Category Archives: Art and Culture

Judge Judged by Self

November 14, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

31 bar rises 30.01 1mph NW windchill 29 Samhain

Full Dark Moon

“Man(sic), unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.” – John Steinbeck

This evening I left home and journeyed to North East for the opening of the show. It is no longer my habit to leave home much in the evening except for meetings like the Sierra Club or the Woollies.

I felt excited, a bit apprehensive. After all, our judgments had a role in the evening.

By the time I got there, about 7:50 or 8:00, there was still a large crowd. A friend from docent training, David Fortney, came up and asked me about our selections. He had his own. As did everyone in the room.

At some point I began to feel uncomfortable. It was a little difficult to track down where the feelings were coming from, but finally I pinpointed it. I was there as a judge, an arbiter and I didn’t like the role. I could explain our selections, how we got to them, but the role put me in a place in position to the room that felt icky.

I’m glad we judged the show. I’m glad we made our decisions yesterday.

Would I do it again? Not without preparation and thought. But, yes, I probably would.

Kate’s neck continues to bother her, though I hope some of that will lift tomorrow as the dye diffuses and the pressure from the myelogram recedes.

This is the end of a long series of diverse activity. That’s what I like, different work that requires different skills with different people. The downside is that when too much comes close together it can tax me. I’m glad to be on this side of it all right now.

May head over to the Walker tomorrow. I haven’t been there in awhile.

Art and Culture, Asia

Scarlett, the Young Korean

September 7, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

62 bar rises 29.99 0mph E dew-point 42 sunrise 6:42 set 7:38 Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Harvest Moon rise 3:16 set 11:22

Back from the Korea tour. We stayed mostly in Korea. I took the folks through the history of Korea, using objects in the MIA collection. Scarlett, the young Korean, made excited noises during much of the tour though I don’t think she picked up much. A cutie, though.

Korea does not get a lot of love academically or art historically, at least in English. That’s partly because Korean is a difficult language and not many read it outside of Korea. Many folks also think Korean art derivative, a version of Chinese or, perhaps Japanese. There is substantial Chinese influence in Korean culture and art, but the Koreans maintain a distinctive aesthetic. In relation to Japan, in fact, they influence Japan far more than Japan influences them.

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work

Allison’s Corn Images From Mexico

August 21, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

Charlie,

Here are three photos I took last year in La Ciudad de Mexico.

One is a portion of a mural by who-else but Diego Rivera.

The other two are from that great Museo de Anthropologica. I was intrigued by the corn plant that was sprouting men’s heads. And you will have to agree that the sculpture is pretty powerful.

Allison Thiel

Art and Culture, Literature, Woolly Mammoths

Reading the OED

August 18, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

90 bar steady 29.83 0mph NNW dew-point 59 sunrise 6:18 sunset 8:14 Lughnasa

Full Corn Moon moon rise 2053 moonset 0816

The salmon is in the house. So is the shrimp. And ice. Plus beer, NA, diet pop and bottled water (for entertaining purposes only). We have the leaves in the dining room table, the first time since we bought the table a year ago. It’s long. Really long. Kate has the triangle of refrigerator, sink, stove cordoned off and wants no helpers in there. I don’t think anybody will fight her for the privilege.

Who said late August had no heat. Not this guy. With 90 and dewpoint at 59 outside dining stretches the Minnesota tolerance limits. Good thing we have air conditioning and tables inside, too.

Got an Amazon order. A couple of things that look fun. Reading the OED, a guy who read the entire OED in one year. Also, the Landmark Herodotus, an annotated version of the Histories. There’s something about history and historiography that fascinates me.

My first two tours of the new academic year have come in over the transom. 4th graders from Lakeville who want to see things Made In America and an MIA patron who wants a tour with an emphasis on Korea. Be good to strap back into the harness and pull a wagon or two.

I’m off to sweep the patio and arrange furniture.

