The CBC keeps playing this at me for some reason, and it's really pretty.
BUT ALSO: what is that piano intro reminding me of? I'm thinking late'90s with a female singer, but it might just have been... something I listened to a lot in the '90s.
The CBC keeps playing this at me for some reason, and it's really pretty.
BUT ALSO: what is that piano intro reminding me of? I'm thinking late'90s with a female singer, but it might just have been... something I listened to a lot in the '90s.
1) Just a quick post, mostly to say that I will be away for the next two weeks in case anyone comes looking for me.
2) Saw The Woman King which wasn't always an easy view but a wortwhile one. Good story and wonderful hand to hand combat scenes. I never thought John Boyega was all that attractive but have to say he looked magnificent in this part.
3) I've been meaning to do it for ages but finally got around to posting some of my beading projects over at Bling Share. A relative sent me a bunch of orphaned earrings she'd shoved in a drawer and wanted me to make something with them. I haven't finished all of them yet but it's been fun to try making different looks with them.
4) Also posted photos of a visiting swan to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
common_nature as well as earlier ones with ducklings and goslings. Lots of pretty photos shared there regularly, such as these holloway pics by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
puddleshark.
5) Had our first corn on the cob since last year and the ears were all so sweet! We also got our first hummingbird visit since October as we were eating. If it wasn't for the fact that it'll be a high in the 50s tomorrow I'd say it was summer.
2) Saw The Woman King which wasn't always an easy view but a wortwhile one. Good story and wonderful hand to hand combat scenes. I never thought John Boyega was all that attractive but have to say he looked magnificent in this part.
3) I've been meaning to do it for ages but finally got around to posting some of my beading projects over at Bling Share. A relative sent me a bunch of orphaned earrings she'd shoved in a drawer and wanted me to make something with them. I haven't finished all of them yet but it's been fun to try making different looks with them.
4) Also posted photos of a visiting swan to
common_nature as well as earlier ones with ducklings and goslings. Lots of pretty photos shared there regularly, such as these holloway pics by puddleshark.5) Had our first corn on the cob since last year and the ears were all so sweet! We also got our first hummingbird visit since October as we were eating. If it wasn't for the fact that it'll be a high in the 50s tomorrow I'd say it was summer.
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I got a fistbump from Tom Cruise yesterday.
No big deal.
For context, I went to the Mission Impossible red carpet event opening yesterday. The New York Adventure Club had gotten 20 red carpet passes issued to them, and because I get their newsletter, I was able to sign up and get in - a case of the right place, the right time, and knowing exactly where to look. There was waiting in line, there was standing in line, there was making sure I had the right information readily available, there was getting up as close to the front of the line as possible and then getting right up as close to the wall to the red carpet as possible. There was more waiting. There was a trivia question giveaway of sweatshirts and backpacks - to many, many people dressed in cocktail attire, no less - to keep energy going, and then the entertainment professionals getting people cheering.
During the waiting, I kept watching the crowds around me and on the other side of the fence. The way people were arranging cameras, getting microphones set up. I saw cast and crew walking around, glimpsing recognizable faces on the other side of the partition. The waiting around before and after intense, brief moments of activity seemed fitting, for what I know about making movies. Lights, camera, hang on, hold on, give me a moment, camera again, and then it's action. I watched pigeons fly around, and I joked about the largest animal that could be knocked unconscious by the sound system. I looked at the architecture of Lincoln Center and appreciated how Robert Moses might've liked this use of the space for a whole lot of reasons.
I got two passes and brought a friend with me, who kept checking her phone, as did many people around us. I took a few photos of Cruise at a distance, half a selfie with him, and not much else. I didn't want much else. I wanted to be right there in the moment. I wanted to take the three seconds I'd have to say something of momentary value to someone who meets more people in a day than I've probably met in the last two years.
He was announced, he was cheered for, he came out with fireworks and blaring music. He stood and smiled and waved as people looked at him, watched him, tried to capture a piece of him. There was gasping and there was cheering and I wasn't above looking at him standing there, a small army's worth of cameras from TV to handheld to drones all pointed at him. I thought about how the night before, people had waited to catch a glimpse of him walking from a car to his hotel door, and how video footage of that was uploaded to the internet, so yet more people would know where to go that night and where to wait. The architecture of Lincoln Center meant people could come out on balconies to look down at him, and people across the street could walk to the roofs of their buildings and stare down through binoculars like he was some kind of rare bird.
