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Saturday, October 26, 2002 I woke up in the early hours to find the light which seeped in the windows looking suspiciously white -- on getting up to bumble my way in the direction of the loo, I discovered why: the world outside lay beneath a thin layer of snow. (Aiiieeeee!!!!) White, white, white -- the ground covered, the trees cloaked, each branch delineated in white. As I got the coal stove going, snow began coming down heavily -- big, fat flakes falling faster and faster, the valley to the north disappearing behind a curtain of white. It continues as I write this, the flakes smaller now but still coming down at a pretty good pace. Snow. In October. Not so unusual here in northern Vermont. Pretty, real damn pretty, but not a kind of pretty I'm craving right now. *********** It snowed all morning until the temperature pulled itself up to the 30 degree mark, high enough that the flakes began turning to rain. The rain fell lightly through a lot of the afternoon, not enough to wipe out the fallen snow, but enough to thin it out, perforate it. Enough to get it looking kind of ragged. Fog moved in during the afternoon so that the air, while not white with snow, was still white, looking kind of eerie, mystical. It's nice to be in a warm house in the middle of it all. ************ For a brief, silly Halloween flash animation created by a friend, go here. rws 8:54 AM [+] |
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Wednesday, October 23, 2002 So I hauled my carcass out from under the nice warm covers early enough that I was out the door and on the way into Montpelier by 8 a.m. Another cold morning, the sun dragging itself up from behind the cover of gray clouds that masked the lowest part of the eastern sky. On impulse, I turned left at the end of the driveway instead of right, heading up the gravel road instead of down the hill to Route 14. The road makes its way up a gradual incline, past a huge barn owned by my uphill neighbor -- a beautiful old building, three stories tall at least, constructed a century or more ago using enormous planks of dark, weathered wood -- then past my neighbor's house, situated right on the road, as opposed to mine, which lurks at the end of a 150-foot-long dirt 'n' gravel driveway. To the right of the road, all the way along, is wooded land, rising at a steep angle toward the top of Peck Hill. In fact, most of the land here is wooded, most of the leaves gone, so there's more sky to be seen as one moves along the road, more glimpses of green/brown slopes falling away at places on the left or climbing out of sight on the right. Up at the top of the hill, maybe a third of a mile along, the gravel road branches off to the right (called Fifers Ride, curving around Peck Hill to terminate a mile or so along at a house) and to the left, that branch the continuation of Peck Hill Road. It becomes a fourth-class road there, one notch up from a track, plunging down through more densely-wooded land and out of sight. The Town doesn't plow fourth-class roads, and as a consequence only three families live along that mile-and-a-half length, the last residence a house that used to be the local one-room schoolhouse. Making my way along that rough, fourth-class road -- containing enough rocks and ruts that one really needs to pay attention -- I listened to the morning weather report, which mentioned that quite a bit of snow fell in central and southern portions of the state overnight, anywhere from one to six inches. I gave groveling thanks to the Universe at large for not pelting my neighborhood with several inches of snow. As the fourth-class road approaches the former one-room schoolhouse, it gradually transforms from a rough ride to something more civilized -- still dirt and therefore muddy in inclement weather, but not peppered with rocks and ruts. There it crosses a small bridge under which runs a creek, after which it's flanked on both sides by cow pastures. The cows' owners rotate the pastures the cattle are kept in, so you never know whether there'll be a bunch of heifers watching you go by or not. I love driving these back roads. I've been told this town -- Calais, VT -- has more miles of back roads than any other town in the state. True? Don't know. There's a whole lot of back-country mileage one can cover here, though, something I find seriously therapeutic at times. It's the remedy for years of driving in Boston, N.Y., L.A., etc., and as I drove it this morning, gradually waking up while I tooled along, I began realizing all over again how beautiful it is. This area is looking classically autumnal right now – I hate to inflict a word like this on y'all, but it's breathtaking, even with the colors mostly gone. You drive these roads, going up hills and ridges, down into hollows and lowlands, you find yourself as far from the city as if you'd been dropped down in the Sahara. Only without the sand. And the camels. And the heat. And with rain and lots of trees. [Continued in entry of 10/25] rws 9:15 PM [+] |
