Tomorrow is Friday. Woo Hoo. Will get up early tomorrow (maybe), stop by Community Bakery for a cafe au lait, take the Dem Gazette and the Arkansas Times into work. Will read the film reviews first.
Will do a little research on John Henry Byrd, Arkansas' first painter of any note, mostly 19th century portraits. Will dip a toe into John Marin. Mainly to steer new intern arriving for Marin work tomorrow. Will backstroke through rest of the day with easeful wander through mid-century American art survey.
And then it will be the weekend!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day
This is from our local paper yesterday.
Two thoughts. First, the Greenbergs are from Louisiana. To be Jewish in Louisiana in the 1920s and 30s must have carried with it a certain exposure to American prejudice. Yet Mrs. Greenberg's regard for America seems to have gone hand in hand with her American experience. Possibly this was due to a larger perspective on how bad things can truly get. But from this and other anecdotes by Mr. Greenberg, there seems to be more than resignation in her esteem for the country. It is tempting to think that she drew encouragement from its principles of equality before the law, however imperfectly realized, and called that America. Her son is an indication this might be so. He grew up to fight for civil rights from editorial pages and won one of this state's few Pulitzer prizes for his efforts.
Second, Mrs. Greenberg was right to be vigilant over her "dream," as Mr. Greenberg describes it. The possibility of invasions or fleeing over borders as in Europe was always unlikely to happen here - even if it did the likely effect would be to reaffirm American patriotism, not weaken it- but the dream of the country could be lost if its citizens cease to be idealistic about it. It is necessary to believe in the principles of the nation to hold the country to their standard. It is necessary to treat liberties and civil rights as the hard won things they are, and not to take them for granted in the way those born into an inheritance often do. It's a beautiful country, made more so be the generations of people who have come here and held its promises dear and been vigilant even up to the sacrifice of life to keep it so. Happy Memorial Day.
My mother balked at ever leaving this country, for it had taken her so much struggle to get here. She never wanted to stray far from home except to visit family - another kind of home. She was mystified when someone once suggested that she vacation in Europe. ("My dear, I vas born dere.") And she wasn't about to go back. She left the U.S.A. only once - to see Israel. And that was it.
Whenever I would whine about some trifling thing, as adolescents will, she would just look at me pityingly and murmur, Ah, Amerikainer geboren! What would anyone born in this country know about real troubles? ...
Not until she was much older, and beginning to realize that no one was going to take America away from her, did she relax... But when I was growing up, she was always looking over her shoulder, as if they'd come any day to take her back, and the dream would be over.
Paul Greenberg, Travel Notes, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, J1 (Sunday, May 25, 2008)
Two thoughts. First, the Greenbergs are from Louisiana. To be Jewish in Louisiana in the 1920s and 30s must have carried with it a certain exposure to American prejudice. Yet Mrs. Greenberg's regard for America seems to have gone hand in hand with her American experience. Possibly this was due to a larger perspective on how bad things can truly get. But from this and other anecdotes by Mr. Greenberg, there seems to be more than resignation in her esteem for the country. It is tempting to think that she drew encouragement from its principles of equality before the law, however imperfectly realized, and called that America. Her son is an indication this might be so. He grew up to fight for civil rights from editorial pages and won one of this state's few Pulitzer prizes for his efforts.
Second, Mrs. Greenberg was right to be vigilant over her "dream," as Mr. Greenberg describes it. The possibility of invasions or fleeing over borders as in Europe was always unlikely to happen here - even if it did the likely effect would be to reaffirm American patriotism, not weaken it- but the dream of the country could be lost if its citizens cease to be idealistic about it. It is necessary to believe in the principles of the nation to hold the country to their standard. It is necessary to treat liberties and civil rights as the hard won things they are, and not to take them for granted in the way those born into an inheritance often do. It's a beautiful country, made more so be the generations of people who have come here and held its promises dear and been vigilant even up to the sacrifice of life to keep it so. Happy Memorial Day.
Riverfest
Riverfest is a stew. It is a mass of people swimming through air thick with moisture that retains every puff from a cigarette, every belch from a deep fryer, and every drop of beer evaporating off the pavement. This is what you say to yourself every last Sunday night of Riverfest. This is the night when you determine never to come back again. Then your body finally forgets all remembrance of AC and adjusts to the heat. You find a spot under a cottonwood tree by the river, and as the sun sets a breeze comes up off the water. The damp nap of your neck cools and the sweat feels good. A beer feels perfect. The blues band from the tent where you queued for beer has insinuated itself so that the beat of your heart feels arrhythmic.
I made my way back to the river and found the boys close by the big cottonwood near the main street bridge. The river patrol pushed the boats up to the Broadway bridge a safe distance from the show. If they were that concerned they should have cleared the north bank as well. The fireworks went off right over our heads, shooting over the river from the bridge, and ash drifted down onto our skin so that we had to be careful of our eyes. But the show was spectacular from there.