Art and Culture, Friends, Literature, Memories, Politics

More Radical Than Thou

July 29, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

80 bar falls 29.66 0mph E dew-point 76! sunrise 5:55 sunset 8:43 Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Jerry Stearns sent word that he worked with rebels in Central America and served a stint as a bodyguard for Rigoberta Minchu, the Mayan activist. This reminded me, though I don’t think it was his intent, of the old game, More Radical Than Thou.

This was a game of gotcha and it drove the Everything Matters part of the personal is political. If I, say, was a draft resister and an anti-war marcher, you might say that you planned to go to Canada. If I planned to go Canada, you might say you were going underground. If I said I was going underground, you might say, me too, but I’m going to bomb federal buildings, too. This macho ratcheting up of the stakes in a round of how far can you travel away from middle-class morality and conventional politics lasted for a long, long time.

It was an aspect of movement politics in which I always felt one step behind, never quite outré enough. I was back then, as now, stuck with this dipolarity, radical and conservative, both alive and well, never reconciled, perhaps irreconcilable. Come to think of it this same dipolarity might have been the tense spring that kept me going back to the bar for one more round.

Nowadays I cherish this peculiarity. I can engage radical environmental politics, continue in my radical analysis of American society while loving the MIA and my docent role there. I can continue opposition to conservative politics while loving the classics, poetry and faith traditions. These two poles now serve as a creative edge for me, a sort of tectonic junction where volcanoes are born and subduction feeds the volcano. Back then I felt the need to exist on only one end of the pole, rather than embracing the tension that came from them.

More Radical Than Thou pushed me to one end of the pole. I ended up denying, repressing the conservative part of me that wandered art museums, read Ovid and Homer and yearned for a connection with God. Seminary and a stint as a Presbyterian minister only reversed the pressure. While I could affirm my love of biblical study and prayer, I felt constant pressure to be more radical, to engage in more and more radical political activity. This change from one end of the see-saw to the other was no resolution either.

Only now, in these days when the introvert has settled into a quiet writing existence have I begun to live from both ends of the dialectic. I can work as a docent amongst the fascinating details of art history while I the Sierra Club work blossoms. I can write novels while I search nature and the American literary tradition for a pagan faith relevant to today. Though the Jungian analysis moved far along this ancient trail, only unconditional love can heal these splits and I have found such love in Kate. We are soulmates.

Art and Culture, Politics, Woolly Mammoths

What Does It Mean To Be An American?

July 28, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

85 bar falls 29.75 0mph E dew-point 66 sunrise 5:53 sunset 8:44 Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon

The hangover from the docent program continues. We have to do an Africa check-out tour with two partners. We each prepare three objects, then share the information and come ready to present any of the objects. This is a sort of multiple choice test, I guess. All of us have favorite areas in the museum and less liked areas. I love the Asian collection.

The African collection does not excite me. I’m not sure why. Africa as a continent and African history, especially pre-colonial Africa have fascinated me since college when I took several courses related to these areas as well as African anthropology. Contemporary African politics also hold my attention. The art does not. There are pieces that are, for me, exceptions. The Ife Shrine Head. Kente cloth. The Magadelene Odundo reduced black ceramics. The gold weights. The female sculptures. The rest does not draw me in. This is me, I know, for many find these objects stunning, even path breaking when it comes to representation.

Still, I have to do this check-out tour and I will.

The drive in was unremarkable, though notable for its reduced heat from the Texas weekend. On the drive back I encountered several drivers in a row who had not yet graduated from the real world driving class we all take each day. Left me with a short fuse. Again. On me.

Switched for a third time the Woolly meeting idea. First was permaculture. Second was your media stream. The third, and final one is this: What does it mean to be an American? When did your feel your most patriotic? Least? Who is your favorite American author? Painter? Poet? Poem? Book? Painting? Does America have a manifest destiny? How do we or should we fit into the global reality?

