tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180692892024-03-13T15:34:31.578-04:00tenderComradeI write not to teach but to learn. Rebecca West drew rhys whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12495844903594284944noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-81716286650193609742016-05-09T23:05:00.003-04:002017-02-27T21:59:13.071-05:00special persons 2016<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UEryIi_cjhAi_kz_65xH-tksO3c1-AwS8JosXR1wjvZOo6Ni98d4Vdx0qNYU8wxVd4q7-qiMnRE-gYcHRxgGXGEf7_pd06_RfRCG_9_BTY7oP-AIGHg0iWz1oUpwCSGKU0ik/s1600/26291380653_e7443cc34a_o.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UEryIi_cjhAi_kz_65xH-tksO3c1-AwS8JosXR1wjvZOo6Ni98d4Vdx0qNYU8wxVd4q7-qiMnRE-gYcHRxgGXGEf7_pd06_RfRCG_9_BTY7oP-AIGHg0iWz1oUpwCSGKU0ik/s1600/26291380653_e7443cc34a_o.jpg" /></a><br />
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Another Special Person's Day at my godson's school, I take a train to DC to see my college roommate and attend my godson's open house. That's me, the Special Person, reading Catherine Valente while the godson, also Special and a Person, reads Berenstain Bears. Later, I will buy the Berenstain Bears book and read it to the godson in the Afterwords cafe, and be struck as I often am with the inescapable sexism of childhood worlds that were once so homey.<br />
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When my college roommate goes to his guitar lesson I will go to the Folger Shakespeare Library, where, as someone who manages museum volunteers for a living, I will be delighted with the volunteer who leads the tour (though dismayed by the indifferent attendant in the box office).<br />
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On this trip, I will discover (through reading a Lego Star Wars book on Yoda) why Lego Star Wars is more popular with children than Person Star Wars.<br />
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Funnier jokes.drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-46524465762232155712016-01-09T15:38:00.004-05:002016-01-09T15:38:38.789-05:00<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/23159946534/in/datetaken/" title="P1040765 We walked and saw this little art nouveau shop, photographed it for Sara."><img alt="P1040765 We walked and saw this little art nouveau shop, photographed it for Sara." height="800" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/729/23159946534_ac0330d6fe_c.jpg" width="600" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-28331557709240126692015-12-16T09:46:00.001-05:002016-01-09T15:33:40.136-05:00Heraclitus sporophyte<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSw2F_-lL8arIsBMzvCP2DA8R7CH2HZsN6LCN16TyyT2tpIrbnti84qZ7TDNM_22gfLAl6kTi8A0mgw2nK8ny0-EyQ66xhPK8_hwQzT_g7fFdg2JFcQSRxFCgIeJ9FYJ5TG7NB/s1600/P1050198.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSw2F_-lL8arIsBMzvCP2DA8R7CH2HZsN6LCN16TyyT2tpIrbnti84qZ7TDNM_22gfLAl6kTi8A0mgw2nK8ny0-EyQ66xhPK8_hwQzT_g7fFdg2JFcQSRxFCgIeJ9FYJ5TG7NB/s640/P1050198.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/23161258653/in/datetaken/"></a><br />
Just dug out my Portugal photos, saw this one from Mateus Palace. Moss, nature's velvet. I looked for a quote from my favorite philosopher, Heraclitus, to pair with this, but couldn't find the one I wanted. Something about nature being always in a state of becoming. The quote may have passed out of existence, or more happily, transformed into something else, a sporophyte, maybe. Even Heraclitus must change.<br />
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/23788076175/in/datetaken/" title="P1050146 Matteus palace, a handsome, sturdy baroque house with good collections and an exceptional garden. Not historically significant."><img alt="P1050146 Matteus palace, a handsome, sturdy baroque house with good collections and an exceptional garden. Not historically significant." height="600" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/591/23788076175_f33daf8b46_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-37908341453328295082015-03-17T19:55:00.002-04:002015-03-17T19:57:42.083-04:00Terry PratchettWhen I was a teacher at the natural science museum, one of the guys who ran Dinosaur Hall gave me <i>Wyrd Sisters</i>. "You would like this," he said. I thought it was glib. Then I noticed the terrific humor. And the gift for drawing characters. And the wisdom--I wasn't expecting wisdom from a book with such a goofy, shiny cover. But you can't judge a book by its cover, as they say. Similarly, Terry Pratchett looked like a kindly, likeable, and quite handsome older fellow. But if we could see each other's souls, you would have seen a tidal wave of wisdom. <br />
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In <i>Hat Full of Sky</i>, it's Miss Level I think who tells Tiffany, "There's no way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do."<br />
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There's nothing more to say, beyond those two sentences. About anything. drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-29570923962074436932014-08-02T16:21:00.000-04:002014-08-02T16:21:42.427-04:002nd Annual Philadelphia One-Minute Play FestivalThis just in: I will have two plays in the <a href="http://www.oneminuteplayfestival.com/2014/07/01/the-2nd-annual-philadelphia-one-minute-play-festival/" target="_blank">2nd Annual Philadelphia One-Minute Play Festival</a>: an evening of live theater about life in Philadelphia
today, with two minutes of pure Drew! <br />
<br /> Showtimes are Sunday August 3rd, Monday August 4th, & Tues August 5th, 8PM at:<br />
InterAct Theatre Company, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103<br /> Tickets are $20 and available at interacttheatre.org, or (215) 568-8077<br />
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The assignment was to write about life in Philadelphia today, and the plays are grouped more or less topically. One of mine is in a cohort relating to public school woes, the other, with LGBT matters. The playwrights represented are a cross section of Philadelphia writers. I've read the ones in my confederacies and there are some sharp ones! I admit, I had been skeptical about what could be done, theatrically, in 1 minute--till last year, my friend Joy Cutler sent me hers to read: terrific, small but potent, like peppercorns. Because I'm under the influence of James Joyce these days, I wrote two small epiphanies based on moments I had witnessed or participated in around town, one on a coffee shop, the other in a workplace restroom. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the writers cooked up... drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-20498712860391236732014-06-21T15:57:00.000-04:002014-06-23T18:13:09.612-04:00Always Forever Now in Ideomancer magazine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The summer issue of <a href="http://www.ideomancer.com/" target="_blank">Ideomancer</a> magazine has a story of mine, <i>Always Forever Now</i>. Editor Leah Bobet introduces it as a meditation on Christianity, polyamory, and sacrifice, which sums it up well! I share the summer Ideomancer with a story by Michael J. DeLuca, <i><a href="http://www.ideomancer.com/?p=2798" target="_blank">Virtual Goods</a>, </i>and some fine poems: I like the one by Sara Saab, <a href="http://www.ideomancer.com/?p=2817" target="_blank"><i>Inheritance, Far From the Centre of the World</i></a>. <br />
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Here's an excerpt from <i>Always Forever Now:</i><br />
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<i>Todd Calvin stands at the foot of Cindy and Elliot’s driveway,
wondering what they’ll make of his boot camp souvenirs — twenty pounds
of muscle and a stubbly scalp. Despite their late-night attempts to sway
him, traditionalist Todd has withstood Cindy and Elliot’s progressive
drift. It stings him that they disapprove of his enlistment; Cindy and
