park. It's over near the big lake (below) which has been undergoing some renovations and actually looks pretty good, though still under construction. I was glad to see the boats are still going to be available to rent. I thought of Cooper seeing this photo; you can't really tell, but it's an adult man and two small boys, and the boys are very happily rowing, one oar each. They're not getting anywhere, but everyone seems to be having a blast. They're not the same ages as Cooper's sons, but they still made me think of them. I bet the Coopers would enjoy rowing a boat.
Having already committed to looking like a tourist today, I decided it was all right to buy a hot pretzel from a vender. As a kid, I always thought this was one of the best things about cities, hot pretzels for sale all over the place. As an adult they rarely satisfy; somehow they are always stale and hard, albeit warm. This one was no exception, but I enjoyed it more than usual, maybe because I hadn't eaten anything since 9:30 am it was pushing 5pm.
Here is the field of violets I visit every year. For those who know the park, it lies at the northern edge of the Ramble, just south of Belvedere Castle. The Ramble is reputed to be one of those places where I could have found some male company if I had wanted to. Joe, would I find any commemorative souvenir jock-straps here, or is that just Riverside? Funnily enough, the Ramble is also one of the best places in the state for birding. Apparently the diversity of wild-life here, and in the park generally, is impressive. Right there in the middle of Manhattan.

It looks like I got here just in time; I don't think the violets have peaked yet, and though I won't be able to visit again before Monday, I think I'll get to see them at least once more before they fade for another year. My camera does something funky to the color; the blossoms are far too blue in these photos, all of them. I don't know what is up with that. I've only just started being able to get the damn camera to focus on a regular basis, I mean focus on the things I want it to focus on, what do you expect of me? I'll keep plugging away though. If I were forced to choose a favorite color, it would be this, the violet of violets, the purple you can't really see in these photos, where they almost look like bluebells. Which are also lovely, but don't quite make my heart sing the way violets do. I am always looking for clothes in this shade of purple, and it's harder to find than you might think. I like purples in all sorts of shades (just as I seem to like their namesake flowers: lilac, violet, lavender), but for some reason this one, which seems to me to be almost a perfect balance of red and blue, just isn't out there in clothing much, at least not for men. Way too faggy, perhaps.

An experiment with the zoom feature, as I was lying on the ground.

My unfocused homage to Georgia O'Keefe. But damn, that color is just WRONG.

I'm not sure why I love violets so much, but for as long as I can remember, they have been an important part of my Spring. Where I grew up, the college campus and back woods will get carpeted with them at some point in the season, and I always feel like something lush and opulent has happened in the world. Later in the season the woods will be almost as covered by white violets, which as a kid I found even more magical, almost like finding a unicorn. I still find white violets magical -even the name is funny to me, like white lilacs- but for the deep, heartsong response, I gotta go with classic violet.

No doubt I also became fond of them as a kid because they showed up right as the weather got nice again, and the prospect of Summer vacation began to torment deliciously. May was also the first month without an 'r' in it, which meant we were allowed to go barefoot. I don't remember hearing this rule from my parents, but rather from the mother of my friend Richard, but it did seem to sum up my parents' general policy. Well, Mom the farm girl was the one who agreed to a no shoes policy. Had it been up to Dad the inner city Philly boy, we'd never have left the house without shoes. They have a similar disagreement on the subject of curtains. In short, Mom wants the light, Dad wants the privacy. For nearly fifty years they've been having this discussion.

But back to violets.

As an adult I've found all sorts of fun stories linking gay men and violets -not just pansies- as well as the color purple (Judy Grahn devotes a whole chapter to the subject in her book Another Mother Tongue) , so it's fun to wonder if I was predisposed to like both those things because I was gay. Actually, there are times when I think I'm not just gay, but actually Faery (though I've never been a Radical Faery), given the way I gravitated towards pagan homo things from a very early age. I don't buy a lot of Grahn's book, but it's a fun read, with some great stories and interesting ideas. She'd be the first to acknowledge, I suspect, that as a social historian she makes a great poet.

After I communed with my purple friends for a while, I went up to Belvedere Castle to find the lilacs. On my way there though, I passed this bush, which gave off the most wonderful smell. Can any of my gardening friends tell me what this is? I haven't a clue.

The lilacs also were out, and smelling heavenly. I forgot to take pictures of them, I was too busy sniffing. I'm finally starting to realize that in New York one can lie on the ground to photograph violets, hug trees, or sniff lilacs for twenty minute stretches because:

1. People won't notice

2. If they notice, they won't care

3. If they care, they won't say anything to you.

4. If they say anything, you just need to act a little bit crazy, and they go away

and finally

5. Chances are good that even if none of the above rules hold true, once the encounter is over, you'll never see them again.

Anyway, the lilacs and whatever that other shrub is were intoxicating. I don't know why people don't plant more things that smell good. If I ever have a garden (and live with someone allergy-free, I guess I have to say), I will fill it with lavendar, lilac, basil, thyme, scented geraniums, scented roses (notice how the red ones don't smell like anything now? They were bred for color, not scent), sage, oregano, sweetpeas, rosemary and anything else I can get my hands on. Friends of mine got married on a lavender farm last August, and I had to resist the urge to roll around on the plants throughout the reception.

