ansel adams' america 3

 

There can be no doubt that Ansel Adams, as well as other early photographers of the American West, was  inspired by the romantic painters of the Hudson River School, whose grand vistas and hyperreality almost fetishized the landscape. (PS this is why I've always liked them.) Crystal Bridges has some of these paintings in their permanent collection, and it was interesting to look at them after the Adams photographs. 

Interesting that the captions beneath the photographs are now translated into Spanish. Another move towards inclusion. I don't remember this from my last visit to the museum. But, alas, my memory.

Only one more entry to go on the Ansel Adams show, friends and relations! I know you can't wait!

ansel adams' america 2

But of course it wasn't really Ansel Adams' America, any more than the National Parks were public lands. The "Cigar Store Indian" he shot on Powell Street in 1933 was as unreal as the photographs he made of actual Pueblo dwellers, and to the credit of the curators, the show addresses this. He was not alone in his depiction of "savages," noble or otherwise. Preceding him were  Edward Curtis and John K. Hillers, who photographed "Big Navajo" @1879.

In an attempt to balance the show a bit, such contemporary native American photographers as Will Wilson were included. Wilson has photographed his fellow countrymen as well as himself (below).

 

ansel adams' america 1

 

Well, I've been dogging it long enough. I did go to the Ansel Adams show at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Waltonville, Ark. I mean, Bentonville. Yes, I dared the coronavirus and the La Quinta Inn. And I don't really feel qualified to review the show, since I whipped through it, partly due to the fact that the boy with us got claustrophobic in the gallery. Understandable. So did I, to a degree. The museum is under renovation (yes, it opened in 2011, not even ten years ago), as is its vision of what constitutes American art. 

  A security guard told me that, despite the crane, or lift, or whatever it is, birds came to roost in the silver tree, one of the many sculptures on the grounds of the museum. Some, like the transported and reconstructed Frank Lloyd Wright house and James Turrell's "Skyspace" are not open due to Covid restrictions. (OK with me in the latter case, since it made both Dianne and me queasy when we visited some years ago.)

So, incapable of editing all the pix I took (they are bad and not worth the title of photographs), I am just going to have to put up an interminable number. If you don't want a badly realized, poorly cropped, virtual museum tour, just skip. 

The thing about Ansel Adams is, is you can't think about the American landscape, particularly the National Parks, without seeing his images in your head, even if you don't know they are his. Yosemite, particularly, with El Capitan and Half Dome, in every weather and time of year and day and night imaginable. He began in 1916 and would continue through the 1960s. It was likely arduous work at the time, to get to the places he photographed with a giant camera: Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Bryce Canyon, Zion, etc. I have never been to Yosemite, but I am pretty sure if I ever go, I will be disappointed that it doesn't look like his Yosemite. 

 

way down yonder

 

Even the New York Times is talkin bout pawpaws. They must be having a moment. The pawpaw is the only fruit indigenous to the U.S. It is related to soursop, which I have eaten in Jamaica, and custard apple. I hadn't even thought of pawpaws since I was a kid and used to sing this song, Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch. I must say, the bit about the boys chasing pretty little Suzy down there gave me a bit of a #metoo moment. But I did enjoy the pawpaw I got from Mary's organic farm. Very sweet.

back at the old stand

 

Yes, I went to the Ansel Adams show, which I will get around to reviewing presently. I wound my way back around the hairpin turns in the foggy Ozark hills and home to the Goose and a rainy, dark day.

Meanwhile on Block Island, my house is being taken apart and put back together. 

The trim and casings of all windows are rotted. They are spongy to the touch. So Ana's son Waldyn has been ripping them off, piecing and bondoing them back together or replacing. He has been sending me pix in progress. The end result looks swell. But, oh, the getting there. . .

Also this from my bro and niece, if you have not seen it.

arkansas road trip

I was bound and determined to go to the Crystal Bridges Museum to see the Ansel Adams show, so when I heard that Carly (she who stayed at the Goose this spring) was going, I was all in. It was a long drive—11:00 to 4 or so on twisty roads. I passed the biker church. I passed Crooked Creek and Huzzah Creek and Crooked Creek again. I passed the White River (of Hillary Clinton fame), and the billboard for the White Pride radio network ("for the whole family!"), and the Passion Play Rd. turnoff for the gigantic Christ of the Ozarks statue. I passed a town where all the signage was in Spanish, and all the restaurants were Mexican. I passed a billboard urging me to get out and vote in memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a lot of Trump flags and a rainbow flag.  I passed War Eagle and Devil's Eyebrow and the Pea Ridge battlefield and wound up in Bentonville, Ark., home of Walmart. And here I stop, eating takeout poke from a nearby mall.

