Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Thus Spoke Arethusa


After several hours of recovery and a goodly long nap I'm back to almost human.

Dinner was gazpacho and a huge pickle from a giant jar purchased while returning from my last adventure at the Botanical Gardens, a kidnapping from the back of Bradbury Mountain, a story I've not quite figured out how to tell yet.

Today was very much different.

I love driving through the Crawford Notch State Park up Route 302 in New Hampshire.  I take it straight Northwest to hook up with US 93 and thence to visit the Ferguses and their horses in Vermont.

The drama of the landscape never fails to energize and enthrall me, compelling me to stop and make a futile attempt to capture it by camera.

With the unusual luxury of two consecutive days off - Monday and Tuesday - I decided last night to drive up and hike somewhere in the park - anywhere.

A quick look at the park website led me to the Arethusa Falls - and the Frankenstein cliff.

How can you refuse a location named after a non-ravished nymph and a monster created by Mary Shelly?

Listening to David Sanipass the other night (Native American 2.0, if you're interested in reviewing) had send me up Bradbury Mountain a few days later - but somehow this seemed more important.

David's discussion of the universality of experience - though he sees it in spiritual terms and I in emotional/psychological terms - had brought a lot of thoughts and feelings to the surface of my life.

I  experience everything as connected. We all have an effect on each other - like the famous "Butterfly Effect", where the flapping of a Beijing butterfly can cause a Florida hurricane. It hit me during a conversation with the friend whom I'd run into at David's talk that if I allowed my imagination to fully take hold of my conscious vision I could literally see the lines of connection from everything to everything, like lines of yarn spun from light, a dazzling web of influence and connection.

And I think this vision was what was driving me up the mountain today. I had to go someplace with a solid physical presence, a grounded place, literally, that I could then feel myself traveling over, traveling through.

So there I was, making my way up the trail.

My GPS track from MapMyWalk is posted above. The walk forward and back was only 3.3 miles, slightly longer than Bradbury.

The climb? Much, much more demanding.

The trail, rated "medium" is very rocky, with the path worn between large rocks covered with thick roots, either of which can toss you over and down a very steep drop to the stream below.

It's a challenge - there is a point where the sense of "how much further up can I go" begins to obsess you. Looking to the left after 40 minutes shows another mountain peak, clear in the sky directly across from you.

The reality of how far you've come can begin to balance the concern with how far you have to go.

 Just like the falls in Portland you heard Arethusa well before you see it. The trail gives up some of its height (and you think "wait, I'll have to climb back up before I can climb back down?") They are very dramatic, a ribbon of water than makes a formidable ice fall for climbing in Winter.

Today a surprising number of people had made the trip. The bottom of the falls seemed full of people, at least five groups - only one of which spoke English (I did have a brief chat with some Germans visiting from Hamburg - they knew about Curry Queen, a Facebook page for a local fast food shop in the Erikastrasse - that was odd).

There were stones piled at the bottom, scattered like giant's playthings, cracked off the stone face of the mountain through ice and erosion. They gave you no real place to sit, your legs had to brace to hold you up on the tumbled rocks - not really a rest to prepare for the climb down.

A frugal snack of water, an apple and my constant friends - salted almonds - brought out local companionship - a red chipmunk kept flirting with my backpack, running up to it and then dashing away.

Strategic tossing of my hard-portaged apple brought my new acquaintance nearby for some impromptu portraiture - we sat and looked at each other for a few quick moments.

I wondered what it thought of me, what it saw. I assume it was accustomed to being around people, it was a popular spot and half those around me were snacking - some on trail mix, some on Pringles - and the chipmunk might make a good living in the Summer.

In the Winter, the ice climbing season - well, it was a popular ice-climb as well, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

With that I had to leave. I suppose burning my body out to climb a trail to consider a chipmunk was not a total waste of an afternoon.


Portland, Maine

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Native American 2.0


This image has been with me for several years, coming to me when ending a visit to my mother's grave at the Brush Creek Church in Kenwood.

There is a very dirty, very decrepit filling station/store just as you turn onto the main road and since it's almost always summer and well into the 100's I usually stop to get a water.

