Margotlog: Archie & Company
Proud cat, but dead, to give his name to our entire furry tribe, Archie is the only one who ever traveled by car to the North Shore. He's the only one better known (or regarded) up and down the avenue than we, his supposed owners. He's the only one who would be always on the other side of the door, putting into motion Garrison Keillor's song about just such a cat. He's the only who ever attacked a dog--three spaniels walking sedately along the sidewalk. Their owner told us if he ever did that again, he'd report us--to whom remains unclear. We attributed this cat-attack to Archie's mourning the death of Fluffy, queen of the pride and most patient of any cat we ever "owned." She let children dress her up!
Of the cat conglomerate that included Archie, Bart, and Tilly, we now have only Tilly, current matriarch, with middle-cat Maggie, and perennial kitten Julia. Girl cats work better, we've found, Archie being one of the pins holding that conclusion in place. Yes, girl cats don't spray and on the whole seem less insistent on roaming, but they're not as "lovey." That is, not until we met Julia. Girl cats do, however, fall in love with guy humans--case in point, Tilly's childhood affection for Michael. The minute she heard his voice, she'd race to the first floor and begin rubbing against his leg, and looking up with her soulful green eyes. Beautiful kitten with foxy pointed ears and chin, tufted cheeks and orange-white mask to the rest of her turtle-dark body. Even in middle age, she's retained her sleek, long and tall figure with the plume of tail tipped with white. But she's no longer in love with anyone but us, and doesn't climb to the top of the drapes, or rather leap as she did kittenish, from the top of the open piano case.
It's not easy being green, Kermit the Frog used to (and may still) sing on "Sesame Street." Ditto a middle cat. Occasionally in off-moments, I consider writing a children's book called "The Middle Cat." Like a middle kid who's squeezed by bigger bro or sis at one end, and cute baby's antics at the other, Maggie our cat has acquired Fluffy's onetime long-suffering look. If she were ever inclined to be demanding, that's faded from our lack of response. Instead she's staked out her favorite reclining spots--under the coffee table, at the top of the stairs--and she's taught me the one safe place where she can demand to be petted without offending any other critter. It's the food dish in the upstairs bathroom. Few of the other cats eat from that dish. It's Maggie's.
As I approach through the luxuriously carpeted bathroom, to the tile area by the shower, she begins meowing to guide me forward, tail up, until she lowers her head in the crunchy dish and I begin stroking her. The occasional late evening when I'm finishing my stretches and eye soakings on the carpeted bathroom floor, and the other two cats have already retired, Maggie and I play with the semi-hard balls she prefers. Then we have the dark to ourselves. She lies in wait outside the bathroom door to pounce on the rolling mouse that I send her way. There's a scuffle in the dark hall, the mouse bounces down the stairs, and Maggie follows to yowl its capture through the first floor. Then she sounds like a giant cat, queen of the night.
Julia was petite when we acquired her. Not so much anymore. Fran accuses me of overfeeding, and he's probably right, but it's my "out" when I'm trying to pursue some other game. Julia is lovey as a boy cat: she licks legs and hands, all the way up the arm if allowed. She'll touch noses and lick cheeks if allowed. In the movie, "THe Truth about Cats and Dogs," the charming vet (an actress I can call up to look at but can't remember her name) tells a caller-in to her radio show that it's not a good practice to allow a cat to lick one's entire face. I make Julia stop after one cheek-lick. Lately in our heat, she's taken to squeaky pleas to be let out. Not that she wants to roam; in fact when we have brought her out to sit on a lap as we play Scrabble on the porch, she has sat placidly and not squirmed much.
But with a ribbon tied around her neck, and the other end in my hand, we now take little strolls on the back deck under the petunia/marigold boxes. Yesterday in the relative cool, she flopped down in the sun. Her black fur glistening, it wasn't long before she began to pant. I brought her in.
Occasionally I meet a man with a black girl cat on a collar. They walk together up and down his alley, and a few times even around the block. I'm not sure I will ever do this with Julia, though she's probably tractable enough. Fran would have a fit, and deep in my heart of hearts, I agree. We don't want another outdoor cat--too many vet bills, too much anxiety if the cat doesn't come home. Too much fear someone will "adopt" our adorable Julia.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Margotlog:Hemingway's Mr. Death
Margotlog: Hemingway's Mr. Death
Hemingway courted death all his adult life, from severe wounds as an 18-yera-old ambulance driver in World War I, Italy, through his work as a journalist in the Spanish Civil War, to heroic journalism, winning him a Bronze Star during World War II. Mr. Death appears in almost every one of his novels, from glorification of Spanish bullfighters in the ring, to the final battle between The Old Man and the Sea at the end of Hemingway's life. I've read and admired A Moveable Feast, his essays about Paris during the 20s, written after the fact, but I've shied away from rereading Hemingway's fiction, not wanting to replace my earlier blurred impressions with present clarity. Too macho and gory for me, I thought. How wrong I was.