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Monday, October 21, 2002 This morning: got out of bed, took a look out the dining room window, saw that the thermometer read 26 degrees. (Aiiiieeee!!) When I pulled the car out of the garage a short time later, light snow had begun falling. (Aiiiiiieeeeee!!!) To the north, the valley was obscured by a white curtain of snow showers that moved this way. (Aaaiiiiiiieeeeeee!!!!!) Luckily, I was about to head south to Montpelier, so mounted up and bolted, taking back roads above which sun and clouds duked it out, light snow or sleet occasionally coming down. October 21. Snow. Not so unusual in these parts, these parts being northern Vermont. Still, a bit of an adjustment. In Montpelier: went to the gym, picked up airline tickets to Madrid, my return now officially happening on Dec. 2. (Yee-ha!) I'll readily confess that I love being up here in these green mountains, and that seeing this autumn (heading toward winter) landscape whenever I look out the windows is quite a backdrop to the passing days. I've gotten tons of work done, something I often find more difficult to do in Madrid, where there's so much distraction available. But the change will be good, and it'll feel great to be back in the city that feels like a home to this heart of mine. Not the only home, but one of them. Home: an idea that's been a bit of an issue for me in this lifetime -- what does it mean, what does and doesn't feel like it. Growing up I got pulled back and forth between Long Island and upstate New York, on the Hudson north of Albany -– every year from the time I was four, creating a sense of never settling in anywhere. On top of which, my family felt more like a place I was serving time than home. After high school, I began moving all over eastern New York –- even at university, in Binghamton, my residences changed with the frequency of a cheap ham radio. I moved to Seattle for a while three years, retreated back to New York, first upstate, then to the Apple itself. Zipped out to L.A. two years later, lasting less eighteen months before returning back to upstate New York. Sis months later found me relocating to Cambridge, Mass., where I stayed for most of the next 20 years, the first few of which consisted of the same old M.O.: changing residences on a regular basis. And then something began to settle down. Cambridge came to feel like home, maybe the world reflected that back to me. I actually found an apt. where I remained for eight years, a dive on Mass. Ave., between Central and Harvard Squares. That eight years continuous years in one living space remains the record for me. Next: West Cambridge, where I shared a flat with my best friend for a year and a half. From there I found another third-floor joint, this time in North Cambridge, living there for nearly six years. During that last period, I got this place here in northern Vermont, then found my way to Madrid, life veering around between all that -- not a mode of living I ever would have predicted for myself, much less thought possible. I've known people whose lives have been different from that model. My landlords in N.Y.C. lived on that street their entire lives, the wife in the same building. All her life. (In contrast to me: born in New York but out of there at the six-month mark.) Up here it seems fairly common that there's real continuity in where one physically lives their life. My downhill neighbor (neighbor being a relative term in these parts, his house way downhill, across the gravel road), Mo, comes from a family that's lived in East Calais for generations and, apart from his years in the service, he's lived in this town his entire life. Married, in fact, for 50-some-odd years, most of which have been spent in that little house. In Spain, that's more the norm. People grow up in the same place, rooted in the community and in a strong network of family and friends. That seems to be changing, post-Franco, as the country has become more connected with the world at large, but most Spaniards I've met have remained in the same city, the same neighborhood they grew up in, and if they do relocate for some reason, they generally maintain strong ties with family/original community. What's remained constant for me through most of the moving around has been a feeling of the northeast U.S. being home, becoming more specific to New England as time passed. L.A. never fit, though it was an interesting place to experience for a while. Seattle gave me a lot, but never felt like home. Cambridge fit the bill for a while, but so many elements in my situation there changed so drastically with time, along with huge changes in the city itself during that 20 year period, that the sense of home gradually faded. And then I went to Madrid, expecting nothing like what happened. So. Home: New England? Madrid? Somewhere else? Got me. There are ways in which Madrid currently comes closest, in that sense of a place that connects with one in deep, almost inexpressible ways. I'll be curious to see what it's like being back. As it becomes more and more of a world-class city, Madrid, like Cambridge, is undergoing massive changes. But then everything changes, always. That also remains constant, at least in my little world. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's a lovely evening here. The sun's gone down behind the trees to the west of the house, across the valley its last light -- bright orange -- continues to shine on the higher reaches, what's left of the autumn colors showing clearly across the ridges. I threw on a coat, went outside for a walk, and as I'm wandering around I'm thinking Damn, it's cold! After a while, I realize that it feels like winter out there -- genuinely chilly, the air clear and crisp. When I came back inside I checked the thermometer. 5:30 p.m., the evening just coming on, and the temperature is already 30 degrees (-1 centigrade). Northern Vermont: it's beautiful. I love it and all that. But this is really pushing it. rws 3:50 PM [+] |