It's always bottled. That helps.

Still, there's a Cherokee newspaper, the Eagle, that is usually on display so I pick one up to see what the latest tribal outrage is.

James Earle Fraser's iconic image, "End of the Trail",  was once on the front, as part of an editorial. Suddenly I got fed up with it.

The image sees Natives as a vanishing race of noble warriors, the sad losers.  That bugs the hell out of me.

The Native culture I know is vital, dynamic, adaptive and stupendously clever. It has a very different point of view from many view points and it has a lot to say to Anglo culture. Hence my addition to the image. (And I like red. Almost as much as blue).

I found this out last night. After yet another panic-stricken tragedy of a tango evening I awoke very tired and depressed. Answering a friend's text honestly (I was being thanked for helping move an office and made the mistake of texting my heart) I got a lovely phone call that mentioned that David Sanipass, the See-er for the Mi'Kmaq (pronounce it kind of "migga-mack" but not really) would be "sharing his culture" at the Luther Bonney Auditorium that evening.

Usually these kind of "cultural sharing" events slide off me like water off a duck but during the day two other people - a teaching client and a photographer friend - mentioned it to me, totally out of context.

Well, I'm not stupid (well, I am) so I walked down and took a seat just as the tall white lady started her introduction - by striking a brass bowl, rubbing it for tone and calling us to "enter into the spirit of the space and leave the world outside". There followed 15 minutes of "context setting".

The evening was sponsored by the "Spiritual Community" of Portland - seekers all.

David, whom I've met and have a great respect for, is the "Sachem" or "See-er" of the tribe. His job - his identity - is to see spirits in the real world, to connect and pray in the old, mountaintop, hard physical way and to share the basis of the Native approach to reality and relationship.

He also is a very good flute maker and player. The tone of his flutes is very centered and he takes great care to make the notes move truly - a lot of flutes can only be played in limited pitch centers - his can cover more ground and that's a good thing.

The premise of his talk was that a time would come when Native people of all nations (tribes) would see the opening of a Golden Eastern Door, would know that the White people would be most needful of hearing Native wisdom and truth. The time was now at hand and the sharing of this knowledge would have a pivotal role in saving the world.

The problem is that the tribes aren't really speaking up. There is so much distrust of white people - no offense if you're white and reading this - (well, maybe a little) that nothing is being said. The odds are very good that it will be used to make money, rather like using water in the desert to make bricks to build casinos rather than raise crops to feed everyone.

So David is on a one-man crusade to share his knowledge with the larger culture.

The knowledge? The message?

My take is "we're all in this together". If a butterfly flutters its wings in Beijing a hurricane happens in Florida - "for want of a nail, the shoe was lost ....". In "Lost Horizon" the Head Lama says the message is simple - "be kind".

It was a very engaging talk, using many different ways of framing the message he feels compelled to share - against the advice of some of his elders, which is saying something.

He worked the crowd well, inviting them to a "tea", a small group gathering of 10 or so to chat and share, held several times a month.  He even sat next to me for a moment, a big grin on his face. I greeted him, called him "son" and asked how the hell things were going, all in Cherokee.

All faces turned to see us. They all had expressions of wonder and admiration - also a kind of desperate hope. They were smiling at me. "Look, another Native was sitting behind us all the time. How wonderful, how wonderful."

 It was charming. It was scary as hell - and I'm used to crowds.

The crowd itself numbered about 130, mostly women, older - a smattering of grey headed men, some with long hair pulled back. A few younger men with hot dates, surreptitiously checking their phones apparently tolerating the date's interest before heading off for wine and bumpy sex.

One African American lady, and me. Everyone else was white, most everyone, in my opinion, kind of looking for David to provide an answer, an insight, an explanation that would tie everything up together.....

...... except he didn't. He asked us all to just pay attention to what the spirits - or the world, as I would put it - was trying to tell us. To trust intuition more, facts for facts sake less.

And then the questions portion started. "This is where it all goes downhill" I whispered to my companions.

And sure enough it did.  Questions about crystals - Indigo children (new to me - that's my biography there and all the interesting people I love) - spirit helpers - re-incarnation - Edgar Cayce, for cryin' out loud.