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) depicts a young American dynamitist, Robert Jordan, who joins a Spanish partisan group to fight the Facists during the Spanish Civil War. Written after Hemingway's own participation in the Spanish war, it breathes with psychological intensity. Robert Jordan is not only a brave and sensitive young man, but is immersed in a partisan group of great psychological complexity. Here I have been shocked out of my previous dismissal: the conflict between the exhausted leader, Pablo, and his wise, stalwart, rough mistress Pilar is as crucial to the dynamics of the story as is Robert Jordan's falling in love with the Maria, or as Robert Jordan's bravery in blowing up the bridge. Watching the two partisans and Jordan negotiate edging Pablo out of the leadership role creates great war drama of a Shakespearean sort: Think"Macbeth." Though Pilar has none of Lady Macbeth's grisley conniving.
One of the most compelling scenes occurs in an initial lull, just after Robert Jordan and Maria have become lovers, instigated by Pilar. As they cross and recross a high meadow after conferring with a comrade, Pilar expresses in biting honesty her loss of youth, love, beauty. She does not want to take Maria's place in the sack of love, but to live by association, and to admire and protect what is beautiful, vibrant, and vulnerable. Pilar is as much at the heart of the novel as is Robert Jordan. So much for my notion of Hemingway's incapacity to portray women.
I won't say any more about the plot because it is beautifully, intricately executed, and I want you to experience it for yourself. But the intensity of the style--that bears comment. The style is full of Hemingway's famous short, declarative sentences, many linked by "and." It is full of repetition of an incantatory, lyrical sort, which takes you deeper and deeper into the mysteries of how thought, sensation, and emotion, recast and examined again and again, can create an unforgettable, pulsating moment. Sometimes the intensity was too much to bear. I had to turn off the CD player and wait for another day to hear how Robert Jordan would continue, turning over the moments of love, memory, despair, and heroism.This is a very autobiographical novel: young Hemingway was wounded in the legs during World War I, and spent 6 months in a Milan hospital. So also young Robert Jordan is wounded. The pain is redeemed. It is a beautiful story.
Hemingway courted death all his adult life, from severe wounds as an 18-yera-old ambulance driver in World War I, Italy, through his work as a journalist in the Spanish Civil War, to heroic journalism, winning him a Bronze Star during World War II. Mr. Death appears in almost every one of his novels, from glorification of Spanish bullfighters in the ring, to the final battle between The Old Man and the Sea at the end of Hemingway's life. I've read and admired A Moveable Feast, his essays about Paris during the 20s, written after the fact, but I've shied away from rereading Hemingway's fiction, not wanting to replace my earlier blurred impressions with present clarity. Too macho and gory for me, I thought. How wrong I was.
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) depicts a young American dynamitist, Robert Jordan, who joins a Spanish partisan group to fight the Facists during the Spanish Civil War. Written after Hemingway's own participation in the Spanish war, it breathes with psychological intensity. Robert Jordan is not only a brave and sensitive young man, but is immersed in a partisan group of great psychological complexity. Here I have been shocked out of my previous dismissal: the conflict between the exhausted leader, Pablo, and his wise, stalwart, rough mistress Pilar is as crucial to the dynamics of the story as is Robert Jordan's falling in love with the Maria, or as Robert Jordan's bravery in blowing up the bridge. Watching the two partisans and Jordan negotiate edging Pablo out of the leadership role creates great war drama of a Shakespearean sort: Think"Macbeth." Though Pilar has none of Lady Macbeth's grisley conniving.
One of the most compelling scenes occurs in an initial lull, just after Robert Jordan and Maria have become lovers, instigated by Pilar. As they cross and recross a high meadow after conferring with a comrade, Pilar expresses in biting honesty her loss of youth, love, beauty. She does not want to take Maria's place in the sack of love, but to live by association, and to admire and protect what is beautiful, vibrant, and vulnerable. Pilar is as much at the heart of the novel as is Robert Jordan. So much for my notion of Hemingway's incapacity to portray women.
I won't say any more about the plot because it is beautifully, intricately executed, and I want you to experience it for yourself. But the intensity of the style--that bears comment. The style is full of Hemingway's famous short, declarative sentences, many linked by "and." It is full of repetition of an incantatory, lyrical sort, which takes you deeper and deeper into the mysteries of how thought, sensation, and emotion, recast and examined again and again, can create an unforgettable, pulsating moment. Sometimes the intensity was too much to bear. I had to turn off the CD player and wait for another day to hear how Robert Jordan would continue, turning over the moments of love, memory, despair, and heroism.This is a very autobiographical novel: young Hemingway was wounded in the legs during World War I, and spent 6 months in a Milan hospital. So also young Robert Jordan is wounded. The pain is redeemed. It is a beautiful story.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Margotlog: Nature to Advantage Dressed: Four McKnight Artists
Margotlog: Nature to Advantage Dressed: Four McKnight Artists
Sometimes in early morning, lines from long-ago read poems crop up--plants grow most at night! Now, it's Alexander Pope, with his dressed advantage. "True wit is nature to advantage dressed./ What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." Essay on Criticism, 1711. I've always loved the regular "periods" of the neoclassical style.
Today, I'd say the true nature is stretched to its max. Viz: the four McKnight visual artists whose works are "displayed" at MCAD gallery, Minneapolis. One, an environmental artist, Christine Baeumler, who's created a mini green roof atop the entrance portico. A bog brought to the city with tamarack trees, spangum moss, etc. Another what I'd call a performance artist, Marcus Young, is using the exhibit as a venue to declutter his home and in his words "find love." I know Marcus as the face of St. Paul's Public Arts program, inspiration of "Poetry in the Sidewalks," and other interactive events, such as his "slow walks" and this means truly truly slow slow slow. As well as the Earth Day events on Harriet Island which have included drifty art in the sky.