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Saturday, October 19, 2002 Well. Chick Corea. I had an extra ticket, so when I arrived at Dartmouth, I found my way to the box office, down one level and one hallway from the entrance to Spaulding Auditorium, the space the concert was held in. This is all in one sprawling complex of connected buildings at the college, a warren that includes at least three different performance spaces, the offices of the theatre department, a small art museum, a student center kind of affair, with a cafeteria and tables spread around both indoors and outdoors. Filled with people, loads of them college-age, of course. I spoke to one of the kids in the box office and let him know I had a ticket to sell in case someone needed one (the show was sold out), then grabbed a nearby piece of wall to lean against while I waited for a buyer. Almost immediately, students showed up nosing around for tickets, the fella in the box office referred them to me and when they discovered that I wanted to sell the ticket for what I paid, its face value, they immediately drifted off in search of other ticket sources. (They seemed to think I should be willing to take a loss on the ticket -- HA!!!) So I waited. People came and went. Until three or four short minutes before the performance was to start -- the crowds cleared out, I noticed a 50-something gentleman patiently standing in front of the box office. Waiting, it looked like, for someone just like me. I asked if he needed a ticket, he said yes, he was happy to pay face value for the bugger, and I was off to the auditorium. Found my way to the seat, the guy who bought my spare ticket showed up just as the lights went down (the tix were for adjoining seats), the members of the band began to filter out, the energy in the joint immediately shot way up. I've listened to Chick Corea's music on and off since I was embarrassingly young, when he put together Return To Forever and they, along with Weather Report, had a massive impact on the jazz universe. But I haven't followed his career closely since the 80s. This outfit, the Chick Corea Electrik Band, is a unit he threw together back in that decade. They played until the mid-90s, then went separately off to do other things. Having just regrouped, this was their third performance in an exploratory three-week tour. Clearly, a lot of folks in the auditorium – a crowd whose age spanned a range that began with high school and continued upward from there, including a fair number of 60- and 70-somethings, even one 80-something – were familiar with the Electrik Band, because as soon as they strolled onstage, people started clapping, calling out, leaping to their feet. Chick Corea walked out last, the energy coming from the audience doubled, the feeling of anticipation crackling in the air. I don't mean that as hype or dramatic overstatement – the air literally seemed to start crackling with intense energy as people got ready for what was coming. As I write this, I'm thinking this is not so unusual at popular music concerts, rock & roll, pop, rap. Not so usual in jazz, though, at least in my experience. They picked up their instruments and they were off. And mama, as soon as they started it became apparent why the audience's energy was so high: these guys were heavyweights – virtuosos who love being together onstage and play with chemistry to burn. Powerful, wildly accomplished musicians, every one of them -- a band with no weak link. Chick Corea, of course, is a world-class player, and it was immediately apparent that the drummer and bass player were major talents, on a distinctly higher level than most of the musicians of their ilk one sees playing around. But as the music flowed and time passed, it became apparent that the sax player and guitarist were right up there with the rest of the band -- killer players, all of them. The percussionist sat behind the biggest, most sprawling drum set I've seen in many years. Like a fortress, like a drum shrine -- ten drums (two different-sized bass drums, three different-sized tom-toms, two snare drums, and three timbali-style affairs), eight different cymbals, two of which were double cymbals (I'm not including the high-hat in that count). Just a massive array of firepower. The bass player used a six-string electric that he often played like a lead guitar. His solos seemed to be the ones that got the audience the most fired up – not because he was any better than the other players (he wasn't), but because his work stood out so sharply from most bass playing one encounters. The performance program reads: "Tonight's program will last approximately 70-90 minutes. There will be no intermission." After 75 minutes, they took a 15-minute break, then came out and played close to 90 minutes more. Three hours that whipped by, getting funkier and funkier as