I knew he'd never be my friend.
Not in a negative way. I like to think we'd be friends, if the heavens parted and angels sang and we had genuine reason to speak to one another for more than a handful of seconds. It's a thought I'm happy to entertain. It's something I know won't happen unless the heavens part and angels sing. Meeting him on the red carpet was wonderful, and it wasn't celestial. I met a man. A handsome, charming man who's been meeting people for over forty years now. He's gotten quite good at it. He never learned my name and I already knew his. Everyone knew his name. Everyone there, and everyone who was watching him from far away.
We'd all been given small posters for cast and crew to sign, and I knew he'd stop for as long as it took him to deliver his signature. I'd known it was coming for some days, so I'd had time to prepare a few words to get them out as quickly and cleanly as possible.
I told him, "Minority Report was the first movie of yours I saw in a theater and I've been a fan ever since." He said he'd had a lot of fun making that, I said I'd had a lot of fun seeing it. I said, "I got these passes through the New York Adventure Club, and I'm sure the movie's going to be an adventure."
He gave me an adorable scrunched-up smile. And he offered me a fistbump.
Naturally, I took it.
There were other people who came by. I recognized the bird pin on Simon Pegg's jacket and told him, "A swift bird for a swift man!" and he liked that. I commented on people's clothing, occasionally asked for a handshake, and kept looking around at all the people coming by - the huge camera rigs, the tiny iPhone mounts, the drones buzzing by. The other actors, the sailors coming off an aircraft carrier, generally famous people I didn't recognize. Everything spinning around the gravitational pull of the star.
I got a pass to an early screening, and had a good time - anything more specific can wait a few days. But I'll still say it was a delightful movie to look at, and I couldn't understand why the person next to me kept regularly checking her phone. Later, I could barely understand why people were clustering around the service entrance's door in the hopes of glimpsing Cruise - barely, because I'd have liked a glimpse myself, and as much as I'd wanted one, I knew it was late and he'd probably like to get some sleep even more than I did, and if he was using the service entrance like I'd thought he might, that spoke to a level of necessary caution I shudder to think about. The only way he'd have been safe from people looking at him is if he'd gotten into a vehicle and then left the building, and even that would require several decoy vehicles.
I was there, and I felt the pull, and I still don't quite grasp it. I'm hoping I can hold onto that.
Yesterday I got a fistbump from the biggest movie star on the planet.
No big deal.
No big deal.
For context, I went to the Mission Impossible red carpet event opening yesterday. The New York Adventure Club had gotten 20 red carpet passes issued to them, and because I get their newsletter, I was able to sign up and get in - a case of the right place, the right time, and knowing exactly where to look. There was waiting in line, there was standing in line, there was making sure I had the right information readily available, there was getting up as close to the front of the line as possible and then getting right up as close to the wall to the red carpet as possible. There was more waiting. There was a trivia question giveaway of sweatshirts and backpacks - to many, many people dressed in cocktail attire, no less - to keep energy going, and then the entertainment professionals getting people cheering.
During the waiting, I kept watching the crowds around me and on the other side of the fence. The way people were arranging cameras, getting microphones set up. I saw cast and crew walking around, glimpsing recognizable faces on the other side of the partition. The waiting around before and after intense, brief moments of activity seemed fitting, for what I know about making movies. Lights, camera, hang on, hold on, give me a moment, camera again, and then it's action. I watched pigeons fly around, and I joked about the largest animal that could be knocked unconscious by the sound system. I looked at the architecture of Lincoln Center and appreciated how Robert Moses might've liked this use of the space for a whole lot of reasons.
I got two passes and brought a friend with me, who kept checking her phone, as did many people around us. I took a few photos of Cruise at a distance, half a selfie with him, and not much else. I didn't want much else. I wanted to be right there in the moment. I wanted to take the three seconds I'd have to say something of momentary value to someone who meets more people in a day than I've probably met in the last two years.
