Monthly Archives: September 2012

Politics

Exurban Disadvantage #2

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If  you’re a person of my political bent, considerably left of center, you will not find your people living out here.  Or at least not easily.  In the last eighteen years, for example, I’ve not found mine.

Who are my people?  Oh, you know.  The squabbly, active, black, red, gay, brown, feminists, collectivists, even the stray communist.  The folks constitutionally unable to take things lying down.  Activists.  See a problem, fix it kind of folks.  Those for whom voter id, the anti-gay marriage amendment, the wolf season, global warming are not matters of controversy, but already decided fact.  No, No, No, Yes.

This has driven me, literally, into the city for so many different things, but mostly finding those with whom I can add my voice.  Those with whom a conversation does not start on first principles, but on nuances of appropriate action.  Those with whom I feel comfortable, socially and politically.

The internet has made this less problematic, but not solved it since being with your people is, in the end, a face to face thing.  Why I drove into 26th and Nicollet yesterday afternoon and again out to 394 and Louisiana in the evening.  To be with, as one friend said, my peeps.

Woolly Mammoths

A Small Clan

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A small clan of Woollies met at the ghost of Shelby’s Woodroast in St. Louis Park.  All the decor is there, but Shelby has left the building.

We got caught up on missing bags of money, a grandson’s trajectory through treatment for sarcoma–positive at this point, family–family–family and a son with a lack of regard for others and the continuing struggle between cancer and will, between cancer and peace of mind.  Though these may seem like dark topics they become lighter when passed around the table.

I’m glad one of us had the good sense to ask for a meeting.

General
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Lugnasa                                                                     Garlic Planting Moon

When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep — not screaming, like the passengers in his car.

Friends

Exurban Disadvantage #1: Travel Time

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Lugnasa                                                                  Garlic Planting Moon

A disadvantage of living in the exurbs, a big one, is travel time.  Today I’m going into the Peninsula Restaurant for a lunch with my docent classmates.  Around 40 minutes if travel time is normal.  At 6pm I need to be in St. Louis Park, near the intersection of Louisiana and 394.  Probably about the same.  That’s 160 minutes travel time, pretty damned close to three hours, out of one day.

Of course, these kind of trips are a choice.  But since it is these kind of journeys that maintain connections with friends whom I cherish, it’s not much of a choice.  Relationships, like politics, demand face time and showing up.  No substitute.

That means somethings have to get juggled on days like this.

Great Work, Our Land and Home

The Exurbs post 1

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Lugnasa                                                       Garlic Planting Moon

When we turn north off of our street, 153rd Ave. NW, onto Round Lake Boulevard, we pass a small white house with cheap siding and usually a car or two parked in the yard and after it comes Field’s Truck Farm.

Our house sits on a peninsula of sand that once jutted out into a lake that extended from about Coon Creek Boulevard, a mile or so south of us, to county road 18, a mile or so north of us.  That lake is now a vast peat bog except for what was, I imagine, a deeper end, separated from what was the main body of water at this time by Round Lake Boulevard, and now far along in the eutrophication process itself, Round Lake.

Field’s grows corn, radishes, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and grass on the former lake bed.  It sits about 2 feet to 3 feet lower than the rest of the land around it and lower still when compared to the height of our land.  Just beyond the main sheds and buildings, including temporary housing for migrant workers, sit row after row of wood sided trucks, old tractors, some farm implements.  As we proceed north on Round Lake various plots of the old lake bed hold radishes and grass, a commodity for which Anoka County is the chief source in the state.

A right, or eastward, turn on county road 18 goes along the northern perimeter of Field’s farm taking us to Hanson Boulevard, where we turn north once again.  On three sides of the intersection here are large plots of wetland, covered mostly in bullrushes, a favorite habitat of the Baltimore Oriole.  North on Hanson finds us traveling along fields and forest, a countryside scene familiar to anyone who knows Minnesota’s northern region.  We are, in fact, the southern, or terminal end, of the great Boreal forest that extends north from here to the tundra in Canada.

The further north we go the more wetlands, forest and lakes.  Great blue herons float across the highway from one hunting ground to another.  If it were evening, we would have to be on the watch for deer and, of late, wild turkeys.

 

 

Commentary on the news, Politics

My Hat’s Off to Chris Kluwe

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Lugnasa                                                          Garlic Planting Moon

A whole new reason to watch the Vikings: (found on the Daily What)

 

Say What Now of the Day: Maryland state delegate Emmett C. Burns, Jr. recently sent a letter to Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, in an attempt to discourage linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo’s support of a state ballot initiative that would legalize gay marriage.