Elliot are the closest thing to family Todd has known, his one constant
through a lonely adolescence, and an adulthood of strict Christian
self-denial. He thinks of his friends — with the faintest aftertaste of
rue — as the perfect couple. </i><br />
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</i><i>So, stealing time to gather his nerve, Todd slows the day. A few
minutes, at most an hour, and his eyes will water and his head will
throb — and time will march on. When younger, Todd thought everyone
played tug-of-war with the minutes, but no one spoke of it. As an adult
Todd suspects only he can resist time, and only he is held back — time
washing around him till he can fight no longer and is hurled into the
present. </i><br />
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</i><i>If time tugged Todd through twenty-six years, two foster homes, state
college, intermittent construction work, and a recent enlistment, he
has been tugging back the whole way. Todd believes he is special only in
this — and in being a better-than-average athlete. </i><br />
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</i><i>So he holds the day by the tail. Yellow tulips along the driveway
blur. A dimming sun trembles in sweet agony. Whirring past Todd’s head,
an early wasp slows, and stops, shivering. Todd sees the pixels of her
eyes. The present will rush forward to meet him when he lets go, the
driveway tulips jerking on their stems, the wasp hitting warp drive, the
sun plummeting to the horizon. </i><br />
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<i>But only Todd will move. Todd will move, but not yet....</i><br />
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More at <a href="http://www.ideomancer.com/?p=2805" target="_blank">Ideomancer</a><i>...</i><br />
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(Above, that's our native Blue Flag Iris. We came upon it hiking around Cape May, NJ, which has pleasant trails to amble about on. If the flower suggests the trinitarian, then it neatly augurs the themes of my story!)<br />
<br />drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-58575063020811872122014-04-08T22:59:00.000-04:002014-04-12T09:18:42.877-04:00after the gold rush? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKOlF8VUNc_1K8KvlVblxt3m-EjEZkUUdG1FxSk_7dQl1_tXSnHGjMJ-lKq6qz7QCJgRGNTQ-QyBKPiR4I_rNrUOq69hgi-Q649uLbj07J8WZy23MBZJcF4dM9_dowFLcc_aQv/s1600/7271264350_674d70e581_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKOlF8VUNc_1K8KvlVblxt3m-EjEZkUUdG1FxSk_7dQl1_tXSnHGjMJ-lKq6qz7QCJgRGNTQ-QyBKPiR4I_rNrUOq69hgi-Q649uLbj07J8WZy23MBZJcF4dM9_dowFLcc_aQv/s1600/7271264350_674d70e581_b.jpg" /></a></div>
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I've always admired my friend <a href="http://www.whereyouareplanted.com/">Alison</a><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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marvelous garden, which is visited by all kinds of wildlife—I've seen accipiters and great lepidoptera there. Alison's first book, <i>Hives in the City: Keeping Honey Bees Alive in an Urban World</i> is out in <a href="https://www.createspace.com/4724462">paperback</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hives-City-Keeping-Honey-Alive/dp/0996025901/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397011519&sr=8-1&keywords=alison+gillespie">and</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5OILRG">e-book</a>. Alison came to Philly and met some of our beekeepers, and also made a pilgrimage to the site of L. L. Langstroth's home—Philadelphia's own Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth invented that modern hive that resembles a bureau, and is much kinder to the bees. She also interviewed urban beekeepers in DC, Baltimore, and New York.<br />
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In addition to being a neat tour of the urban beekeeping word, <i>Hives in the City </i>breaks down Colony Collapse Disorder and bee die-offs, and neonicotinoid pesticides. The situation for bees is as grim as it is confusing, and I found this book the best guide to the subject I've come upon. Nice job, Alison.<br />
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drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-79396035068352472192014-03-13T16:35:00.000-04:002014-03-29T18:23:34.110-04:00basilisk signet ring<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJcddAmgDj4LA6X9c7DentThtukq7QdZu4u5T1mKA7mVsrqXioEdM6QvpSZPQd_Jc22g5Vui_K7-_wRvLslOiaWIgAmNyeZGHqGEuPxtX9STrHvHzEpa0UEppcwM9MMmQPz97/s1600/P1060791.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJcddAmgDj4LA6X9c7DentThtukq7QdZu4u5T1mKA7mVsrqXioEdM6QvpSZPQd_Jc22g5Vui_K7-_wRvLslOiaWIgAmNyeZGHqGEuPxtX9STrHvHzEpa0UEppcwM9MMmQPz97/s1600/P1060791.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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A friend of mine lost a signet ring her father gave her when she was 19. She was always sad about it. She asked me to design a new signet ring, with a new motto she had chosen, and a new heraldic beast, a basilisk. The old beast was a griffin and the motto was something about God. </div>
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Above is my first try, not really heraldic enough.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrrjA-bfGcmPyDe3BEAMhZp91lZ7j34A7awq_U-Z3MCO67ha8AFnTUdnZUlTdV7M1-S2rru4Asu7LAVc8DEpNP4AuyPCYy4-KM1zg6xR6e0iC3vZiI7eFKULkgYfwqHoYYo_E/s1600/P1060792.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrrjA-bfGcmPyDe3BEAMhZp91lZ7j34A7awq_U-Z3MCO67ha8AFnTUdnZUlTdV7M1-S2rru4Asu7LAVc8DEpNP4AuyPCYy4-KM1zg6xR6e0iC3vZiI7eFKULkgYfwqHoYYo_E/s1600/P1060792.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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That's my second pass. More heraldic, not fierce enough. Cartoony. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxwO2s3r7wkZi8lkzMqtXV9Znv38k_NH0PxLqAUJfoxRD_jk_4gv1nGwWaRkc4HKR4Z5DpUvHgi-eMmPopXabb3UtsV-hOTOUm3yiUcCAL_0Cqp4e9HOjtBkuSWGXnrFP0rvh5/s1600/P1060793.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxwO2s3r7wkZi8lkzMqtXV9Znv38k_NH0PxLqAUJfoxRD_jk_4gv1nGwWaRkc4HKR4Z5DpUvHgi-eMmPopXabb3UtsV-hOTOUm3yiUcCAL_0Cqp4e9HOjtBkuSWGXnrFP0rvh5/s1600/P1060793.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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I tried a lot of heads, looking for fierce. I looked at snakes, hawks, dragons, eagles. How do you make a beak look scary, like it's about to bite you?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDlW1_PCQOLEHlCnuNJiOd5ELbiNp92k6vrvoC2AOhsVUS2JBWSEy_gzsFxDbRJxMcQyMjMUVLGNDLHGuWiWSAE10LrAw20k7M7OGvFri4O0macHUTBORfe73VnDyA-fAFurDk/s1600/P1060794.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDlW1_PCQOLEHlCnuNJiOd5ELbiNp92k6vrvoC2AOhsVUS2JBWSEy_gzsFxDbRJxMcQyMjMUVLGNDLHGuWiWSAE10LrAw20k7M7OGvFri4O0macHUTBORfe73VnDyA-fAFurDk/s1600/P1060794.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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I realized that the original head was fine, it was just the body that was off. I put the first head on the second body, and tried a bunch of different wings and tails. You can see it coming into its own, looking fierce, crazy, dangerous. That's what we were shooting for. It's a great feeling when something starts to come together. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuPc7PZCRGDQUrt6dTDztfWlSfYqsyu54m0vERN8oNnpvu0MnRHE9v7Ne-N-UAQTKmwEVqjoXH_QKCbfMAqXx5-dxh1KbJbLH3fZwNCbFvYGX4Al761tTb5U7fC7vowDDgMEk6/s1600/P1060796.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuPc7PZCRGDQUrt6dTDztfWlSfYqsyu54m0vERN8oNnpvu0MnRHE9v7Ne-N-UAQTKmwEVqjoXH_QKCbfMAqXx5-dxh1KbJbLH3fZwNCbFvYGX4Al761tTb5U7fC7vowDDgMEk6/s1600/P1060796.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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My friend liked the bat wing with the curling devil tail, but the ridges on the stomach she didn't like. I had a terrible time with the wings, till I figured I could just add ribs. You see those in the final version.<br />