As we left, people pressed in toward the funnel of the exit. A hog call goes up somewhere in the back. Music festivals and razorback games, that's the whole state in a nutshell. It's an eye-full of what the state looks like. The suburbs of west Little Rock will shelter you from pervasive body tats, wife beaters, and the "only overalls" look. Unless maybe you went to Robinson High. Maybe. But at games and festivals you can't miss how rural the state is. Fort Arkansas. The only state in the union, natives will tell you, that grows enough food to support itself. Poultry and cattle production in the NW. Rice fields along the alluvial plains of the Mississippi Delta. Timber and oil in the South. Natural gas in abundance. Plus cotton and soy. It adds up to rural. The capital city can mistake itself for the state. It's the razorback games and music festivals that remind me not only how wrong that view is, but what a minority west Little Rock represents. Plus you had to know ZZ Top would bring in the rednecks and then some. The crush of people was enormous. But city and country were in it together. The hog call went up.
These pictures are from Saturday night, when a late afternoon rain had thinned the evening crowds.
I made my way back to the river and found the boys close by the big cottonwood near the main street bridge. The river patrol pushed the boats up to the Broadway bridge a safe distance from the show. If they were that concerned they should have cleared the north bank as well. The fireworks went off right over our heads, shooting over the river from the bridge, and ash drifted down onto our skin so that we had to be careful of our eyes. But the show was spectacular from there.
As we left, people pressed in toward the funnel of the exit. A hog call goes up somewhere in the back. Music festivals and razorback games, that's the whole state in a nutshell. It's an eye-full of what the state looks like. The suburbs of west Little Rock will shelter you from pervasive body tats, wife beaters, and the "only overalls" look. Unless maybe you went to Robinson High. Maybe. But at games and festivals you can't miss how rural the state is. Fort Arkansas. The only state in the union, natives will tell you, that grows enough food to support itself. Poultry and cattle production in the NW. Rice fields along the alluvial plains of the Mississippi Delta. Timber and oil in the South. Natural gas in abundance. Plus cotton and soy. It adds up to rural. The capital city can mistake itself for the state. It's the razorback games and music festivals that remind me not only how wrong that view is, but what a minority west Little Rock represents. Plus you had to know ZZ Top would bring in the rednecks and then some. The crush of people was enormous. But city and country were in it together. The hog call went up.
These pictures are from Saturday night, when a late afternoon rain had thinned the evening crowds.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Anticipating Tonight
The weather is threatening. I keep hearing a low roll of thunder. The skies are gray and the air is still. A bad sign for Riverfest? Every summer there is a festival down by the river. Stages are set up and bands come in. Vendors pitch little tents and sell American junk food at its nostalgic best: cheeseburgers, corn dogs, funnel cakes, deep fried twinkies, plus fried catfish, spicy red beans and rice, sweet tea etc. I'll be there tonight, good weather or bad. I have to sit guard in the ArtMobile, a traveling gallery for the cultural enrichment of the greater state of Arkansas, now parked by the river.
There is a drizzle in the pipe outside my window. No run before Riverfest. I was going to make a token gesture toward fitness before having funnel cake for dinner.
There is a drizzle in the pipe outside my window. No run before Riverfest. I was going to make a token gesture toward fitness before having funnel cake for dinner.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Back to the Books
Today P started Barbri, the prep course for passing the bar. By way of encouragement, think back to happier times P. Just a few short days ago you were receiving your Juris Doctor! I like this picture. But what happened to the sexy purple tam?
Saturday in a Nutshell: Morning in. Graduation ceremony. Mother mistook P's twin S for P and kept asking why I wasn't sitting with him. Student speaker drama (meaning both Peltz case and agonizing use of Robert Frost poems). Reception afterwards. P dropped off his grad gear and we grabbed a quick glass of punch on our way out to the airport to pick up M after her flight hit complications. Over to the Arkansas Arts Center to get some pictures for Exhibition files of Sonja Blomdahl blowing glass. Then out to scare up quality Scotch to go with P's happy graduation decanter. Over the S's house for the Preakness. Celebratory dinner for P. Then So for drinks with happy law grads.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Opening Manifesto
Finally. I've been thinking about this for months. A blog. A photo-journal of being home. I've journaled assiduously from three different countries and multiple globe trots. Yet whenever I'm home the journaling dries up to a trickle. It's time to commemorate home. I'm here for a while - it's time to take it on board with the devotion normally reserved for other lands.
To be honest, the big hang-up getting started was the title. I thought about it long and hard. I even canvased a few friends. Everything sounded like a band name. Either self-indulgent Emo band or campy Southern Pride band or erudite overly fond of diverse cultural references band. All aspects of me, but did I want to own up to that? So I've gone with the name of my home state instead. Subtle, no? But happily general. Whew, I'm up and running...
To be honest, the big hang-up getting started was the title. I thought about it long and hard. I even canvased a few friends. Everything sounded like a band name. Either self-indulgent Emo band or campy Southern Pride band or erudite overly fond of diverse cultural references band. All aspects of me, but did I want to own up to that? So I've gone with the name of my home state instead. Subtle, no? But happily general. Whew, I'm up and running...
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