5.Something

I was sitting in my bedroom at my computer on tues morning when the earthquake hit and I must say it was the longest,strongest Iv'e felt in at least three years.Of late tough they have hit while I'm in bed which is a whole different thing than going through one sitting up.The tall bookshelf two down to my left dropped two books off the top of it where I have them stacked.The first one to fall was"The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins and the second was"The Octopus" by Frank Norris which is a 1901 novel about the power of the Southern Pacific Railroad over Wheat Farmers and Ranchers in Calif.Both have been up there several years and both are still unread so maybe it's a hint.On ground level two piles of mostly cooking mags shifted revealing a slim(190) page hardcover I bought two years ago from HBC and was sort of wondering where it was"Lewis and Clark through Indian Eyes" edited by Alvin M. Joesphy which is comprised of essays by modern American Indians who are members of tribes Lewis and Clark encountered.So I picked it off the floor and read the first essay by Vine Deloria Jr. and it was excellent.He points out how Lewis and Clark is a feat because America needed to make it so for the Myth of the American Frontier.I have read a few books on the subject and a goodly amount of the men's diaries themselves and though Deloria simplifies a few points he is mostly right.The fact that French trappers and French/Indian halfbreeds had been through most of the area well before Lewis and Clark is hardly ever mentioned in the old U.S History texts and the fact that the French in Canada and into the west which was not U.S. territory at the time encouraged the interbreeding of French trappers and Indians in order to form a bond with them rather than confront them which became U.S. policy as the years went on.I look forward to the rest of the essays some of which are by women of said tribes.

Shanghai Bus Stop

So friday I went to the office and decided to walk a few blocks over from my apt. and take the Santa Monica 5 bus because it's a lot nicer ride than the 7 route.The thing is the bus stop at the corner of Olympic Blvd. and Beverly Glen is one that I'm not fond of.For one thing it's out in the open,no shelter but the other reason hs to do with reading books and watching old movies about a)old time sea novels,b)gypsies.There is an odd small two story apt.bldg there done up old south plantation style in dingy white with green trim and made of wood.I'm amazed it's still there but what gives me the chills about it is a lady and her son who live there right in front of the bus stop.They are always there with the door open,both very large folks and the mother has a sign reading psychic/fortune teller hanging there.They remind me of gypsies from those books where gypsies are involved in every blackmarket trade there is.The way they come to the door each time I'm standing out there and look you over especially the mother who looks right through you,I am afraid to turn my back to them lest someone stick a hanky of chloroform over my mouth and I wake up on a ship bound for the Orient and the slave trade like a bad Somerset Maugham story.The other thing is though they are both very large folks they have a tiny little dog.Friday the son came out with the dog and went a few yards behind and next to me and stood and watched the dog waiting for it to do it's thing.The poor dog seemed a bit edgy about going with him staring then the mother comes to the door and stands behind the screen watching the dog like it going to the bathroom is a matter of utmost importance.It's a wonder the dog hasn't run away with all this watching his/her bowel movements.After the son came back to the door with the dog the mother opened the door and as he walked past her she gave me another long look and I expected to hear horses whinny in terror like Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein or is that Frankensteen.

Mary's Home

I got an email from my friend Jim today telling me that the family scattered Mary's ashes off Cold Storage Beach on the bay side of North Truro about two weeks ago.Mary is now part of the beach she spent every summer on growing up and later summers when she went back to the Cape.The beach has always been special to me and now moreso.It'a great place to watch the day fade as the parking lot is on a hill with the beach below and has a straight view to Provincetown six miles away as the light fades and the lights come on across the water.I used to love going there late fall and even one New Years Eve before heading to Provincetown.

News from North Truro

I called my friend in Rochester late this afternoon as he had been at his parents in Wellfleet last week and went and saw Claudia at her place next to Babes where she spends the summer even though she's leasing the restaurant.Tom dropped a bomb on me telling me that our kitchen mates younger sister had passed away on June 26th at the age of 45.I've been in a funk since then alternating great memories to great sadness.My first summer in North Truro(1977),I was 22 and Mary was 14 but the first time I met her which was me driving a bunch of us home from the Wellfleet Drive-In in my vega wagon with Mary sitting on the shifter right next to me I was fascinated by her.The next couple of summers she turned into a beautiful Irish American lass,brown hair that really lightened in the sun and a sprinkling of freckles.She also had a wise guy type of humor like myself and I had a mini/major crush on her though because of our age difference at the time I resisted.I had a thing with her sister off an on over the summers who was three years older than Mary and worked at Babes with me but Mary enchanted me.When she was 17 I ran into her walking out of Tess in Provincetown one day in 1980 and she raved about it.This was the Roman Polanski version and I went and saw it with her, me for the first time and that summer we hung out together.But it was that summer she started to display very erratic behavior and by the next summer was in a hospital back home in New Hampshire.For the next twenty years she was in and out of treatment for severe Bi-Polar as far as I know and it was in the last years she was out on her own with a job ,living on her own and falling in love,engaged to be married when a few months ago she was found to have a rapidly spreading Cancer.I never knew what was going on because her brother and sister really didn't give much info when she was first diagnosed and seemed not to want to talk about it over the next several years but I thought about her so many times over the years.So hearing of her passing today I feel so much guilt about being helpless to help her and just seeing that beautiful Irish face with the freckles and wishing I could hug her one more time.