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The new motto my friend chose would be a Latin translation of her father's motto:<br />
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<i>When in danger, when in doubt, </i><br />
<i> Run in circles, scream and shout. </i><br />
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We thought "scream and shout," or, in Latin, "quiritatus et vociferatio," would fit on the front, and look motto-ish, while the rest could go around the rest of the ring.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhep1_vmNEDAbm_8xQM8DLqFXKyNAcXqv6jqkVVa2X_KdmTp464DFj_nibuD9Ax6d-1CsilrcnSbVCvX7nw1ut8wrWlSPgnbzwb2fAnjX1s4bNzmbbR-ppiSxxBUQOnIQLskk5e/s1600/P1060797.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhep1_vmNEDAbm_8xQM8DLqFXKyNAcXqv6jqkVVa2X_KdmTp464DFj_nibuD9Ax6d-1CsilrcnSbVCvX7nw1ut8wrWlSPgnbzwb2fAnjX1s4bNzmbbR-ppiSxxBUQOnIQLskk5e/s1600/P1060797.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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The last detail I fooled with was the eye. I went with the one on the right. <br />
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The final version.<br />
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The ringsmith took a lot of liberties with my drawing! But the great thing is to be doing artwork again. Last year I designed a T-shirt for the museum I work for and found I could still draw. That was like finding a hundred dollar bill in the pocket of a jacket you haven't worn in a while. drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-31298643345491537022014-01-14T10:15:00.000-05:002014-03-13T16:08:01.276-04:00Bannerman Castle<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="768" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/9674368301/player/d89cb3bbcb" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="1024"></iframe><br />
<br />
We planned a trip to the state of old New York, which I had seen very little of. My camerado wanted to do some camping, and I had a deep desire to visit the home of Washington Irving again. Our guide at the Irving house was a focused and well-prepared woman in a hoop skirt, named, I think, Lorraine. A pro.<br />
<br />
We also planned a day to see the Eleanor and FDR sites, with a tacky Vanderbilt site thrown in. Learning about Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the highlights of the trip.<br />
<br />
The most photogenic site we visited was Bannerman Castle. The camerado insisted we see this. "You love castles," he said. True! The castle itself was a warehouse for Francis Bannerman's military surplus mail order catalog. I liked that Bannerman manipulated the angles of his castle so it would look vastly larger when approached from the water.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/9677612214/player/231bb5d181" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
Bannerman was very thrifty, and, according to our guide, used the cheapest materials for his castle. This, along with a series of mishaps--explosions, fires, and vandalism--contributed to the structure's decline.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="800" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/9677592360/player/2841c5b4ea" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="600"></iframe><br />
<br />
That's the house the Bannerman family lived in, with a garden lovingly maintained by the volunteers of the Bannerman Castle Trust.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/9674351813/player/3c782360cd" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
The interior is unsafe for visitors, so some ingenious person had this painting installed in the window, to give a sense of it.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/9674356583/player/64ac61d77a" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
Here is the view the Bannermans' had from their front lawn.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/9674348817/player/9992ae3766" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="320"></iframe><br />
<br />
Bannerman's Scottish heritage was very meaningful to him, so there are cute Scottish labels all over the island. <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/9674383937/player/69dea1f09d" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="320"></iframe><br />
<br />
The night before we saw the castle, we stayed in an inn, in this appropriately named room. I liked the brownies the innkeeper made; my camerado was excited to find an old VHS of Hitchcock's <i>Notorious, </i>dubbed from TCM; I hadn't known he loved this movie. That it was a dubbed VHS made it somehow better. drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-5619541091442519702013-12-17T17:06:00.001-05:002013-12-30T17:59:11.594-05:00Santa, Urston the polar bear, & King Squite of the Goblins—a Father Christmas letter<span style="font-size: medium;">I'm called on by my mother-in-law to copy
out the annual Santa letter she writes for her granddaughter, who won't
recognize my handwriting. Two elves named Mac and Pete are the putative authors. I do this under duress; </span><span style="font-size: medium;">though
I love Santa legends, I'm opposed to telling children Santa is real.
Why foment disillusion? I'm a good sport, though, and confide my qualms
to you only.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">This
year my mother-in-law's inspiration ran dry. At Thanksgiving I said,
"We should get you a copy of Tolkien's <i>Father Christmas Letters, </i>they're
great!" (I found my copy in a used shop as a teenager</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>I hadn't known such a book existed, and felt so privileged to have discovered it). My mother-in-law emailed me: <i>Please do send material for the Santa letter that you talked about-----I've never read The Hobbit</i>. </span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">So I wrote her an adventure, posted below, with elements from J.R.R., as narrated by the elves Mac and Pete: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">Dear Margaret,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">It’s been
quite a year up here at the North Pole. We almost didn’t have a North Pole!
It all started with this polar bear, Urston, who likes to hang around Mrs.
Claus’s kitchen hoping for extra cookie dough. One day Urston stole a
tray of cookies that were cooling on Mrs. Claus’s kitchen window, and ran
straight into the North Pole trying to escape! He knocked it right over, and cookies
flew everywhere. It took several elves—and
a very embarrassed and sorry polar bear—to hoist the North Pole into place
again. </span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">If that was the
craziest thing that happened this year, we’d probably be back on track with toy production.
But the next day we ran into some trouble with Santa’s old enemy, the Goblin
King, or, King <span class="il">Squite</span> for short. King <span class="il">Squite</span> is jealous that he and his
goblins don’t get any Christmas presents! All the goblins send Santa letters with
lists of the horrible things they want each year, and leave out moldy cookies for
him on Christmas Eve. But Santa writes back to the goblins that if they want
presents, they have to be <i>good</i>. Which
of course, is the one thing goblins can never be (because then they would turn
into elves, as you know). </span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">This year,
King <span class="il">Squite</span> and his goblin army surrounded Santa’s castle and demanded that all
the toys be surrendered to them immediately (including some stuff that is
supposed to go to <i>you</i>). Of course
Santa refused, and we elves ran around to close the shutters on all the
windows, and pull up the drawbridge. Then Mac and me loaded gobs of chocolate
sauce and marshmallow fluff into the candy cannons around Santa’s castle.