As I get older, I seem to be noticing and developing more opinions about scent. Sure, as as kid I had my likes (garlic, baking bread, coffee), but it wasn't a sense I gave much time to. Just about the only one, actually. In the last ten years though, boy have I begun to value it. Anybody else have a similar experience with smell, or any other sense?

Having gotten to the end of my planned journey, I realized that the ornamental cherry trees up near the old reservoir were possibly in bloom too. To be honest I figured I had missed them, but it looks like I caught them only just past their peak.

I took the photo above in the Shakespeare Garden. To be honest I find tulips rather dull most of the time, but I loved this combination of colors. I wonder if I can put similar colors together in a friendship bracelet, and not just have the red and green immediately fighting, or looking Christmas-y?

So there's a brief snapshot of my May Day walk. I'll have to wait for the "sex, eros, and dancing" to happen another day, but it still felt festive.

The Fires of Bel

It's May Eve. This coming month is perhaps my favorite time of year. My two favorite flowers, violets and lilacs, are blooming. The weather is usually just about perfect for me; it's sunny and warm enough during the day to be out and about, but it cools off at night to make sleeping a pleasure. Only this year did I figure out that part of my enjoyment of the month in the city is due to the fact that I can actually get my bedroom cool enough to suit me. Despite the fact that I have the radiator turned off in there, it still manages to put out a lot of heat (this is an old building, and we're on the top floor). The closest window remains open all Winter long, and that helps a lot, but still, most of the time I don't get that brisk cool air that makes sleeping easy and pleasurable. Right now though I'm getting it, because I have both windows open, and the heat is off in the building. I was almost cold getting out of bed this morning. Heaven. I'm not sleeping a lot for other reasons (don't get excited, it's just because of work) but when I do, man is it good.

Tomorrow is May Day, or Beltáin. From Caitlín Matthews' book The Celtic Book of Days:

"Beltane (sic) celebrates the bright half of the year and was warmly welcomed for it was the official beginning of summer when the over-wintered animals could be driven out into wider pasturing, and when scattered households would meet together and travel forth....The festival of Beltane represented all things that were held in low esteem by the Church and which were notably absent from traditional ecclesiastical celebrations: sexuality, eros, dancing and singing. It was anciently customary for unmarried couples and sweethearts to pair off and go the woods on Beltane eve, so that the month of May has become proverbial for sexual initiation and loving activity. The festival of Imbolc, occurring nine months later, is perhaps not insignificantly associated with child-birth and midwifery." (p. 71)

This is one of those Pagan holidays I love in theory, but have never really committed to in as full a manner as I might. If I were more daring (or more reckless, my mother would say) I could easily go find someone to frolic with in one of the parks around here, but some magical blend of prudery, cowardice and good sense keeps me from doing that (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!). I have evolved my own rituals though, and it looks like I'll be able to observe at least a few of them tomorrow. I'll only be working in the morning, and though I ought to do laundry after that, I will probably go to Central Park to see if the violets are out yet. Then I'll check for the lilacs near Belvedere Castle. If time allows I'll go visit an Oak tree I've become very fond of. It gives off an amazingly vibrant energy. I will probably also buy some cut lilac, to bring the scent home. Tonight I lit candles, made tomato sauce for pasta, and opened a bottle of Shiraz. This wasn't just my normal Yellowtail Australian shiraz, no this was the Yellowtail Reserve shiraz. I could totally taste the extra five dollars. Given how wiped out and loopy I still am (though I think I'm over my flu), wine may have been a bad move. Well, wine, then writing on my blog may have been a bad move. We'll see how much sense this entry makes to me in the morning. Some of you may have registered opinions by then. I ask for your patience.

I still haven't told you about the work I've been doing with/for a friend of mine, nor have I shared my insights borne out of modeling for a sculpture classe. There are only a few of the fascinating subjects I will captivate you all with, when time, energy, and brain-power allows.

In the meantime, celebrate Spring tonight and tomorrow in whatever way seems best. I know you've probably seen my Green Man mask (above) before, but since this is the very holiday he is most associated with, I thought I'd post this image again.

Foggy Living

I feel like the last two weeks got away from me; I've not stayed on top of my life. My attention has been fragmented, and scattered, there are no groceries in the fridge, the place looks like a truck hit it, and I've been always one or two steps behind where I ought to be. I've barely been able to read emails and blogs, let alone write my own, and I think that has contributed to my sense of chaos as much as anything. Email is the main way I stay in contact with friends, virtual and not, and staying in touch with my blogging friends has become an important part of my day.

There several possible reasons why I'm so scattered. My dad was visiting for a few days, and naturally I tried to see him as much as I could. Pratt is in the final weeks of the semester which doesn't affect my work load too much yet, but all that spacey yet frantic finals energy can be contagious. I've also started helping my friend Dessida prepare her MFA thesis show, giving her any free moment I had. I'll write more on that later.

I think the biggest problem though has been this odd virus I've come down with. Two weeks ago, I worked for the all-night figure drawing extravaganza, so I expected to feel discombobulated for a few days. Then I wasn't getting enough sleep in the following week, so I thought I just hadn't caught up; now I wonder how much of my sleeplessness was effect rather than cause. A little from column A, a little from column B, no doubt.