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television, Garden, Great Work

The Heart of What Ails American Culture

July 24, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

75 bar steady 29.84 0mph NE dew-point 68 Sunrise 5:50 Sunset 8:59pm Summer

Last Quarter of the Thunder Moon

A Deborah Madison recipe I used this noon called for tomatoes, beet greens, oregano, olive oil and garlic. The beet greens came from the golden beets I picked just before the lunch. The oregano from Kate’s herb garden. We had a couple of dried garlic bulbs. I thought they had not differentiated. but I decided to use it as it was. When I peeled back the white, papery layers over the bulb I found cloves. This meant two things. I had enough garlic for the recipe and the garlic in the bed could be harvested now. The dish was great, but the cloves excited me.

There is no reason why growing garlic bulbs with cloves should excite me so much, except it entered my head early in the gardening season–last September. They grew throughout the winter and were ready to harvest in July, just as the cultural recommendations for it said. Their taste is more intense and more sweet, at least this variety. I planted three.

In the furnace room, hanging from green gardening twine are four bunches of garlic bulbs. Set aside from them are the largest 2 bulbs from each variety. They will go in the ground in late September or early October to produce more garlic for next July. Kate will take a large head from each bunch out to Jon and Jen so they can have garlic in their garden. They too will be able to harvest the largest heads and plant from them. This chain of living things, nurtured and in turn nurturing, is the true great chain of being.

Watched 10,000 BC on the recommendation of a friend. Well, the anachronisms were many: iron, boats, buildings, captive mammoths and the story line fed on coincidence. On the other hand the Woolly Mammoths and the Sabre Toothed Tiger were very real. A mish-mash of times, cultures and continents. Just what I thought when I was the first ads. In fairness, the same friend watched There Will Be Blood on my recommendation. He thought it was too violent and the lead character, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, a poor guy with whom to spend a couple of hours.

There Will Be Blood is a mythic movie of great power. It speaks to the heart of what ails American culture and it speaks the truth. The truth is neither pretty nor easy and the film knows it. It is uncomfortable, but that it is different from bad. 10,000 BC is an entertainment and it works sometimes and not others, but it is not mythic, either in truth or in story.

Art and Culture, Garden

A Flower Symphony

July 24, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

75 bar falls 29.89 0mph N dew-point 59 Sunrise 5:49 sunset 8:49 Summer

Last Quarter Thunder Moon

The garden speaks. Last month, when I dug up my first garlic, it was not a head, but a single large clove. What the? Back to the garlic culture book. Descaping? Oops. I forgot to take off the flower and seed forming stalk. It suppresses bulb formation. Now, a month later after I descaped, bulb formation proceeds. I do not know whether it will get where it would have, but I just pulled up one garlic bulb that looks pretty well defined, though not completely. The individual cloves are not yet distinct, though their formation is clear.

The tallest corn is now well over 6 feet high. No tassels yet. The beans have begun a very productive season and the onions are ready to dry. After we dry them, we can story them in burlap bags in the furnace room. The squash and watermelon have demonstrated their power to dominate territory. Our garden paths and boulder walls are in danger of disappearing at some points.

The Cherokee Purple tomato plants have fruits that have begun to turn a dusky red, shading now toward purple. So far I have not noticed a tendency to disease which can be a problem growing heirloom vegetables. I plan to save seeds and heads of garlic since these vegetables will breed true and not separate into warring varieties as most hybrids will.

The lilies continue their quiet fireworks.

I have had this idea for a long time about a flower symphony. Each flower would get a lietmotif, as in Wagner, each color would have a note or a phrase. The whole piece would have a somber, quiet opening, andante, for the slumber of winter. Then an agitato as the ground breaks loose with the warmth of spring and, in their bloom succession, the flowers emerge, their leitmotifs varied by color phrases, until we pass out of the spring flowers into the early summer blooms. This third movement is tranquil as the garden settles into its summer patterns, again the leitmotifs ordered by bloom time and varied by color phrasing. The fourth and final movement returns to andante as the asters, the fall blooming crocus, clematis and mums emerge, then die back. The final movement stops for a bit, then a presto sequence of lietmotifs, then grave, ending with bassoon, bass drum, and bass viol.

Many do not like programmatic music and I understand why, being a fan of Mozart and Bach, both abstract and interested in following the music’s own logic, not an outside one. Even so, I offer this because it is the way I see the garden now after so many years. The flowers emerge, bloom, dieback and another group, adapted to a slightly different season, replace them. These movements are like a symphony in my mind.