Most of the questioners were trying to take what David said and integrate it into what they already believed. Ironic, because I think the message was to dynamite your whole world concept and start seeing the world.

So it degenerated, in one way, into yet another crystal-gazing, spirit-chasing, aura-clearing New Age crapfest.

In another, it was a clear demonstration that there is a whole world of people who just don't get it, who can't see each other - or themselves - or the world - with any kind of rational clarity.

And those weren't the people in that room.

I think David has the general outlines of what's needed, he's got it tagged.  And I think the people in the room were asking the right questions, which, in my experience, is the first step toward finding the right answers.

The beauty of the world is that we all find the right answers ourselves, for ourselves.

The fun is that we get to share them - by words if needed - but by action best.

And that's as close to a Golden Door as I can find.

Care to step through?

Portland, Maine

Sunday, August 12, 2012

The Night After the Day Before


This is a very odd, very emotionally charged day.

It happens every year, like clockwork. I think I can ignore it, that after all these years of awareness it would lose its meaning, its strength - but it hasn't happened yet.

I don't think it ever will.

Last night, in Indianapolis, at Lucas Oil Stadium - colloquially known as "The Oil Can" - my old drum and bugle corps, the Blue Devils of Concord, CA won their 15th Drum Corps International World Championship.

The scores are shown.

In one respect it's simply "a marching band on steroids", the descendant of veteran's patriotic marching groups after the world wars, now run as 501(c)3 non-profit youth arts organizations.

In another it's a musical group using a football field for a stage, exploring performance mediums. giving students a chance to perform at the highest levels of achievement and communication possible. The sound of a good hornline is visceral, stunning, almost painfully powerful. Drums and melodic percussion are precise, explosive, subtle and expressive. Flags and rifles are balletic, colorful, exact and emotional.

My closeup, courtesy PBS
My major experience came in the Summer of 1977. I performed as a "rook-out", a rookie age-out, 21 being the top year of eligibility. My association with the Blue Devils came by chance a year before at the first National Marching Band championship through connections.

I picked the right group - we had an almost undefeated season (only being beaten in one prelim show when half of us were dizzy with stomach flu - we came back that night to annihilate the competition).

Years later, in the 80's, just out of grad school I spent Summers driving a truck and managing the logistics of equipment - getting things fixed, loading and unloading the massive truck (still in use today) and helping get a circus down the road.

This was a task I repeated in 2001 when the corps came East for a tour up the coast from Georgia to Disney World and thence all the way up to Beverly, MA, where I got a ride home.

It's where I also slipped off the loading table for the rented Penske truck - shown - and cleanly snapped my right ACL. The nice young doctor at Disney World wrapped it (also shown) and now it twinges and stiffens if I don't use it, reminding me of my trip.

My trip, literally....

Especially during my equipment manager years I was keenly aware of what the day after Finals meant. I packed the corps up carefully, took an exacting inventory, locked the truck, gave my keys to the manager - usually Mike Moxley, the only man I allow to call me "Jimmy".

Then, along with other people traveling home from wherever the Championships were held - Madison, WI, Kansas City, KS, Miami, FL, - I would be dropped at the local airport.

As the day after Finals progressed - often blending gracelessly over from the night OF Finals - you could feel the cohesion of this amazing group of fellow performers begin to erode. People were saying goodbye, some aging out, never to return as Marching Members - we're all Former Marching Members, you stay a Blue Devil for life. Others were planning their work for the next year, intent on auditioning again, because, even if we lost, there just wasn't anywhere better to go to than the Blue Devils.

Or so it seemed to me. But I'm prejudiced.

Airports were full of kids - many in corps jackets, chatting each other up, playing cards in the boarding lounges. In the local airport they were no longer part of their corps, but, waiting for their flights, they were still members of an inclusive community, having shared the sacrifices of money, time and energy it took to belong to a corps of any level, having shared the pain and sweat of countless hours of rehearsal, individual practice and work.

All of them sharing the ideal of a perfect performance, complete and total commitment to excellence for a 13 minute show.