(Goblins can’t bear sweets, any type of sugar burns them, and they do a very
comical dance trying to get it off them).</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">Our candy
cannons were working alright at keeping the goblin army from climbing the walls
of Santa’s castle, but the goblins still surrounded us, and we didn’t know what
we going to do to get them to go away. King <span class="il">Squite</span> rolled out a giant
slime-catapult, and said that if Santa tried to take his sleigh out to deliver
presents on Christmas Eve, they would shoot him down with it! </span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">Just then,
Urston the polar bear showed up with his mother polar bear, who had dragged
him back to Santa’s castle to apologize for stealing Mrs. Claus’s cookies the
day before (even though Urston had apologized when it happened, and had been
very polite about it—for a polar bear). When
Urston and his mom saw King <span class="il">Squite</span> and his goblin army surrounding Santa’s
castle, they called all their polar bear friends and relatives, and soon the
goblin army was surrounded by polar bears! (The polar bears have their own issues
with the goblins, but that’s another story). </span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">As you
can imagine, the goblins ran off pretty quickly</span></span><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="color: black;">—</span></span>so it looks like we’re still
on track for Christmas Eve deliveries, but just barely... The main problem is, when the goblin
army was escaping from the polar bears, they knocked over the North Pole, and this
time it broke into several pieces. We found most of it, but some of the pieces
are missing, and I don’t think we’ll have a chance to go looking for them till
after Christmas. I just hope the goblins didn’t steal any of the missing pieces
of the North Pole, because I sure wouldn’t want to have to sneak into the
goblin’s cave kingdom to get them back… Scary!</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">Anyway, I’ll
let you know how it all turns out. Meanwhile, Mac and I hope you have a Merry Christmas!</span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;">
</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">Did you notice how I left it open for a sequel? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">Also, I used "issue" in that vague, euphemistic sense of "problem," which I wouldn't normally, but I could see Mac and Pete doing that. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">I had fun being Santa this year. I always liked him, though I'm grateful I was never told he was real. Life is hard enough to decipher without being deliberately misled. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">Merry Christmas!</span>drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-41075780491091868112013-09-16T14:52:00.000-04:002013-12-17T16:05:31.075-05:00orcharding with the mighty alan chadwick<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7271294516/" title="P1050772 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050772" height="1024" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7230/7271294516_5c9c6539ba_b.jpg" width="768" /></a>
<br />
<br />
I visited the Alan Chadwick garden while dogsitting in Santa Cruz. It is one of the most enchanted and inspiring places I have ever been. A real Eden, if we understand that Eden takes work. The first time I visited, a beautiful, naturally tanned woman exited the gate as I mounted the stairs. The woman had light brown hair and a few freckles, and held three pears like they were a baby.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7271235394/" title="P1050737 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050737" height="600" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8159/7271235394_3dd705ddeb_c.jpg" width="800" /></a>
<br />
<br />
A goddess. Alan Chadwick was a Shakespearean actor, and a student of Rudolf Steiner, the father of Anthroposophy. He developed a system of orcharding that derived from Steiner's biodynamic system, and from the French Intensive method.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7271248156/" title="P1050726 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050726" height="800" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7271248156_5f3694f960_c.jpg" width="600" /></a>
<br />
<br />
And that's about all I know of him. There isn't a lot of information about Chadwick online, and I've yet to order any of his books. So I wonder, was he happy? Was he queer? (He looks a little queer in his photos, for what it's worth). If he was queer, was he partnered? Was he proud of his glorious, blooming legacy, or would he rather have been another Gielgud? <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7271215070/" title="P1050752 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050752" height="375" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7080/7271215070_74f2e80bef.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<br />
The garden wasn't that close to where I was staying--I rode my host's bike up the first time, and took the campus bus up the second time. "Up" because the garden is high on a hill, and my journey took me through a dry California landscape of suburbs, scrubby woods, and the huge, empty spaces of UC Santa Cruz, where students and blankly quizzical
deer wandered like figures in a de Chirico painting.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7271212892/" title="P1050754 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050754" height="800" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8162/7271212892_f7e59ab34c_c.jpg" width="600" /></a>
<br />
<br />
On one trip up the grassy plains to the garden, I made it to the shade of a redwood grove, and saw a tiny buck with a full, perfect rack. I think I was so tired from the hot, uphill trek (it didn't look so bad on Google maps) that the little buck might have been my spirit guide, but I realized that only later. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7271237326/" title="P1050735 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050735" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8004/7271237326_1ddf0ed7f5_z.jpg" width="640" /></a>
<br />
<br />
Still, it was cool to see him, even if I missed out on enlightenment. Part of the adventure of traveling is
meeting the local animals. Particularly when traveling alone, I feel.
I meet a creature, and think, <i>You don't know how far I came to see you</i>.<br />
<br />
And the animal thinks, <i>You don't know how little I care. </i>
drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-37876343404827779782013-06-04T11:03:00.001-04:002013-09-20T15:43:37.051-04:00visiting my godson's school<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8948349897/" title="photo by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="photo" height="640" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2877/8948349897_868978171a_z.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
<br />
I was invited to Special Person's Day at my godson's school, and, wanting to look appropriately special, I bought the purple leather jumpsuit Eddie Murphy wore in <i>Delirious; </i>one of my better e-Bay<i> </i>finds. When I tried it on I saw it had to be taken in at the waist and let out at the shoulders, so, maybe next year.<br />
<br />
My
godson is a juggernaut. At his school, we arranged
dowels in order of size, painted a picture, and arranged pegs in their proper slots
on a peg board (see above). At home, we played with trains, and read a Richard Scarry book
about occupations in which most of the jobs seemed to be done by men.
The Bob the Builder episodes we watched had better gender parity, but really obvious
foreshadowing. My godson adores earth-moving machinery, so we stood at his window and watched the wheelchair ramp being installed at
his building. A silver-haired guy in the earth-mover smiled and waved, the younger guy with the shovel glowered. This got monotonous, but I didn't want to leave my godson standing on the windowsill. His dad slid a beanbag chair under the windowsill, and I was free to read the <i>Darth Vader and Son </i>book I had brought as a gift (for my friend, the godson got Sendak).<br />
<br />
My
godson and his dad and I were out
for a walk when I realized I only had an hour to see the pre-Raphaelite
show at the National Gallery, so I excused myself and got a cab.When I
rejoined my friend and godson, the latter was really curious if I had
successfully landed the cab, like I'd been big game hunting. I read him the Richard Scarry book again. His mom came home and asked if reading the Richard Scarry book twice made me want to shoot myself. I thought about it, and said no. We played with the trains again till it was time for me to catch my real train. <br />
<br />
On the rainy ride home I read the Rossetti book I picked up at the National Gallery. I'd been wanting to read Rossetti's translation of Dante's <i>New Life </i>for a while, but shouldn't have read it all in one sitting, on a rainy night, late, when I was so tired; the later sonnets about loss and dwindling time seemed very real; Dante can be a more potent downer than Richard Scarry. Still, the <i>New Life </i>was beautiful, and I like becoming better acquainted with both Dantes, Alighieri and Rossetti--the latter a much loved, lifelong friend.<br />
<br />
When I'm old, my godson can visit me on Special Persons Day at the senior home, and maybe, while I conserve my mellow by gazing at the brawny workmen install the new wheelchair ramp, he'll read to me from the <i>New Life</i>.<br />
<br />
Once will be sufficient for both of us. drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-70215404878957765642013-06-04T10:00:00.000-04:002013-06-04T12:53:11.108-04:00two nice reviews of my Black Static story<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Exciting! <br />
<br />
From Dread Central:<br />
<br />
"Drew Rhys White gives us <i>Black Sun</i> next, whereby an unidentified
narrator guides the reader in eulogy of the last days of a murdered young boy.
