Author: Dale

The Great Cross Country Caper, Day 2: San Francisco

Posted on by Dale

In which a Woman fulfills her Dream of Driving across this Great Land of Ours, accompanied by her Husband, who Hates to Drive

A note about last night’s flight: I joked that there would be nothing to blog about because it was night and there would be nothing to see out of my window.

But there was always something to see out of my window. No matter when I looked out over this continent, there were always lights out there somewhere.

I noticed this last year when the Lichtenbergians flew out here for our Annual Retreat. That flight was during the day, and the landscapes were stunning, phantasmagorical—but they were almost never without the footprint of humans. Roads, power lines, hiking trails, small tracks carved into the hills, all proclaimed the presence of humans.

And last night, even in the pitch black of a transcontinental night flight, we were there. It might be only a couple of specks, widely separated, but our presence was unmistakable and inescapable.

When we finally began our descent into SFO, then, the display was dazzling: huge quilts of light, spiderwebbed across the entire landscape, and in constant motion. It was sobering.

—————

It’s morning now, and we’re slowly moving out of the door.  I have photos of our hotel, the Stanyan Park Hotel, but I have to wait until I download iPhoto for the iPad so I can rename photos before uploading them.  I don’t have to; I could simply let WordPress upload them for me, but then they disappear into WordPress’s filing system.

—————

LATER (LIKE THE NEXT MORNING)

Incredible day, folks.  We started out by driving to Fisherman’s Wharf, via Lombard Street.    I had driven down it last fall with the Lichtenbergians, but my lovely first wife was completely unprepared for the exhilaration of twisting our way down those hairpin curves.  What neither of us can get over is that people live on that street.  Is it more expensive or less to live in the most photographed place in the city?

I noted that, like last year, I was the only one driving down it.  One’s paranoia kicks in: is it bad form to do so and everyone but me understands this?

And so we get to Fisherman’s Wharf.  It is amazingly touristy, of course, so we plunged right in.

One must-see is the Musée Mechanique, a fabulous collection of old coin-operated automatons: fortune tellers, dancing minstrels, scenes from farms and fairs, and an amazing number of executions.  There are also a number of old peep-show “movies” which were very tempting, although only one of us succumbed to their allure.

Here is the lovely first wife sitting in a device called The Passion Factor.  (Hush Jobie.)  The glow behind her head is the light of the heart labeled “Uncontrollable.”

You might very well think that, but I could not possibly comment.

Obligatory shot of Alcatraz:

Since this was a spur-of-the-moment trip, we were unable to get tickets to go out, but I think next time we must do this.  Do they let you walk naked down the block, I wonder?

We moved on, as good tourists do, to Pier 39, where one of us fell in love with the sea lions.

I think we would have stood looking at these animals all day.  They were incredibly amusing: basking, lolling, flopping, barking, chest-bumping.

http://http://dalelyles.com/crosscountry/cc2_wharf6.mov (I don’t know why this isn’t embedding.  Click it anyway.)

Eventually we tore ourselves away and spent some money as we were required to do.  It is interesting that both of us seem to have reached a point in our lives where the lure of more stuff is simply not there. The fact that most of the stuff being offered was not gorgeous also helped.

But then we entered the Spice & Tea store.  Oh my.  Salts, teas, spices, sugars, and accoutrements.  I spent lavishly, including a bamboo salt cellar with four compartments.  Also, salts to go in them.  And sugars, mostly to rim cocktails, naturally.

Lunched at Fog Harbor.  Good food, but the cocktail list was unadventurous and the bar didn’t look well-stocked.  I stuck to wine.

http://dalelyles.com/crosscountry/cc2_wharf5.mov

Outside our window, the U.S. and New Zealand were preparing for the next two heats of the America’s Cup race.  The U.S. yacht was being skippered by the CEO of Oracle, who clearly decided that since he was going to be in town, his company needed to have their international get-together the week following.  Which is why we found it so difficult to find a place to stay in San Francisco: 30,000 geeks have clogged up the place.

—————

Everyone said, “You’ve got to go to Muir Woods!”  Literally everyone who had been to San Francisco said that.  It’s about an hour north of the city, and since it would take us over the Golden  Gate Bridge, we began to plan getting there.