Le dejeuner sur l'herbe

Art

I was just reading in the Cape Cod Times where some family had this painting hanging on the wall for years and in the family since it was bought back in the 1800's.Turns out the artwork is worth somewhere around half a million dollars.You see the same thing happen on Antiques Roadshow once in awhile.Someone comes in with a painting they bought at a yard sale for 10.00 or found in someone's trash and it turns out to be some artwork worth lots and lots of money.I keep waiting for the day I discover my lost masterpiece.Maybe I should cruise Beverly Hills trash cans.The closest I ever came to a famous painting was a copy my parents had on the wall when I was a lad of some fishing scene with nets drying and large sail boats in a harbor with old fish shacks onshore.Years later I was watching"Soap" and there in the Dining Room on the set was the same painting.I've forgotten the artist.Then there was X-Mass of 1969.We had moved from one side of Rochester to the other and it's country club suburb of Pittsford,N.Y..My brother and I were waiting for the bus downtown to meet my mother for shopping and next to the bus stop were some X-Mass trees with no price or anyone around sitting roadside.As we waited a guy pulls up and says "how much for a tree" I looked at my brother and he looked at me and we said something like ten or fifteen dollars and he bought one.We wound up selling three or four trees in the 40 minues we waited and though we asked at the Pancake house right behind the bus stop no one knew who owned the trees as we wanted to give him/her the money.No one showed up so we got on the bus and with the money bought my mom a large copy of a painting called"In the Highlands" by T.Banks a painting my parents still have now in their apt.Anyhoo, the Rochester Democrat&Chronicle several X-Masses ago asked for holiday stories and I sent them mine.It was used in the story but my Mom did not want her picture taken with the painting like the paper wanted.Which leads me to my favorite art thing the skit back in the early years of Saturday Night Live where Dan Ackroyd wearing a leisure type suit with Larraine Newman as his guest played a public access guy with a show named E Buzz Millers Art Classics.There were several howlers about paintings but it was one towards the end I recall"This one here is an Impressionistic piece-it's by Manet,an Impressionist,a French guy,called Le Dejenoai ser Larbe which means Picnic in the woods.Now,you look close.These two guys are having lunch and this broad hasn't got a stitch on!Bon Appetit,boys!"

The Dog Days of Summer*,aka my 100th post

I always wondered what the above phrase meant and if I recall correctly from the wonderful Etymology forum in the defunct New York Times book forums it comes from the rising of Sirius the Dog Star during a period from a date in July to a date in August.I think the term was helical rising.Anyhoo this post is about this and that.Firstly after the so called tree trimmers hacked the large ficus off the patio and ripped out my jasmine and Blue Dawn Flower Vine which I posted the pic of a few months ago the Dawn Flower is already coming back in the back corner above the patio wall.I will have to shield it from the landlord and my evil co-gardener who tells me she doen't like it because it spreads to much.If she doesn't watch it I will transplant some in her large spot in front of the bldg.I get emails from friends who read but don't blog and an old roomate is going to get"Tough trip through Paradise" from the library. While mentioning that there wern't many first person accounts of Native Americans in book form I forgot that I have had a book lying about somewhere for a whle called"Lewis and Clark through Indian Eyes".Lastly while casually looking at fares the other night for my three week trip back to Rochester in mid October I am tempted once again to jump on Amtrack for the trip.I did it in 2004 inSummer for my 30th reunion and had a great time but that trip I had a bedroom each way.In Oct I think coach on a cross country train would be not full and the price rt is 386.00 plus the food one would have to buy onboard.But the train is so relaxing and the Southwest Chief from L.A. to Chic does go through some really beautiful country and the Chic to Rochester Lakeshore Limited is mostly in the dark but the parts of it in light are cool also.There's even an option that on the return I could take an extra day add about 75.00 and take the empire builder from Chic to Portland then the Coast Daylight I think from Portland to L.A..It's called the Coast Starlight headed north from L.A. but I think has the other name going south.I really wish I had been around during the golden age of train travel as there is nothing like it.