With Hurrican Matt bearing down at a Force 4 storm, we decided to evacuate. Going to Hood River for some R&R. If you’ve chosen to stay, maybe hold a hurricane party, good luck! Check out some earlier blogs, swill champagne, hunker down. We’ll catch you on the back end.
Our fiddler in the South End String Band is a fiddle maker as well, meaning, he builds violins and violas and cellos. You maybe don’t run into luthiers a whole lot in your neighborhood, but down by us, we got folks who build everything from boats to banjos. I suspect there are a lot more of us than you realize, people who find it necessary to create things. I bet you only know a few, but believe me, the woods are full of them.
Our fiddle maker had quit making instruments about 15 years ago, just stopped out of the blue to pursue a career as a fireman, make a steady paycheck and support his family. At the time he had clients waiting, violins going for $10,000 and cellos for $19,000, not bad in our neck of the wilderness, the South End. I didn’t understand it, this dropping a fairly lucrative trade just when his reputation had grown to the point most of us artists would have celebrated, but then I don’t have a family so maybe it seemed strange to give up a creative career for a guaranteed wage.
A few months ago he rented a studio space, lugged in his tools and his 50 year old woods, mostly flame maple for bottoms and sides and the neck and straight grain spruce for the tops. He built a fiddle for working out the kinks after a 15 year hiatus, then he took the best wood he had and built a violin the beauty of which would knock you out same as it did us bandmates. The craftsmanship, the detailing, the wood — Stradivarius himself would have nodded his approval. And the sound, well, I’m no judge of classic instruments, but it does seem amazing. Now he’s building a cello, same exquisite workmanship, just as nice a wood selection.
I like to think there’s an irresistible urge to create in most of us, whether it be a poem or a garden or a badly made banjo, some spark that demands a bursting into flame. I meet folks all the time who say they haven’t got one artistic bone in their invertebrate body, but I don’t believe them. We might not build a Stradivarius or write the great American novel, but we humans, like God Herself, bend the world to our own imaginations and the music we make changes everything.
Every blue moon or so I stop loitering in our gardens and tune in briefly to the world at large outside our gates. Actually I don’t so much go searching for it, it intrudes on me. Folks who say the world is shrinking, well, from my foxhole, it seems more like it’s expanding, same as some of the invasive weeds that come creeping in the night, magically appearing next morning.
Try as I might, hoeing isn’t all that effective. Technology, once unleashed, is pretty much an onslaught. Everyone I know walks around with it strapped to their belt, parked in their purse, stuffed in a pocket, carried in their car, enveloping them in a cyberbubble they now feel uncomfortable without. No cellphone, no laptop, no I-pad — they feel naked and vulnerable. Doesn’t matter I don’t attach the umbilical myself, the digital electromagnetic pulses lap at my brainpan anyway. The engineers, aliens to me, have won the battle for our consciousness. More and more we are ruled by technocrats, those busy little beavers intent on morphing their rules and parameters and metrics onto our flesh and bones. Or simply working 24/7 to create Artificial Intelligence… They imagine a future of exponentially increasing efficiencies. They argue this will be good for us humanoids, a gift from the scientists and technicians. Even quite a few of my fellow artists have begun to believe this.
Lately I’ve been hearing the drumbeat to scale back Humanities in universities, substituting more degrees that lead to high paying jobs, degrees in programming, coding, engineering, all those ‘practical’ careers. But I think we need more impractical degrees. We need musicians, sculptors, painters, writers, dreamers. We need to tether ourselves through them to what makes us human, not cyborg.
A sea change is coming, a digital tsunami, a revolution that will implant its seed in all of us. Technology is easy now — being human, soon that’s going to be very hard. Soon most of us won’t know the damn difference. The difference may just be Art. Humanities, well named. And I may be forced, reluctantly, despite a lifetime of self-deference, to admit we artists are somehow special after all.