You would think in a city swarming with National Recreation Areas, most of which are named Golden Gate, it would be easy to get a National Parks annual pass.  You would be wrong.

The store at Pier 39 had closed.  We spent the better part of an hour driving around the Presidio—impressive, so not time wasted—trying to find the office there, only to discover that it was open Thu-Sat only.  Feh.

Finally I checked the list online, and it seemed that Muir Woods itself could sell us the pass.  So off we went.

Here’s the deal: if you are ever in San Francisco, YOU HAVE TO GO TO MUIR WOODS.  Forget the trolley cars.  GO TO THE WOOD!

It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  Even the usually empirical lovely first wife was overcome by spirituality.

Silence—lush, lush silence—chaotic green—and those giant gods, the redwoods…

There were Others there.

Go to the wood.

—————

On the way back, we stopped at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area so we could go watch the setting sun light up that beautiful bridge.  That was our second mistake.

Our first mistake was not packing a USB cable to charge the phones with.  Mine died as we approached the bridge.  The lovely first wife’s phone was at 20%.

So when—as we set out past the old fortifications on our way to the top of the headlands—we were stopped by a vaguely Scandinavian gentlemen who asked us to assist a Chinese couple who had locked their keys in their rental car, we were limited in our abilities.

Oh, and they spoke no English.  The Scandinavian disappeared, leaving us trying to figure out how to do this.  We called 911, but they don’t do that, of course.

We called Avis and got through to their roadside assistance, but since I was not the renter, they found it difficult to respond.  Finally they offered to get a translator on the line if I could hold, but of course I couldn’t.

The Chinese couple had a phone, but it kept dropping calls.

I finally called my AAA and explained the situation (after I was transferred from our own Club South to someone closer to the situation).  They could send someone to unlock the car, but it would take 45 minutes, and we would have to be there to accept the help.  I explained that in 45 minutes, we would not have a phone for them to contact us through.

But there we were.  I drew little pictures to indicate that help was on the way, and we gestured that we would go ahead and walk up to the view while we waited.

Up we went, and when I saw a quartet of Chinese college students, I hailed them.  Did they speak English?  Yes.  Did they speak Chinese?  Yes.  I explained the situation to them and asked if they would see if they could help the couple at the bottom of the hill.  Sure…

<long story snipped>

It took only 15 minutes, and after clearing up some confusion with the roadside guy (Calvin, also of Chinese extraction though not a speaker) about where we were—no one to whom I spoke seemed to know there was a park/overlook on top of the headlands on the north side of the bridge—he arrived in his bright yellow truck and unlocked the hapless couple’s car.

Hotel, dinner at Cha Cha Cha, right around the corner on Haight Street, and yes, some hippie kid offered me drugs (I think: his exact words were, “Are you looking for something?”  I think he was having the straight people on; I wish I had turned and said, “Yeah, how about two eighths of shrooms?” just to see his face.)

Great tapas, and then further down Haight to Alembic, a noted bar whose stock was awe-inspiring.  Bottles I didn’t even recognize, you guys!  I had their Mexican Radio: tequila, pineapple gum syrup, lime and their special combination of sherry, kahlua, and Fernet Branca.  Tasty, but not one I’ll add to my list.  I followed that with a Sazerac, and that was awesome.

The lovely first wife, who had been nursing a simple bourbon, decided we’d close out by sharing a Cinnamon Twist, a yummy little dessert drink that is nonetheless a sorority girl drink.  So I pretended to be embarrassed in ordering it.  Then I pretended not to be embarrassed when our bartender said he couldn’t make it because he didn’t have a single ingredient.

That’s how cool this bar was: it did not have on its shelves butterscotch schnapps, Goldschläger, or Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Mercy.

The Great Cross Country Caper, Day 1: Out of ATL

Posted on by Dale

We’re waiting for our flight—I have surprised my lovely first wife with an upgrade to first class, so there’s that to be excited about.

We ate at trendy little place on E Concourse called One Flew South. Nice food, and I got a cocktail called Rise of the Phoenix: mezcal, yellow chartreuse, lime, strawberry, and black pepper scattered across the top. Wonderful musty flavor with the layers of fruit, nothing overpowering, and the scent of the fresh cracked pepper added another assault on the nose with each sip.

I neglected to take a photo, but I’m still developing my workflow here.

The flight is already late on its ETD. We’ll be pulling into San Francisco closer to midnight than previously thought. That is of course 3:00 in the morning our time. There will be some adjustment.

By the way, there are some in our party who are worried that by blogging about our Great Cross Country Caper, I am revealing our absence from home to the scores of my readers who monitor my blog in order to rob me. To those people, I say NUH-UH: we have a hireling living in our home while we are away YES WE DO TOO SO DON’T EVEN TRY IT I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING.

They have started loudspeaking at us about boarding. I would promise to blog more as we fly, but what on earth would I be blogging about? I have a window seat, but it has been pointed out to me that it’s going to be night-time. We’ll see.

Here we go.

LATER:  It is 9:00, CDT, and some thoughts have occurred to me.

First of all, we are not seated in first class.  We are in business class.

There’s a distinction, I’m sure, but I am not far up enough the food chain to know it already, and I doubt it would be worth my while to research the difference.  I thought first class was extinct, but somewhere up here in the stratosphere it must still exist.

I thought maybe they had killed it off because of the associations with this old Southern Airlines ad:

Because no matter what you call it, those seats up front are better than those behind us.  We have wider seats, more legroom, free beverages, not to mention the dancing girls and lobster.  (There is no lobster.)

I am tempted to go full-bore Marxist here and say that of course first class morphed into business class:  they are still our lords and masters, are they not?  I feel like an interloper, although I daresay I am as well-educated and/or employed as most of my fellow overlords up here.

On the one hand, it’s a comfort to know that I’m seated in business class with my free gin and tonics simply because when I went to choose our seats last night, these were available and I felt comfortable (economically speaking) to splurge on the upgrade.  (Full disclosure: the upgrades cost almost as much as the flight itself—deep discounts on the flight.)

On the other hand, that’s what it all boils down to: the ability to pay.  Those who have the cash (or in my case, the credit limit)  can move up to the Empyrean of business class.  The rest of you have to suck it.

I think it’s worth pondering, too, that there are only twelve of these seats. Even if everyone on this flight could afford the upgrade, they couldn’t get it.  Selective scarcity.  Perfect Marxist metaphor.

Do not get me wrong: if you’ve got the money, spend it.  There’s no point in being ashamed of having earned it, even if you’re the shameless overpaid CEO of some company that’s giving you an 8-figure income just to go away.  Okay, in that case you should probably be ashamed.  But on the whole, go for it.  Have multiple homes on several coasts; fly to NYC to catch the opening night at the Met; fly business class.

However, it is a sad truth that, as Anouilh put it in Ring Round the Moon, “Money is magic.”  Because I can afford it, I can stretch my legs on this five-hour flight.  I can afford health insurance.  I can afford tickets to the San Francisco Opera.

Here’s another implication of the Marxist metaphor:  recently, we spent a lovely very long weekend in a friend’s second home in Beaufort, SC.  It was a gorgeous home in a very nice neighborhood on a practically private island.  I noticed when we drove out onto the island that the end of the county-maintained road was clearly announced—and that the road immediately improved.

I mused at the time that our friends at FOX News or The National Review  or The Heritage Foundation would lecture us that of course the road was better when it was maintained by the private sector, but the truth was somewhat the inverse: when we don’t pull together as a society, taxing ourselves enough to maintain our infrastructure, then only the wealthy will  have nice roads.

Business class, baby, business class.

The Great Cross Country Caper. Together.

Posted on by Dale

In which a Woman fulfills her Dream of Driving across this Great Land of Ours, accompanied by her Husband, who Hates to Drive

In another three and a half hours, my lovely first wife and I will be driven to Hartsfield International Airport, and at approximately 9:00 p.m., we will board a flight to San Francisco. Here’s how this happened.

About two weeks ago we were dining on a lovely dinner of grilled salmon, and I asked again what she truly wanted for her 60th birthday. I had struck out previously, so much so that rather than taking her out to a very nice restaurant, we just all gathered at Taco Mac for a meal and then came back to the house for cake and ice cream.

Also previously, she had decided that we would go visit friends in Florida and with them we would go to Harry Potter World in Orlando sometime in October.  Kind of odd, I thought at the time, since I’m the Harry Potter fan, but she was intent on saving money by staying with our friends.  (We were both retired/unemployed at the time.)