The other two McKnight artists fill the familiar notion of art by making objects: Liz Miller's inverted "calliope" (my word) of cut-out, repetitive, floor-to-ceiling, black/red/silver/white/gold "flounces" (again my word), and Elizabeth Simonson's lovely lengths of beaded patterns based on what she calls "sacred geometry."
Could these artists be more diverse? Of course. There's nothing here that's inspired by obviously cultural/racial/linguistic experience. We in the Twin Cities like to pride ourselves on our inclusiveness, but in my experience, homegrown art that crosses racial and cultural lines is segregated to certain groups--such as the theater company Penumbra's astonishingly rich productions, recently of James Baldwin's the "Amen Corner," truly one of the finest performances of the year.
Yet, Marcus is Chinese--born in China, though raised close to here: Des Moines. Some of the objects he's trying to declutter at the MCAD gallery some from China (he held up two packs of gum purchased in China which he's put on sale).
Sitting in the MCAD gallery yesterday and listening to these artists, and studying Liz Miller's truly huge calliope (or is it an inverted hoop skirt), I was struck by how little connection their works have to each other. All are witty in Pope's sense of the word: The artists have thought about their practice, and somewhat about their works' effect on the audience but except for Christine, they have little spoken awareness of their antecedents. True, the questions did not have a comparative or historical bent. But my sense was of four spirits floating each in their own richly fashioned essential liquid, while we, the outsiders, watch and wonder and puzzle about what it all means.
Marcus Young calls his "behavioral art," and at the opening Friday night, I saw this in motion. Since I know Marcus through my daughter--they went to Carleton together--it was easy to probe a small framed piece of paper with a message in pencil: "Marcus Young keep on walking." As we asked Marcus about the paper, he told a story about leaving an art event and finding the paper back stage (if I'm remembering correctly). Startled because he hadn't written this himself, he took the paper away with him, and now could relate the little story to us. This I like. Performance art as a momentary, rather intimate conversation, about a momentary, surprising piece of life. It sticks in the mind, especially when narrated by a tall, Chinese man wearing a black furry top and aviator glasses, with his hair in one of those "do's" I've noted recently: standing up like a bird's crest.
"True nature to advantage dressed"--that was the three of us, talking, smiling, deciding that life and art indeed are full of amazing little coincidences.
Sometimes in early morning, lines from long-ago read poems crop up--plants grow most at night! Now, it's Alexander Pope, with his dressed advantage. "True wit is nature to advantage dressed./ What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." Essay on Criticism, 1711. I've always loved the regular "periods" of the neoclassical style.
Today, I'd say the true nature is stretched to its max. Viz: the four McKnight visual artists whose works are "displayed" at MCAD gallery, Minneapolis. One, an environmental artist, Christine Baeumler, who's created a mini green roof atop the entrance portico. A bog brought to the city with tamarack trees, spangum moss, etc. Another what I'd call a performance artist, Marcus Young, is using the exhibit as a venue to declutter his home and in his words "find love." I know Marcus as the face of St. Paul's Public Arts program, inspiration of "Poetry in the Sidewalks," and other interactive events, such as his "slow walks" and this means truly truly slow slow slow. As well as the Earth Day events on Harriet Island which have included drifty art in the sky.
The other two McKnight artists fill the familiar notion of art by making objects: Liz Miller's inverted "calliope" (my word) of cut-out, repetitive, floor-to-ceiling, black/red/silver/white/gold "flounces" (again my word), and Elizabeth Simonson's lovely lengths of beaded patterns based on what she calls "sacred geometry."
Could these artists be more diverse? Of course. There's nothing here that's inspired by obviously cultural/racial/linguistic experience. We in the Twin Cities like to pride ourselves on our inclusiveness, but in my experience, homegrown art that crosses racial and cultural lines is segregated to certain groups--such as the theater company Penumbra's astonishingly rich productions, recently of James Baldwin's the "Amen Corner," truly one of the finest performances of the year.
Yet, Marcus is Chinese--born in China, though raised close to here: Des Moines. Some of the objects he's trying to declutter at the MCAD gallery some from China (he held up two packs of gum purchased in China which he's put on sale).
Sitting in the MCAD gallery yesterday and listening to these artists, and studying Liz Miller's truly huge calliope (or is it an inverted hoop skirt), I was struck by how little connection their works have to each other. All are witty in Pope's sense of the word: The artists have thought about their practice, and somewhat about their works' effect on the audience but except for Christine, they have little spoken awareness of their antecedents. True, the questions did not have a comparative or historical bent. But my sense was of four spirits floating each in their own richly fashioned essential liquid, while we, the outsiders, watch and wonder and puzzle about what it all means.
Marcus Young calls his "behavioral art," and at the opening Friday night, I saw this in motion. Since I know Marcus through my daughter--they went to Carleton together--it was easy to probe a small framed piece of paper with a message in pencil: "Marcus Young keep on walking." As we asked Marcus about the paper, he told a story about leaving an art event and finding the paper back stage (if I'm remembering correctly). Startled because he hadn't written this himself, he took the paper away with him, and now could relate the little story to us. This I like. Performance art as a momentary, rather intimate conversation, about a momentary, surprising piece of life. It sticks in the mind, especially when narrated by a tall, Chinese man wearing a black furry top and aviator glasses, with his hair in one of those "do's" I've noted recently: standing up like a bird's crest.