The rains of September came last night ending the long drought of summer, a welcome relief for our parched plants. Course, when I got up I discovered new leaks in the old roof. Leaks are nothing new for most of us in these monsoonal regions, but nevertheless, they’re as welcome as a shingles attack. And as hard to get rid of.
You can see where the drips come into the house okay, but finding their original source, that’s entirely another matter altogether. Water zigs, water zags, but it rarely comes straight down from the hole in the roof to the place you see it dripping onto the floor. Leaks are mysterioso, enigmatic, almost supernatural — which is to say they are outside the purview of observable science. They might leak one drizzly day and not a drop on a wild windstorm, what we South Enders call paranormal. Although, really, seems normal to me.
The old shack had a leak I spent years trying to fix. I figured it came through some flashing by the dormer so I slapped enough tar on that valley to build a two lane blacktop to Elger Bay Store. But to no avail. I tore off shingles and put in new flashing. Still leaked. I bought more tar. I doubled the flashing. Every rain my little creek ran like a dagger across the front porch floor. I half expected salmon to return every year to spawn in the living room.
The mizzus got real weary of buckets in the room, but she was gracious enough not to nag an old roofer. Finally I built the roof up a full foot and a half to eliminate the valley, the flashing and hopefully the eternal leak. It worked!
Well, it worked for a few years. Now I got the buckets back in and the Department of Natural Resources wants me to widen my ditch to create better access for salmon trying to return. At least I plan to eat well, plenty of salmon barbecues, but I’m not sure I’ll buy a license.
Can Jimmy Come Out and Play
When I was a snot-nosed kid growing up in Georgia, we pretty much made up our own games, indulged in shooting marbles, rode bikes, made soapbox cars, played hide and seek, sardines, kick the can, hailey-bailey over and lots of sandlot baseball. The days were unsupervised and unscheduled — they just unrolled in our lazy summer daze depending on weather and the kids we could round up from the ‘hood. Everybody got to play and nobody was excluded. Summertime … and the livin was easy.
Apparently those days are part of a nostalgic past long ago lost to my friends’ kids whose play is as managed as tightly as a NASA space launch. Ballet lessons, soccer practice, judo courses, violin classes, little league baseball, soccer camps, swims at the YMCA, karate classes, polo lessons. So much for spontaneity, hello discipline.
We got the kids on a fast track from pre-school to graduate PhD’s, the little tykes don’t have much time for free-form fun. Our moms would say be back for dinner and off we’d scatter to the four corners of the neighborhood and beyond into the woods. I don’t know if we learned self-reliance out there beyond parental leashes, but I suspect it taught us independence and probably stalled the adolescent urge to revolt. We didn’t have much to rebel against unless we didn’t want dinner served up same time same table, not much of a revolution stewing there.
We camped out in the backyards, we hiked across bogs and woods, we built shabby treehouses and put playing cards in our bike tire spokes. We were the Wild Ones, but … not really. We were kids, grass stained with torn shirts. We fought, we got in trouble, we lived through it. Mostly it was fun. All the time.
I wouldn’t want to be a kid now. Hell, you CAN’T be a kid now. Your parents got you scheduled, signed up, coached, monitored, pushed hard and expected to succeed, no time to waste, certainly not in childish tomfoolery. Fun? Hey, kid, fun is for losers.
Last winter physicists announced they had finally found what they had been looking for since Einstein predicted its existence: the God Particle. Now don’t get overly excited here — it’s a subatomic particle, not God Herself. Yesterday the atomic collider in Switzerland reversed itself. It was just a jiggle in the machine. These things happen, especially when you want like hell to find that God Particle.
Some of you laymen out there may not know the Uncertainty Principle. Most folks don’t. You may have even missed the original announcement of the discovery of the God Particle. We are a little busy here. The Kardashians alone could sponge up what little is left of our attention spans 24/7 and now there’s the Trump circus. Physics, especially quantum physics, well, it’s bound to take a backseat. Or get stuffed in the trunk.