He was announced, he was cheered for, he came out with fireworks and blaring music. He stood and smiled and waved as people looked at him, watched him, tried to capture a piece of him. There was gasping and there was cheering and I wasn't above looking at him standing there, a small army's worth of cameras from TV to handheld to drones all pointed at him. I thought about how the night before, people had waited to catch a glimpse of him walking from a car to his hotel door, and how video footage of that was uploaded to the internet, so yet more people would know where to go that night and where to wait. The architecture of Lincoln Center meant people could come out on balconies to look down at him, and people across the street could walk to the roofs of their buildings and stare down through binoculars like he was some kind of rare bird.
I knew he'd never be my friend.
Not in a negative way. I like to think we'd be friends, if the heavens parted and angels sang and we had genuine reason to speak to one another for more than a handful of seconds. It's a thought I'm happy to entertain. It's something I know won't happen unless the heavens part and angels sing. Meeting him on the red carpet was wonderful, and it wasn't celestial. I met a man. A handsome, charming man who's been meeting people for over forty years now. He's gotten quite good at it. He never learned my name and I already knew his. Everyone knew his name. Everyone there, and everyone who was watching him from far away.
We'd all been given small posters for cast and crew to sign, and I knew he'd stop for as long as it took him to deliver his signature. I'd known it was coming for some days, so I'd had time to prepare a few words to get them out as quickly and cleanly as possible.
I told him, "Minority Report was the first movie of yours I saw in a theater and I've been a fan ever since." He said he'd had a lot of fun making that, I said I'd had a lot of fun seeing it. I said, "I got these passes through the New York Adventure Club, and I'm sure the movie's going to be an adventure."
He gave me an adorable scrunched-up smile. And he offered me a fistbump.
Naturally, I took it.
There were other people who came by. I recognized the bird pin on Simon Pegg's jacket and told him, "A swift bird for a swift man!" and he liked that. I commented on people's clothing, occasionally asked for a handshake, and kept looking around at all the people coming by - the huge camera rigs, the tiny iPhone mounts, the drones buzzing by. The other actors, the sailors coming off an aircraft carrier, generally famous people I didn't recognize. Everything spinning around the gravitational pull of the star.
I got a pass to an early screening, and had a good time - anything more specific can wait a few days. But I'll still say it was a delightful movie to look at, and I couldn't understand why the person next to me kept regularly checking her phone. Later, I could barely understand why people were clustering around the service entrance's door in the hopes of glimpsing Cruise - barely, because I'd have liked a glimpse myself, and as much as I'd wanted one, I knew it was late and he'd probably like to get some sleep even more than I did, and if he was using the service entrance like I'd thought he might, that spoke to a level of necessary caution I shudder to think about. The only way he'd have been safe from people looking at him is if he'd gotten into a vehicle and then left the building, and even that would require several decoy vehicles.
I was there, and I felt the pull, and I still don't quite grasp it. I'm hoping I can hold onto that.
Yesterday I got a fistbump from the biggest movie star on the planet.
No big deal.
In the gym today, someone was playing music loud enough I could hear it even with my headphones on and a podcast going, and when I turned to her to make a comment about how the Great Big Sea cover of "It's the End of the World as We Know It" managed to be even faster than the original, she did as fake a smile as I've ever seen. Just her lips. Nothing in her eyes.
I'd expected as much, honestly. I'm not at all surprised, except for how she was surprised - but I keep thinking that if she hadn't wanted someone to talk to her about the music, she wouldn't have been playing it so loud.
What's particularly odd is that she was the second person I had a baffling encounter with in that gym: before she arrived, someone quite a bit younger was in there, and I tried to make small talk about her tattoos. She didn't recognize the pigeon's scientific name of columba livia, and when I asked her about a skeletal hand giving a "rock on" horn sign, she didn't know how to take my observation that the slightly exaggerated proportions made me think it was a hand from another primate.
On the plus side, as she lived in Utah for five months, she knew about the radiation survivors - though as she said she was there for "treatment" I don't think she had a particularly enjoyable time there.
I'd expected as much, honestly. I'm not at all surprised, except for how she was surprised - but I keep thinking that if she hadn't wanted someone to talk to her about the music, she wouldn't have been playing it so loud.
