a moment to err, an eternity to regret

All true, and only a reprobate could dispute it. But who will warn these earnest souls that hell's deepest chasms are lined with poor spellers who failed to proofread?

(from Mardi Gras)

hike 9.5: the high line nyc, emmylou harris, dylan, and desire

We went to New York to hike the High Line and hear Emmylou Harris. This hike doesn't count toward our year of hikes as it isn't from The Book of 50 Local Hikes We Are Sworn to Complete Before 2012. So I'm calling it, hike 9.5.

My camerado read an article about the High Line Park last fall and has wanted to hike it ever since. The High Line was an abandoned elevated train spur in Chelsea. Some parts of it were demolished as trucks became the main means of transporting goods; what was left was colonized by drought-hardy grasses and trees (I'd love to look at a species survey). Some inspired locals fought to save the remaining sections and make them into a public park. It's a great story--a couple of people with an idea saved a wild (feral?) place and made it into something that's used by everyone--locals, tourists--we saw school kids eating their lunches in one area when we visited, and even a fashion photo shoot:



The High Line was originally designed to get hazardous trains off streets, and threaded through the center of blocks so it wouldn't block light to the streets. I loved the way its route took us in and out of buildings, so we could feel light and temperature change as we walked. There are art installations in the tunnels, some of which could only be appreciated if you read the explanatory labels. In theory, I'm not sure how I feel about that, but, we did like the art.



We got the sense that the High Line was good for the neighborhood, because we could look over the side of the park and see outdoor cafes sprouting in its shadow. Our hike ended in an enchanted grove of birches.



Birches are a theme of this post, as a courtyard of birches in moody light was the backdrop for the live interview we saw at the New York Times building with Emmylou Harris (our bus was late; we were relieved to get good seats!). I've seen EH more than any other artist: with my camerado at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, by myself at the Tower (with Elvis Costello), with my Dad at the Keswick (Concert for a Landmine Free World), and at the Keswick again with both of my folks (the only concert I saw with them both). An Emmylou Harris album was the last my mother listened to--she enjoyed it with astonishing vigor; it was great to see someone so ill and facing such dire prospects still able to enjoy good music so fully.

Emmylou Harris, as always, looked amazing--I like her retro-country goth aesthetic. The interviewer kept bringing up the supposed hymnlike quality of her music, a comparison she didn't quite know what to do with--though she was polite and a pro. She talked a lot about her dog rescue, and about various collaborators, some I hadn't heard of. The most interesting topic for me was EH's discussion of making the Desire album with Dylan--my favorite Dylan album. I love all the exotic adventuring of Desire --it's very colorful and Byronic--and I love the spontaneous quality of EH's singing. She reverses a lyric in One More Cup of Coffee, and there are times when she and Dylan come in at different times; it's very fresh and immediate. I wondered if Dylan recorded a rehearsal and used it so the album would not sound perfected and sterile--but the effect may be less contrived than I imagined. EH described how the music was thrust at her when she entered the studio, she was directed to a stool, and was expected to start singing immediately. Dylan elbowed her when it was time for her to come in! which explains the unrehearsed quality!
I always imagined Dylan deliberately chose EH for the way her voice can sound ethereal one moment and harsh the next, as Desire is both an earthy and otherworldly album. But according to EH, it was Dylan's producer who selected her, based on Dylan's asking him to "get me a girl singer."
That a brilliant album came from such a haphazard process EH attributed to Dylan's genius, which is as good an explanation as any.

hike 9: valley forge schuylkill river trail

For our ninth hike we went back to Valley Forge, and hiked the river trail through a magical floodplain forest. We took the friends who gave us The Book of 50 Greater-Philly Hikes, which we are sworn to complete before 2012 (we are behind by several hikes, so it's looking unlikely). Our hope is to get all of our friends to join us for at least one hike this year.



Our friends who gave us The Book are originally mid-westerners, so they make a lot of eye-contact and are really polite. I brought them some rotten yams for their compost once and they complimented me on what nice compost it would make. You see them above with my camerado, whom I met at the same time that they met each other.



Bluebells were the star of this hike: the Old World doesn't have a monopoly on bluebell woods, we have our own: Mertensia virginica. (European bluebells are darker and droopier, looking haunted and world-weary; ours are brighter and stick straight out like trumpets). The abundant bluebells you see in these pictures were a highlight of this hike, along with the ancient maples that grew on either side of the trail: I have never seen such immense, primordial maples.



That one has a nice mature Toxicodendron radicans growing up it. As lovely as this path was in the spring, it must be magical in snow.

Our friend Peter believes in otherworldly beings and we have an ongoing discussion in which he tries to overcome my doubt. The topic arose again because these woods had a real fairy-tale vibe to them.



Our debate about the likelihood of seeing faeries on this hike was interrupted by some rustling and incredibly high-pitched squeaking, which I alone of our party was able to hear. I think we had come upon the nests of some deer mice--we saw two race for cover but they moved so fast it was tough to say for sure what they were. I listened on line here and verified that the sound I heard was deer mouse-ish. I'm guessing I heard distress calls of their young, if that's possible. If some people can hear at more rarefied frequencies, then maybe some perceive spiritual or otherworldly phenomena at more rarefied frequencies?

(My doubt is practical; I don't question the existence of a spirit world, just whether anything can be definitively known about it, or gained from investigating it. Yeats's investigations led him only into a morass of images, and Madame Blavatsky, the most celebrated medium of her century, said it was pointless to consult the spirits, because "the spirits lie.")

Immediately after our encounter with the deer mice (from which we escaped without hantavirus or lyme), we came upon this spiritually-minded character:



Jack-in-the-pulpit. I have a memory of seeing these and being fascinated by them as a child, but I think that was only in a book, so this may be the first I've seen them for real, that I remember. I was very excited. Beyond that, I've lost my notes for this hike, so can only report that Peter identified some warblers, and I saw more ephemerals struggling through mats of invasive lesser celandine, and also learned to identify bladdernut.

And, I'd like to figure out who made this: