Savages

About this picture: for a long time the only brownstone on 92nd St. between B'way and West End was a black evangelical church with lively singing on Sunday mornings after the spiffily dressed men and the wonderfully hatted women had gathered. But about five years ago it was sold to a couple who turned it back into the single family home it was built to be. This in the summer. It is my seasonal offering today.

I went to see the movie, SAVAGES, this afternoon because all indications were that it is a grown up kind of movie -- by which I don't mean nude sex scenes but adult problem -= afather with dementia put in a nursing home -- and grown up script writing -- both were true. Plus two of the best actors now at the peak of their powers are in it, Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, playing brother and sister. I could be knit-picky about the script [the writers clearly are so young they think all daath is horrible and, yes, many deaths are grim, but there are also a lot of people -- without sentimentality or white washing, who are ready for death and, in fact the death in this movie was a peaceful, though not at all surgar coated] one. Still the brother and sister damaged by a dyafuncional family have found for themselves very 21st century. basically lonely, frightened lives. The script writing and direction is generally spot-on. The movie engages the mind more than the emotions, it is an intelligent movie. Hurray.

My main quibble is with naming the family and thus the movie "Savages." That is pushing metaphor too far, they are not really savages. The Misfits has been used, I'd rather call them the Smiths or Joness and think of a different title for the film.

Another "vingage" quilt

This is the seventh in what obviously has become a series of four patch "new vintage", in other words old fashioned and really simple, quick and easy quilts. It is for a swap-bot swap and was mailed today to a young woman in Milwaukee who is not a quilter herself but who says her favorite colors are hot pink and bright green. It's lap size and is calmed a bit by the bigger squares of a grayed-green print. It went together quickly and was quick to quilt and to bind. You can see from the turned over corner that it's bound with light pink and has a biggish label on the multi-color print backing. Quickly made and not taking up any of my precious shelf space. A pleasureable, quick project.

I have been reading one poety book after another -- the last thing I read at night. When I have to read a poem three times to follow the meaning, it means it's time to put the book aside, turn out the light and go to sleep. Last night I started a new [to me] book by Liz Waldner, "Saving the Appearance." Most of it is pretty dense and takes concentration -- and there are a lot of one-page prose poems which are much denser than just an obsevation. However the first poem is very short and easy enough to understand but gives us, especially those of us who are not as young and lovely as we once were, a "shock of recognition."

Mirror

I do not notice much about myself for other reasons;
This I did not notice for its ubiquity:
I am not too willing to appear.

Lucien Freud at MOMA

This morning I met Ellen, a coworker currently decamped to the movie-less wilds of central Massachusetts, at MOMA to see a show of engravings by Lucien Freud, a British painter whose work we both like very, very much. The engravings were wonderful and we were delighted that there were a few medium small oils among them. Freud [a grandson of Sigmund] does not make engravings as studies for his paintings, they may be the same subect -- these were mostly portraits -- but are done entirely afresh. He captures a dourness that seems especially British to us. He also does nudes of obese people, men and women, pitiless in their accuracy but also with honesty that comes of acceptance of humanity as it is with all it's lumps and bumps, folds of flesh and mottled skin. Often at art shows one piece will be oddly wonderful and memorable. For me, in this show, it was a tiny oil, about 6x6 inches of a hefty nude on the small sofa that is in so many Freud works, it was foreshortened and contorted into a square as if fitted into a box, and yet remained as sensitive as the much larger pieces.

A couple or three of the copper plates were included which was fascinating to see. It is such a labor intensive form of art I wonder that great painters bother with it. Why don't they just do pencil or ink drawings? Perhaps I should read some biographies and look for an answer.

Ellen and I are both fond of the "new" MOMA building, the spaces and use of them. We had lunch in one of the two cafes, very good food, efficiently served, a menu with much interest enticing one to come back and try other items.

The picture below is one I have had on the camera since Christmas eve day when I went for a walk in the damp, rather warm midmorning. I went past the Museum of Natural History and saw this dinosauer "tree" which had small lights mixed in with its foliage.

Intrepid Traveler

I have just finished reading a wonderful little book, a part of the Penguin Great Journeys paperback series. The book is about 4x6 and fits in a handbag, it fits the hand as a paperback book should. That is only the overt delight. Excerpts from Isabella Bird's letters when traveling in the Rocky Mountains is 119 wonderful pages of graceful writing such as hardly anyone writes these days for publication, let alone as letters to a friend. She is a genius at describing sunrise, sunset and mountain scenery, her vocaulary is astonishingly rich and brilliantly used. But that is the icing on the cake.

Isabella Bird was an English woman who traveled alone. She had been to Hawaii before she sailed to California but we get only hints of that. She crosses California from San Francisco to the Sierras, describes a stay in the Tahoe, Donner Lake areas in which she rents horses and goes off for solitary rides in the mountains, comes across grizzley bears that terrify her horse, and yet is utterly fearless when chasing down her horse on foot. She writes about the atomsphere of the gold rush towns, the lawlessness of the men and corruption of politics and the gentlemanly way the men treat a woman alone.

Then she crosses the montains to Colorado, meets up with desperados who are gallant toward her, stays in the Estes Peak area helping her host round up cattle -- her horsemanship is astonishing -- uncomplainingly stays through a bitter winter in an unchinked log cabin where boiled water freezes before she can us it to wash. And these are only a few of her adventures. The woman seems to have been fearless. Although she writes of her terror when being urged on to the top of Long Mountain, climbing in the voluminous clothing of the 1800s and in rubber boots that she found on the trail. She writes about people good and bad and complicated, about how badly the Indians are treated, about being down to 26 cents and the banks all refusing to even cash the gold coins she carried.