Boy, this posting is some rivetting stuff so far, huh. Stick with me, I'm still a little loopy. Actually, that may be a good reason not to stick with me. Do as you see fit.

The symptoms of this bug were just vague enough for me to overlook or ignore them. I tend to do that whenever possible, as do most people, I think. There's still some part of me that thinks illness is a weakness of character, rather than the random reaction of my body to a pathogen. Those damn Puritans! They have so much to answer for. I felt run down, only slightly more achy than usual, prone to dizziness, and flushing that wasn't conclusive enough to indicate a fever, and I had trouble with basic motor skills. I dropped things a lot, inanimate objects kept jumping out to bonk into me, and while I managed not to bonk into people on the subway any more than usual, preventing it took WAY more concentration than I'm used to. That was true with a lot of things, actually; basic tasks, even typically unconscious actions required MUCH rumination, debate and analysis. We're talking things like deciding if I was going to put on my shoes then get my keys before leaving the house, or would it be a more efficient use of time to get the keys (at the back of the apartment) THEN put on my shoes (near the front door, and therefore on the way out of the apartment). In fact this woolly-headedness no doubt is partly why it took me so long to notice something was awry. I felt like I was observing life through the wrong end of a telescope; even if something seemed off, it seemed to be happening to someone else, it certainly wasn't anything to get worked up about, so I just kept plodding along, meeting my basic commitments, getting tasks done in a stupor.

Finally, last Saturday I recognized that things were much more off than some sleepless nights would cause. I canceled my commitments that day, which gave my body the go-ahead to collapse, and it did. I slept and lay around the entire day. Making oatmeal that evening took immense amounts of brain-power. I've made oatmeal a thousand times. I don't bother to memorize the proportions of water, oats and salt, but even so consulting the container's instructions is mostly just for verification. Usually. That evening I stared fixedly at the instructions, painstakingly figuring out that, oh, okay, the ingredients run down the left, the serving sizes run across the top so that means... hold on... right, I look at the oats, no, I, oh HERE we go, I choose a serving size... hmm, how hungry am I? Why is Coltrane staring at me? Did I remember to water the plants? It's Saturday... I've got to do laundry... I really love that vase, it was such a nice gift from Mom... what were we talking about? Right, oatmeal, that sounds good, oh look I've got the box here in my hands, what were the odds?... What is that sound? Right let's go with the heart-healthy serving, that means I look at...oh here we go, this column. Look at that, it's all highlighted too, because it's the heart-healthy portion, that should make it easy not to get lost, I just read dooooowwwn the column, the red one. Cool. We're cookin' now.

I managed to fix the oatmeal without setting the house on fire, or otherwise doing injury to myself. Anything that required cooking for longer than five minutes was probably too big a risk.

Here I am two weeks later, and I have to accept that things are still not quite back to normal. I'm not really sick enough to stay in bed, nor can I afford to give up the work, but I still need to concentrate very, VERY hard to do things like make coffee or toast my bagel. Some days the only reason I remembered to put on pants before leaving the apartment was because I needed someplace to put my keys and wallet. Fortunately remembering to check for my keys and wallet before leaving the house is completely automatic. The fact is I check for my keys and wallet when leaving almost ANY residence. If I come to visit you, I'll probably do it anytime I walk out your front door. This is a tic left over from the days I was a dog walker and had the keys to about a million apartments; accidentally locking them in one apartment would have meant a day of mayhem for me, at least one very disgruntled client, and several dogs. I was very thankful for that Pavlovian habit these last two weeks.

I offer this story as explanation and apology for the fact that I've been so out of touch, in every possible sense of the expression. I owe many of you emails, and when I don't post here, it feels like I've been out of touch with all of you for weeks. I've been enjoying your posts, but today is the first day that I've had time and brain-power to write comments. Believe me, if oatmeal was giving me trouble, you can imagine what putting together cogent thought was like, and don't get me started on the word verification process. It was far beyond my meager capacity. Might as well been asking me to write in Urdu.

I hope in the next few days to tell you about this archival mounting process I've been learning from Dessida, to help her with her show. Yes, in the midst of this fog I've been regularly taking exacting measurements of special acid-free cardboard, then cutting it with a dull exacto knife, using a jury-rigged straight edge constructed from a metal yardstick and old shelves, kneeling on a cement basement floor at City College, experiencing head-rushes of record breaking duration anytime I stood up. I mean, we're talking epic. Yet I still have all my digits, and only fucked up two pieces of cardboard! Score!

Okay, this post really doesn't have much point, except to say I've been out of it, REALLY out of it, and as a consequence I've lost touch with all of you, and I've missed you. My spaciness is still pretty evident (wouldn't you say?), made worse today no doubt due to the fact that in all my running around yesterday I ended up eating like an unsupervised ten year old boy, but I'm definitely the upswing. Seriously.

Now I need to go lie down. Or maybe shower. If I showered first, then lay down, my hair would look ridiculous. Do I care? Then again, if I shower first, maybe that will wake me up (this coffee don't seem to be doing SQUAT), and I wouldn't need to nap... but boy does a nap sound good right now and we don't start work for another hour...

This decision is too hard for me. I need to give this some thought.