"True nature to advantage dressed"--that was the three of us, talking, smiling, deciding that life and art indeed are full of amazing little coincidences.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Margotlog: Two Gents and their Ladies, in Verona and Otherwise
Margotlog; Two Gents and their Ladies, in Verona and Otherwise
When Shakespeare set his play about male bonding and verbal horseplay in Verona, he may have tipped his hat at a feature of Roman comedy--the sparring of slaves/servants as they outwit their masters. Verona was a Roman city as its beautifully preserved "coliseum" attests. On the other hand, the verbal horseplay in the first "half" of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590-91) may have been based on various Renaissance predecessors, such as the amusingly titled The Blok named the Governour (Thomas Elyot, 1513).
As we listened to the verbal sparring--word play, one-up-man'ship to the max--I began to doze. But with a smirk on my face. How often have I sat on the sidelines or listened from upstairs while my husband, wordplayer to the max, dueled it out with buddies in the living room. Women can be witty--for instance Dorothy Parker, or our recently departed Nora Ephron. But for casual parsing and parrying with puns and innuendos, men have a relish that most woman eschew. Shakespeare put his finger on it when he titled a play The Taming of the Shrew. Women enter the verbal fray only at the peril of being hoisted across a masculine back and carried off stage.
Or being traded in an excess of male fraternity: Viz, Valentine's line to his Verona pal Proteus, "And that my love may appear plain and free,/ All that was mine in Silvia I give thee."
This problematic line has kept scholars scratching their heads for centuries. Too overt, probably, yet within the first half of the play, perfectly fitting given the madcap love these two gents display for each other. "Whatever is mine, is thine"--that sort of thing.
Yet, there is the continuance of the race to consider. Or even more compelling, the winning of adult responsibility and power. When do the boys give up the wordy horseplay and attain the dignity of adults? This is exactly the question that Shakespeare poses in this play. I can almost see the wheels turning: What kind of theatrical machinations can body forth a psychological shift from team playboy, to moral, responsible adult?
Turns out enacting this transformation creates far more drama than the endlessly fascinating (to the participants) repartee of the first half. First, Shakespeare detaches each gent from home and sets him traveling toward the big city of Milan. Once there, Proteus takes Valentine's proposition seriously: he falls in love with his friend's intended: Sylvia. She will have none of it. Meanwhile, Valentine is abducted by a band of thieves and cut-throats. Using his wit to preserve his life, he becomes one of them and they set out to steal Sylvia from her father who's tying to marry her off to a dork.
In the meantime, Proteus's discarded love Julia disguises herself as a young man and thus enters Milan, hoping to get her lover back. In the ensuing mix-and-match, steal-and-suffer shenanigans, Proteus gets a few kicks and slaps, Valentine humanizes his thugs toward civility, and the two ladies eventually nudge their lovers into something like union.
The message seems to be that in the hard knocks and rough paths of real life, these word-whacked gents must diverge. They must learn what they can and cannot do. Their boyish crushes must be tested, and because this is comedy, their women must eventually woo/surprise/embarrass them into true and lasting love.
It's charming, amusing, entertaining.
Coda: Few theaters within a comfortable drive of the Twin Cities, including the grand and glorious Guthrie, do Shakespeare better than The Great River company. The theater on the campus of Winona State University is smallish, the actors close. Never once have I felt that costuming or sets distracted from speaking lines intelligibly. Acting follows suit. Magic occurs. It's worth the drive, plus you get to cross and recross the river, stopping on the Wisconsin side at Stockholm for small-town charm and treats, then recrossing the river at Wabasha to admire the bluffs. A great river, indeed. We call it the Mississippi.
When Shakespeare set his play about male bonding and verbal horseplay in Verona, he may have tipped his hat at a feature of Roman comedy--the sparring of slaves/servants as they outwit their masters. Verona was a Roman city as its beautifully preserved "coliseum" attests. On the other hand, the verbal horseplay in the first "half" of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590-91) may have been based on various Renaissance predecessors, such as the amusingly titled The Blok named the Governour (Thomas Elyot, 1513).
As we listened to the verbal sparring--word play, one-up-man'ship to the max--I began to doze. But with a smirk on my face. How often have I sat on the sidelines or listened from upstairs while my husband, wordplayer to the max, dueled it out with buddies in the living room. Women can be witty--for instance Dorothy Parker, or our recently departed Nora Ephron. But for casual parsing and parrying with puns and innuendos, men have a relish that most woman eschew. Shakespeare put his finger on it when he titled a play The Taming of the Shrew. Women enter the verbal fray only at the peril of being hoisted across a masculine back and carried off stage.
Or being traded in an excess of male fraternity: Viz, Valentine's line to his Verona pal Proteus, "And that my love may appear plain and free,/ All that was mine in Silvia I give thee."
This problematic line has kept scholars scratching their heads for centuries. Too overt, probably, yet within the first half of the play, perfectly fitting given the madcap love these two gents display for each other. "Whatever is mine, is thine"--that sort of thing.