So as we were dining on our salmon (balsamic raspberry glazed) she said something that led me to believe that she was not as excited about HP as she had led people, i.e., me, to believe.

I asked again what she truly wanted for her birthday, and she said, “All I’ve ever wanted to do…”

…at which point I found myself thinking, “I wonder if I’ve ever heard this one”…

“…is to fly to San Francisco and then just take our time and drive back across the country.”

…No.  I had not…

All righty then, I said, and before this decision could dissipate in ifs, buts, and we coulds—which sometimes maybe could happen sometimes in our married life—I booked a one way flight to SFO right there at the table, followed by a rental car due in New Orleans on October 4, and train tickets back to Atlanta.

There.  We were committed.  The last two weeks have kept us, i.e., her, busy finding hotel rooms and mapping an itinerary that includes every single national park between SF and NOLA, plus Vegas.  And maybe Austin.

So here I am, packed and ready to do this.  Let’s do this!  Follow along here on my blog; it will be very exciting, like a reality show only with side bets on where I dump her body in the desert.

My father’s house

Posted on by Dale

I’m sitting on our back deck, which is second-story and overlooks the cluster of backyards of our block—green, green space.  It is pouring down rain, and the sight and sound of it is quite lovely.  It has prompted me to get around to writing this post.

Several weeks ago as I was out walking, I passed a house in our neighborhood and was reminded that it—like many of the large homes hereabout—used to be a boarding house.  In fact, it’s where my father lived before moving the family to Newnan the first time in 1960.

I don’t remember the landlady’s name, but I do remember coming up to visit.  My mother was not in favor of the move necessarily, and I’m sure there were things to discuss.  I don’t remember that she brought all four of us; I’d be very surprised if she did.

But I do remember the house.

My father started college but did not complete it.  Instead, having met and married the pretty Jean Clark from Perry, GA, he calculated that he would move farther and faster by signing on with the Georgia Power Company and working his way up the ranks.  He was not completely wrong and can be excused for not seeing that the path all the way to the top would involve at least a bachelor’s degree.

Within six years of their marriage, they had four children under the age of six.  We lived in a house on unpaved, red-dirt Hitchcock Road, east of Macon, which my grandfather had built on property behind his house, which faced Irwinton Highway.  (I’m not sure whether he built it for my parents.  It certainly did not seem new to me, even then.)

It was a simple two-bedroom house with a breezeway and an attached garage.  I remember the land being fairly flat, but after you drove into the garage, there was a flight of steps up to a loft kind of area that then led into the breezeway and thence into the kitchen.  (There were steps down into the back yard.)

I remember we enclosed the breezeway to become a den.  That’s where we moved the first television, black and white naturally, and that’s were we mostly played.

The rooms were small, no more than fifteen feet square, and I would guess closer to twelve feet or even ten.  We three older siblings shared one of the bedrooms and the youngest slept in a crib in my parents’ room.  Just one bath.  Small dining area that I think was open to the kitchen.

Anyway, it was a good house, even though it would probably fit within the back half of my current home.

And so, sometime in the spring or summer of 1960, we pulled up in front of this boarding house on Wesley Street in Newnan, GA, and it changed my life.

It was huge. It had two stories. It had an enormous front porch, and a door with glass in it. Through that door were spacious rooms with a staircase leading up to a whole other house!

Not only that, but it was surrounded by more houses just like it! With trees! The streets were actually streets, with sidewalks, and it was in the middle of a city.

Now I’m sure that the house was rundown in that shabby and genteel way that most of the houses in my neighborhood were when I and my lovely first wife moved into our house back in 1981. But to a six-year-old, it was an inspiration. It was a mansion, and people actually lived like this.

Needless to say, my whole worldview was upended. The fact that we moved to Newnan into a home at the bottom of West Washington Street that in no way resembled the homes one block away did not disillusion me. I now knew what a proper house looked like.

My father’s climb through the hierarchy of the power plants meant that we had to move back to Macon in a year and a half, at Christmas of 1961, halfway through my second grade, back into the little house on red-dirt Hitchcock Road. My mother fought this one tooth and nail, having seen what a good school system looked like, and in another year and a half we were back in time for me to start fourth grade. (Fifty years ago, for those keeping score.)