Workin' the Day Job

So in the past week I've had a lot of modeling work. I modeled for the third year in a row for the big, twelve hour, all night drawing extravaganza. Sad to say there was nothing this year to rival last year's event, at least not for me. I also seemed to be knocked out by the 'all nightness' of it more this year. I think the excitement has worn off.



Wednesday night though, I worked at a new-to-me place called the Salmagundi Club. It is one of those old beautiful buildings on 5th avenue, a former stately home (I assume) that now houses a society of watercolorists, drawing classes, a member dining room, a library, and probably a whole lot else I didn't take note of. It's not often I get inside one of these places; funnily enough when I do, I'm usually naked. That sounds so much more exciting than it is. One serious danger to art modeling, I'm starting to realize, is it risks associating nudity with work. It's been so long since I was naked for someone who didn't have a drawing pad in his hand.


Moving on. I think it's cool when organizations like this get into these beautiful old places; they're probably better equipped to maintain the structure, and they make it more likely that a greater part of the general population gets to enjoy it. Most of my indoor life in NYC is spent in cramped, dimly lit living spaces, run-down, poorly lit rehearsal studios, or run-down, poorly lit classrooms. Oh, and sometimes black box theatres. With bad lighting. So being in an elegant, spacious, airy place is quite lovely and startling. It's odd to remember that for some New Yorkers, this is what the city is like. When I was a dog-walker, I saw the way some people live here. Believe me, it's a whole other place.

(As a side note, this is the neighborhood Henry James usually wrote about, when he set things in NYC. I read Agnes De Mille's biography of Martha Graham a few years ago, and it was funny to realize that when Graham and her contemporaries were starving artists, this area, around Washington Square Park, was where they found cheap apartments and rehearsal spaces. If you're not familiar with NYC, this area is now very pricey. Most of Manhattan is, but this is particularly so. There are no modern dance studios in the area that I'm aware of. Melissa, am I wrong? This process of gentrification is just part of the city experience, but it still amuses me to picture what this neighborhood must have looked like when it was 'the frontier.')



So that was one of the nice things about this Wednesday night class. The other was the fact that the students were all grown-ups, and serious artists. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy modeling for undergraduates. It's fun watching their progress from self-absorbed, insecure, criticism-shy waifs and grumps, to self-confident, analytical students with actual opinions. Not all of them make this transition, of course, but most do. Even at the start, some of them are very sweet. Most of the first-years (who I spend most of my time with) don't notice my existence at all, which is understandable, since they're 18, and if they're thinking about schoolwork at all (rather than just about getting laid), they're thinking about how much of it they have, and how little of it they want to do (since it interferes with the getting laid). Still, they're fun, and funny, and occasionally even develop an appreciation for what I do.



It's not until I'm in a room full of grown-ups though, that I remember what a luxury that is. And this was an especially nice bunch. There were more men than I usually see in settings like this; as I've mentioned before, the adult groups tend to be mostly very hip grandmothers, but this was an even mix of men and women, and a pretty wide range of ages. Seemed like a consistently high level of skill and talent too, from the glances I stole at their artwork.


Several of them were also unafraid to talk to the naked guy, which is always a nice surprise. One artist that I got to chat with, Ben Conrad, has a website and blog. I really like his work. The fact that I'm posting a link to his blog when there is a drawing of me on it is pure coincidence. He explores a variety of styles, subjects, and materials, which I find inspiring.

He was very gallant when informing me about the posting, reassuring me that it was an image I could safely send my family and friends. Ya'll can stop snorting now. He doesn't know me very well yet, and I thought it was very thoughtful. And no Mom, I'm not naked in EVERY play I do. There have been three. Okay, four. Four plays in twenty years though, okay?

I have browsed through most of Ben's galleries, and so far my favorites are the bird on wires, and the past-futurist series. The Birds on Wires series makes me think of Indiana, funnily enough. There's nothing about the images that says they couldn't be from New York City (indeed the plethora of wires would suggest someplace reasonably urban), but they make me think of wide open spaces, big sky, quiet surroundings, and the dry, dusty light of August. I also like how they suggest sheet music in some cases. Browsing through the blog, I've gotten the impression that Ben stays up on what is going on in the museums and galleries, something I'm very bad about. I'm bad at staying up on what is happening in the theatres, sad to say. It will be fun having an inside eye on the New York art scene.

Fun Little Tests

Here are the results of two online tests I took. One I found on Facebook, the other I stole from Java. I rather like the juxtaposition. Apparently I'm a nice, wifty guy with a mouth like a truck-driver. I can see that.

Benevolent Artist

You can slide the mouse over each color, and find out what this test thinks of me for specific categories. Apparently I have extremely high masculinity (the big light blue square) and somewhat high feminity (the yellow square, I think). Not a clue what that means, but it sounds cool, doesn't it? I'm NOT pleased at the 'average spontaneity' or the 'somewhat high openness', so I'll ignore those findings. Stupid test.



I guess this doesn't really surprise me. The form also told me that my blog's profanity was 111% higher than other websites taking this test. So a mere 16.9% of pages with profanity puts me 111% ahead of the pack? That seems like it ought to reassure somebody about the state of things on the internet, right? Assuming profanity still gets some people's panties in a bunch? (Is 'panties' cursing, sorry, cussing? What about 'panties in a bunch'? Seems crass at least, but I bet the meter didn't count things like that.)