The only problem I have with the book is that it needs at least a couple of pages of editorial biographical information about Isabella Bird. I am going to stop writing this and read the Wikipedia bio info about her. What a heroine! And such glorious writing!!

Moving Along

I finished this quilt top with a nice little border of a bright stripe that adds a nice oomph which I may also use for the binding. Then I discovered, happily, that a cotton bedspread purchased in Kathmandu several years ago but never used, is exactly the right size for a back for the quilt. I was getting ready to layer it with batting several days ago when a very sane thought struck -- it would be extremely wise to wash it first. For several days I did not have an opportunity to get to the laundry room but now I've done so and ironed it. And as of this morning, I layered the batting and pinned it. So now it's ready to be quilted.

In one of those insights best described by the immortal term "Duh!" I see that this quilt design is really a replica of the very common multi-colored knitted afghan pattern. That doesn't detract from my pleasure in the look of the quilt.

I'm really moving right along. I also layered a small lap quilt that I'll post a picture of tomorrow. It will be quilted first since it's for a swap and needs to be mailed off in a week. And I'm putting together a paper pieced top that I've been making for nearly three months -- more about these anon when I've taken pictures.

Yes, I know it was Christmas but I haven't celebrated Christmas for a long, long time and I love having it as a "personal day." I had a long walk in the brilliant sun around the Great Lawn in Central Park and I've been writing stuff and now that it's evening I will pick up the book I've been reading but maybe do a crossword puzzle first. 'twas a lovely day.

Samsara

I do not often go to movies because most are less interesting than books I could be reading. When I do they are usually low budget or foreign until so many people recommend a Hollywood movie that a critical mass is reached and I feel it's not only going to be worth seeing but I'll be sorry if I don't. Yesterday I went to a movie very few people are likely to see, it's been around 6 years and hasn't been generally distributed. Samsara is a movie made by a Himalayan, Buddhist director/film maker and has been showing two days a week at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art this month. The promo pictures did not inspire me, it included a cloud with was a couple kissing. However the Himilayan scenery was too powerful an attraction to miss. It was set in Ladakh, a northern Indian state that was part of Tibet for a long time. The peopl and way of life is essentially traditional Tibetan.

Since no one who reads this is likely to see it I'll tell the story. It begins very interestingly, first with a brief scene in which an eagle drops a large stone from high up, killing a sheep. This happens as a group of lamas are passing. They bless the dead sheep, the shepherd is not comforted. The lamas are on their way to a meditation cave -- a very large one. Tashi has been meditating 3 years, 3 months, 3 week, 3 days. It is time to bring him back to the monstary. His hair and nails are long, he is in a meditative trace from which it is very difficult to rouse him. In fact the abbot says, "Tashi, you've gone too far." Tashi is a Type A personality and we never learn what he learned in his meditations. The Abbot tries many things to bring him round, that eventually includes a visit to a village. There he sees a beautiful young woman. The expected happens -- he givs up the robe and marries the girl. We are treated to overlong sexual scenes to show us how wonderful samsara is. They have a child. He begins to change the way the family deals with neighbors and fights with the local strong man. He eventually also sleeps with a Hindu girl who is a seasonal worker.

We've been set up, of course, with the story of Siddartha who left his wife and child to become the Buddha. After seeing his dangerous attraction to the carnal life Tashi realizes he should have remained a monk and slips away in the night just as Siddartha did So far all this is expected and a little bit ho-hum except for the picture of the still extant rural way of life and of some intrusions of modernity when Tashi and his father-in-law go to town.

The kicker is the last five minutes. Tashi is returning to the monastery walking through the golden aspen woods in the autumn. He comes to a stupa and his wife steps out in front of him. She confronts him with the story of Siddartha's wife. The actress does not emote, she tells the story straight, but the pain is very strong, she reminds Tashi that the wife had been a spiritual person who perhaps taught Siddartha a few lessons, that perhaps she would have liked to give up her duties as wife and mother and go seek enlightenment. That no one took her into account.

At last we (certainly I and I hope others) see the enormous narcissism of the male who pursues his "path" at the expense of others -- there is certainly no compassion in deserting one's family and no nobility. When the wife disappears as suddenly as she came, Tashi falls on the ground overemoting his pain and remorse/ We do not know at the end what he doe. I left the museum wondering if the writer/direcor was questioning the whole monastic idea or the actual ethics of the Siddartha story. I felt the wife's pain so profoundly if I had been alone I would have had a good long cry instead of the few sniffs I managed before the lights came on.

The scenery was the high (15,000 ft) desert, very Tibetan. There were some wonderful touches, a child lama, a spurned rival for the wife, the father-in-law, the equinamnity of the lama's community. Much was very beautiful. Maybe the sizable Americab Buddhist community will eventually see it. The film maker is talented.

First Day of Winter

I feel as if I should post a picture that is all black -- except, as I am happy to remember, the first day of winter is the shortest day of the year. Ergo, tomorrow will be a speck longer. Although it won't be noticeable for a bit, in a couple of weeks I will be able to appreciate that there IS a bit more daylight, the good old Earth is tilting along as it always does and, although the snow and cold will be here a long while yet, the surity of seasonal change tells me about dependability within the variabilty of what the newscasters tell me each morning before I get out of bed.

This very simple piece of knowledge gives me considerable peace of mind; maybe I am a very simple person [with various pretenses to sophistication] but such simple, extremely ancient observations connects all human beings, now living and going back to the first observers who marked off the changes of the moon by notching sticks, or making marks on a big rock with a little rock. This underlies the Dao that underlies Confucius's views that I was writing about yesterday. [And yes, finally some authoritative sources spell it "dao," not "tao" and I'm so glad!]

So I think I'll light an incense stick so I'll have something lovely to sniff in those moments my attention surfaces fro the book I'm reading. It's a lovely, quiet evening with spring on it's way.