Pilgrimage to Island Pond: The Arrival

Betsy and Wetsy's Day at the Beach

One day Betsy and Wetsy went to the beach. It had been a sunny morning, but by the time they set down their towels and picnic basket, dark clouds had rolled in.

Betsy brooded. Wetsy ran down to the water to make a sand castle. She did not actually know how to make sand castles, so usually she just stood with a plastic shovel, looking wistful, until people came by and offered to help. They would pound the sand into towers and turrets, digging out moats and carving bridges, and Wetsy would run and get a flower to place in one of the towers and they would congratulate her on what a beautiful job she had done.

The other children on the beach would come to admire the sand castle, and share their plastic toys with Wetsy. Everybody helped to make the sand castle even bigger, and no one ever crushed anything or stomped it in.

There was only one child on the beach who would ever dream of doing such a thing, and that was Betsy.

Wetsy was having so much fun making the castle that she didn't notice the tide coming in until it was too late. One tower fell away, and then another. The other children scampered away to a drier part of the beach, and this made Wetsy cry. She tried to build up one of the castle walls, but the waves kept sweeping the sand away.

Then a big wave came along and swept away Wetsy.

It tossed her and turned her and spun her around, and she came up coughing and spluttering and wetting herself, which didn't even matter because the ocean was so wet already.

A jellyfish swimming along the bottom of the sea floor saw some toes wiggling above his head. He contemplated stinging them, but decided that would be too much plot conflict, and so he swam along instead.

Back on the beach, Betsy sighed and put her book down. Then she went to tell the lifeguards that her sister had been swept away.

If Wetsy had had anything left in her bladder, she would surely have released it when she saw the three handsome lifeguards running toward her. They were lean with chiseled features, and it was with strong, brawny arms that they carried her back to the beach where a worried crowd had gathered.

The people who had helped build the sand castle now had towels and blankets to wrap up Wetsy, and their children had brought popsicles and extra sandwiches from their coolers. Wetsy sat down and had a big feast, and people brought her hot chocolate to warm up again after all the popsicles.

Betsy and Wetsy's parents had been called by the lifeguards, and soon they came running down the beach and scooped up Wetsy and stroked her hair. Wetsy's mother cried, and Betsy glared, and Wetsy's father offered to buy Wetsy an ice cream cone. Wetsy threw up at the very thought. After everybody cleaned up Wetsy, Betsy was sent to pack their things and to carry the still-full cooler to the car.

Just when Betsy and Wetsy's father had started up the car, the clouds went away and it was sunny again.

And that was Betsy and Wetsy's day at the beach.

Image, Quote, Fact, and Word of the Day

"Carefully observe the way your heart draws you and then choose that way with all your strength." - Hasidic saying

Fact: A hagfish has a tongue with teeth on it. Ewwww!

Word: Haberdasher: –noun
1. a retail dealer in men's furnishings, as shirts, ties, gloves, socks, and hats.

Which means haberdashery is not anything near as scandalous as I thought it was!

Yay Peter Pan! Boo Marlo Morgan.

UPDATE: My good friend Ji Hyang has just informed me that this book which I was so excited over is, in fact, a FAKE! It is still very engaging and dreamy and la-de-da and that's probably why I wished it was real- it's almost like following Peter Pan into Neverland, except Neverland is the Outback, and the Lost Boys are the Aborigines, and there's no Tinkerbell, but there ARE crocodiles! Anyway. I still enjoyed the book in all its fabricated outlandishness, and maybe when I go to Australia to do my walkabout I'll be abducted by a tribe of Aborigines and then I'll return to write the TRUE story!

Or maybe, I should really start being careful what I wish for.

I was going to find and upload a print by Edvard Munch that I saw in the art library today and quite enjoyed. But the images that came up when you google "munch," "girl," and "flower," were, lets just say, not what I expected. Although I guess it all makes sense in retrospect. But until I go back and find the exact title, I'll leave you with this, fitting, since word of the day is:

eldritch \EL-drich\, adjective: Strange; unearthly; weird; eerie.

Yay Regina Spector! Boo Mercury Retrograde.

Tonight I was all excited to be going out on the town- for a Regina Spector concert with my friend Aoife. I put on brand new make-up and heels and took some pictures, feeling classy. As I strode to Adelaide (my car), humming a little tune and taking in the fall air, I thought I would check my phone to see what time it was. 

Panic rose as I realized my phone was not in the bag, but I remembered quickly that this was the bag that had a rip in the interior liner, and the last time I had taken it out (actually, about two summers ago, also when hanging out with Aoife), there had been a rather embarrassing Episode at a Portland bar that involved a half hour search by Aoife, me, the bartenders, and locals for my car keys, and an apology to AAA Emergency Road Service when I finally discovered the rip, and the keys along with it. 