This time it was for good. We moved into a modern home on Winfield Drive, and there we stayed. It had three bedrooms and two baths, and a full basement. There were separate spaces for family dining and formal dining, and it sat on a large lot in a neighborhood of large lots. We were now firmly part of the middle class.

When it came time for my lovely first wife and me to buy a home, however, we went straight back to the College-Temple neighborhood. Full disclosure: none of my six-year-old self had anything to do with our choice. To be frank, my lovely first wife sought out a house, and I rejoiced in her taste and discernment without really connecting it to the source of my childhood awe.

Our parents were appalled: buying a completely unrenovated older home in a neighborhood of older homes was unthinkable to their generation. But it worked for us. We started out with large rooms, a big front porch, and a front door with glass in it. The house may have needed a ton of work, but the “bones” of the place, as real estate agents would say, were actually better than our parents’ houses, and here we’ve stayed, even adding on to the place twenty years ago, doubling the size of our Craftsman bungalow into a spacious older home of grace and charm in a neighborhood of beautiful homes.

This past Wednesday, I walked a couple of blocks over to a local law firm, where I sat down and sold my parents’ house. Then I walked back down the sidewalk, past the church, across the street, and into my front door.

Finishing the wall

Posted on by Dale

I don’t know.  I think I may be finished (except for the little pedestal bit).

The new part. I was surprised at how easily it tapered down to the end.  The hard part was trying to keep the thing looking level.

We’ll let it settle in and make adjustments from there.

I have several large pieces left over; they’re going to start my project, paving around the firepit.

Implied projects

Posted on by Dale

Let’s look at all the creative projects implied by the mess in my study.  I think I’ll just list them.  Commentary would be superfluous.

  • A Perfect Life, a rambling memoir of sorts of what life was like for an educated upper middle class white male in the turn of the 21st century
  • painting:
    • the Field series
    • the Epic Lichtenbergian Portrait
    • general drawing
    • Artist Trading Cards
    • learning to mix colors, especially for portraiture
  • rescore A Christmas Carol
  • rescore William Blake’s Inn
  • find a home for William Blake’s Inn
  • archive all the GHP stuff
  • compose
    • Five Easier Pieces
    • the Symphony
    • a song for John Tibbetts II
    • other stuff…
  • continue my reading/writing/exploration of ritual and meditation
  • make the little icon/box
  • learn counterpoint so that someday there might actually be a Six Fugues (without preludes)

Wow.  That’s not a lot.  You’d think I would have already gotten all this done.

New favorite cocktail

Posted on by Dale

In my continuing exploration of Forgotten Cocktails, I came across the Barnum (Was Right) Cocktail.  I’m not sure whether one is supposed to call it a Barnum or give it the full Was Right treatment.

I was completely taken with the drink; it’s now my favorite, both in its original form and in my tweak of it.

Barnum Cocktail

  • 2 oz. gin
  • 1 oz. apricot brandy
  • 1/2 oz. lemon juice
  • 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with lemon twist.

Very very nice.

Since the Lovely First Wife doesn’t care for gin (although she liked this drink), I tried it with vodka and Peychaud’s bitters for a slightly rounder taste.  It’s OK with this variation, but if you use Karlsson’s Gold vodka, then you really have something.  The earthy tones of the Karlsson’s completely fill out the flavor.

Stuff

Posted on by Dale

I began unpacking my old office stuff, and doing so raises an issue: what to do with all that stuff.

I had four large plastic tubs filled with stuff from my office: books, folders, decorative items, a veritable medicine cabinet, a small flock of tools, rulers, pens, inks, markers, sticky notes, labels, teas, a coffee maker, memorabilia, and an  “idea card stadium” with hundreds of idea cards.

All of this flotsam was largely in duplication of stuff I already have at home.  Those of you with an office know how it is; you need a second stick of deoderant at work for those days when your brain can’t even manage the unconscious ritual of your morning toilette.  (Oh, right, like that hasn’t happened to you…)
So what is one to do with an actual duplicate desk?  How does one merge two worlds when one of them no longer exists, especially when there’s barely enough room for the one that’s already there?

Truth be told, that’s why it’s taken me a month to even look at those tubs.  It wasn’t going to make me all maudlin about my cubicle in the Twin Towers overlooking the Capitol—I just couldn’t manage thinking about where I was going to put everything.