Building a tone of reverence, White gradually unfurls a sequence of events that
see the bookish young Roman chased, harangued and attacked by schoolmates who
live in another wing of the housing scheme he and his father occupy. In a
masterful turn, however, the author orchestrates a devastating rug-pull that
reveals the more twisted minds at play here are not those that were expected --
forging a moral challenge and skewing of perspective that twists a tight knot
in the stomach."<br />
<br />
From SFRevu Review:<br />
<br />
"Black Sun" by Drew Rhys White -*- Our unnamed narrator seems to
be a police detective investigating the murder of a boy named Roman, murdered
by three youths named Gus, Tony, and Joanie. He is speaking to Roman, talking
about the bullying that had preceded the murder, but also about Roman’s
drawings that he has seen. They are profoundly disturbing but very talented. Is
this the end of the story, our narrator says no and that provides is with the
unease that this effective little story evokes." <br />
<br />
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<![endif]-->drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-17919489749459664282013-03-25T14:38:00.002-04:002013-04-01T18:31:13.288-04:00New Orleans 2013<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8572224965/" title="P1060317 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060317" height="600" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8251/8572224965_8925da6b45_c.jpg" width="800" /></a></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;">My father, brother, and niece. These photos are from a second-line parade my sister-in-law and brother
took us to. We had my mother-in-law along also</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">—</span></span></span>h<span style="font-size: small;">er dad, my camerado's grandfather, wanted us to <span style="font-size: small;">go to a</span> second line parade </span> in New Orleans, so<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>we were glad we could fulfill his hope. (<span style="font-size: small;">My grandfather-in-l</span>aw is a sun <span style="font-size: small;">of radiant </span>goodwill, our pope.) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8573314232/" title="P1060324 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060324" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8088/8573314232_17a9063896_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs sponsor second line parades; two clubs were in this parade, one wearing purple and
one wearing yellow. The purple club went by so fast I could take no photos. Above is the best photo I took of the band for the yellow club. Storm clouds
threatened and the wind was swift and ominous, catalyzing the parade and making it hard to photograph. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8572222087/" title="P1060322 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060322" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8378/8572222087_882c452e06_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I was only able to get this shot because I cut across a parking lot while the parade made a turn. I had my niece and at one point we found ourselves in the direct path of the group
following the parade. I sandwiched my niece
between my camerado and me; the crowd flowed around us, making us a
sandbar in a stream. I thought my sister-in-law would be mad we had
drifted into the parade's tail, but she laughed and said, I thought I
better come rescue you. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8572227857/" title="P1060310 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060310" height="500" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8366/8572227857_f9e4bd613d.jpg" width="375" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">People
bake and wrap snacks to sell; others vend </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">beverages </span>from wagons with ice chests. According to my sister-in-law stylin is another aspect of a
second line; this man styled in steampunk mode. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">New Orleans has good art museums, I've enjoyed NOMA's collection before; this time we saw the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and, across the street, the Contemporary Arts Center. The Ogden has a room of Howard Finster, including a peaceable kingdom of sleek, Godzilla-sized cheetahs pulling chariots of toddlers that in our world would be their snacks. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The Ogden also had Mardi Gras Indian costumes made for the show, <i>Tremé</i>; my mother-in-law is an interior designer with a Medici idiom, Henry James would hire her to do his summer home, so I did not expect her to be so taken with the Mardi Gras Indians costumes. But she savored them as she savored the interiors of the Garden District house tour we took her on. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Because she is knowledgeable about decorative arts<span style="font-size: small;">, </span>fashion, materials, and workmanship, I was proud to show </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">my mother-in-law</span> something that was new to her, and that she <span style="font-size: small;">enjoyed so much</span>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8573302260/" title="P1060372 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060372" height="500" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8508/8573302260_5f8d5256be.jpg" width="375" /></a> </span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">The building that houses the Contemporary Arts Center is beautiful, though its scale is too grand for me. But the exhibits, even when thematically very serious, shared an engaging, playful spirit. For example, below is the interior of a sculpture, <i>The Lion, for Slightly, </i>by Eliza Zeitlin. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8573309560/" title="P1060355 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060355" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8366/8573309560_bda3dd5052.jpg" width="500" /></a></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Lion, for Slightly</i> is an immense lion of car parts and old wood dedicated to "comrades crushed by automobiles." </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Lion </i></span>sits in a huge corner window, looking terrifying from the stre<span style="font-size: small;">et</span>, and inescapably intriguing for anyone who loves monsters (me). Inside, <i>The Lion </i>is an earthbound treehouse. You climb to a middle level and upper deck; hanging pipes invite music-making. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Eliza Zeitlin is part of the Court 13 artists who made <i>Beasts of the Southern Wild</i><span style="font-size: small;">; </span>the museum had props from <i>Beasts</i>, along with videos showing how the effects were done. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Like Coppola's <i>Dracula, </i>t</span>hey looked all or mostly in camera, not post<span style="font-size: small;">. T</span>his made me want to see <i>Beasts of the Southern Wild</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8572204775/" title="P1060378 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060378" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8229/8572204775_75933a30ab.jpg" width="500" /></a></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">The awesome pig beasts that looked so magnificent in </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Beasts </i></span>previews were Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs shot at low angles and wearing monster gear<span style="font-size: small;">!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Age has not withered my love for monsters. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8572232797/" title="P1060287 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060287" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8245/8572232797_cf0e878284_n.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=18069289" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Or fairies. With </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">black nylons, </span>glitter, and coat hangers, a friend made these fairy wings for my niece. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">She is a fan of <i>Abby's Flying Fairy School</i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">.</span> I told her Uncle Andrew also likes fairies and trolls. <span style="font-size: small;">S</span>he was like, okay. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">This visit was the first <span style="font-size: small;">time<span style="font-size: small;"> my niece was walking and talking. She </span></span>is 2.5, speaks in complete sentences, and <span style="font-size: small;">says thank you<span style="font-size: small;">, always</span>. </span></span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">She </span>also knows all fifty s<span style="font-size: small;">tates by their shapes<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">, </span>so </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I taught her the planets, with <span style="font-size: small;">facts about each one<span style="font-size: small;">. A</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">mong other things,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> she can tell you that Saturn has rings<span style="font-size: small;">, </span>Jupiter has the red spot, and <span style="font-size: small;">Mercury is the smallest</span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">But we did </span>not discuss Pluto, planet of exile, where the lonely Brontosaurus roams. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8572231837/" title="P1060298 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060298" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8517/8572231837_5fb62aab1c_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">My brother and sister-in-law are vegan and I am veg<span style="font-size: small;">e</span>t<span style="font-size: small;">arian, so it is hard to <span style="font-size: small;">eat out </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">in this meat-loving town</span></span> </span>with my dad<span style="font-size: small;">. He </span>reduces animals to vapor with lasers from his eye<span style="font-size: small;">s and inhales their </span></span></span>smoke as <span style="font-size: small;">Zeus inhales </span><span style="font-size: small;">hecatombs.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">My sister-in-law stir-fried tempeh<span style="font-size: small;">, onions, and mushrooms and brought them in a metal bento to Mothers, the famous New Orleans restaurant<span style="font-size: small;">, </span>so we could eat more than fries and pie. I<span style="font-size: small;"> can usually eat anywhere<span style="font-size: small;">,</span> but in </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">New Orleans </span></span></span>even "rice and beans" is meaty. </span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8573323974/" title="P1060300 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060300" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8091/8573323974_ef35f84296_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I liked seeing a To<span style="font-size: small;">ynbee tile<span style="font-size: small;"> on Canal Street</span>, a gothic postcard from my home, the Quaker City</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">. I did not know </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">To<span style="font-size: small;">ynbee </span></span>tiles were made f<span style="font-size: small;">rom the ground bones of dead journalists! </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8573312032/" title="P1060346 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1060346" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8530/8573312032_ce189cd212.jpg" width="500" /></a></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Did you?