it went, until two songs from the end they got into a jazzed-out version of the kind of thing Booker T. & The MG's might play. The encore: out-and-out funk – high-level, complex, jazzed-up funk, but funk, and impossible to sit still for. And that's another weird thing – as psyched out as the audience was, many of them sat still as they listened, intensely focused on the show. I can't do that. If there's any kind of beat, I have to move to it. And so I was, planted there in my comfy auditorium seat. After a while, I began checking out the crowd, where I observed people like me sprinkled all around the space – moving in rhythm to fast, driving (usually loud) music, even if it was only a bobbing head or a leg moving in time to the beat. During the encore, I moved down closer to the stage, taking advantage of seats abandoned by folks who bolted at the end of the regular set. Across the aisle from me sat an elderly couple, her in her 70s, him easily 80 or older, with a cane. They got up just before the encore ended, him needing the cane to get to his feet. She put her arm through his, they walked slowly up the aisle, smiling as funky music washed over them. Afterward, the college staged a Q&A session between the band and whatever audience members stayed around, a half-hour of back and forth which the band seemed to enjoy immensely. A couple of audience members – parents of young children -- asked for the musicians' thoughts re: how to support/encourage their kids in music, which developed into the longest, most interesting, most emotional part of the Q&A. Every bandmember spoke about the importance of exposing kids to the arts, providing it as part of the atmosphere in the home as kids grow up but never forcing them to do anything. Let them find out what interests them, what excites them. Support them, allow them to discover that calls them, and see what happens. They used the words "allow" and "support" over and over again. And it developed that every member of the band had grown up in families where the parents did exactly that. Which got me thinking about the house I grew up in. Neither of my parents were involved in the arts, neither played music or painted or drew. Now and then my father did volunteer technical work for a community theater group in a neighboring town, something he never brought home with him or brought us to see. My mother was tone deaf, couldn't pick up a tune and toss it against the wall, much less carry one. And yet one of my most consistent memories from early times is music playing on the family's little record player in a small room down at the end of the first-floor hallway, far enough away from the living/dining rooms that the volume had to be cranked way up so that it could be heard. My father played classical LPs, my mother folk music. My brothers, both substantially older than me, played rock and roll on a record player upstairs. With all that in the air, I became hooked on music early on, listening seriously to radio by the time I was four. My father's father had been a successful painter, self-taught in mid-life and able to make his living at it from there – his paintings were all over our little house. My brother Terry became an art major, his work began finding its way into the living space, inspiring me to draw and draw and draw all through elementary school and into junior high where my art teacher encouraged me. Terry began bringing music home with him from college, especially Dylan, and would draw and paint in my bedroom as I fell asleep, Dylan playing on the cheap little record player I had. All of this had an immense effect on me. The only misstep my parents made was in making me take up the violin when I was eight. I never really took to that bugger. They made me practice a half hour every day, and I hated it, never really put my heart into it (yet still always wound up in the third or fourth chair of the first violins in the school orchestra). I played that thing for ten or eleven years, and once I'd found other disciplines – voice, theatre – that I discovered on my own, violin studies faded away. Pretty interesting. They're powerful words, "allow" and "support." But you already know that. The band hung out until after 11:30, I got to shake their hands, thank them for a great time. People were getting autographs (the allure of which I've never understood -- ah, well, to each their own). A great time. And there you have it. rws 7:34 PM [+] |
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Tuesday, October 15, 2002 Two months ago, in the middle of August, the sun didn't stray down behind the trees to the west of here until 7:30, 8 o'clock in the evening. Now -- the middle of October -- it's dropping behind the trees at 4:30. Soon as it does that, the temperature sinks, the air develops some bite. At 7:50 this morning, I took a look at the thermometer that hangs outside the dining room window read 17 chilly degrees. Frost covered everything in a layer so thick, so white that it looked like snow had fallen during the night. We're deep into autumn now, the cold season is upon us. For real. I've been working hard on getting the novel I've been laboring away on [see entries for 5/24, 6/15, 8/13, 8/22] ready for reading/feedback. At one point this afternoon, I stepped outside for a breath of air and