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Literature, Politics, Writing

Steamed Dumplings Stuffed With Yak

July 22, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

78 bar steady 30.03 0mph ENE dew-point 56 Summer, warm and sunny

Waning Gibbous Thunder Moon

A trifecta. In to Minnehaha. Back to Andover. In to Kenwood. Back to Andover. In to Sierra Club and the MIA. Back to Andover. Geez. As I said, I gotta check with my scheduler.

Katarina is an intern from east Germany, Jena. We folded letters and surveys to candidates for Minnesota House races. She’s a bright young lady whose lucky boyfriend lives here. They both study political science and enjoy comparing US and German culture/society. She gave the example of her parents: “They have never worried. They have no debt. They live modestly.” She said her mother was not allowed to finish high school in the old East German regime because her husband was a mathematics professor. If you had an intellengentsia in the home, you also had to have a proletarian. Odd logic, even for Marxists.

After doing the mailing, I called about half a list of candidates who received the survey by e-mail last Friday. This was just a reminder call. Margaret Levin cajoled me into making phone calls and I’m glad she did. It wasn’t so bad. Of course, these were all friendly folk, too.

Across the street from the Sierra Club is the Himalaya, a Nepalese restaurant. It was noon, so I stopped in for steamed dumplings stuffed with yak and a tasty sauce. The next course was a soup with potatoes, black-eyed peas and bamboo shoots. Nan accompanied this dish. Hmmm. I enjoy finding these small ethnic places and sampling cuisine from countries I have not visited. Food is one of the fastest ways into a culture, even faster, because more immediate, than language.

I discussed purchasing a Nepalese thangka with the owner. When I said I would like a Yamatanka, he said, “Oh, you like Yama?” He stuck his tongue out and down, Yama’s typical presentation. “Yes,” I said. “Scary.” I’ll speak with him about it again when I go in to the Sierra Club political committee meeting next Wednesday.

Before I went to the Sierra Club, I stopped at the Northern Clay Center and picked up a small plate. It is my intention, over the next few years, to replace our Portmerion with unmatched pieces from many potters. This is the fifth or sixth acquistion so far.

Each quarter I define a retreat. It can be brief, three days or so, and it can be long, like the stay in Hawai’i. I find I need to punctuate my normal routine with these caesuras or I get stale. This habit began when I was in the ministry and I’ve found it a good carry over, so I’ve continued it. Here’s my retreat for the fall quarter:

7/22/08 No traveling for this retreat. I will take two weeks and stop writing, stop using the internet (except for the blog and e-mail) and study books on novel craft. In this retreat I will create a reading program and a writing program that will guide my work for the next ten years.

Art and Culture, Great Work, Writing

A Novel Realization

July 22, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

68 bar rises 30.02 2mph NE dew-point 59 Summer, cool and pleasant

Waning Gibbous Thunder Moon

Again this morning off to the Cities to the Sierra Club for help with a mailing and to make some phone calls, drop by the MIA. This is three trips in two days and feels like too much. I scheduled all this myself, too. Hmmm, gotta speak to the person who keeps my calendar.

After finishing 48 lectures on the history of English literature yesterday, I had an odd realization. Over the 15 plus years I have been writing, I have spent time in serious, sustained study of astronomy, liberal religion, art history and the classics. When I say serious, sustained study, I mean time frames of years. In the case of liberal religion over a decade. But. I have not devoted any appreciable and no sustained time to the study of the novel, the very form I have chosen as my own. Strange.

So, my dream for the next stage of my life entails concentrated study of the novel, its history and craft, as well as reading more novels. I want to write a serious, literary novel, not my next one and perhaps not the one after that, but soon, one informed by the insights and craft of others. I might even take a college course in literature. When in college, I refused to take literature classes, saying I could read on my own. I have, too. Now, though, with a different intent, I might well find literature classes instructive.

Gotta sign off and get to the Sierra Club.