Thing is, I think I swear more in person than I do in my writing. Friends who have met me in person, do you concur?

Not sure what I think of that, if it's true. I behave myself around children, and elderly Quakers, at least. The latter does NOT include my parents, by the way. First off, I don't really think of them as elderly, and second, who do you think taught me all those swear words? Dad said he didn't want us to learn any words from the kids on the street corner that we hadn't heard at home first.

For now I have no plans to change any behavior.

Created by OnePlusYou

Regaining Perspective.

Friday evening was one of those occasions when I felt like Manhattan was telling me, in no uncertain terms, that there was. no. room. for. me.

I was expecting the commute home to be tricky. The school I work at most often, the Pratt Institute, is deep in Brooklyn. I live at the north end of Manhattan, in Harlem. What this means is a) the commute can take anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes on average, one way and b) I will be going with rush hour traffic for most of the ride. These are the constant irritations to the trip, and I think I handle them pretty well.

But then Friday, you see, there was some moisture in the air. I don't mean there was actual RAIN, mind you, though it had been predicted. Okay, to be fair I think there had been some in the early afternoon. At 5pm, when I was getting on the train in Brooklyn, however, it had been dry for a while. As I think I've written before, any kind of precipitation, indeed even the suggestion of precipitation makes the trains and a substantial portion of the population go spare. Fridays often have their own special craziness, for reasons I've not quite figured out. There just always seem to be more people on the trains on Fridays. This one was no exception.

So we all see where I'm going with this, right? I managed to make it to 59th ST (just past the mid-point of my journey) in reasonably good time, and what's more, I had been able to sit most of the way. Score! For those of you who don't know, 59th St Station is a major transfer point. When I went to the platform for my train home, it was packed to the rafters with people, to a degree that told me a train had not been along in some time. This actually happens a lot during rush hours, particularly the evening rush, in my experience. Something goes wrong with the train, that delays it even a few minutes, which means that the crowds on the the subsequent stations have time to get bigger than normal. When the train shows up, the vast majority of people will force their ways onto the already packed train, and in doing so delay it even more. Often the conductor will tell us that another train is RIGHT BEHIND THIS ONE, but for some reason only a few people believe this, or think it's worth waiting for. As you may have guessed from my snide tone and sarcastic caps, I am one of those few people. If I'm not in any hurry to get where I am going (and usually at the end of the day, I'm not), I routinely let as many as three trains pass me by before getting on. Usually the first one will be, as I said, jam-packed and lethargic, crawling from station to station, collecting more and more surly people, so even once you've made it on, you know that the trip is only going to get slower and more uncomfortable. The next train (and often it is right behind the first one, though sometimes the conductors lie, which is probably why most riders don't believe them) will still be pretty packed, the riders still pretty surly, and the ride still slow because it, of course, has to wait for the first one to clear the station. Usually by the third train, there will be seats. It will still be a slow ride, since now you're behind two slow trains, but sitting down changes everything. You can get off your feet, read, write, basically treat the time as your own in at least a few small ways.

I was fully prepared to adopt the 'minimum three train' policy on Friday. I left for work Friday morning knowing that I would probably have to adopt this policy. When I got to 59th St that night, however, I knew immediately that this was not going to be a three-train wait. Nope, I was prepared to wait for at least five, and the gaps between them would be extra long because there were that many more people getting on.

40 minutes later, after train number seven came and left bursting at the seams, Mr. Crankypants was firmly in charge, and now I would not be riding the train UNTIL I could sit down. By train number nine, I was able to, in part because I didn't mind sitting near the only slightly whiffy homeless guy who had built himself an enormous nest at one end of the train with trash bags.

Door to door, my commute took two hours, twenty minutes.

Any thought I had of going out again that evening was snorted at derisively. I also realized there was an insistent little voice in my head saying I now deserved a treat, perhaps several treats, as consolation for my miserable ride home. Said little voice seemed of the opinion that such treats should include a large order of General Tso's chicken from the local Chinese take-out (if you're not familiar with this dish, it is basically a whole lot of deep-fat fried chicken nuggets swimming in a rich, sweet, oily sauce; I'll usually get it with brown rice. You know, to make it healthy), a truck load of cookies, and I'm talking 18 wheeler, AND a vat of a nice Shiraz. Not a truck of wine, that would be tacky.

When did I become the person who cheers himself up by hardening his arteries and destroying his liver? I swear to god I never thought that way before living in NYC. I've always loved food, mind you, in all its varied and glorious forms, but I don't think I went about medicating myself with it. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I really don't think I did.

Having identified this course of action as perhaps not in my best interests, I decided I would buy a box of Entemann's chocolate-chip cookies and some chicken quarters which I would cook (gasp!) WITH THE SKINS ON. I decided against the wine; I really don't think using alcohol as a means of breaking me out of a cranky mood is a habit I want to get into. I want to enjoy my booze when I have it. Besides the liquor store was too far away.

This compromise with my little voice then led me to think "when did I become the guy who obsesses about chicken skin?" Sure, one reaches a certain age and has to recognize that cholesterol is a concern, that excess pounds gained are harder to lose, that heart attacks do run in the family, that being a grown-up means recognizing consequences... but I mean come on.