What's particularly odd is that she was the second person I had a baffling encounter with in that gym: before she arrived, someone quite a bit younger was in there, and I tried to make small talk about her tattoos. She didn't recognize the pigeon's scientific name of columba livia, and when I asked her about a skeletal hand giving a "rock on" horn sign, she didn't know how to take my observation that the slightly exaggerated proportions made me think it was a hand from another primate.
On the plus side, as she lived in Utah for five months, she knew about the radiation survivors - though as she said she was there for "treatment" I don't think she had a particularly enjoyable time there.
"What I know now" by Jessica Wiebe Schafer
understand,
there is no map.
there will be signs eventually
you will miss them at first
not yet trusting your own eyes
do not worry too much
about trails, direction, destination
just practice surviving
pitch your tent
gather water
prepare food
treat blisters
apply sunscreen
mend holes
if you can do these things well
you may begin to notice
the fox
the desert rose
the moon rising in the east
they will help you understand
there are only two things you are certain about now:
that you are capable of caring for yourself
that the world is full of beauty.
I can vouch for the fact that Sunbasin makes good soap. I use Enigma (unscented) and it works great. Yes, it's pricy for a bar of soap, but it actually reduced the amount of products I was buying overall because it's gentle enough to work as face soap1 so I stopped buying a separate facial cleaner. I also use their shampoo bars, specifically the juniper pine and rosemary mint. I get it as a subscription, three soap bars and two shampoo bars mailed very three months2, which is convenient, and now my shower is so much less cluttered, with only a soap bar, a shampoo bar, and a bottle of conditioner.
The socks are also nice. I don't subscribe, but I have occasionally bought a pair on clearance. The quality is good, and I appreciate that they have more than one size.
But even if you're not in the market for soap or socks, the video is worth watching if just for a bit of happy news about what can happen when people actually care about something and work to make it better.
1 Your skin may vary. FWIW, I have what I would describe as sensitive but not very sensitive or problem skin. I don't have any specific skin conditions that I'm managing.
2 My last order in March cost me $54.90 including tax and shipping (shipping was free) which works out to $18.30/month over 3 months which seems like a reasonable amount to spend on luxury shower products.
The Adversary by Michael CrummeyGiven that I loathed The Innocents, I was hesitant about going back in for another round when this was the book club pick, but I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would (note the extremely low bar). It's a companion to The Innocents, and probably expects you to have read it, taking place over the exact same time frame, but in the nearest town, rather than the fishing outpost. I said to book club that the ending of the first one was more optimistic:
They have the incest baby, and get to move to town! Hooray!but then you hear about what's happening in the town. Might not work out super well for them, it turns out. That town is not doing great.
The Adversary orbits around a pair of siblings vying for control of the local industries. The brother is monstrous, ego-driven and cruel. He rules through money and brute force, and everyone else has to put up with it because what are the other choices? The sister is initially presented as more sympathetic: a widow, a Quaker, gender non conforming, just trying her best in a world weighted against her. As the book progresses, largely from the point of view of another pair of siblings in her domestic service (Crummey appears to be really into siblings), the more we learn about the Widow, the more horrifying she turns out to be: the other side of her brother's coin.
Carnage ensues, and then ensues again, and again, as the tension and violence ratchet up, and everyone in the town suffers for it. It takes the misery porn of the first one, and twists it enough, that for me it tipped over into a popcorn-worthy rolling catastrophe. Just don't get attached to any of the characters, or their pets. Also, this one is like... 96% incest free.
If Crummey writes a sequel about what happens to the Innocents when they get to this shit show, I'll be there with bells on.
All Our Ordinary Stories by Teresa Wong
Graphic novel memoir about a Chinese-Canadian woman trying to come to terms with her heritage when her parents are incredibly closed about what that might be, and her children just don't have a connection to China. It flashes back and forth between present day when Wong's mother has dementia, and her last chance of learning more seems to be slipping away, and scraps of the past stitched together into a haphazard quilt. We learn about both her parents literally swimming to freedom escaping Mainland China for then British Hong Kong, then generations before travelling to Canada, and how fluid moving back and forth between countries and cultures could be even when racist Canada didn't want Chinese there, and Mao's China didn't want any permeation of non-Chinese ideas.