</span><br />
<br />drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-26008838152222238302013-02-05T11:11:00.000-05:002013-03-22T22:30:06.507-04:00how I won the Liebster Award<a href="http://ftheeiwasateenagequaker.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Helen</a> nominated me for a Liebster Award, honoring undeserved obscurity among bloggers. This nomination is similar to President Obama's premature Nobel Peace Prize in that I must retroactively earn it. In my case, by answering five questions posed by Helen. Consider my answers five Constitutionally rationalized drone strikes against my competitors! <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #333399;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #333399;">1. Assuming you are a reader as well as a writer, name two of your favorite protagonists, one male and one female</span>. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333399;"><span style="color: black;">M</span></span>y favorite characters are Fanny Price in <i>Mansfield Park, </i>whose intelligence, hilariously, is neither noticed nor cultivated by other characters in her book; Lucy Snow in <i>Villette</i>, for her clenched honor, quiet rage and hope; and Mary Poppins, whose occult allegiances are magically invisible to fundamentalists who burn Harry Potter. Middle class without money, Lucy Snowe, Fanny Price, and Mary Poppins embody the paradoxes of <i>petite bourgeois </i>life<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>enviable in a global context, yet struggling in their own.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: navy;">2. What has been the (or one of the) most rewarding experience related to writing your blog? </span><br />
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;"> WINNING THE LIEBSTER AWARD!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #333399;">3. What is your favorite post in your own blog (or post that makes you proudest)?<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><br />
<a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2011/03/against-stereotyping-or-fabulousity.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span>Be Your Own Gay</a>, <a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2011/08/purloined-letter.html" target="_blank">A Purloined Letter</a>, <a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2010/05/preservationists.html" target="_blank">Preservationists</a>, and <a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2011/06/hike-11-of-2011-how-we-survived-pine.html" target="_blank">the</a> <a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2011/04/8th-philly-hike-of-2011-pennypack.html" target="_blank">ones</a> <a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2011/03/hearing-owls-seeing-cottonmouth.html" target="_blank">from</a> <a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2011/05/hike-9-valley-forge-schuylkill-river.html" target="_blank">our</a> <a href="http://tendercomrade.blogspot.com/2011/02/fifth-hike-2011-cape-may-nj.html" target="_blank">hikes</a>. <br />
<span style="color: #333399;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333399;">4. What are some things you do besides blogging?</span> Home improvement. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #333399;">5. If you had to give an acceptance
speech for the Liebster award in front of a live audience, who would you
thank and what would you wear? </span><br />
At the ceremony for the Liebster Award, Helen, who nominated me, would stand on the steps of the Liebster Institute in a long white gown, hang the Leibster medallion around my neck, beam at the masses, and thank me for saving the Blogosphere. I would thank Helen, and after coyly and cryptically coming out, thank my boyfriend Qui-Gon Jinn because<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-46204864304471851192013-01-28T19:15:00.000-05:002013-01-28T19:15:35.134-05:00<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5939302206/" title="P1040120 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040120" height="375" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6150/5939302206_aa307b32f3.jpg" width="500" /></a>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5939303050/" title="P1040122 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040122" height="375" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6149/5939303050_4d717b0a3e.jpg" width="500" /></a>
drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-74498516386785009032013-01-15T01:33:00.000-05:002013-01-28T12:10:43.746-05:00 black sun in black static<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5939097574/" title="P1040042 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040042" height="480" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6137/5939097574_26b2f78d10_z.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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<br />
There's a small town my Methodist ancestors ruled like petty Calvins in their own little Geneva. They passed curfews, and blue laws, and released their suppressed ids by playing sadistic and macabre practical jokes on neighbors and each other. One forebear propped a corpse in his buggy and asked a tavern keeper to take some refreshment to his friend, who was indisposed. (He was an undertaker). <br />
<br />
To this day, the town flies banners that say, <i>Keep Christ in Christmas,</i> viz, we like our public festivities personal and exclusionary. <br />
<br />
I want a banner that says<i> Keep Thor in Thursday, </i><i> </i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8381976097/" title="P1050859 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050859" height="800" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8186/8381976097_7f972cb4d1_c.jpg" width="600" /></a>
<br />
<br />
or, <i>Keep Frigg in Friday.</i> <br />
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My friend Dwight and I both love this parochial, quaintly evil town, where we have many happy childhood memories of band concerts and 4th of July parades. The town's cafe/music venue/used record shop is a good place for breakfast. Dwight is ten years older than I am, and as I have no older brother, is content to assume the duties of this office. Friendship is the mighty consolation of this baneful world. At breakfast, in the record shop, Dwight asked if I was sending any stories out. I said, no. Too busy with changing jobs, and ongoing home improvement ventures.<br />
<br />
Did I have anything good enough to send out? he asked.<br />
<br />
I have this weird story I'm fond of, I said. "Black Sun." Have I read it? he asked.<br />
<br />
I said, no, it's too depressing.<br />
<br />
But it's good?<br />
<br />
I think so. I like it, I said.<br />
<br />
Dwight became angry, and harangued me to mail the story. He was the first person I told when it was accepted, by <i><a href="http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/currentissue/" target="_blank">Black Static</a>. Black Static</i> has won the British Fantasy Award! I share the table of contents with Priya Sharma, Lavie Tidhar, Ilan Lerman, Tim Casson, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Ray Cluley.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/6333974982/" title="november 2011 001 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="november 2011 001" height="375" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6236/6333974982_bbbe47efc5.jpg" width="500" /></a>
<br />
<br />
Jeff VanderMeer, my Clarion workshop teacher, had asked us to write a story that conveys "the weight of murder." In my story, an inept gangster, a psychotic,
and a smoothly competent sociopath crossed paths in a cityscape cut and
pasted from Hitchcock and Michael Powell films. <br />
<br />
It didn't come off. When a story doesn't work, the answer is often:<br />
<br />
You haven't gone deep enough. Or, as Andrew Wyeth says <i>Your art goes as far and as deep as your love goes</i>.<br />
<br />
I rerouted "Black Sun" into the landscapes of my own childhood, and felt like I was on to something.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/8383062958/" title="P1040654 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040654" height="600" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8511/8383062958_e38b48529b_c.jpg" width="800" /></a>
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drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-20088908137563538782012-11-20T10:49:00.000-05:002014-05-27T11:19:44.867-04:00natural/unnatural; dead can dance in philadelphia<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/6333225087/" title="november 2011 014 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="november 2011 014" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6108/6333225087_297fcde344_b.jpg" height="768" width="1024" /></a><br />
<br />
We saw Dead Can Dance a while back, I meant to tell you--mainly, I meant to tell you Lisa Gerard's parting words. After we applauded them back for four encores: "You are all very special," she said, "have beautiful dreams."
It is true we are all special, but few can be special as Lisa Gerard, who sings in her own idioglossia, and whose contralto is so potent and baleful it seems occult--more like the horizontal pupil of the deer or goat than anything else I could think of comparing it to in nature. drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-27941910931040619942012-10-29T20:05:00.000-04:002012-11-30T21:46:15.566-05:00Castle of Saint George, Lisbon<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/6912525478/" title="P1040770 I wanted to see the Castle of Saint George by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040770 I wanted to see the Castle of Saint George" height="768" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7119/6912525478_74df3ea915_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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The Castle of Saint George was a true fortress, like the gated communities of today. It was my idea to see it, on our trip to Lisbon, and it proved a hit with my companions. So, very satisfying. There was a breeze, and the light was exquisite.
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/6912528064/" title="P1040777 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040777" height="1024" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5465/6912528064_206dbd34ef_b.jpg" width="768" /></a><br />
<br />
When I first learned that castles were primarily defensive structures, I
was disappointed, and I guess that disappointment stayed with me. But
the castles of Portugal were so beautiful and varied, and rich in
stories, I'm back to crushing on castles.
<br />
<br />
I'm more guarded myself now, so I suppose I can forgive castles for being the same.
<br />
<br />
We climbed all around the wall walk and looked at the arrow loops and other defenses. It was a wonderfully secure castle, satisfying and invigorating to my paranoia. I took my camerado around the inner gatehouse, and showed him all the places where invaders could be murdered.