Yet, there is the continuance of the race to consider. Or even more compelling, the winning of adult responsibility and power. When do the boys give up the wordy horseplay and attain the dignity of adults? This is exactly the question that Shakespeare poses in this play. I can almost see the wheels turning: What kind of theatrical machinations can body forth a psychological shift from team playboy, to moral, responsible adult?
Turns out enacting this transformation creates far more drama than the endlessly fascinating (to the participants) repartee of the first half. First, Shakespeare detaches each gent from home and sets him traveling toward the big city of Milan. Once there, Proteus takes Valentine's proposition seriously: he falls in love with his friend's intended: Sylvia. She will have none of it. Meanwhile, Valentine is abducted by a band of thieves and cut-throats. Using his wit to preserve his life, he becomes one of them and they set out to steal Sylvia from her father who's tying to marry her off to a dork.
In the meantime, Proteus's discarded love Julia disguises herself as a young man and thus enters Milan, hoping to get her lover back. In the ensuing mix-and-match, steal-and-suffer shenanigans, Proteus gets a few kicks and slaps, Valentine humanizes his thugs toward civility, and the two ladies eventually nudge their lovers into something like union.
The message seems to be that in the hard knocks and rough paths of real life, these word-whacked gents must diverge. They must learn what they can and cannot do. Their boyish crushes must be tested, and because this is comedy, their women must eventually woo/surprise/embarrass them into true and lasting love.
It's charming, amusing, entertaining.
Coda: Few theaters within a comfortable drive of the Twin Cities, including the grand and glorious Guthrie, do Shakespeare better than The Great River company. The theater on the campus of Winona State University is smallish, the actors close. Never once have I felt that costuming or sets distracted from speaking lines intelligibly. Acting follows suit. Magic occurs. It's worth the drive, plus you get to cross and recross the river, stopping on the Wisconsin side at Stockholm for small-town charm and treats, then recrossing the river at Wabasha to admire the bluffs. A great river, indeed. We call it the Mississippi.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Margotlog: The Rockies Red Glare or the Adelie Penguin
Margotlog: The Rockies Red Glare or the Adelie Penguin
What do we care? Muscling tight corners in our SUVs. Legislators gleefully firing climate scientists at state college. Playing with our hand-helds while the Rockies go up in flames.
We're hanging by a thread. Just imagine it. Thumbing our noses at those geeks while we spin and spin, plastic water bottles spraying from our hands as we glide through the air with the greatest of ease.
I'm cool. How bout you?
The Rockies red glare...
Sure, I know someone but they're halfway across the country...not in my backyard...
I'm cool, I sent my contribution to Greenpeace, World Wildlife, Care Care Care...
***
Match-Mismatch - species falling out of sync with their environment
Ice-loving birds, the Adelie Penguin. What's there not to love--black and white penguin suits, Fred Astaire looking for a Ginger
Feisty--why I saw one, its breastbone torn back by a seal. "You could actually see her lungs working in there. But she spent a few days recouping, hunched over, and ...in less than a week she was back in the water, feeding her chicks. She and her mate even pulled a brood off." --Bill Fraser
Ice-loving Antarctic birds.
Match-Mismatch.
"An entire ecosystem changing not in hundreds but 30-50."--
Melting sea ice. Ice-loving Adelie.
***
Next time I see a tree pop, I'm outa there.
Oh yeh? Jump in the lake?
Ice-loving snow-loving -- Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox
"We're sitting pretty, here in the Northland. Lots of water. No water wars here."
Unprecedented, ten inches of rain in two days.
A plume of silt miles out in the lake. No idea what effect...
Changing not in hundreds...
Thousands of birds the last time I was here...
What gets me is that "these incredible animals have to take it in the neck because a bunch of humans can't get together to decide what to do about the planet." -- Bill Fraser, ecologist, penguin expert in The New Yorker, 12/21-28, 2009
What do we care? Muscling tight corners in our SUVs. Legislators gleefully firing climate scientists at state college. Playing with our hand-helds while the Rockies go up in flames.
We're hanging by a thread. Just imagine it. Thumbing our noses at those geeks while we spin and spin, plastic water bottles spraying from our hands as we glide through the air with the greatest of ease.
I'm cool. How bout you?
The Rockies red glare...
Sure, I know someone but they're halfway across the country...not in my backyard...
I'm cool, I sent my contribution to Greenpeace, World Wildlife, Care Care Care...
***
Match-Mismatch - species falling out of sync with their environment
Ice-loving birds, the Adelie Penguin. What's there not to love--black and white penguin suits, Fred Astaire looking for a Ginger
Feisty--why I saw one, its breastbone torn back by a seal. "You could actually see her lungs working in there. But she spent a few days recouping, hunched over, and ...in less than a week she was back in the water, feeding her chicks. She and her mate even pulled a brood off." --Bill Fraser
Ice-loving Antarctic birds.
Match-Mismatch.
"An entire ecosystem changing not in hundreds but 30-50."--
Melting sea ice. Ice-loving Adelie.
***
Next time I see a tree pop, I'm outa there.
Oh yeh? Jump in the lake?
Ice-loving snow-loving -- Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox
"We're sitting pretty, here in the Northland. Lots of water. No water wars here."
Unprecedented, ten inches of rain in two days.
