2009/02/21

I love Carol Gold, The Prisoner, and Stinky Cheese

Aaaaahhhhh......

The contented sigh you hear all around you everywhere in the world today is the sound of a perfectly and absolutely relaxing week at the beach. Perfect weather. Perfect food. Perfect wine. Perfect movies - and the entire series (plus bonus footage and interviews, thank you very much) of The Prisoner on the newly purchased DVD's brought along by The Great Husband - a man obsessed with The Prisoner.

The GH, it seems, has committed yet another act of conversion on his hapless wife. I've followed him again, apparently. This campaign of corruption began with Monty Python 25 years ago, and continues to this day. He is determined to enjoy very odd and disorienting cinema, and he is determined to have his enjoyment with company - my company. (His one spectacular failure was the three stooges. See that? I did not even capitalize the title. I cannot like the three stooges.) The Prisoner is such a psychological puzzle and such an of-the-moment commentary that it's impossible to think in enough directions at once for encompassing it all in one go -- and this makes for much thought and conversation -- conversation helped along by good wine and stinky cheese. (Shoulda taken one more seeded baguette, though. We ran out and had to content ourselves with Safeway bread.)

Perfectly happily relaxingly married life. The best possible way to head into Lent this year, and it feels great.

Bronze Coast Gallery had to be a part of my week, of course. I went in and stayed awhile this time -- on our first day -- whilst the GH had his Vacation Headache Coma. It only takes a day, so this time I took the coma day to walk and gallery gaze -- and be stunned at the sheer numbers of people who were at Cannon Beach in February!

Don Dahlke was my first love in the Bronze Coast, but Carol Gold calls me too, and either she keeps getting better and better or I am getting better eyes to see with. It is a little hard to see in these pictures, but Carol Gold forms bronze so amazingly that these very simple lines and this very heavy cast metal radiates such weightlessness and movement and emotion that's almost indescribable. It draws my hand out - I need to touch these sculptures. Need to move them and turn them and run my fingers along their ridges and slopes.

She has some I've never seen before -- and they're far, far out of my reach for now. But I'll buy something of hers one of these days. I'll spend "earned it myself by my writing" money on one. That's suitable, don't you think?

I really liked this couple. They are staying within the bounds of their own eternal circle, and they do not find it confining or constrictive. It's a dance for them. They tango, but independently. They watch each other. They step in synchronized unity, in equal and opposite attraction, and find a fluid counterpoint in this sort of movement. They are the same and different. They do not touch, but they maintain contact. I stood in the gallery and turned this piece around and around and around, gazing and gazing at it. Its name is "Circle."

And then there's the beautiful "Baile." Isn't she wonderful?

2009/02/14

Tomorrow Tomorrow I love ya, Tomorrow

At last! We get a whole week this time!

Starting tomorrow, we get some stinky cheese, and some gallery walking, and some movie viewing, and some walks (all bundled up, of course) on the beach. This beach. OUR beach.

Five links in one paragraph. All our links lead to the beach. That's where he said "I love you" for the first time, and that's where we spent most of our honeymoon. The beach is where the air soaks deeply into my pores and cells and breath and reminds me of the all Norse lands I've never seen. Childhood's happiness and cousin laughter and windy afternoons and scratchy sunburns wash up on the sand and whisper to me. The pounding surf does a kind of CPR on my lungs and sternum. At the beach, I come back to life.

Wow.

I really need this vacation apparently.

2009/02/11

Now more than ever?


200 years ago, on February 12, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born. Yeah - both of 'em. On the same date. I saw that and thought to myself how short-sighted we are - in two directions! Humans are always more ready to believe gloom and doom predictions than to believe that things are good and happy, or that they might become so. And we are also very willing to believe that Now More Than Ever there are pressures and troubles and a fast paced world and more innovations and blah blah blah ... Now More Than Ever.

But think. What was the world to people 200 years ago? What changes and innovations were on the horizon then? How fast was everything expanding? How dire did things seem? What opportunities? What global crises and what problems to be solved?

Thus it has ever been, ebbing and flowing, contracting and expanding, the whole of the universe of human experience is what it was ... and is what it never was because it cannot be. There are humans involved.

Two hundred years ago, two women had baby boys in the dark of a February day, and no one could tell then whether those boys would live to adulthood (because we never know that). No one could tell what changes would come to the world because those two boys did become men. I wonder who was born today. Two hundred years from now, when people say that Now More Than Ever the world has changed, what babies will be part of the reason?

Pink snow

Outside my window tonight - chilly, but it sure is pretty.

Name that category

Okay, players ... for the grand prize, your partner will give you this final list, and you will name the category all these things belong to.

Remember, nothing but your own levels of irritation and pleasure will be determined here and you will win no money.

Ready, players? Here we go. Start the clocks!

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Things purporting to be cake,

individually wrapped in air-sealed packaging.







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A large variety of specialized cleaning products

individually packaged and marketed

sold as helpful

yet easily replaced with a few biodegradable, non-toxic and

inexpensive alternatives

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sporks (especially for soup eaters)











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ill-advised and hilariously silly kitchen gadgets





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online courses for college credit from serious academic institutions that expect the students to actually EARN respectable degrees

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self-employment business "opportunities"

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Time's up.

Players --- category please.

And the category for the grand prize is ....

THINGS THAT ATTRACT YOU BY BEING "CONVENIENT"

I'm just sayin