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7058611403/" title="P1040782 We climbed all around the high inner walls and looked at the arrow loops and other defenses by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040782 We climbed all around the high inner walls and looked at the arrow loops and other defenses" height="1024" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5334/7058611403_21e077a75e_b.jpg" width="768" /></a><br />
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A pleasing thought! That feeling, in chess, when your bishop moves to attack the enemy rook, and the rook finds his avenues of escape patrolled by one of your knights. That feeling is war's cradle. drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-40587282187093280542012-06-27T08:28:00.001-04:002012-11-30T21:49:30.252-05:00little, big<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7454022136/" title="P1050802 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050802" height="800" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8001/7454022136_69d002c569_c.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />
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He told me he would show me, at the right hour on the right day, and I became very excited and read up on fairy matters and elf lore. One book said there was a county in Ireland that had never been infiltrated by fairies, but that they were even now trickling in to it little by little.<br />
<br />
That surprised me.<br />
<br />
I went to the church at the right hour on the right day, and there he was, a burly man with a dark beard and curly hair, and a large fragment of what must have been a much larger mirror. He set the mirror on the stone floor and I remember the feet of the tourists as they came in and out of the church doorway.<br />
<br />
The doorway that the mirror showed was different from the church doorway it faced. In the mirror I saw a small wooden door in a stone frame, rounded, with a pointed arch, I think--or did memory add that Gothic flourish? The doorway seemed older than Gothic. It would have been very small, maybe 6 or 7 inches high.<br />
<br />
As I looked through the doorway in the mirror, I felt wonderfully happy, just as the man predicted I would.<br />
<br />
Question one: What do you think I saw through the doorway in the mirror?<br />
Question two: Who do you think the man was, with the curly hair and the dark beard?<br />
<br />
I realized as I looked through the doorway that I could hear a song, not so much in the church around me, but inwardly. The next morning I got my violin out of the basement so I could learn the notes of the song, and remember it better, and was surprised how easy the violin was to tune, given how long it had sat.<br />
<br />
(I neglect it; I've always had to work so hard to be any good.)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/7454024348/" title="P1050807 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img alt="P1050807" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8147/7454024348_9cda4e8657_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
(But even the talented people work hard, so I'm in good company.)<br />
<br />
As I taught myself to play the song, I saw that in the night a spider had composed a perfect web between the back porch railings, just over the place where the steps go down to the yard. <br />
<br />
Answer one: A waterfall, some mossy boulders.<br />
Answer two: I don't know, but I can guess.drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-16135201223307860022012-03-16T12:49:00.003-04:002012-03-17T23:29:28.077-04:00zulu coconut<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5509793833/" title="DSCF1417 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5094/5509793833_22a399e4ec_z.jpg" alt="&<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" /><br /></a><br />At Mardi Gras, at the Zulu parade, a woman dressed like a queen stood on a float, brandishing a coconut before the crowd.<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> A handsome man said, throw it to me.<br /><br />You come get it, said the woman.<br /><br />Throw it to me!<br /><br />You come get it.<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5509793833/" title="DSCF1417 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><br /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5510386384/" title="DSCF1406 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5172/5510386384_a9bd60bf69_z.jpg" alt="&<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" /><br /></a><br />The man ran up to the float, and the woman placed the coconut in his hands. One year someone was injured by a flying coconut, so now coconuts are handed from floats. There's the woman on the right.<br /><br />It irks me that America is assumed to have a "heartland," and that this heartland is assumed to be in the middle, where corn grows. I propose we regard New Orleans as the heartland. Is any place more essential than any other? Paul asks, in 1st Corinthians: "Can the eye say to the hand, I have no need of you? Or again, can the head say to the feet, I have no need of you?"<br /><br />Below see a coconut handed to my sister-in-law as soon as we arrived at the Zulu parade.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5510386384/" title="DSCF1406 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><br /><br /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5509822197/" title="DSCF1463 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5252/5509822197_16207f4765_z.jpg" alt="&<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" /><br /></a><br />My sister-in-law said she had been coming to Zulu her whole life and this was her first coconut. She attributed the coconut to the presence of her daughter. It was my niece's first Mardi Gras.<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5509822197/" title="DSCF1463 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><br /><br /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5509796199/" title="DSCF1421 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5171/5509796199_e2e6347463_b.jpg" alt="&<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" /></a><br /><br />I couldn't seem to get a coconut. My brother has lived in New Orleans for more than a decade, and hasn't gotten one yet! When I woke on Mardi Gras it had never occurred to me to want a painted coconut, but shortly after arriving at Zulu, I wanted one badly.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5510413858/" title="DSCF1451 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5138/5510413858_d86aaa0f21_z.jpg" alt="&<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" /></a><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span>Through desire and scarcity, a commodity is born. <br /><br />People invest in gold when times are tough, but you could eat a coconut.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5510418542/" title="DSCF1457 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5019/5510418542_58e1182b59_z.jpg" alt="&<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" /></a><br /><br />There are many prizes at the Zulu parade. I was tossed a Kung Fu Panda, and an enormous quantity of beads was flung me by an old man high in the upper tiers of a float. You're supposed to trade the beads for views of people's anatomy on Bourbon Street, but I didn't know this, and didn't know what largesse the old man was showing me. The beads were worth endless vistas of human flesh, oceans, mountains, deserts of flesh. I just wore them; my father clued me in later. I'm always late to the party, always the guy saying How long has this been going on? Like the mediocre servant in the Parable of the Talents.<br /><br />When I'm ripe to fall from some teetering height of years, will I fling my leftover will to some younger proxy?<br /><br />It's expensive to be on a Mardi Gras float; you buy all the gifts that are flung--or handed--to the crowd. Anyone who can afford it can be on a float, and anyone on a Zulu float wears blackface. Black people wear blackface and white people wear blackface.When I first noticed this, it gave me a jolt.<br /><br />A woman on a float watched me watching the parade, and wanted to give me a coconut.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5510544760/" title="DSCF1533 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5254/5510544760_3d126aea73_z.jpg" alt="&<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" /> </a><br />I didn't notice her: you know how I gape at the world in a state of transfixed rapture. A tourist is a soap bubble, hovering above the scene hollowly, empty of thought or judgment, delirious with reflections.<br /><br />But I heard the woman yelling Hey, hey, HEY! and looked, and ran up for my coconut. She placed it in my hands.<br /><br />So I got my coconut.<br /><br />The day after Mardi Gras, we went birdwatching, and my father asked me to be sure to stay in touch with my niece throughout her life, to look out for her when he was gone and share all the enthusiasms that unite our family--presumably art films, strange dense novels, and natural science. She'll get all that from her parents, as well as a political intelligence that I couldn't give her. But my father had paid me a huge compliment in asking. It tells me he thinks I have something essential to offer, or I embody some living piece of the encouragement or wisdom he could give his granddaughter in her life. Either way, it was a grave compliment, and probably the wrong time to joke. "You bet," I told him. "I've already gotten her a subscription to Baby New Yorker."<br /><br />"They have a Baby New Yorker?" he said.<br /><br />I said no, I was kidding, and assured him I would always stay in touch with my niece. To be essential to your family is a great thing. I'm grateful to be valued, and don't take it for granted.<br /><br />To be loved is the real coconut.drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-66158159221853118902012-02-19T19:32:00.007-05:002012-03-16T11:57:47.061-04:00pantokrator<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5511503248/" title="mardi gras 2 014 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5297/5511503248_ce7d9b3a9c_z.jpg" alt="mardi gras 2 014" width="640" height="480" /></a><br /><br />If there is a Christ, one would suppose he is well over the crucifixion by now and has moved on to other things, like making new worlds, or kindling love from the heart's brushwood of fears and hurts. But at Mardi Gras some killjoys, belated Simons of Cyrene, drag the cross from Golgotha, their home, and parade it around to remind us of the gory retroactive consequence of our supposed sins.<br /><br />The resurrection ferns over their heads reproach them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10398853@N07/5510443758/" title="DSCF1499 by givecowsguns, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5178/5510443758_d43fe6eb87_b.jpg" alt="DSCF1499" width="768" height="1024" /></a><br /><br />Should the central icon of our religion be grisly death, or renewed and fruitful life?drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-25871874524957269992012-02-19T19:26:00.008-05:002013-03-25T10:53:50.167-04:00spy boyThe first time I went to New Orleans I found a friendly local to show me around. He was a drag queen. He drove me to all the neighborhoods and took me inside his friends' homes. We went to a vintage shop where I got two wool jackets for $15 each, and he admired a shimmering golden gown--the beaded kind a girl could throw in a suitcase and not need to iron. I wish I had bought it for him. I wanted to buy him dinner to say Thanks, but he had to go to his job.<br />