The art is quite plain for most of the time, with huge gorgeous set pieces for some of the flashbacks. There's a lot about language and trying to find points of connection, or trying to find yourself in stories (The Joy Luck Club is one of Wong's favourite movies, but her mother finds it dull and wanders off in the middle of it, denying Wong's fantasy of bonding via literature). At times, it felt a little slow paced, even though it's overall a very fast read.
Canada Reads longlist title, that I would've been happy to see on the shortlist.
The Knowing by Tanya Talaga
A combination of family history and the colonialist history of Canada, Talaga tries to trace the story of one of her ancestors, with only the bare bones and often inaccurate paper trail left by colonial authorities. Each record she finds, she tries to put into cultural context around what was happening at the time, both from what family histories she can put together, and in terms of the slow roll of official genocide. Talaga intertwines her family's history with the public revelations about mass graves at old residential school sites, and the social and political reactions to that, which occurred while she was writing.
As one might expect, it's both very good, and quite depressing. That said, I really appreciated how well she recreated the story, and the networks around each person that created a possibility for them and their stories to survive, even if they didn't always make it. It's optimistic, in its way, in how it foregrounds perseverance and community. Really powerful stuff.
I also liked that Talaga doesn't assume what her ancestors must have been feeling. She suggests some motivations, and provide context for those ideas, but never tries to take the voice of those who remain without any of their own words in the record.
Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott
Canada Reads Longlist, again. This is a sequel to Knott's first memoir (which I haven't read, but understand was mostly about overcoming substance abuse issues), about her mother and grandmother dying within the span of six months, and trying to work out what it means that she's now one of the female elders in her community. She examines examples of female leadership in her family, and what it might look like to either embody or reject those traditions. She wants to know how much toxic colonial culture caused those women to act in dysfunctional ways, what was a coping mechanism that was needed to survive at the time but no longer works, and what she herself should try to carry forward. Knott is very open about her own dysfunction and bad coping mechanisms, and difficult is can be to give them up and start something better (presumably expanded upon in her previous memoir). I liked the way the story built, with added context layered in as she moved forward through her healing journey, a sort of double wholeness emerging.
Clyde Fans by Seth
Canada Reads Longlist, the last (There's a couple books I haven't yet read, but idk if I'll get around to them). A graphic novel about a pair of brothers running a small company making and selling fans, starting in the post-WWII industrial boom, going forward to the collapse of the company when it's driven out of business by less-expensive imports. The older brother prides himself on being a good businessman and an exceptional salesman, constantly reliving his glory days as he wonders through the shuttered sales room and offices. We learn about the younger brother more slowly: first from his elder's dismissive stories, then from longer sections from his point of view, and the one time he tried to do a sales trip (one of the most bang on depictions of social anxiety I've ever seen).
It took Seth about twenty years to complete this, so the art style changes a bit over time, but it's mostly stark black and white, the tone conveyed through setting as much as character or dialogue. I think it'd benefit from reading again, despite its grindingly slow pace, to highlight the differing versions of events. It's contemplative and quietly told, and much of it is about the ways that capitalism and expectations of masculinity in mid-century North America will grind you down, no matter how well you play the game (or don't).
In line for milk, the people standing just ahead of me was a father, a child old enough to carry a bag, and an infant. The father kept admonishing the child to not play around with the bag of three glass bottles because they might break - holding and carrying was fine, but shifting them over and around too much was straight out.
I told them that they did need to be careful because yesterday I'd dropped a glass bottle and could show off the bandage. It wasn't a bad cut, just a pair of small, shallow ones on the side of my wrist, but the placement meant a larger bandage that was easy to see by, for example, a father and child standing right in front of me.
And in fact, the child stopped messing around with the bag and making their father uneasy.
It wasn't planned. It wasn't coordinated. There was no way for anyone involved to have known beforehand. I simply happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I told them that they did need to be careful because yesterday I'd dropped a glass bottle and could show off the bandage. It wasn't a bad cut, just a pair of small, shallow ones on the side of my wrist, but the placement meant a larger bandage that was easy to see by, for example, a father and child standing right in front of me.
And in fact, the child stopped messing around with the bag and making their father uneasy.