I’ve kind of done it.  At least the tubs are empty; not everything has found a home yet, nor will it for a while longer.  But the tubs are empty. Now I’m looking around my study and thinking I need to completely overhaul it so that I will have a place for all my stuff.

Why I could go to work for 36 years and not be bothered by the fact that I didn’t have a place for all my stuff is quite irrelevant.  Now that I’m at home all day every day and rapidly approaching that new period where I will actually start being productive/creative again, it is critical that I reorganize/redesign/restructure the study so that I have a Place. For. All. My. Stuff.

I mean, look at this:

 

click to embiggen

 

Let’s just look at the stuff here and pinpoint why it’s even in my study.

On the left, a big blue tub of material I used to carry to GHP as assistant director.  It didn’t make the trip in 2012 or 2013.  Atop that is a box of my old choral music, and on top of that is memorabilia from my office.

Ignore the books in the back.

At the bottom of the photo, underneath where you can’t see it, a tub of material from Lacuna Group’s work on William Blake’s Inn.  Atop that, a painting (unfinished) from the Field series; a box of art paper and envelopes; to the right of that, a desk tray, and an old wooden box with office supplies, and under that, the large blank book in which I will write A Perfect Life (some day).  To the right of that, my leather satchel, formerly used for travel to the office, now my Lacuna kit.

On the table, markers, glue, paint for various thinks, like Artist Trading Cards and more paintings; books on the creative process; more cards/envelopes.  A large wooden box with drawers of music score paper and other implements.  On top of that, two DVDs on mixing colors; books on orchestration and composition, rhyming dictionaries, drawing books, and three study scores: Brahms’ 4th, Shostakovich’s 15th, and Strauss’s Death & Transfiguration.

Under the table where you can’t see them, my drawing box/kit, a Lacuna Group tub for our “bear/giraffe” piece, and the original pages of my Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro.  Plus two blank Moleskine notebooks that I have just now reclaimed to begin doing morning pages.

On the shelves behind the table, books, but also folders of materials for setting to music; copies of William Blake’s Inn and A Christmas Carol; stationery; blank books, some of which have ongoing narratives in them (Figaro, William Blake, the Symphony, etc.); a box of videocassettes of the 2002 production of Figaro.

In front of the shelf, a folder of paperwork for my mother’s estate; full scores for William  Blake and the Symphony, plus a pile of scores of three decades of abortive attempts; the keyboard; letters from Craig, and trailing out there on the right, more stationery and a book on counterpoint.

On the desk itself, on the left, a stack of books on ritual and liturgies, topped by The Book of the Labyrinth.  Behind those, the source books for the 24 Hour Project, plus folders of texts.  The little triangle thingies are a fold-out box that originally held Singer sewing machine attachments and which I am configuring as a little assemblage/icon piece.  Behind that, the aforementioned idea card stadium, noticeably empty.

A stack of papers that haven’t found a home yet, including my separation paperwork from the DOE; another blank book, half buried; two computer keyboards (duplicates, remember?); desk detritus; the copper of my Lichtenbergian Chalice, silently affirming my inactivity; a small wooden pencil box containing ink pen nibs for lettering in The Book of the Labyrinth; the computer monitor, with two sticky notes of 24 Hour Challenge texts; a lifetime supply of sticky notes; the laptop; inks for Book of the Labyrinth; another book on ritual; a blinking red reindeer nose; pens; paper towels; a reference book on knots.

You can ignore the trashcan.

Continuing on the other side of the desk…

click to embiggen

 
The backside of the technology, including a little shelf unit for the multiplugs and chargers; my old G4 and Grayson’s old iMac; a mess of mostly audio cables which used to live comfortably in a purple computer bag; another keyboard and stand; printing paper supplies; every box of every Apple product I’ve bought in the last ten years; paper for the printer and drawers that haven’t been opened in fifteen years; old issues of Mac magazines; my Lovely First Wife’s old quadraphonic stereo (and 8-track player!); shelves of old software and books that are largely useless; my old SE-30 and two old synthesizers; a Memorex turntable that could potentially digitize any album we want to if we’d take it out of the box and set it up.

I will spare you the photos of the other bookshelves, the CD shelves, and (behind me in the two photos above) my college drafting board; various art supplies like chipboard, canvas boards, sketch pads, a paper cutter (one of two now), rulers, Lacuna Group stuff.  Plus a tall cabinet of art supplies and printing supplies, and a filing cabinet.