A plume of silt miles out in the lake. No idea what effect...
Changing not in hundreds...
Thousands of birds the last time I was here...
What gets me is that "these incredible animals have to take it in the neck because a bunch of humans can't get together to decide what to do about the planet." -- Bill Fraser, ecologist, penguin expert in The New Yorker, 12/21-28, 2009
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Margotlog: Want Heat? You Betcha!
Margotlog: Want Heat? You Betcha!
One of my favorite movie moments is all about "we're having a heat wave"--In the Seven Year Itch, Marilyn (the quintessential Marilyn, one of the greatest of all time) stands over an exhaust grate. It's New York, circa 1955--air pours up to the street level from the subway. As a rush of cool air rises, Marilyn throws back her head, holds down her pleated white skirt, and gives a squeal of delight. We are voyeurs of her cool.
It's hard not to want to throw off your clothes when the temperature's rising. In some African countries, I've been told, women soak their long winding dresses in water, then simply wrap themselves in them. Not a bad idea: I wet down in a bath tub with a half-inch of water, then barely pat myself dry. So what if my shorts and top get wet--all the better. Evaporation takes heat away from the body.
I remember the summer of 1988, the one that weather forcasters keep mentioning as a sister to this one: Day after day of high 90s--check! Day after day of sun. In fact, so much sun that we went for six weeks in the Twin Cities without rain. Every day, I watered some new tree. Finally, as I drove to the airport in mid-July to pick up my daughter (she'd been on a student trip to Taiwan), the skies opened and we ran into the house, pelted with rain. Six inches fell in four hours. Streets were flooded all over the metro area. In fact, my step-daughter's car was swamped. She and friends had to leave it at the curb and come back a day later.
We had one window airconditioner then. In the bedroom. It whirred and sputtered day and night. Since then we've had the windows in the second floor--those leaky, rattling 1912 windows--replaced with beautiful, tight, ultraviolet-retardant windows. We got rid of the air-conditioner. Now here is how I get through the heat:
* Open all the windows on the north side of the house, and one or two on the south. Set fans to blow cross currents.
* Sleep in the most north-facing room. Or if you have a decent room in the basement, equip it with a dehumidifier (we have two running in our old basement), and in the very worst heat, I sleep there, work there. The temp is usually 15 - 20 degrees lower than any other floor, plus the humidity is way way lower.
* Lower blinds (they need to be dark and rather thick) over all windows where sun pours in. Close the windows where heat and light pour in around 2-3 p.m. And lower the shades. Don't open them until 7-8 in the evening.
* WEAR ONLY COTTON. No, I'm not receiving a kick-back from the cotton growers of America. Through trial and error, I've discovered that synthetics do not breathe. It doesn't matter, ladies, how filmy it is. If it's not cotton, it will stick to you and trap sweat. COTTON COTTON COTTON!
* Don't be afraid of sweating. It's nature's way of cooling you off. Keep make-up to a minimum, wear light colors, and loose clothing, and sandals. No socks is you can avoid them.
* Sun glasses, a big straw hat to keep out the glare, AND A WHITE, COTTON, long-sleeved shirt for driving or walking outside in the heat. White reflects heat. Remember all those men and women from India in their saris and white jackets? They know what heat is.
*Drink lots of non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated beverages--lemonade, any kind of juice--I dilute with lots of water. Caffein and alcohol leach water from your body. You're already sweating like a horse that's run a mile. You need to replenish water!
* Eat light! No heavy steaks, but salads, frozen nonfat yogurt, bits of barbequed meat. No hot potatoes.
* Keep fans running everywhere. Sit on the floor--REMEMBER, HEAT RISES! If you must cook on the stove, do so early in the morning.
* Exercise before 10 a.m.
* Go slow.
My favorite weather-guy, Paul Douglas, just opined "This too will pass." Yup. But we are probably in for more and more summers like this one. Pity the Adele penguins in the Antarctic, the polar bears in the Arctic. They among many ice-loving creatures are facing a learning-curve that we humans have forced on them. Bets are that they will not survive. As a researcher in the Antarctic wrote about the penguins, "It's a pity they have to suffer because another species far to the north can't decide what to do about this problem they've created."
One of my favorite movie moments is all about "we're having a heat wave"--In the Seven Year Itch, Marilyn (the quintessential Marilyn, one of the greatest of all time) stands over an exhaust grate. It's New York, circa 1955--air pours up to the street level from the subway. As a rush of cool air rises, Marilyn throws back her head, holds down her pleated white skirt, and gives a squeal of delight. We are voyeurs of her cool.
It's hard not to want to throw off your clothes when the temperature's rising. In some African countries, I've been told, women soak their long winding dresses in water, then simply wrap themselves in them. Not a bad idea: I wet down in a bath tub with a half-inch of water, then barely pat myself dry. So what if my shorts and top get wet--all the better. Evaporation takes heat away from the body.
I remember the summer of 1988, the one that weather forcasters keep mentioning as a sister to this one: Day after day of high 90s--check! Day after day of sun. In fact, so much sun that we went for six weeks in the Twin Cities without rain. Every day, I watered some new tree. Finally, as I drove to the airport in mid-July to pick up my daughter (she'd been on a student trip to Taiwan), the skies opened and we ran into the house, pelted with rain. Six inches fell in four hours. Streets were flooded all over the metro area. In fact, my step-daughter's car was swamped. She and friends had to leave it at the curb and come back a day later.