It wasn't planned. It wasn't coordinated. There was no way for anyone involved to have known beforehand. I simply happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Finished Hidamari Sketch season 1 + 2 OVAs! No big surprises, but the show has really grown on me overall and I'm glad I watched it. Might try watching the second season at some point.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Rozen Maiden: Traumend--I finished episode 5, but there's not enough actual plot for twelve episodes, so we just get lots of slice of life antics. This would be fine, except that I find the tsundere and the baby doll (plus the bonus parasol one) to be so over the top, it's hard to take any of them seriously. There is such a disjunct between the "living doll comedy sitcom" in actuality and the "no-holds barred battle royale" of the premise. Not sure if I should keep watching or give up now.
Nero Wolfe update: mostly done with Fer-de-Lance, which has a lot of Early Installment Weirdness and some period-typical racism for foreigners, but we do actually get a glimpse of the orchid room in this one, which I appreciate.
Also finished the Dungeon Meshi manga! Volume 14 was very much wrap-up, with a satisfying conclusion and mostly happy ending for everyone; true to form, the brief Winged Lion cameo was my favorite part. This series is not subtle about its theme that "eating is the exclusive privilege of the living" but I guess you have to say it out loud multiple times for people to get it. This is another one of those "this is technically well done and I'm glad I read it but I don't have strong feelings about it" except for the Winged Lion scenes--I know why the manga is set up the way it is with such a long lag before the Lion is introduced as a character, but nonetheless I'm more interested in them than anything else.
I have been very good and I would like to watch the Thunderbolt Fantasy final movie, which gets its US premiere next weekend, but I don't know when Crunchyroll plans on releasing it and they won't tell anyone until the day of (the same thing they did for the last two movies), because apparently publicity is for losers. However, there is also a Canada premiere the following weekend, so they'll probably wait until after that before releasing it to the world. So maybe I'll be able to watch it by the end of the month?? I'd be a hell of a lot more patient if Crunchyroll would just tell us a date instead of playing coy.
(really hope they don't pull this shit with Walpurgis no Kaiten, but unless they do a simultaneous worldwide release, we're looking at at least a two-month delay while the movie is still in theaters in Japan before it goes to streaming. However, there were limited theatrical releases for Rebellion in the US, so maybe that will also happen for WnK? TBD.)
Trying to write a bajillion different things right now, but nothing is coming out, like too much pressure in a faucet all at once. Also, I need to sleep more.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Rozen Maiden: Traumend--I finished episode 5, but there's not enough actual plot for twelve episodes, so we just get lots of slice of life antics. This would be fine, except that I find the tsundere and the baby doll (plus the bonus parasol one) to be so over the top, it's hard to take any of them seriously. There is such a disjunct between the "living doll comedy sitcom" in actuality and the "no-holds barred battle royale" of the premise. Not sure if I should keep watching or give up now.
Nero Wolfe update: mostly done with Fer-de-Lance, which has a lot of Early Installment Weirdness and some period-typical racism for foreigners, but we do actually get a glimpse of the orchid room in this one, which I appreciate.
Also finished the Dungeon Meshi manga! Volume 14 was very much wrap-up, with a satisfying conclusion and mostly happy ending for everyone; true to form, the brief Winged Lion cameo was my favorite part. This series is not subtle about its theme that "eating is the exclusive privilege of the living" but I guess you have to say it out loud multiple times for people to get it. This is another one of those "this is technically well done and I'm glad I read it but I don't have strong feelings about it" except for the Winged Lion scenes--I know why the manga is set up the way it is with such a long lag before the Lion is introduced as a character, but nonetheless I'm more interested in them than anything else.
I have been very good and I would like to watch the Thunderbolt Fantasy final movie, which gets its US premiere next weekend, but I don't know when Crunchyroll plans on releasing it and they won't tell anyone until the day of (the same thing they did for the last two movies), because apparently publicity is for losers. However, there is also a Canada premiere the following weekend, so they'll probably wait until after that before releasing it to the world. So maybe I'll be able to watch it by the end of the month?? I'd be a hell of a lot more patient if Crunchyroll would just tell us a date instead of playing coy.
(really hope they don't pull this shit with Walpurgis no Kaiten, but unless they do a simultaneous worldwide release, we're looking at at least a two-month delay while the movie is still in theaters in Japan before it goes to streaming. However, there were limited theatrical releases for Rebellion in the US, so maybe that will also happen for WnK? TBD.)
