My New Grandson, Odysseus

July 5, 2012 So.... why did I really want to go to the Met yesterday? Robby would have gone anywhere. True, Abigail wanted to see the Byzantium show before it closed, but I didn't particularly (and ended up awed, troppo awed, triple awed, and overwhelmed like finding a new, lush world nobody knew existed. No, why I wanted to gotothemet was because the knob of my $29 watch I bought in 1999 has stuck so that I can't press in the knob to light up the dial at night and found I couldn't pull it out to change the hour from LA to NY, so I was permanently stuck like the watch 3 hours after the East Coast family. Whether you call it earlier or later I don't know, it was just making me schitzotempic. At the Met I knew they sold cheap fancy watches that look really classy. Tiffany styles, Egyptian, Old English, Van Gogh (pronounced Go like Go to the Met), Dali, square, rectangular, round, oval... We made an immediate beeline to the main store (what a wealth of gifts for giddy museumgoers!) "Just like our kids," said Abigail, grinning. I was stuck between a rectangular aqua cubist watch and a round, golden, Greek Vase watch. Robby looked at the Greek Vase and said, "That's so YOU," so that's the one I bought. My wrist is a bit narrow for it but big is beautiful, isn't it? Or do I mean black? It has a black dial, gold circumference, gold hands and gold dots for numbers. It isn't lit up but the gold hands reflect any light at all, so it will do its best at night. The band is a bit wide but it's shiny black with a russet Attic vertical stylized lotus relief (Odysseus never knew about watches, did he?). I love it! Oh, did I mention I have a new grandson, 5 days old yesterday? I didn't? Oh ye gods, sorry, send me back to LA! 6/13/21 I had completely forgotten my blog, but pressing some button when Altoon sent her wonderful blog entry brought up my old blog, and this is what I see! New grandson! Nearly 9 years ago... Amitai the Odysseus, lots of imagination and loves traveling!

Bible Story in 3/3 Time

Adam he loved Eve. She wore him on her sleeve but first she had to sew, while he learned how to hoe. Abraham loved Sarah, though had to be bewarer of jealousy and sent his mistress from the tent. Isaac loved Rebekkah, there wasn't a home wrecker to spoil her family, her son Esau was he. Jacob loved Leah's sister, although he nearly missed her by kissing Leah first while Rachel became cursed. Joseph loved a lady whose past was somewhat shady, but being rich and famous, he never tried to blame us for what his brothers did; of him they would have rid the family of siblings descended from the riblings begun by Eve and Adam who never knew they had 'em to populate the planet and grow grass on the granite. So take care, all ye folks, examine those egg yolks, the seed you see may be the start of family for some great chicks and roosters who don't need any boosters and who if wise we'll choose to crow about the Jews.

Funny dialogues on a Tuesday Afternoon

Joshua and his assistant installing a new glass shower door in our bathroom. Joshua: This is a really old shower. At least 20 years old. Linda: Old? We put it in in 1979. Joshua: See? That's when I was born. Linda: Crazy world when we have to change a whole door just because the rubber seal is worn out. Joshua: Now don't use this new one for a day. You got plenty of other showers to use. Linda: Ok, we'll just smell for a day or two. That's how we were brought up in England. Joshua: You from England? My mother's from Maine. Linda: Oh. Joshua: My mother's an artist. Linda: Oils? Joshua: Sure thing. She tried to get me to paint but I wouldn't. So I made $32,000 dollars when I was 23 and she tried to make me buy welding tools to make art stuff. I wouldn't. Linda: You could have made gates and fences! Joshua: Nah. I like to keep busy. You got a lot of art. Posters too. You paint? You collect? Linda: Not any more. We like to sell. Joshua: I made $2300 from Estate Sales. I saw this poster online and I looked up the artist on my i-phone and I said, I gotta get that, so I bought it for $100 and sold it to a dealer. Another time I got this poster at a sale and it turned out it was stolen and never reported. These guys they offered me $500 and I said, I coulda got a reward, you pay me double, so I got $1000. Linda: What did you do with my old shower door? Joshua: It's in the front. Why, you want it? Linda: Put it in the back, I could use it as a coffee table. Joshua (to his assistant): Put it where she wants. On the back patio: Linda: Herminio, put the bronze sculpture of the lady under the window and let's put the glass shower door on it. Herminio: Like this? Linda: Like that, to the left, take off the old rubber seal, very good, now she's a coffee table again. Herminio: Oh Linda Linda Linda! But Abigail, what she say? She tell me, oh oh, Herminio, quick put the door in the trash, my mother coming! Linda: You're right! Herminio: What her house? Very clean? Linda: Very clean! Stop laughing! Herminio: She put everything in the trash, right? And Absalom? Linda: Absalom would say, Mom! Move that table! It's dangerous for the children! Mom, deal with it! Herminio: Ha ha ha! Linda: And Zachary would say, put it in my room and I'll take it to New York! Herminio: And what he say, Boaz? Linda: And Boaz would say, Stop, let's sell it! Stop laughing! Herminio: Ha ha ha ha! He climbs back up his ladder, still laughing. Linda goes to write it all down. Something else to save! 5.28.12