Well, navel-gazing aside, I followed through on this plan, and had a great time. I had hoped to have my roommate's assistance with at least the cookies, but he was out, thus leaving me to do some serious damage to them on my own.

And it did help. I was much more cheerful an hour later, as I shoveled cookies into my mouth and contemplated having the whole apartment to myself for another week. What also cheered me up was looking at photos I took last Sunday, during a walk with my sweet Melissa. Her new place is right across the street from Inwood Park, which is all that remains of the old growth forest that once covered this whole island. Just the idea of that thrills me. Then when one walks in it, it's very easy to forget the city is all around.

This is my sweet girl just after we've entered the forest. Already all buildings are out of sight, and most street noise is gone.

(Don't you just want to squeeze her? She gets that a lot.)

This was a carving in the rock we both liked. Despite the sharpness of the edges and the uniformity of the shape, we're both certain this was formed naturally. There is no sign of tools, and besides, why would anyone bother?

Here's a closer look. In Ireland this would be some sort of sacred well, with an ancient name and a thousand year history of magical healing.

I don't know what these flowers in the foreground are, but I can't wait to find out. That's the Hudson in the background. I'm also rather fond of that larger tree. I seem to be turning into my mother. Like her, I now feel compelled to hug trees on a fairly regular basis. One of the odd benefits of living in a big city is, when I was doing this in Central Park a few weeks ago, I knew I didn't have to worry about ever seeing again any of the people who looked at me oddly as they went by. Lately I'm particularly fond of oak trees for some reason. Mom's morning walk includes visiting, and hugging, a catalpa and an ancient pin oak.

At one point, Melissa and I found a clearing in the trees where we got incredible views of the river. The picture on the left is looking north, the one on the right looks south.















These two shots are taken in almost the same location; I've just stepped forward about two paces. Suddenly you can see the city. Again, the left one is north, the right one is south. In the latter, you're looking at George Washington Bridge. My place is just about twenty blocks further south.
This is a picture Melissa took of me, while I was taking one of the pictures above. She took this with her camera phone. That's a damn good phone. Or Melissa really knows how to work it. I'm getting a better average number of focused images with my digital baby, I just don't know how I'm doing it. Generally taking two or three shots seems to be useful; the latter ones are almost always better. My camera's ways remain a mystery to me, and contrary to his original assertion, Tommy is no help. Still, I'm having fun. You just may not want to enlarge any of my photos, if blurry images make your eyes go all wonky, like they do mine.


So once again, it's trees to the rescue in my world. I could ask myself if this is something that needs closer examination, but for now I'm just grateful to have so many places nearby that help me regain my sanity, and such good company to do it with.

Living, Loving Links

It’s time to give away some aloe plants again. These all came from one I got from my mom. All of hers came from her mom. I don’t know if it goes back farther than that, but for at least three generations this plant and its scions have been entwined with my family. I can remember seeing it on the family farm, Emro. I know for a fact that my brother, sister, and both aunts also have off-spring; I’m sure others, both family and friends, do as well. Its extreme fecundity has very specific characteristics; individual plants do get bigger with age, but most of their energy seems to be devoted to putting out new plants, and getting them to grow to a certain size. Not all aloes do this, I learned some years ago. I rescued another one when a roommate in Alphabet City threw it in the trash, and I immediately noticed different characteristics. It too put out little plants like the Emro aloe, but most of its energy seemed devoted to enlarging the original plant. It got bigger, each frond lengthening and widening, new fronds springing up. Had I not known the truth, I would have sworn it and the Emro plant were two different species.

Eventually I no longer had space for the big guy, so gave him to my friend Megan, where, newly christened Big Al, he has continued to grow. I helped her repot him a couple of years ago, since that is now definitely a two-person job. He dominates Megan’s living room, sitting by the TV, still grows bigger, and frankly seems to have developed an attitude. Look for Big Al on Myspace.

But back to the Emro aloes. These are not the only plants that are descendents of plants from my maternal grandmother; the boston ferns that hang in the kitchen and bathroom are too. One showers me with negative ions (the good, mood-lifting ones) when I’m at the dining table, the other does the same when I shower. At one point Tommy hid his Frodo action figure (you heard me) in the one in the shower; I was lathering up one day to realize I had a tiny little peeping Tom. "Where's Frodo?" has become a new sport.

Then there is the angel-wing begonia; it too comes from an Emro plant, and has relatives living with several of mine. Actually, since they’re all cuttings, that means they’re technically all part of the same plant, which is even cooler, don't you think? This is the plant that seemed to be at death’s door back in September. I’m cautiously optimistic these days; it’s putting out more leaves and they look healthy. I doubt it will ever regain its former glory (it was five feet tall at one point), but at least it no longer looks like a sad skeleton.