Trying to write a bajillion different things right now, but nothing is coming out, like too much pressure in a faucet all at once. Also, I need to sleep more.
Last night, I accepted an invitation to a gallery opening. I need to provide the context it's a two-room former commercial space fairly deep in Brooklyn and very much an amateur effort - when I arrived a half-hour before opening, someone was still putting the decals in the window. This isn't shade on the art itself, or on the curator's eye for composition. Simply to say it's not quite SoHo.
Also not quite SoHo were the moments I found myself talking to one of the two photographers whose work was on display and he simply couldn't answer the questions. I asked him why he took that one picture of his house, what about that moment caught his eye, would he have felt differently if the light was on in a different window. He couldn't say other than he didn't know. Also not quite SoHo was that none of the pieces had prices listed, or any information on whether or not they were for sale; after the show, someone commented he'd have happily purchased a print of something, but had no way to find out or ask.
But like SoHo, the curator was suitably engaged with his work, talking about what he'd gotten from the artists and the way he could put their work in conversation with each other instead of simply having two artists in the space at once. Also like SoHo was that before the show began, I had some time to wander, so I walked a couple blocks and found a city park tucked in between long-occupied row houses and empty industrial buildings. On my way back, I walked into an open-air thrift store - there's really no better term for it, there were sections for flatware and glassware, for vintage camera equipment, for jewelry, for records - and walked out less than ten minutes later wearing a Navy captain's coat. No, really. I checked the buttons, stripes, and the star. It's a captain's coat. I walked in, walked through, saw the stripes, and knew it had to come home with me. It's broad enough in the shoulders I wore it over my raincoat to keep my hands free, and a lot of people told me they liked it. One particularly grand moment was when I stepped outside and put a hand up to my forehead to focus on some birds flying west, and a couple people joked I was the admiral giving a salute.
The art itself was fine for what it was: two people's black and white compositions of lost childhood homes and close family members. It knew what it wanted to do, and largely did it, even if the artists themselves couldn't quite say what or why.
I should say I went because my younger brother R. and his wife G. were friends with one of the artists, so afterwards, several people including R., G., and myself went to a nearby bar. I'd been having a disappointing night, the coat notwithstanding, so I thought I'd try to raise my spirits with a cocktail. I sat at the bar and told the bartender I knew I liked rum, I knew I liked a dark and stormy, but I didn't know what else I'd like, and I wanted him to make me a rum-based drink he enjoyed making that few people ordered. He said he liked my attitude, and when he asked how I wanted it, and I said I trusted him to make it the way he liked it, he had a good laugh. What came out was a dark daiquiri: darker rum, darker sugar, more lime juice. Perfectly refreshing. Later I took a similar strategy to ask him to make me something with tequila, which came out as something with tequila, mezcal, and hibiscus.
There was an issue with dinner with one of R.'s friends. The three of us walked to a nearby restaurant to get tacos for the group, and I suggested we simply bring back vegetarian tacos for everyone as nobody specified what they wanted beyond "tacos." R.'s friend immediately went in on vegetarian tacos being a bad idea as they tend to go soft and soggy quickly, and I switched to saying that if they were that bad, I didn't want any tacos to begin with. It took some work and I still don't think he quite gets why I reacted the way I did - from what I gathered on the conversation during the walk there, he's not a particularly sincere person, and going by how things went as we kept talking, he doesn't know how to deal with sincerity as someone's default mode - but I ended up with some tacos just the same.
Another notable interaction: G. saying she had to repair a balaclava she'd made for a friend who ended up ripping it due to negligence and who expected G. to fix it. She sounded upset, but said it was fine, and asked what would it cost. I said, your friendship. She said, she was doing it because she was her friend; I told her, her doing this would cost her your friendship. Another notable interaction: asking the doorman at the bar if we could step out for a little while and then come back, and when he said yes, I told him I appreciated his flexibility, and got a genuine smile out of him.
Another notable interaction: two people I don't know all that well greeting me with hugs without asking. I'll know to keep my arms up next time. Another notable interaction: People complimenting me on my dress, which I bought well over 12 years ago and still fits nicely, and was genuinely a nicer dress than all of the other dresses there that night. I'd worried about overdressing, then decided against worrying.