was struck by how quiet it is here -- up on a hill, no neighbors close by. The only human sounds: a car or truck passing down below on Route 12, heading north toward Hardwick or south to Montpelier; the occasional report of a rifle somewhere off in the distance. Other than that, there are bird calls and insects singing in the grass. Maybe the sound of a gust of wind now and then. That's it. The fact that there are insects in the grass, crickets and their cousins, making it through these nights of hard frost and genuine cold is pretty amazing, I think. Hard to figure how anything without any natural padding or insulation would survive a long night of below-zero temperatures, though there must be pockets of insulation off in the long grass and undergrowth. By ten a.m. or so, when the sun has hauled itself high enough in the sky to melt away most frost, the little critters begin stirring. By midday, with the temperature up into the low 60s, they're carrying on as if the temperature had never dipped low enough to wipe out flowering plants or freeze the leaves on trees and bushes so that they let go in cascades of faded color when a breeze rustles branches. Something I noticed on my outing: woolly caterpillars (also called woolly bear caterpillars. All over the place, preparing for winter, doing whatever will continue the cycle of life for their breed. They're big buggers, covered with dense black and rust-colored fuzz. I even saw one or two of the small yellow butterflies that hang around here in the warm season – holdouts, basking in the brilliant October sunlight. And that's been the story of the last two days -- brilliant sunlight, deep blue skies. And leaves coming down. The trees around here have lost enough foliage that the sense of space is changing, opening out. Those that run along the uphill property line no longer obscure the view of the fields and upward-reaching slopes beyond. As the cold season settles in it opens things up, makes the terrain more transparent. The acres of long grass that stretch down the north side of the hill from the house, yellow with blossoming yarrow in August, gradually change to the whites and blue/purple of flea bane and asters in September. With the hard frosts, that's all changed to grays and browns, as the grass shrinks away and that land beneath becomes more apparent, more accessible for walking. Blah blah blah. I may be overdoing the rustic bit, but out here the land, the weather, the constant changes that are part of the day's passing are the major source of sensory input. Bear with me -- in six or seven weeks I'll be back in Madrid and my focus will change completely. rws 7:46 PM [+] |
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Sunday, October 13, 2002 The days here have turned mostly gray and cool-- a kind of Vermont weather that sometimes becomes far too normal a part of autumn for my taste. The good part: when the sun does break through, the land positively glows. Yesterday morning: drove into Montpelier on roads wet from early morning rainfall for a session of self-punishment at the gym. Turned out to be member appreciation day, meaning platters of fruit, bagels, healthy snacks arrayed at one end of the reception counter and people testing for blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, blahblahblah. Tests confirmed that I am excessively healthy. Next: stopped at the Montpelier farmers market where I mostly ate (vegetable samosas, egg rolls, steamed Chinese dumplings -- not your usual country farmers' market fare). Got home around 11, remembered that the local power company had scheduled an outage for yesterday morning between 9 and noon for line work, giving me an opportunity to put a dent in clean-up waiting to be done. Not much fun, but looking after one's living space can be its own reward. (And if I spew more aphorisms like that, someone, please, shoot me.) The colors, though past peak in many places around here, have grown widespread enough in this muted, low-key autumn that the landscape has begun to look like a patchwork quilt spread over the sides and tops of the hills. Cloud cover gave way mid-afternoon, the sun lighting everything up in a quietly spectacular way. Yesterday evening: drove down to Hanover, N.H. for a performance of flamenco at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth. A small company called Noche Flamenca -- two guitarists, two singers, two dancers. The theater was packed with as multicultural a crowd as you'll find in these parts -- whites, latinos, blacks, asians -- including a vocal Spanish contingent, producing high energy both onstage and off. I was prepared for a more buttoned-down response than what I was used to in Spain, a more repressed, intellectual display from the New England audience. Instead, people around the hall whooped and clapped, calling out "¡Vale!" and "¡Olé!" at any wonderful moment onstage or any old time the spirit moved them. Made me homesick. Both guitarists were superb, both singers excellent, especially the older of the two, Manuel Gago,a 50ish guy with a tremendous, expressive voice that just wouldn't quit. The weakest member of the troupe was the male dancer, a 40ish fella who had the spirit and some good moments but suffered in comparison with the female dancer, Soledad Barrio, who gave as