But … since I have your attention briefly, the Uncertainty Principle states that there are no ‘proofs’ of theories that are valid. The very fact that the experimenter is watching the experiment changes the results in quantum physics. This is what Logicians refer to technically as a Major Bummer. Subatomic particles realize you’re peeking and then they behave differently. Doesn’t matter if the physicists cover their eyes with their hands, the quarks know. Beats me how, but they do.
I sometimes wonder if we live in a world that’s mostly what we think it is, that maybe there’s no real in reality, just a world of our imaginations. Course, that’s the artist in me hoping that’s the way the universe works, me pulling the strings, me creating the world, me making a music hopefully others can hear. Maybe the God Particle isn’t so much a proof, maybe it’s a music and we just haven’t learned yet how to hear it, much less hum the melody.
Stay tuned, is what I say. And try not to let the quarks know you’re paying attention.
The Flatheads were gathered at the Diner last Wednesday, their weekly vintage car guyz breakfast that gave the parking lot the feel of a time machine run amok. Most Wednesdays the boyz order ‘the usual’ from Anita or Brenda, both waitresses pretty versed in their preferences. But this last Wednesday Vee Dub Danny asked Brenda if he could get gluten-free toast instead of his usual wheat.
He might as well have backfired a sausage fart. The three tables jammed together stopped what they were saying and all eyes turned on Vee Dub. “What did I do?” he asked the breakfasteers. “I’m just trying to cut out gluten. Jeez … you never heard of wheat allergies?”
Oh, the Flatheads had heard of it all right, they just didn’t believe in it and they certainly didn’t believe Vee Dub had it. “You been eating wheat toast and extra butter every week for years, Danny,” Jerry told him. “Next week you’ll have lactose intolerance.”
“Actually …” Vee Dub started to say but stopped when half the Flatheads smirked at what they thought was coming. Brenda, ever efficient, could see the orders bottlenecking like Seattle traffic. “Maybe take the rye, “she suggested helpfully, but when Vee Dub asked if it had wheat, she said she’d have to look at the ingredients on the bag.
“Take a risk, Dan,” a voice shouted from downwind, “we got to eat before lunch.”
Vee Dub started to look over the menu, probably the first time in years, but he faltered under the collective silence and Brenda’s waiting pencil. “Rye toast,” he announced to the assembled mechanics in a determined voice, then added quietly, “but hold the butter.”
It’s difficult to determine, on the unforgiving South End, if ciliac disease is as epidemic as the 1% of the outside population who are diagnosed with it, but I did notice the Diner doesn’t serve gluten-free anything. Anyway, I figure most indigestion is from too much of their coffee. And peer group pressure.
Today I read about a shark that was 350 years old, the oldest living thing on the planet with a backbone, what we on the South End call a vertebrate. It lives in very cold water and the science boyz figure maybe — although they have no proof — that this promotes longevity. Before you turn up your air conditioner to the temperature of a meat locker, maybe you should wait until the results are in and the double blind tests are conclusive. Course you could always move to Fairbanks. Although I suspect those Alaskans don’t live to be 300.
Most folks would love to find the Fountain of Youth, some way to live long as Methuselah. I got a friend, who’s a pharmacist no less, and he takes 100 pills a day in hopes of stalling the onslaught of cellular decay. He says he’s having trouble getting the last few dozen down. I said you think it’s bad now, wait til you’re 200.
I’m only one sixth as old as that shark, but the thought of living 5 more of these lifetimes would only fill me with dread. A lot of old codgers crowding the planet doesn’t seem like a prescription for paradise to this old fart. It’s not like most of us would learn from our mistakes — we’d just keep learning new ones.
I guess I’m entering Old Age. At least that’s what my aches and pains are trying to tell me. My mother just went into a nursing home. Got her own room, two really, TV, refrigerator, stove, pretty much everything she had at home, just a smaller area. I ask her what she’s doing and she says, every damn time, nothing. But she wants to go home. Home is where she never left the house either and is pretty much what she’s doing now, nothing. Old age, I suppose, is where what’s behind looks better than what’s ahead. If that’s true, then maybe I’m not as old as I think. What I think is I’m glad I’m not that shark.