We had one window airconditioner then. In the bedroom. It whirred and sputtered day and night. Since then we've had the windows in the second floor--those leaky, rattling 1912 windows--replaced with beautiful, tight, ultraviolet-retardant windows. We got rid of the air-conditioner. Now here is how I get through the heat:
* Open all the windows on the north side of the house, and one or two on the south. Set fans to blow cross currents.
* Sleep in the most north-facing room. Or if you have a decent room in the basement, equip it with a dehumidifier (we have two running in our old basement), and in the very worst heat, I sleep there, work there. The temp is usually 15 - 20 degrees lower than any other floor, plus the humidity is way way lower.
* Lower blinds (they need to be dark and rather thick) over all windows where sun pours in. Close the windows where heat and light pour in around 2-3 p.m. And lower the shades. Don't open them until 7-8 in the evening.
* WEAR ONLY COTTON. No, I'm not receiving a kick-back from the cotton growers of America. Through trial and error, I've discovered that synthetics do not breathe. It doesn't matter, ladies, how filmy it is. If it's not cotton, it will stick to you and trap sweat. COTTON COTTON COTTON!
* Don't be afraid of sweating. It's nature's way of cooling you off. Keep make-up to a minimum, wear light colors, and loose clothing, and sandals. No socks is you can avoid them.
* Sun glasses, a big straw hat to keep out the glare, AND A WHITE, COTTON, long-sleeved shirt for driving or walking outside in the heat. White reflects heat. Remember all those men and women from India in their saris and white jackets? They know what heat is.
*Drink lots of non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated beverages--lemonade, any kind of juice--I dilute with lots of water. Caffein and alcohol leach water from your body. You're already sweating like a horse that's run a mile. You need to replenish water!
* Eat light! No heavy steaks, but salads, frozen nonfat yogurt, bits of barbequed meat. No hot potatoes.
* Keep fans running everywhere. Sit on the floor--REMEMBER, HEAT RISES! If you must cook on the stove, do so early in the morning.
* Exercise before 10 a.m.
* Go slow.
My favorite weather-guy, Paul Douglas, just opined "This too will pass." Yup. But we are probably in for more and more summers like this one. Pity the Adele penguins in the Antarctic, the polar bears in the Arctic. They among many ice-loving creatures are facing a learning-curve that we humans have forced on them. Bets are that they will not survive. As a researcher in the Antarctic wrote about the penguins, "It's a pity they have to suffer because another species far to the north can't decide what to do about this problem they've created."
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Margotlog: Works on Paper: The Bockley Gallery and George Morrison
Margotlog: Works on Paper: The Bockley Gallery and George Morrison
Don't get me wrong: I enjoy all kinds of electronic media, but to experience the essence of non-oral communication, give me paper. Books, drawings, letters, scribbles, notebooks, lists. The actual art works I've made have all depended on paper. These are masks with a papier mache base, tufted over with feathers and scraps of torn construction paper. Then little phrases or single words written on white paper are scattered among the feathers and paper tufts. It's as if a face has forgotten its essential front and given itself over to irregular thoughts. Sometimes I apply an essence of face--eyes, nose, mouth--but then cross with sticks or feathers.
Yesterday I was reminded of my love of art on paper by a visit to the Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis. An intriguing show was just closing--drawings across various antique paper artifacts like maps, stock certificates, checks, invoices. These drawings by Francis Yellow who is Lakota were almost all silhouettes in bright primary colors of Native Americans on horseback. They reminded me of the ledger drawings done in the 19th and early 20th centuries by various plains Indians who were brought to heel by the U.S. cavalry and kept in prison compounds. Given sheets from ledgers, the Native artists drew and painted a way of life that was quickly passing. Then these images were sold. I can't tell you more than that, except that there was a market for these works, then as now.
Francis Yellow's work not only calls up this poignant record but literally brings together the Native images with the paper artifacts of the culture that attempted to dominate them. To the eyes of a white person, which I most certainly am, there's a strange quietude to these images. They have a stark, fixed, arrested quality. One is forced to look beyond the image of rider on horseback in full gallop to the "official" printing in the background. Though the horse-rider gallops across these maps, stock certificates, etc, the printed elements remain fixed in the background. Tension is of the essence. Yet anger, frustration, despair--none of the emotions one might expect from artists kept in captivity is directly expressed. These emotions exist in that infinitesimal space between the printed paper and the image drawn or painted over it.
Todd Bockley also has a number of works on paper by premier Minnesota Ojibway artist George Morrison. Coming to see these, as well as the show, was my main intent. During the 1990s George Morrison and I worked hard on creating what I call an "oral history memoir." It was published in 1998 as a beautiful book titled Turning the Feather Around: My Life in Art. The Minnesota Historical Society Press outdid themselves: this book is a "work on paper" in the best and more beautiful sense of the term:. From the cover image of one of Morrison's intensely vivid "horizon paintings" to the many many images from his career, to the design, scale, printing quality throughout, the book is a work of art. And its artfulness depends not only on George Morrison's compelling story, but on the fact that we hold in our hands a rendition of that history, studded with beautiful images of his work.