sharp, explosive a performance of dance as I've ever seen. Man, this woman was good -- she had a long solo number near the end of the show that just stretched on and on, with bursts of astonishing dancing -- majestic, transcendent. A killer performance, one of those times when the individual simply catches fire and the audience is privileged to get a glimpse of something far beyond the ordinary. Afterwards, the artistic director along with one of the guitarists, the older of the two singers and Ms. Barrio (who looked exhausted, and no wonder). At one point they were talking about the part improvision plays in flamenco -- like jazz, there's a basic structure within which the performers can improvise, calling each other out and supporting each other when the energy/emotion is right -- when one of them mentioned that her solo last night ran twice as long as it had the night before. I gave thanks that I'd been there to see it. The artistic director was bilingual -- the other company members spoke only Spanish. Felt fine to see that I understood everything they said, which was not the case when the singers were performing. Their Andalucian accents were thick enough that I could only get phrases and individual words here and there. Might have been demoralizing if I hadn't been able to get all the dialogue during the Q&A. Before the show yesterday evening, I stopped in for a meal at an Indian restaurant near the theater where I listened to a conversation between three Dartmouth students at a table next to mine, one of them, a young woman, telling a story about a friend named Loren. Seems that Loren and her roommate had taken in a third roommate, another young woman. Soon after moving in, the new arrival noticed that Loren had cleaned hair out of her hairbrush, tossed into the bathroom wastebasket. She advised Loren that you should never throw your hair away -- it should be flushed down the toilet because you never know when it can be 'used against you.' That apparently was the exact phrase -- 'used against you.' Soon after that, one Saturday morning as Loren slept in, the new roommate's mother came to visit, and Loren's second roommate overheard the mother ask her daughter where Loren was. "She's still asleep," the third roommate answered, sharply disapproving, "at 10 o'clock in the morning." Apparently, the second roommate saw the mother and daughter exchange a dark look, after which the mother quietly suggested putting a hex on Loren. Between that and other voodoo references, Loren and the second roommate moved out soon after. Ah, life. rws 12:27 PM [+] |
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Thursday, October 10, 2002 You know, I'm not online much these days apart from posting the entries for this boring bugger of a journal, but when I am I usually check out details of this page's traffic at Sitemeter. Now and then I follow a link that referred some poor lost fool here and discover interesting reading. Like Fussy, for instance -- a prime example of a smart, sharply-written blog. Or McSweeney's, the homepage to McSweeney's Journal (to which I am a lifetime subscriber, he confessed, not sure whether that indicates excellent taste or intellectual pretensions run desperately astray) -- funny, ironic, w/ loads of good writing. The proprieter of Fussy, by the way, is an example of a writer who has actually built their own webpage (their own, as opposed to lurking sadly around pages provided by outfits like Blogger and Salon, my two current haunts) in all the ways I aspire to. I actually have some domains and have signed up with a webhosting outfit -- one of these days I'll get myself organized and make the leap. ************** [Continuation of yesterday's entry.] Sunday morning. I woke up around 4 or 5 a.m. Got up to dump the ballast, returned to bed. Couldn't get back to sleep, got up and did some writing work. By 7:30, I'd showered and shaved, my bags were back in the car, I'd turned in the key at the motel office and was on the way to the College Diner for eggs, home fries, toast, O.J. Pulled up in front of my brother's house just shy of the time we'd agreed we would get things rolling, 8:30. Went inside. My nephew and his sweetie were also in town for the weekend, I found them asleep on a mattress in the living room, both curled up under the covers, wearing eyeshades. Terry put a finger to his lips, we passed quietly into the kitchen where we spoke in whispers for a bit. Then I went outside to wait, hoping Terry wouldn't be long. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. It was a beautiful October morning -- abundant sunlight, chilly temperatures moving upward rapidly. Trees showing some color, insects in the grass singing away. I wanted to get going with what needed to be done, but didn't mind soaking up the morning for a bit. At ten or fifteen after nine, Terry stepped outside, we got underway, each in our own car. At the storage compartment we hauled everything out, discovering things we'd forgotten had been tossed in there, meaning I found more dreck to bring back to Vermont with me. A few small tables, things re: me my mother had saved (i.e., booklets with my SAT and achievement test scores) a box of Waterford crystal water glasses, blahblahblah. Just what I need: more STUFF. Most everything went into or on top of