I should be a busy, productive artist, but it will take me until 2014 to reconfigure all this stuff.  Don’t expect new works from me until then.  At least that will be my excuse.

—to be continued…

Why I cried at a Gaelic music video

Posted on by Dale

I came across this video yesterday, and it had a curious effect on me: I cried.

 

The video was produced at Coláiste Lurgan, which is one of several summer schools in Ireland established to teach high school students Gaelic.  (Astute readers can see where I’m heading with this.)  The song itself is by Avicii, a Swedish DJ/remixer/producer, and apparently Lurgan developed a habit a couple of summers ago of doing Gaelic covers of popular songs.

This one has gone viral, and it’s not hard to see why.  It’s infectious even if you don’t know the background, and the professionalism of the production is impressive.  Frankly, I found it more appealing than the original.

You might reasonably suppose that it brought tears to my eyes because of my recent dismissal from GHP, but that is not entirely the case.  It would have brought tears to my eyes anyway, just as each summer’s group of GHPers make me weepy the entire last week.

Here’s why: the video is an exceptionally pure example of the white-hot intensity of that kind of experience.  These young people have bonded over that life-changing experience; they are a tribe in the best sense of the word.  They are extremely talented—remember, this video was produced at a summer camp—and you can see the joy and commitment they bring to the project.

And I at least cannot escape the sad underlying truth that this kind of thing is so very, very impermanent.  Part of the sadness stems from their youth: everything is intense, so beautiful (and let’s admit it: the lead singer is gorgeous), and it will not last.  We old folk know that, and kids who live through a GHP learn it too, painfully.

Full admission: there is a small number of songs that make me cry for exactly the same reasons.  Each summer, the RAs have dances for the kids on Saturday nights, and each summer they select a “last song.”  It’s usually a power anthem with a rousing, heart-rending chorus, and it closes out the dance.  It also becomes a symbol for the entire experience, and whenever it plays, 700 kids (and me) get misty-eyed.  My lovely first wife and I were dancing at a wedding reception last fall when the DJ played one of those songs, and I just had to keep dancing with Pavlovian tears streaming down my face.

Perhaps my loss of GHP made it even more painful to grok this video than it might have been otherwise, but I don’t think so.  I’ve been mourning its loss for years, right along with each generation of kids.  Go raibh maith agat, daoine óga!

Building a wall

Posted on by Dale

Recently we had landscape people come in and reconfigure the upper part of the back yard, i.e., “Ginny’s part.”  The plan is to make it an entertainment area, and it’s coming along nicely.

However, one part of the renovation was inadequate:

The edge of the flowerbed was just messy.  The black mulch spilled onto the driveway, and worse, onto the new zoysia lawn.  You can barely see at the far end where I began edging it with brick, which contained the mulch—but I ran out of brick.  (All the brick in our landscaping came from the old coal furnace chimney that was toppled when we added on the back of the house.)

So I decided to build a wall:

Here’s the beginning of it, swerving out of the existing brickwork at the head of the flowerbed.  This is about 200 pounds of flagstone, my first day’s purchase.  It gave me about five feet of wall and was enough to figure out what I was doing and how much I might need to complete the entire 25 feet or so.

The first aesthetic issue I encountered (other than blending the start of the wall with the brickwork) was that if I just followed the paved driveway straight to the lawn area, it would be an incredible boring straight wall.  So I curved it:

That meant having to lay in larger pieces for the first row; I thought about leaving that setback area for planting, but decided against it.  The soil at that level is mostly clay.

That photo is after I bought 400 pounds more of flagstone. By this morning, I had used all of it:

Notice what I’ve done there at the juncture of the driveway and the lawn:

Since there has to be a “stepdown” in the level of the wall there anyway, I’ve added a little pillar that will be taller than either and which will serve as a platform for candles, etc.

All in all, an easy project and a fun one.  I’ll get the remaining flagstone tomorrow or Tuesday and have the whole thing finished by the middle of the week.

The labyrinth itself?

It doesn’t look quite this good at the moment.  A lot of the new grass which sprouted bounteously during the rains of a couple of weeks ago simply collapsed weakly without the rain.  Very frustrating.