The letter didn’t sit well with Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, who unleashed an all-out, expletive-laden blitz attacking Mr. Burns’ proclivities:

If gay marriage becomes legal, are you worried that all of a sudden you’ll start thinking about penis? “Oh sh*t. Gay marriage just passed. Gotta get me some of that hot dong action!” Will all of your friends suddenly turn gay and refuse to come to your Sunday Ticket grill-outs? (Unlikely, since gay people enjoy watching football too.)

[deadspin]

Garden, Latin, Translating Metamorphoses

TGIF

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Lugnasa                                                           Garlic Planting Moon

A Latin day, this time with work on both Ovid and Virgil.  Aeneid’s first 7 verses, its first sentence with the famous opening phrase, I sing of arms and the man.   Greg sees a lot of progress in my work.  It’s as if some dam broke a couple of months ago when I began using phrases to translate rather than whole sentences.  The benefit of hanging in there.   (philemon_baucis_bramantino)

The most important thing I can do is to read more and more.  That ups my vocabulary, increases my facility with grammar and adds to my foundation in written Latin literature.

When I hit Friday afternoon on a week, I feel like the work week is over.  Tours on Thursday and Latin all Friday morning, then a quiet time.

Tomorrow the garlic goes in the ground, the potatoes come out and I check the bees to see how the feeding is going.  It will be a pleasure to work outside, as a change from all this head work, and in weather beginning to cool.  The nights are better now, much better.

I’m also looking forward to getting back to Missing and the revision.  This last three days: pre-op physical on Wednesday, tours on Thursday and Latin today has not left me with time for it.

Art and Culture

Art in Life

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Lugnasa                                                                    Garlic Planting Moon

As I continue to think about the MIA and my writing process, one aspect looms very large to me.  How would I continue to have art in my life in as significant a way, though without the time and subject strictures of the docent year?

Several ideas have occurred to me.  Which ones might work?  Too soon to know.  And, there is the important question of whether they will match the docent experience in both quality of learning and quantity of time with art.

Here the ones I’ve come up with so far:

1.  Walker/MIA  art blog

2.  Put up my own exhibitions using images from the internet.  The gallery setting on wordpress would work well, though my tumblr account would, too.

3.  Develop a reading program in art history.  I’m especially interested right now in contemporary artists theoretical approach to their work.

4. Make a commitment to look at art in new venues:  other museums in the Twin Cities, museums in other cities, books, internet resources, especially the Google Art Project.

Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900  (National Gallery, D.C.)
February 17–May 19, 2013

The first major survey of the art of the Pre-Raphaelites to be shown in the United States features some 130 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative art objects.

I’m sure other ideas will emerge.  If you have any, let me know.

Sport

Quidditch team plays despite weather conditions

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Lugnasa                                                             Garlic Planting Moon

Here’s one I didn’t see coming.  Picked up my alumi magazine (how do they always know where I am) to discover that my modest teacher’s college turned into Ball State University is #1 in…wait for it…quidditch!  That’s right, quidditch.

These are games in 2012.  Gosh, gee whillikers, go Horcrux!  That’s the team name.

RECENT GAMES

Ball State University  260

Miami University of Ohio  20

Ball State University  110

Eastern Michigan University  40

Ball State University  120

TCS Chimeras  0

Ball State University  140

Jetpack Ninja Dinosaurs  50

Ball State University  120

Eastern Michigan University  30

Turns out there is a national Quidditch Championship, the first was in 2007 in Vermont.

Irony was not a real big component of campus life at Ball State when I was there in the late 60’s, but it’s there now.  Look at this.

Quidditch team plays despite weather conditions Continue reading Quidditch team plays despite weather conditions →

Health, Retirement, Third Phase

Medicine

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Lugnasa                                                     Garlic Planting Moon

Back from my pre-op physical for hernia surgery.  Questions, palpitations, blood pressure, blood and ekg.  Looks like I’m cleared to go.

(Hippocrates Teaching)

Having someone cut on my body, especially paying somebody to cut on my body, is not at the top of my list of things to do.  Still, needs to be done.  So.

The whole medical system works well for those of us who have decent insurance and buy into the Western model of care and treatment.  But, even for us, it is cumbersome, overly complicated and very, very far from transparent.

Still.  Having competent docs and hospitals does make me feel much more secure as I age, particularly if I lay Minnesota health care over against, say, Indiana.  We’re in a sweet spot here when it comes to medicine and I’m grateful for that.