For a visual artist, works on paper are often preliminary sketches--I'm thinking of Leonardo da Vinci's small sketches often of discrete elements of the body, or of his imagined flying machines or of architectural or landscape elements. These are like notebook or diary entries, meant mainly for the artist's personal use, working from first impression to larger, full-scale production. For other artists, especially those who make art in transit, the sketch or watercolor drawing exists in its own right--a work on paper that captures, both in its portability and its immediacy, an impression, an insight, a mood that could not be replicated in a more "substantial" form--such as oil on canvas.
Morrison's works on paper are of both types. But there's a third: the fully formed work which he chose to render on paper with colored pencils or ink or a combination. Morrison was one of the most eclectic artists I know--he worked in metal sculptures, oil paints, wood collages and totems and chiringa forms, and yes, drawings. Not usually watercolor, though. Often the finished drawings refer to surrealist imagery--biomorphic forms that float top to bottom against a horizon. Yes, a horizon such as he viewed every day as a child growing up on the north shore of Lake Superior. A horizon drawn maybe a quarter or a third of the way down from the top is one of his signature elements. It is very strange, very amusing, and ultimately intriguing to watch him combining surrealism which he learned during his early New York career--with the Abstract Expressionist "big boys" as he called them--with the horizon line to which he returned midway through his life. Here's hoping that there will be an exhibit that helps us appreciate the place of these later works on paper in Morrison's career.
Don't get me wrong: I enjoy all kinds of electronic media, but to experience the essence of non-oral communication, give me paper. Books, drawings, letters, scribbles, notebooks, lists. The actual art works I've made have all depended on paper. These are masks with a papier mache base, tufted over with feathers and scraps of torn construction paper. Then little phrases or single words written on white paper are scattered among the feathers and paper tufts. It's as if a face has forgotten its essential front and given itself over to irregular thoughts. Sometimes I apply an essence of face--eyes, nose, mouth--but then cross with sticks or feathers.
Yesterday I was reminded of my love of art on paper by a visit to the Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis. An intriguing show was just closing--drawings across various antique paper artifacts like maps, stock certificates, checks, invoices. These drawings by Francis Yellow who is Lakota were almost all silhouettes in bright primary colors of Native Americans on horseback. They reminded me of the ledger drawings done in the 19th and early 20th centuries by various plains Indians who were brought to heel by the U.S. cavalry and kept in prison compounds. Given sheets from ledgers, the Native artists drew and painted a way of life that was quickly passing. Then these images were sold. I can't tell you more than that, except that there was a market for these works, then as now.
Francis Yellow's work not only calls up this poignant record but literally brings together the Native images with the paper artifacts of the culture that attempted to dominate them. To the eyes of a white person, which I most certainly am, there's a strange quietude to these images. They have a stark, fixed, arrested quality. One is forced to look beyond the image of rider on horseback in full gallop to the "official" printing in the background. Though the horse-rider gallops across these maps, stock certificates, etc, the printed elements remain fixed in the background. Tension is of the essence. Yet anger, frustration, despair--none of the emotions one might expect from artists kept in captivity is directly expressed. These emotions exist in that infinitesimal space between the printed paper and the image drawn or painted over it.
Todd Bockley also has a number of works on paper by premier Minnesota Ojibway artist George Morrison. Coming to see these, as well as the show, was my main intent. During the 1990s George Morrison and I worked hard on creating what I call an "oral history memoir." It was published in 1998 as a beautiful book titled Turning the Feather Around: My Life in Art. The Minnesota Historical Society Press outdid themselves: this book is a "work on paper" in the best and more beautiful sense of the term:. From the cover image of one of Morrison's intensely vivid "horizon paintings" to the many many images from his career, to the design, scale, printing quality throughout, the book is a work of art. And its artfulness depends not only on George Morrison's compelling story, but on the fact that we hold in our hands a rendition of that history, studded with beautiful images of his work.
For a visual artist, works on paper are often preliminary sketches--I'm thinking of Leonardo da Vinci's small sketches often of discrete elements of the body, or of his imagined flying machines or of architectural or landscape elements. These are like notebook or diary entries, meant mainly for the artist's personal use, working from first impression to larger, full-scale production. For other artists, especially those who make art in transit, the sketch or watercolor drawing exists in its own right--a work on paper that captures, both in its portability and its immediacy, an impression, an insight, a mood that could not be replicated in a more "substantial" form--such as oil on canvas.
Morrison's works on paper are of both types. But there's a third: the fully formed work which he chose to render on paper with colored pencils or ink or a combination. Morrison was one of the most eclectic artists I know--he worked in metal sculptures, oil paints, wood collages and totems and chiringa forms, and yes, drawings. Not usually watercolor, though. Often the finished drawings refer to surrealist imagery--biomorphic forms that float top to bottom against a horizon. Yes, a horizon such as he viewed every day as a child growing up on the north shore of Lake Superior. A horizon drawn maybe a quarter or a third of the way down from the top is one of his signature elements. It is very strange, very amusing, and ultimately intriguing to watch him combining surrealism which he learned during his early New York career--with the Abstract Expressionist "big boys" as he called them--with the horizon line to which he returned midway through his life. Here's hoping that there will be an exhibit that helps us appreciate the place of these later works on paper in Morrison's career.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)