It started at the beginning of an evening that was flat and still wet, soft from the day's rains; it never quite cleared up or dried out, but it eased out enough to spot the moon through the clouds. Which is fitting for how the whole night went down, start to finish.
Also not quite SoHo were the moments I found myself talking to one of the two photographers whose work was on display and he simply couldn't answer the questions. I asked him why he took that one picture of his house, what about that moment caught his eye, would he have felt differently if the light was on in a different window. He couldn't say other than he didn't know. Also not quite SoHo was that none of the pieces had prices listed, or any information on whether or not they were for sale; after the show, someone commented he'd have happily purchased a print of something, but had no way to find out or ask.
But like SoHo, the curator was suitably engaged with his work, talking about what he'd gotten from the artists and the way he could put their work in conversation with each other instead of simply having two artists in the space at once. Also like SoHo was that before the show began, I had some time to wander, so I walked a couple blocks and found a city park tucked in between long-occupied row houses and empty industrial buildings. On my way back, I walked into an open-air thrift store - there's really no better term for it, there were sections for flatware and glassware, for vintage camera equipment, for jewelry, for records - and walked out less than ten minutes later wearing a Navy captain's coat. No, really. I checked the buttons, stripes, and the star. It's a captain's coat. I walked in, walked through, saw the stripes, and knew it had to come home with me. It's broad enough in the shoulders I wore it over my raincoat to keep my hands free, and a lot of people told me they liked it. One particularly grand moment was when I stepped outside and put a hand up to my forehead to focus on some birds flying west, and a couple people joked I was the admiral giving a salute.
The art itself was fine for what it was: two people's black and white compositions of lost childhood homes and close family members. It knew what it wanted to do, and largely did it, even if the artists themselves couldn't quite say what or why.
I should say I went because my younger brother R. and his wife G. were friends with one of the artists, so afterwards, several people including R., G., and myself went to a nearby bar. I'd been having a disappointing night, the coat notwithstanding, so I thought I'd try to raise my spirits with a cocktail. I sat at the bar and told the bartender I knew I liked rum, I knew I liked a dark and stormy, but I didn't know what else I'd like, and I wanted him to make me a rum-based drink he enjoyed making that few people ordered. He said he liked my attitude, and when he asked how I wanted it, and I said I trusted him to make it the way he liked it, he had a good laugh. What came out was a dark daiquiri: darker rum, darker sugar, more lime juice. Perfectly refreshing. Later I took a similar strategy to ask him to make me something with tequila, which came out as something with tequila, mezcal, and hibiscus.
There was an issue with dinner with one of R.'s friends. The three of us walked to a nearby restaurant to get tacos for the group, and I suggested we simply bring back vegetarian tacos for everyone as nobody specified what they wanted beyond "tacos." R.'s friend immediately went in on vegetarian tacos being a bad idea as they tend to go soft and soggy quickly, and I switched to saying that if they were that bad, I didn't want any tacos to begin with. It took some work and I still don't think he quite gets why I reacted the way I did - from what I gathered on the conversation during the walk there, he's not a particularly sincere person, and going by how things went as we kept talking, he doesn't know how to deal with sincerity as someone's default mode - but I ended up with some tacos just the same.
Another notable interaction: G. saying she had to repair a balaclava she'd made for a friend who ended up ripping it due to negligence and who expected G. to fix it. She sounded upset, but said it was fine, and asked what would it cost. I said, your friendship. She said, she was doing it because she was her friend; I told her, her doing this would cost her your friendship. Another notable interaction: asking the doorman at the bar if we could step out for a little while and then come back, and when he said yes, I told him I appreciated his flexibility, and got a genuine smile out of him.
Another notable interaction: two people I don't know all that well greeting me with hugs without asking. I'll know to keep my arms up next time. Another notable interaction: People complimenting me on my dress, which I bought well over 12 years ago and still fits nicely, and was genuinely a nicer dress than all of the other dresses there that night. I'd worried about overdressing, then decided against worrying.
It started at the beginning of an evening that was flat and still wet, soft from the day's rains; it never quite cleared up or dried out, but it eased out enough to spot the moon through the clouds. Which is fitting for how the whole night went down, start to finish.