the cars, we headed back to Terry's place, set it all up by the sidewalk. Terry had put together signs advertising the sale – he went off to post them at nearby intersections, I worked on the furniture with Pledge and a rag. Most everything for sale was furniture, and it moved. A neighbor immediately bought two bookshelves and a magazine rack. A chiropractor stopped by with his mother. At her urging, he picked up a small sofa, an armchair, a coffee table, her trying to (a) talk us down in price and (b) convince us we needed her son to work on our backs. Three hours later only a few items remained. Terry and I sat out in the October weather, talking, dealing with folks who stopped by when we had to. A nice visit. By 2:30, we'd thrown in the towel, bringing the remaining items up by the porch. Terry made me some food, he and Sue sat and talked with me as I sucked it down, by 3:30 I was in my fully-packed car, joining the flood of traffic on the Thruway. I bailed from the Thruway one exit south, picking up Route 84 east. That's where the trouble began. Everyone else in eastern New York State and western Connecticut seemed to be on the road, heading home after a weekend of madcap autumn fun. The hour and a half ride to Hartford became three hours of stop and go traffic. Even on I-91, heading north from Hartford, cars filled the highway, though those went too fast instead of too slow. By the time Springfield approached, I'd had enough and took an exit ramp that presented itself, finding myself on State Street, heading east. My first and only time in Springfield. A half mile or so along State, I pulled into the parking lot of a fast food joint – McDonald's, Burger King; don't remember for sure – and locked up the car. Decided I wanted something better than fast food and walked further along State Street, Sunday evening traffic passing by. I found another fast food place – McDonald's, Burger King; don't remember for sure – didn't go inside there either. Turned around, went back toward the lot with my car. As I walked, I heard a car alarm, gradually realizing it sounded like mine. By the time I trotted into the lot, it had stopped. As I neared the car, though, I saw broken glass scattered around the rear end. Then I saw the massive hole in the rear-hatch window. Someone – there, in the fairly busy parking lot of the fast-food place – had bashed in the glass, probably lusting larcenously after the stuff inside. None of which was gone, as it turned out -- the alarm must have spooked the perp. I stared at the broken window and the abundant bits of glass inside, cars passing, people staring as they went by. A question I couldn't figure out: why attempt a break-in in such a well-traveled place? And with people coming and going, how come no one seemed to have witnessed anything that might help? (I asked a few rubberneckers if they'd seen the break-in, all said no.) One guy returning to his car with a bag of chow eyed the damage, saying, "Gee, that sucks," which pretty much summed up the event. My appetite had disappeared, I found all I wanted to do was finish the drive home. I cleaned up as much of the glass as I could and found my way back to the highway, where traffic had finally lightened up, me thanking the Universe as I drove that nothing more than a broken window had come my way. No missing possessions, no scratched or dented auto body, no problems rendering the car undriveable, no injuries to my adorable little bod. No rain, snow, sleet or hail coming in the back window. Lots to be thankful for, including a generally fine weekend. Three hours later, I pulled in my driveway, the heater going full blast to counteract the cold air and car exhaust streaming in the new rear access port. Monday morning I got on the horn first thing, connected with a glass replacement shop that offered to do the work that afternoon. Called my insurance company, got a busy signal. Called some more. Then some more. Then some more. Line still busy. Dialed that number many, many times during the course of the day, well into the evening, with the same result. Between bouts of dialing, I brought the car in to the shop, they gave me a loaner. A maroon PT Cruiser with the legend "Windshield World" painted on both sides and the rear. My first time in a PT Cruiser. I wouldn't buy one, but it was fun to find myself behind the wheel, tooling north on Route 14. Got back to the house, tried my insurance agency on and off. Went back into town to pick up my car four hours later. And it was so nice to have a window in the rear hatch instead of a gaping hole that let in traffic noise and exhaust fumes. Tuesday a.m., I tried calling my insurance agency. Same deal, busy signal. I finally smartened up, found my insurance company's number, called them directly. They answered their phone. They made sympathetic noises at my story of what happened to my car. They told me I had full coverage on glass replacement so that they'd reimburse me for the entire repair bill. They were kind, friendly, efficient – all the things you look for in an insurance company after someone has broken the rear window in your car. An interesting weekend. Since then I've settled back into life here. Monday and Tuesday night brought the first hard frosts of the season, wiping out most of the flowers outside. The