By the Wayside

By the Wayside A voice is heard on high, and Rachel weeps, refusing consolation; some say we shall return by here one day from distant desolation, so people pass and tell her do not weep, that passing from this world is like a sleep. But she replies that darkness fills her heart, that stillness is for ever, that apart from those she loves the valley is too deep and weep she will and must until creation brings light from those whose love she’ll keep and transformation. 12.12.2005

Guggenheim, Lee Ufan show, September 2011

LEE UFAN, featured exhibition at Guggenheim, June 2011-09-04 I indignantly copied this from one wall, to explain to dim people like me what the Emperor’s New Clothes were about: Restraint in Art transforms his works from material objects to fleeting living experience, and his non-production serves as a nuanced critique of our globalized society of surplus and over production. By not making, Lee inspires a kind of productive passivity in which emptiness and open time are given meaning and substance. ENJOY THAT? THEN YOU'LL HAVE ENJOYED THE SHOW. IF NOT, YOU COULD JUST SKATEBOARD DOWN THE GUGGENHEIM SPIRAL. AT LEAST YOU'D HAVE AN ARTISTICALLY AMBULATORY EXPERIENCE! http://www.guggenheim.org/images/content/New_York/news/2011/leeufan_x10024_490px.jpg

Cat v. Mockingbirds in May

5/17/12 Figaro my clumsy cat sits at the window or by the closed screen door making soft growling tunes in his throat, and the poor sweet lovable joyous mockingbirds who have nested as usual in the tangled bougainvillea over the front door are silenced except for hours of squawks. Is it the male or female who guards the nest from tooth and claw? That door is closed but we parentbirds can't be too sure, they say. The couple must be under terrible stress, unable to sit peacefully on the eggs singing their hearts out, and the babies will be hatched from their thin shells quite frazzled. I hope they learn to fly quickly and get away from my resident monster.

Goerne and Eschenbach: Die Schöne Müllerin

4.16.12

You are never prepared for the transformative moments in your life. I’ve had a few. The first time I saw Mesa Verde from the top of an adjacent mountain. Watching my family praying Mincha, each in his own spot, amidst the deserted ruins of Segesta. Lightning striking a Bristlecone Pine while my son was standing next to it, peeing. Waking in the morning aged 10 and realizing I was in love with Shakespeare. Waking at 24 and realizing I was in love.
Such was the evening I spent at the Disney Center on Monday night. Matthias Goerne, no longer a youth, singing… no becoming… the lovelorn young miller’s apprentice in Schubert’s heart wrenching song cycle of Wilhelm Müller’s Die Schöne Müllerin, with the aging Christoph Eschenbach transformed by our sheer imagination to the miller’s daughter, all the while sitting with intense concentration at his piano.
The world slowed down; we were transported to an age of complete identity with nature, ours and God’s: indivisibly water, woods, trees, emotions, imaginary relationships, thoughts and voices, and everywhere the color green, the color of life, love, springtime, growth and ultimately the grave, when our feelings cease to fluctuate and grass covers us all.

Goerne was consumed by his role. His utterly beautiful voice soared and softened and was one with his entire body which bent like a reed, straightened and writhed in the agony of delight, love, happiness, jealousy, bitterness, anger and utter sorrow. His face followed; it did not matter that he does not look like a lovelorn youth or that his accompanist wasn’t a foolish maiden. He had me utterly under his spell.

The Disney Center was half empty. It should not have been. People of all ages, colors and experience should have been battering down the doors.

At the sweet, bitter end Goerne and Eschenbach slowed to their stop, and we all waited, waited, and waited… then, finally, they woke from their trance, faced the audience and we gathered up our strength to stand and applaud and bring them back until the two old loving friends walked away for the last time.

It was a performance that was hardly performance, and I with a few others bought a CD which normally would be found at half the price on Amazon, just to commemorate an evening of awe. The two great musicians came down, sat next to each other at a little table and beatifically, gratefully, signed their names on the CD. Yet it was us, the worshippers, who were saying Thank you, Thank you, and amazed at seeing them smile. How do you recover from an experience like that?

LRH 4.16.12