Down at the South End Legion Hall, the vets were pumped, beers were lined up in military formations, the big screen TV was tuned to the opening day Game and bets were still being wagered. Not on the outcome of the football game but on whether the players would take a knee for the Star Spangled Banner. A 49’ers quarterback had refused to stand up for the obligatory anthem during pre-season, same pre-game routine as all sports, sports being more American than Mom or her store bought apple pie.
Willy D., known to the Legionnaires as ‘Sarge’, was betting no less than 5 players would refuse to stand up for the national anthem. “Cowards!” he declared even before the star spangled singer had been introduced. “Gutless punks! Probably not a single one has seen service.”
Two Toke Tom was grinning his Cheshire smirk. “Don’t think they give deferments for football, Sarge. And calling a football player a coward, I dunno, it’s kind of a no-brainer. This isn’t ping pong they’re playing.”
Willy D. choked on his swig of Bug Lite, spluttered awhile then finally got enough air to return fire on the smiling Two Toke who was sipping a microbrew, patiently waiting for Sarge’s retort. “Nothing but losers and cowards,” he cried. “They don’t like it here, who’s keeping em from leaving?”
A giant American flag had unfurled the full length of the football field and the singer stepped to the microphone. Willy D. stood up solemnly and glared at the others until they too stood up facing the TV, ballcaps held over their hearts. All but Two Toke. He sat his ground even though the rockets’ red glare had nothing on Willy D’s.
“I didn’t fight in Viet Nam so you A-holes could spit on my flag, Tom.” Two Toke set his glass down. “Sure you did, Will. That’s what we all did. Nobody said we were fighting for conformity.”
“Maybe we fought for patriotism,” Willy growled, still standing even after the rest sat down and put their caps back on. Two Toke stood up and put a hand out to Willy. “We all did, Sarge, we just got different definitions.”
Willy shook his head sadly but he finally shook Tom’s hand. “Okay, Tom, dammit. I assume we’re rooting for the same team, aren’t we?” Two Toke grinned. “Guess we’ll know soon, Sarge. If nothing else, we’re all here to watch the game and drink some beers. About as American as it gets. Unless you want to talk election politics during halftime.”
Willy D. groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re going to vote for Hillary.”
Two Toke said, “Let’s wait for halftime before we start shooting.”
Us boyz competing with each other were all ponying up for our breakfasts at the Snow Café, more accurately the Slow Café judging by the hour it took to get our orders. Apparently Anchorage is in no hurry to join the frenetic rush of the Lower 48. The place was packed and just getting a table took 20 minutes. It gave me and my competition for a courthouse project one block away plenty of time to acquaint ourselves.
I’m usually reticent about these meet-ups, having met some incredible egos in my little career in public art, but this was a big project and us Chosen Few had been to a lot of these dances. The best man might not win, but whoever did would be pretty good. The odds-on horse in the race, Ray King, had amazing installations all over the world. He was leaving that night for London, then on to Taipei. Mostly he regaled us with stories of his 1750’s Pennsylvania homestead on 23 acres, an historic parcel of Americana he was extensively remodeling. Later, he told us, he’ll build his real house. After he sells the 1900 chocolate factory in Philadelphia where he has his studio.
Preston, David and I listened politely, fairly gobsmacked at Ray’s energy and the concomitant wealth. You don’t run into many rich artists, at least not on the South End. David mentioned at some point how great it was, win or lose, to be here as finalists. Ray smiled knowingly, signing his credit card receipt. “Over the years, I’ve decided it takes three things to make it in this business,” he said and all of us prepared to take notes. “Talent. Luck. And Perseverance. A lot of artists can’t handle rejection.”
I doubt Ray has experienced the same level of rejections as the rest of us, but we certainly know what he means. We all have battle scars, knee-buckling disappointments and dark periods of self doubt. Luck can turn on us, both ways. But none of us quit. And if we lose this project we’ll move on to the next.
We all wished each other good luck when we departed. You know, on the next project.