colors around here seem to have peaked this past week, passing wind and rain resulting in increasingly bare trees, fringed with the remaining ragged, faded leaves. The online leaf-peeper reports are talking up the viewing possibilities, but there don't seem to be many left in these parts. Further south, maybe. The season of the colors as a whole was a muted one up here. I saw some displays on the way south on Friday, in New Hampshire between the Vermont line and Concord – stands of trees done up in sharp, brilliant reds, oranges, yellows. Just the way it should be. Duck season commenced recently, so that now and then I hear a gunshot or two off in the distance. Turkey season and deer season will follow. I think I'll avoid walking in the woods for a while. Life spins on, you know? Right. Later. rws 6:28 AM [+] |
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Wednesday, October 02, 2002 Me: no longer a virgin. My first-ever MP3 file got downloaded today, a cut by Lord Buckley. (Not Tim Buckley, not Lord Sutch -– Lord Buckley.) Admittedly, I'm way behind the curve on the MP3 thing, but I figured I'd at least get ahold of some rarities before the music industry shuts the file-sharing community down entirely. I tried hooking up with this phenomenon a while ago, but my tired Dell laptop wasn't up to the work. This new Gateway rig I picked up a couple of weeks back dug right into it with the result that I now have three Lord Buckley numbers hiding in my hard drive with a fourth in process as I type this. Why Lord Buckley? In earlier times, I passed a year in the upstate N.Y. town of New Paltz, a small community just across the Esopus River and the flood flats from the easternmost reaches of the Catskills. Fresh out of college, sort of (I took so many electives during my undergrad years that I had to do a couple of courses over what should have been my post-graduation summer and another the following autumn to finish up, meaning my university time didn't so much as finish up in the usual burst of finals/graduation/etc. as meander around until it finally petered out), I gravitated to that part of the state because both my brother's family and two childhood friends resided there. Both friends worked in the Town water department and seemed sure there'd be a spot for me if I wanted a place to hang my hat, workwise, for a spell. Minimal pay, but I wasn't feeling real ambitious at that time, so I went for it. The Water Dept. Supervisor, our boss, was a Vietnam Vet named Larry -– a hefty, bearded, capable guy who knew when to cut us slack and when to apply the spurs. An interesting, generally relaxed character. He lived a block or two up the hill from my brother in a funky little wood frame house with a good-sized back yard where he kept bees. Indoors, he kept iguanas -- two of them, mostly in a large enclosure of wood and glass in the dining room, though on winter nights when he had the wood stove cranked up, he'd take the iguanas out and let them hang out on a burl of wood he had fastened above the archway between the living and dining rooms. They'd remain up there soaking up the heat, content and motionless. Lunch hour often stretched itself out to a lunch hour-and-a-half, sometimes more, usually taking place at Larry's place. Endless conversation, music playing on the box. Larry had a few oddities in his tunes collection, including a Lord Buckley disc that he laid on us a few times. Specialized stuff, not something we wanted to hear all the time, but so striking and unique that when it got played all conversation stopped. First of all, the guy presented himself visually as a straight-looking middle-aged white Englishman, of serious, refined demeanor. The kind of gentleman who would look at home in a tux, with a cane. In contrast to his appearance, his material was verbal jazz -- wild, theatrical spoken-word stuff, entirely in the argot of the beats, the hipsters of the 50s, delivered with impeccable control by way of an amazing set of pipes. Not your usual lunch-hour entertainment. I've always remembered certain Lord Buckley cuts I heard during the course of that year in New Paltz -– The Nazz (a beat re-telling of the Jesus story), The Train (a strange, short piece about a train wreck), and Buckley's hipster versions of the Gettysburg Address and Marc Antony's funeral oration from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Might sound both weird and boring, all that, and though it may be weird, it's far from boring. This last Labor Day weekend, on my way back from a couple of days in the Boston area [see journal entries of August 30-31 and September 3-4], I stopped off to visit friends in New Hampshire, Joe, Deb, and their lethally adorable daughter Emily. Joe: an old rock and roller with a small collection that includes some hard to find gems, including an old pressing of a Lord Buckley LP. We got to talking about his Lordship, Joe slipped the vinyl disc on the turntable, I heard the Gettysburg Address and The Train for the first time in years and years. I wanted to get my hands on my own copy of that stuff, Joe suggested going the MP3 route. When I got back home here I tried to do just that, but as I've already said my laptop was not up to it. My hands were tied. Until now. Time to listen to an MP3 or two. Be well. rws 7:52 PM [+] |