And now, as we dispersed to destinations, to hub airports, as we made connections that made us lose connections, we all became travelers lost in the crowds. As I flew further away I would crane my neck to look for a corps jacket, the super-tanned face above it smiling, grateful for air conditioning, fast food and the goal of a soft bed and family to rejoin, a band camp to tolerate, college to attend.

That's what this day is. I always feel it as the end of Summer; a transition, a magical, melancholy, magnificent space where one thing ends and another has yet to begin. You look back and know that this morning you woke on a gym floor surrounded by friends, tomorrow you'll wake up in your own bed and no one is around to tell you what to do.

Except the voice inside, the voice that tells you that after you've had your rest you can get up and do anything, anything you set your mind - no, anything you set your mind and heart - to.

And, if it all goes well, there will always be the roar of horns, the thunder of drums, the snap of flags and the certain knowledge that there are people in the world who get it, in the darkest, loneliest times to come, you know there are people out there like you, who know what being totally alive really means - if only for 13 minutes.

Play your cards right - it could last a lifetime and a half.

Portland, Maine

Friday, August 10, 2012

Katz as Katz Can ...


More and more I've been sinking into a sense of depression - disconnecting from friends, music, the world, walking, reading - everything.

Yesterday my doctor told me that some of my blood chemistry had changed, mostly because of losing so much fat by walking. Some adjustments in my diabetes meds have been made - apparently Native Americans react differently when conditions, known as the "base", change.

Which might explain a lot.

I'm barely human at the best of times; this isn't helping.

So I took one of my 90-minute vacations today. They originally started at 30, then went up to 60 early last year. The idea is to set the timer on my iPhone then drive in an arbitrarily-chosen direction for the set time. When the alarm - usually a duck - goes off I get out, take some pictures, eat lunch as needed, then come back in.

It's an easy way to go adventuring for only the cost of gas. Now it's up to 90 minutes. I'm slowly using up Maine.

Today was a kind of cheat. On the good advice of a friend who really should know I went north to Waterville, to look at the Alex Katz exhibit at the Colby Museum of Art.

Summer break is on, the campus' manicured lawns are a rich green, the parking lots blissfully empty. One of the lawns had the inevitable event-type white tent (photo shown) which I'll bet is intended for some kind of fund-raising or "brand-building" event. Next to it were trucks dropping off tables. Cloths will come next, followed by caterers and open bars.  Then, very self-entitled people with a lot of money.

Some things never change.

The Museum as it is comprises one huge sub-divided gallery containing, overall, three sections. The light comes from large pyramidal skylights, very little direct lighting - very effective.

A huge new entrance pavilion is under construction, set to open next Summer.

I had heard of Katz when I studied Art History back in grad school, at Louisiana Tech (of all places). The flat, direct, very minimal style was familiar to me, but I didn't connect it until on the way back to Portland.

Looking closely at the brush work - and distantly at the composition - I felt he improvised on the canvas - or more specifically, he improvised it in his head and his hands took dictation to get it down.

Of course, improvisation is the give and take between what your brain conceives and how it reacts to its experience of that conception's realization. When I my hands realize a melody and I then hear it I react and move in response to what I've just created. It wouldn't surprise me if painters have a similar experience.

Two very large canvases - apparently a trademark of his - faced each other across the room. "West" (link to image on Colby Museum Website) was a nightscape capturing the lights of a building against the black of the city. I got very close to this one - respectfully behind the rope - and marveled at the construction of the lighted windows - mostly dry-brushed white against a black gesso.

The sill and frame of each window are gently outlined in grey throughout the canvas.

I suspect the sheer volume of work he's done has brought him to a place where the what of his concept blends so perfectly with the how of its execution that he just goes to it.

I know he laid it out, he had to.  Just enough detail. Just enough information. He leaves the emotional content to you.

The number of figures - portraits, groups, cutouts, illustrations (almost) - surprised me. There were some interesting things to see. I counted 43 faces on display (not counting the cutouts in the first gallery) - of those, only 3 were facing full-on front. This might be a more interesting way to shape a face on canvas - I know I rarely take a photo of someone flat full-on as the detail tends to wash away.