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Later, I called him and asked if that gown was still in the shop, and told him to buy it for himself. I'd mail him a check. He said<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">oh no honey, that's long gone</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>
My host also took me to see what I would have called a voodoo "priestess," but I've heard that <i>mother </i>may be a more precise term. She was a small woman with the same air of silent teeming intelligence you see in photos of Joyce Carol Oates. We met her in her shop. I was awed, but, a good tourist, I'm frequently awed.<br />
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We went to a shop with remains of old costumes from various parades. Each time my host referenced a parade I hadn't heard of, I was surprised. "They have a parade for that?" I would say. I only knew about Mardi Gras. My host would say,<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"><br />honey, they have a parade every time a cat has kittens</span><br />
<br />
or<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"><br />honey, they have a parade every time a dog pees on the sidewalk</span><br />
<br />
When I came back for Mardi Gras, I met up with my friend, in a bar. He was wearing a pith helmet and beads, and was in no state for conversation. I talked to a friend of his, a college professor in a bear suit. "You're a bear," I said.<br />
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"And so are you," said the professor.drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-72188763858205235392012-01-08T19:38:00.010-05:002012-02-28T12:16:59.705-05:002011 best live musicMy hip, Hemingway-reading great-grandfather Pop White (a shrewd farmer who vaunted his success by buying a new car every year of the Depression), and, we suspect, his son my uptight grandfather (nicknamed "The Sponge" for his genius at freeloading) saw burlesque shows at the Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia; my father and I see concerts there now, making me the fourth generation of my family to attend this establishment. The Troc was the venue for the best concert I saw in 2011, the Civil Wars: the sound was perfect, and, strangely, when the audience sang along (the house was full of fans) they sounded <span style="font-style: italic;">great</span>. Not usually the case with singing fans at shows. The highlight of the evening was the Wars' shivery cover of <span style="font-style: italic;">Billie Jean</span>. This was a great night at my favorite venue, thank you Civil Wars, singing fans, and my camerado, whose idea it was to go.<br /><br />After the Civil Wars I might put Lucinda Williams and Teddy Thompson at a tie. Lucinda Williams is a favorite of my Dad's; he's seen her 12 times. This year was my 2nd. Although Williams is a song-writing goddess and sings like a barfly sibyl uttering uncanny prophecies just as she's slipping off her barstool, she doesn't get under my skin like she gets under my Dad's. I think she's his ideal woman, and who could blame him? Her concert was stunning--she roved through every outpost of human experience, and did two of my favorite of her songs: <span style="font-style: italic;">Honeybee </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Unsuffer Me</span>--the latter the most powerful rendition of a song I've seen since Annie Lennox did <span style="font-style: italic;">Cold </span><span>with such unnerving candor</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>she </span>caused an audience to spontaneously rise to its feet<span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br />Lucinda Williams also covered Buffalo Springfield's <span style="font-style: italic;">For What It's Worth</span>, showing great taste, and dedicated it to Occupy, also showing excellent taste. My Dad, my Dad's girlfriend, and my camerado and I all dug this show immensely.<br /><br />Teddy Thompson opened for KD Lang; he's such a great singer and song-writer but seems to be holding back. With that voice and his song-writing skills he could take over the world with a single power-ballad, and be another Adele. But his aesthetic is one of restraint. At one point Teddy Thompson let out an incredibly long, full-throated note that made the audience gasp. It was unique in his set. He was an interesting contrast to KD Lang, who followed him, and showed off her exquisite bellowing till I was numbed to it. She has a glorious voice. The audience lost their minds when KD Lang started doing Leonard Cohen's <span style="font-style: italic;">Hallelujah</span>,but I wasn't persuaded that the world needs another version of this song. Still, I like it that she performed this weird song, about religious and sexual and other forms of rapture--with its icy sadomasochistic currents--for the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics: That was an admirably perverse choice. KD Lang's new song <span style="font-style: italic;">I Confess </span>is great, very funny and sexy, and we liked her band, and the audience was the queerest I've ever been in. A fun night out at the magnificent Kimmel Center, with my camerado, who also suggested this one.<br /><br />Again with my Dad, it was a thrill to see Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the dazed hippie genius of country music, at World Cafe. I had seen him before, performing in a park with his son. This time the audience was dead, checked-out except for one young hippie who stood up front doing annoying interpretive dances to each song, entranced by his own acid trails. Jimmie Dale and his band, the Wronglers, must have a strange impression of Philadelphia audiences. I love Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and was excited to buy a poster and get his autograph. His version of <span style="font-style: italic;">In the Pines, </span>on the "Heirloom Music" album, may be my favorite version of this song, which is my <span style="font-style: italic;">Amazing Grace</span>.<br /><br />Back to the Trocadero, my biggest concert disappointment of 2011 was Peter Murphy with She Wants Revenge. I'm not blaming Peter Murphy: he was fantastic, Liza Minnelli couldn't have had more vitality. I think of Peter Murphy as a cool, aloof type, but he put on a <span style="font-style: italic;">show</span>. I've always liked him, but when I saw how game he was to go all out for his fans, I loved him. Murphy did <span style="font-style: italic;">Marlene Dietrich's Favorite Poem--</span>I hoped he might! and an acoustic <span style="font-style: italic;">Bela Lugosi's Dead</span>, something you wait your whole life for. (Next time, I hope, <span style="font-style: italic;">Crystal Wrists</span>). But the sound at the Troc was terrible; we were closest to the stage in the first balcony--and the Troc is small--but Peter Murphy sounded like he was at the bottom of a swimming pool; I couldn't make out a word. It was a long night. The openers, She Wants Revenge, were mesmerizing the first time I saw them (at the TLA), but they seemed subdued at the Troc, tired or disappointed--keeping their coats on like folks who stop by your house but <span style="font-style: italic;">really can't stay</span>. Coupled with the bad sound, this made for a weak show. However, based on how great they were the first time I saw them, I would see She Wants Revenge again.<br /><br />I also saw Joan Baez, who is very cool, though perhaps not cool enough to drive all the way to Glenside for. I went mainly to hang out with my Dad. But Joan Baez told a memorable story that made the trip worth it: about being a very young woman sent to wake Martin Luther King with a song (he was due for a speaking engagement). She's an excellent mimic, and very funny; her imitation of a drowsy MLK was so spot-on, it was like being there with her; time vanished.<br /><br />Prufrock measured his life out with coffee spoons; I guess I'm measuring mine with theater and concerts. In January I get that feeling of a kid up way past his bedtime--excited, a little frightened, awestruck. I'm perched on a hill, on a heaped-up mass of time, at the old year's midnight. Winter and autumn slope away behind me, the remaining winter and spring slope into darkness ahead of me. In this mood I write my posts about the best live performances from the year that's ended, which is how I learn what I really thought of them.drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18069289.post-45296291626202433542011-12-04T12:22:00.002-05:002011-12-04T12:28:33.482-05:00passengersAfter work, we take the train from Philly to Ambler to see my dad, who is a charismatic nurseryman in Montgomery County.<br /><br />(Walking around Doylestown, he showed me trees he planted in his 20s, and told of bygone revels where acid tabs floated in wine bottles floating around all-night lawn parties).<br /><br />My camerado and I get on at Market East station with some books and half a pecan pie for my dad. The seats are packed with commuters; I see two together, free only because a woman has parked herself on the aisle and covered the remaining seats with a bag and backpack. I ask if we can sit there, she pauses her phone conversation, stands with an air of resentment, and indicates we may scoot in. I do so, but this has already taken so long and been so awkward that my camerado has taken the solo seat behind us.<br /><br />I looked forward to this journey with him, so now I'm resenting this woman who took up three seats on a packed commuter train and prevented me from sitting next to someone who's only, you know, my <span style="font-style: italic;">soulmate.</span> The woman resumes her phone conversation, conducting it in a language that to my ears sounds African. My resentment shrivels like a slug in salt. Everyone has a journey, and no immigrant has an easy journey.<br /><br />The woman talks through two stations, and gets off the train. Of her entire conversation, only one sentence, folded casually into the surrounding African cadences, is in English:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">everything you have will be destroyed<br /></span><br />We have a great dinner in Ambler with my dad. He tells unbelievable stories about our family, raves about the pecan pie we made, and reminds me of the time we saw two whooping cranes with their (sole) offspring in a grassy river bed along the Gulf Coast, which, incredibly, I had forgotten. On the way back from Ambler in the empty train, I tell my camerado about what the woman from Africa said on the phone. His eyes grow large.<br /><br />"That's really ominous," he says.<br /><br />"I know!" I say.<br /><br />"It sounds like something you would make up in one of those stories you write."drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08390339400645620738noreply@blogger.com0