So I confidently searched within the depths of the rip, only to find that the phone was definitively not there this time. I ran back to my room, tore the contents of it apart, peeked in every nook and cranny from underwear drawer to wastebasket, still to no avail. I still had my coat on and was working up a sweat; the carefully orchestrated make-up and hair were starting to smudge and frizzle. Grumbling to myself, I charged back down the stairs and onto the lawn where my purse was still sitting, and demanded that the Universe reveal my phone to me. And sure enough, in the rip, I now saw a pink edge poking out. Oh, cosmic fairies and how you toy!

On the drive over to the T station, I became increasingly aware of my left contact lens, and the sensation of it trying to make its way slowly but deliberately out of my eye. I inspected the situation in a rear-view mirror while idling at a red light, and there it was; the second troublesome rip of the night, this one in my contact. 

"Well!" I thought to myself. "I'll just manifest it to heal. I'll DEMAND that it not bother me anymore!" And so from Wellesley to Newton, I thanked the Universe over and over again for the miraculous staying-intact powers of my contact lens. 

But the positive thinking got somewhat derailed when I found out that parking at the T-station was $6.00. It trickled back again when my feminine wiles got me onto the train for free. And then it faded pretty much for good when, three stops in, I realized that I had left my phone in Adelaide. (My car).  

After getting off the inbound train, crossing to the outbound side, and having the next two outbound trains pass without stopping, my grateful affirmations to the Universe had been permanently abandoned. I had a sarcastic laugh at my nearly ordering 46 dollars worth of subway tickets, since at the rate my night was going, it might not be such a reckless investment. 

Twenty minutes later, I was back at the original station and halfway to my car when my contact fell out. 

"I just hope I can see enough to find my goddamn PHONE," I thought, half-contemplating calling Aoife and telling her that I had given up. But then I decided I was curious to see just how much worse things could get, and what it would be like trying to navigate a city with one eye. I retrieved my phone, which was cloaked under a veil of scarves and decorative flowers. Then, for the second time that night, I walked across the parking lot, mounted the T platform, and boarded the inbound train to Boston. 

At long last life

started to regain its pleasantry once I met up with Aoife, who had been waiting an hour, and thus drinking a fair amount of beer. I had a pastrami sandwich and a Guiness waiting for me, and thats never something to be complained about, and pretty soon my blood sugar began to stabilize and my vision found a way to unite itself, and we headed over to the concert for more drinks and merriment. 

But the fates were still frowning, it seems; my ID was declined for the first time in its young life by an Ogress of a woman who made some big fuss about it being a duplicate. I indulged in belligerent argument with her for ten futile minutes before finally turning on my heels, marching to the next table, presenting my ID and a charming smile to the male middle-aged bartender, and receiving a glass of Zinfandel. Boo-yah! 

Then we ascended five flights of stairs to be escorted through dark and narrow aisles by an usher, and between the heels and drinks and lopsided vision, it was a miracle I didn't land in anyone's lap. We settled into seats P1 and P3 to enjoy a thoroughly quirky and engaging concert by Regina Spektor, who not only plays piano and sings, but strums out a mean tune on electric guitar and sometimes bangs wildly on a chair!

Once we got up to leave, I did a quick survey of all my belongings. Keys, wallet, camera, check. I even made sure my subway pass was in an easily accessible pocket. We were reaching the aisle when I felt a tap on my shoulder- it was the guy who had been sitting in the row in front of me. 

He was holding out my phone. 

And that, dear readers, is the tale of Regina Spektor and semi-blindness and a phone that tried to escape three times. Mercury goes back to normal on September 29th. Hooray!

In Which Leah and I end up Lost in the Wellesley Woods and Sing Songs about a Stegosaurus to Boost our Morale...

Today in my Bosch & Bruegel seminar we looked at this print by Schongauer, called The Demons Tempting St. Anthony. I think being tempted by my demons would be much more fun if they looked like monkey dragon fish and flew around my head beating me with sticks. 

Or maybe I should be careful what I wish for... 

irreverent art critique and vicky christina barcelona

Tonight the Davis museum was having an opening for multiple exhibitions.

The first, shown above, is "an exploration of the boundaries between sculpture, nature, and architecture," meant to "evoke ritualistic associations, transforming the viewer into a kind of archaeologist or explorer and heightening awareness" of the space around it.