Then there are the plants who were here in the apartment when I moved in, left by the previous tenant. There was a spider plant hanging in the kitchen where the boston fern is now. Ginger told me she’d had it since college, and had brought it with her everywhere she’d lived since (no, I don't know why she left it here). Hanging in the kitchen window, it felt like it was at the center of the apartment. I began thinking of it almost as the spirit of the place. It's funny to realize it had lived here longer than me. I started calling her Grandmother Spider, in recognition of her age and prolific outgrowth. It seemed to fit. She was even more prolific than the Emro aloes; runners and plantlets spilled over the pot, cascading down the window -which faces north, by the way, on a narrow courtyard, and is not someplace I would have expected a spider plant to thrive. For a while I had two of her sons (don’t ask me why I thought they were male, but I did) hanging in the two windows of the living room (facing east, also on the courtyard). They were both smaller, springing up with a youthful vigor and a deeper green. Brian, when he lived here, found these two plants disconcerting. When they began putting out runners and baby plants, he could never quite shake the feeling that if he sat in front of the TV too long, they would end up sinking roots into his flesh.

It wasn’t long, with all three hanging plants merrily reproducing, before we were neck-deep in plantlets. Brian was sure they were going to smother us in our sleep one night, and even I began feeling a tad overwhelmed. I was able to give several away, but many more were left wanting homes; scores of them sat in water, growing roots that became increasingly entangled with one another. Eventually through a combination of give away and culling (Grandma was allowed to continue reproducing, but both the boys lost that privilege), I was able to whittle things back, finally ending up only with Grandmother Spider. She was starting to look a bit peaked by this point though, and I realized she was potbound. The repotting didn’t seem to go well, perhaps because I had to break up the ball into separate plants. She never really regained her old vigor, and just faded away. I wonder if plants can die of old age? She had to have been at least twenty, possibly thirty years old. I was sad, but frankly also a bit relieved. With her gone, I felt like yet one more significant influence of the previous tenant had been allowed to fade naturally, and I was now, almost eight years after taking over the lease, able to invite a new spirit plant into the center of my home. So that is where the second Boston fern went. At present there are no spider plants living in this apartment at all, and I’m feeling like that’s okay. If I ever feel the need for one though, I know Grandma has offspring throughout the city, in the homes of many friends. I can even say hi to one of the sons anytime I want, since he sits in a first floor window not far from my building. He is allowed to reproduce again, and seems to like the southern exposure.

The other plant I inherited with the apartment is a golden pothos. When I first moved in, two or three short cuttings of this plant were sitting in a big, heavy blue vase. I have no idea how long they had been there. They were in the office, which at the time was mostly Kurt’s domain, so I assumed they were his. (Like the plants, I inherited Kurt as a roommate, and it also worked out splendidly.) After a few years though, I began to feel badly for the cuttings, so I appropriated, potted, and moved them to the living room (which, at the time, was exclusively my domain). I don’t remember when exactly I stopped pruning it back, and tying it to a string along the wall, but I think it happened no more than five, maybe six years ago. I’d keep wrapping it around the room, if there weren’t a heating pipe in the way now that would singe it. I’m doubling it back, and giving cuttings to anyone who asks for one, as long as he or she is standing right in front of me, hand out ready to take it that instant. I can't handle the guilt of homeless plants any longer.

This scattering of green throughout my space has helped save my sanity, I have no doubt. Their calming green and reminders of older, more important rhythms is often a good wake-up call for me. I also like the feeling of connection they give me: to my grandmother, the family farm, my mom, aunts, siblings and friends across the country, even former residents -known and not- of apartment #20. I imagine a greensong linking the plants with their counterparts regardless of distance, shrinking the space between me and my loved ones, and strengthening our bonds.

Tending the Soil, Trusting the Season

Fragments I don't see relating, but want to put together anyway:



Sometime today there will be a procession through my mostly Dominican neighborhood, honoring Good Friday. There will be a priest on a megaphone, calling out lines in a musical chant, the congregants responding likewise. Actual songs will be interspersed through all this. To my no doubt unsophisticated ear, I always hear an echo of the Muslim call to prayer in all this, especially the priest's amplified chanting, but also in some of the hymns. I imagine the rituals of prayer coming down through the ages, starting in Moorish Spain, changing from Arabic to Spanish, Muslim to Christian, emigrating to the Caribbean, and ending up outside my doorstep in New York City, still retaining a bit of all those flavors. I may be completely off about the influences... but even so, I like the feeling it gives me that at the heart of true blessing, reverance and thanksgiving, we are more alike than not. At least that's how I see it today.



To answer a question from new friend Butch, the mask accompanying the post below is not the River Liffy, but the Green Man. This link is by no means the only place you can find information on him, he's an old fellow with lots of meanings. Put loosely, I understand him as the male energy of life, specifically a Celtic manifestation, a sort of Father Nature, and with particular ties to Pan, Dionysus, Herne the Hunter, and all the other male gods of Springtime. As such maybe he'd be a better accompaniment to today's post, but he seemed like the right image for my St. Paddy's Day post. Yeats, Ó Searcaigh, and I all connect with Pagan impulses in our own ways, I would say, and the idea of 'going back to sources' explored in both poems made me think of this guy. My sister and brother-in-law gave him to me a few years ago, and he hangs on my wall, across from my bed (one of the few guardian masks I didn't make myself), smiling down on me each morning as I wake up in my gritty urban fifth-floor walk-up.

I don't think St. Patrick would have minded.