Still, Katz' style doesn't present photographic detail. Each image presents only the needed information - again, almost poster-like, but with a clear sense of personality and life. Perhaps the most iconic is "Black Hat - Bettina" (link to image on UK Guardian website).

Oddly - and maybe I'm sensitive to this - there was only one non-white face in all the canvases, a piece called, I believe "Brown Night", painted in 1991 (though there is another called "Kynaston" from 1963).

Is it fair to say we paint - or write - mostly what we see? Or what we wish we saw? Or what we think we see? Or do we just create first and figure it out later?

Of course, Colby has something like 400 canvases in its collection, this is only a small bit.

What does he spend his time looking at, who? For that matter, who or what do I think of?

Regardless of the accuracy of my observations - or the relevancy of my reactions - it was heartening to consider how you would conceive and fix such an image in your head and then transfer it to your hands for recording. Perhaps - and I'm not a painter - the more you do, the more the two things blend together.

I know when I write a piece of music the basic material comes into my head and then almost immediately goes into my hands as I record and shape it.

And this process feels good to me - my mind is at home, my heart has a voice to use to present its feelings. I hope so. Part of me is very frightened of what I feel, part of me is driven to express it, part of me is always caught in waves of passion and observation. In time, balance can be found, I suppose.

Katz tells us only what we need to know - but we are still driven to know and the reaction is our own.

We'll see what the meds can do adjust my blood sugar, my energy level and thus my tolerance of humanity - starting with myself.

Portland, Maine.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Doing nothing. Important!


Meanwhile, back at the Orchard, we're in the middle of our annual Camp - students come for one session of music composition on iPad, storyboard a story they want to tell, then go home, shoot it. Then one session to edit it into a finished video.

Saturday, all that week's groups combine for a film festival.

This is our third year. Enrollment and teaching are at the highest level we've seen. I'm very proud of how the whole store has rallied to make this the best possible experience for our young guests.

I'm also amazed at how much pure connect-the-dots hands-on I-have-to-get-this-done WORK the whole thing is.

I shouldn't be, but I am. Every damn time.

Like a runner (or a confirmed walker) I love the feeling of mental motion, of the brain and spirit working together to forge a connection that gets you to a new place.

Also, like a runner, you're sore afterwards.

The Cirque du Soleil has a saying - "If an acrobat wakes up in the morning and isn't in pain, he's dead". Pithy, but accurate.

So between taking extra-long walks around the city - 4.75 miles yesterday - I've discovered that it's perfectly OK to go to one of the most beautiful spots in Portland - if not the North American continent - spread out a blanket, tuck my sandals under my head for a pillow and watch clouds go by until awakened by a cool breeze and the barking of a child and the laughter of a dog.

The Eastern Promenade Gazebo is the site of our famous Gazebo Milongas. Usually held on any good-weather Summer Friday we gather to dance and enjoy a spectacular view of Portland Harbor and the near Islands.

I find it to be a great place to experience quiet.

The sun is very warm, the breeze cooling - though I wish I'd brought a sweater. The flags on the various war memorials snap loudly, even as far above my head as they are.

I've always been a cloud-watcher - probably why I've never gotten married or don't own my own house.  This was a perfect day for high, cirrus clouds, faint brush-strokes of white.

Sometimes clouds are giant New York Times Square neon signs, great big fluffy graffiti crowding the welkin's spaces (look it up) overhead. Your head explodes with ideas and the convivial merriment of life.

Others tell stories in quiet block letters and your imagination thinks of friends, home, gentle music.

And some clouds, like now, are simple lines, almost like Chinese calligraphy overhead, leading you to think bare, primary thoughts of bare, primary sensory feelings - breathing, moving, grass under your toes, the very moment you are in, the feelings inside you right now - and nothing more important than that.

So for a brief, non-determined space of time my mind and spirit stop reaching outside of myself and reach inward - flexing themselves just for the joy of their own movement.

Or they stop focussing obsessively inward and reach outward - connecting purely with the surrounding world, carrying only what they sense - relaxed, open to the voice of the wind, moving where it blows them.

Until finally I know it's time to stop, to take my new camera (thank you, C!) and see what it is I'm looking at.

Point taken. Lesson learned.

Portland, Maine