Oh art and the things you're meant to explore and evoke! I've walked and run past this person's outdoor work by the lake a hundred times and always thought it was just a firepit. Which I suppose evokes ritualistic associations. But I've never felt transformed into an archaeologist or explorer, and I certainly did not feel a heightened awareness of the lake. My god! I wish some of these contemporary artists would cut to the chase in their verbomanic descriptions and just admit:

It is something, rather than nothing. It's not really anything in particular, but you're looking at it, aren't you? And therefore, it is art.

That's what I think 99% of contemporary art exhibit placards should say, actually.

Case in point: exhibit #2, Reconnaissance by Christine Hiebert.

Three "wall drawings," one of which was basically blue scotch tape strung and splotched along the wall. The strewn scotch tape was meant to "utilize the language of line on a large scale," and "command and engage" "the monumental architectural space of the light-filled top floor gallery."

This whole idea of calling the viewer's attention to space itself seems to be the latest trend in art, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I certainly see where it fits in on the timeline; starting with Pollack, we began calling the viewer's attention to materials used in the painting, and then as the movement of modern art continued, our attention was directed toward the surface itself and the picture plane.

Now we're going beyond the art object itself into the space around it, which is great for the field of art history, because it will have something new to add to its textbooks, and a new concept to quiz its students on.

But while I get it- yes, space! We don't always notice it, or at least not all of it; it took me ten years to notice that my best friend's house had baskets hanging from its ceiling ...

and while I was stimulated for a surprisingly lengthy ten seconds by the scattered lines of blue tape, looking to and fro and thinking "wow! that wall IS big!"

I am still annoyed by the placard.

Because while this might certainly be true:

Christine Hiebert's artwork is an exploration of space: she draws, articulates, and redefines it, evoking a personal, metaphorical, architectural space of her own...

We could just as easily say this:

Christine Hiebert has strewn scotch tape all over the walls of the Wellesley art museum so that we notice the walls themselves, which is cool, because usually you don't look at walls in an art museum!

Or even this:

Christine Hiebert has done something rather than nothing, and you're looking at it, and therefore it is art.

If I sound belligerent, maybe it's because for the past half a century, art has been getting increasingly boring. The wall descriptions get longer and longer while the objects themselves get flatter and simpler, less colorful, less existent. I don't care about concepts.... I want stories! I'm sick of being told how to look at something, and how to consider it. I shouldn't have to be told why something is art; I should feel it.

Can you imagine a mother telling her child why van Gogh's Starry Night is art? Or Munch's The Scream, or John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo?

Granted, there was one exhibit that did emphasize the pictorial:

"George Legrady and Angus Forbes explore the intersection of user generated visual narratives and descriptive social tagging in their installation Cell Tango."

It's basically a big screen of people's cell phone pictures, repeated over and over again.

You're invited to send in your own images, so that the "dynamically evolving archive of cellphone-transmitted images" will "dynamically change as the image database grows over the course of the installation."

It's all very dynamic, you see.

Don't get me wrong, I love contemporary art. I love all its pomp and pretense and all the belligerence it spurs in me. I love watching old overly-dressed up couples and stuffy neurotic professors and hyped up type A cardigan-clad Wellesley girls jostling elbows for grapes and cheese and wine at gallery openings. I love listening to people's droning commentary as they walk the exhibits, and I love my own internal irreverent commentary as I scale four flights of stairs just to see some blue scotch tape on the wall.

I am half watching Vicky Christina Barcelona as I write this, and right now the characters are discussing an artist who is mad at the world, who creates beautiful works of art and then denies them to the public as revenge. I think that's a pretty awesome line of reasoning- it's the surest way to tell that an artist is doing art for art's sake and not for the promotional value and wall placard. But while we wait for the pure art to be post-humously discovered, we might as well poke around galleries looking at the pomp and scotch tape and drivel. After all, it's something rather than nothing, it gave me something to do on a Wednesday night, and it gave everybody an excuse to have wine and cheese. What more, really, are we here for?

More irreverent art reviews to come if you liked this one!

Stay cool and classy,

"The Wanderess"

my new favorite word is...

crapulent |ˈkrapyələnt|

adjective poetic/literary

of or relating to the drinking of alcohol or drunkenness.

DERIVATIVES

crapulence |ˈkrøpjələns| noun

crapulous |-yələs| |ˈkrøpjələs| adjective

ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from late Latin crapulentus ‘very drunk,’ from Latin crapula ‘inebriation,’ from Greek kraipalē ‘drunken headache.’

VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

is my favorite class and it puts my mind and soul at ease to be reminded of the scientific views on human existence; that we were put here for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to PROCREATE. Schwiiing!

Today was a cozy rainy day so I took pictures and did art in my room. I love this little nook!