By a funny coincidence though, I do have a small River Liffy mask, a gift from my mother a few years ago. Liffy hangs on the edge of the wall dividing the living room from the hallway. She's one of the first things I see when I walk through my front door, shrouded behind my exuberant golden pothos, twining itself around three of the walls. My sense of who she is to me is much more unformed (okay, just so Java's heart will go pitter-pat, I'll say 'inchoate'. Happy Easter, Dear). I'm always glad to see her though. And I do love Dublin. If you enlarge the lower photo, you'll also see that behind her hangs a beautifully calligraphed print of the Yeats poem that I copied out in the previous post, so while I didn't post her with the poem, she is close to it in my world. I don't know what all the lovely coincidences in Butch's question mean, if anything, but I liked them.



Years ago I heard a fantastic joke on TV, from Art Buchwald (yes, that takes you to Wikipedia, it was the most concise biography I could find; feel free to do your own search). I won't do justice to Buchwald's telling of it (it really loses something if you don't hear it told in his New York accent), but here it is.



A man decides that he wants to win the lottery, so he begins praying to God for this, every day. Years go by with the man making this prayer daily, all to know avail. After ten years of this increasingly frantic supplication one day he loses all patience and screams, "God, I've been a good man all these years, why won't you let me win the lottery?"



Suddenly, a voice booms from the heavens.



"Do me a favor! Buy a ticket!"



I fear I have spent a lot of my life being that man. One of the lessons I seem to have to relearn repeatedly is how to find the balance between taking action, and -for lack of a better description- going with the flow. The wellspring of joy and creativity in my life, particularly as it relates to performing, has felt very blocked for years now, and I haven't done much recently to address that (unless we include periodically moping about it on my blog). Spring is one of my favorite times of year, in part because of its reminder that life is reborn, growth occurs, rejuvenation does happen, it just happens according to its own time-table, not mine.



And yet... this doesn't mean I can just sit back. I still need to plant the seeds. For long stretches of time that may be all I do. I'm learning to trust fallow periods more as I age, trusting that just because I can't see it or measure it doesn't mean important growth is going on underground. But that doesn't let me off the hook for doing some work.



Sometimes the soil is sour, depleted or just unsuitable. Sometimes there hasn't been enough water. Sometimes the shoots come up, and it's my job to protect them from late frost and snow, careless feet, or hungry rabbits. Nature will take care of itself just fine without my help, but if I am hoping for specific results, flowers or vegetables say, rather than happy rodents or a rocky front yard, then I have to do some work. Yes, a balance is to be sought. Respect for the forces involved must be maintained. But I mustn't fall into the comfortable laziness (probably really a form of fear), of passivity.



Then there's the other side. Various people in my life are dealing with difficult issues right now, and various caretakers are watching them deal with those issues, trying to help, but often struggling with the recognition, and accompanying guilt, that there is nothing they can do. I feel badly for both people in the equation; both experience a feeling of helplessness, of being at the mercy of forces they can't control, even when they believe they should be able to. While I am reminding myself that I must do the things I can, THEN trust in other forces, many many of my loved ones might want to remind themselves that some things are beyond our power, and even when we do all the 'right' stuff, sometimes things still go wrong. Then we find what to do next. Feeling guilty for failing to protect a loved one is a burden many people subject themselves to understandably, but needlessly.

("Easy for you to say," mutters the chorus... I know, I know. I do it too, sometimes.)

So I hope each of you, in your own way, finds this season a time of rejuvenation, healing or just plain old joyous growth, in whatever way is best for you. Some of us may need to get our asses out there to plant seeds and pull weeds... but some of us may just need to trust that we've done all we can. Do you know which one you are? Are you sure?

Healing Waters: Two Irish Thoughts

We can make our minds so like

still water that beings gather

about us to see, it may be,

their own images, and so live for a

moment with a clearer, perhaps even

with a fiercer life because of our

quiet.

W. B. Yeats

An Tobar/The Well

"'Twill put a stir in you, and life,"

says old Bridget, spark in her eyes

proffering a bowl of spring-water

from the purest well in Gleann an Átha,
a well that was tended tastily

from generation to generation, the precious

heritage of the household

snugly sheltered in a nook,

a ditch around it for protection,

a flagstone on its mouth.

When I was growing up

here in the early 'sixties

there wasn't a house in the neighbourhood

without its like,

for everyone was proud then

of how wholesome and pure

they kept the family well:

they wouldn't let it become murky or slimy

and at the first traces of red-rust

it was bailed-out with a tin bucket

then purified every season with kiln-lime.

Lively, living water, pellucid spring-water

gushed forth from our family well.

In tin-cans and pitchers

they drew it daily

and in the devouring thirst

of sweltering summer

it slaked and cooled them

in field and bog.

It was a tonic, too,

that made them throb with delight

and for their ablutions

it served from cradle to grave.

But, this long time, piped water from distant hills

sneaks into every kitchen

on both sides of the glen;

water spurts from a tap,

mawkish, without sparkle,

zestless as slops

and among my people

the springwell is being forgotten.

"'Tis hard to find a well nowadays",

says Bridget filling the bowl again.

"They're hidden in rushes and grass,

choked by green scum and ferns,

but, despite the neglect,

they've lost none of their true mettle.

Seek out your own well, my dear,

for the age of want is near:

There will have to be a going back to sources."

Cathal Ó Searcaigh

translated from the Irish by Gabriel Fitzmaurice

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, my friends.