 

rolling for dollars

 Virginia displays her walnut picker-upper. It's on a stick, and you roll it along the ground so you don't have to bend over and pick up the nuts one by one. A lot of people in the Ozarks used to sell walnuts as well as medicinal roots like ginseng they dug up from river banks. Most people don't bother with that any more, though there remains a market for morel mushrooms. The black walnuts are rolling in my favorite road right now. They are used for a number of things: The hulls for dye, the nutmeats for—nutmeats, and the hard shell for use in pressed wood or as an abrasive in a process like sandblasting. There are still several outlets around here that will buy the nuts from the intrepid few still picking them up. I think Virginia said the going rate was $10 per hundred. I think she does it for fun, though.

they're all having fun without me!

Wah wah wah. Well, we can convene in the spring. Meanwhile Camilla caught Corona on the beach. Erin and Flip spent their first weekend at their new house and entertained the whole Gasner/Dowling clan.

New owner on the island. They just spent a weekend. The previous owner (a friend) will  be wintering there and looking after her former house. I told Erin spending the night there for the first time must be like never having sex until you're married.

Hail, hail the gang's all here. Amd the kids found a new house on the property, too.

 

ok, missy

 

If you came to this place on a beautiful day, would you be looking at mattress covers? I thought not. Some of you may have heard me speak of "the tenant from hell" this past summer, but I have not made any public complaint about her until now. I had a suspicion that she was going to be trouble from the get go, but we were newly in a pandemic, and I was afraid I was going to lose my tenants. In the event, I cound have rented three times over. I was strongly tempted to kick Missy (her real name!) out, but I settled for not letting my cleaners go anywhere near the place.

  You would think that she would be afraid of what I'd post about her on VRBO, but nooo. She went right ahead and posted a vicious review of my place, right on my site. Here it is:

Claudia's Surf City was as described, in terms of location and fun, funky style to the home. Lots of great details, like the indoor hammock, wrap around porch, record player, amazing outdoor shower. Unfortunately, cleanliness was a major issue. Upon arriving, I immediately contacted the owner regarding the layers of dirt, dust, and mold, dirty socks and a blood stained mattress cover in the room where I was making up the beds for my boys to sleep. I was told to send pics (which I did). The next morning, as I tried to unpack (we arrived late, so there was plenty of time for a cleaning to occur) I was not able to unpack anything without first wiping everything down. Everything, everywhere. Black mold in/on the refrigerator, hair in the toaster, silverfish bugs in all the books, layers of dust and dirt on everything in all rooms. It took me many, many hours to clean just to unpack. I asked for the cleaner to come back as this was not at all how I envisioned "vacation", but was told that my expectations of clean were not a good fit for this house, and I should pack up and leave (alone with my 7 and 9 year old boys, an 11 month old puppy, a hurricane hitting the area and mid-pandemic, this was almost laughable). If there were some attention paid to cleaning the house, it would be an awesome place to call home for a week or so. But for over 12 grand, I would think "clean" is not an outrageous expectation.

Date of arrival - July 31, 2020   FYI, there was no mold (or hurricane!), and the tiny red spot she detected must have been candy or paint on the new mattress pad, because blood, as most people know, turns brown. Anyway I have the opportunity to give her a review so that no VRBO owner would ever rent to her again, but instead I will just vent here. Possibly the fact that I am booked solid with returnees who were very happy to be able to come back spared her.

luncheons

Two in a row! It was quite the week. The first one was at the Goose. It lasted for six hours, so I can only presume it was a success. The first course was shrimp ceviche made from wild caught gulf shrimp from the produce store. The second course was slow-roasted tomatoes with lime, a recipe I found in the NYT and David prepared. The third was David's oven fried chicken wings. The fourth was my cousin Glenn's smoked sausage from NOLA and David's sausage with peppers and onions, with sides of collard greens and French bread. And then the organic farm's raspberries (still bearing!) with ice cream. Paired with David's wines, of course. You can see why it took six hours to eat lunch, what with trotting up and down stairs with food. 

 

The next lunch was quite a contrast. For one thing, Virginia and I drove to her daughter's new house, 45 minutes away, and I didn't know it was going to be lunch at all, so I brought exactly zip. In fact I didn't even know we were definitely going and was in my bathrobe when Virginia stopped to pick me up. For another, the first lunch was with irredeemable atheists and Democrats, and the second was with fundamentalist Christian Trumpsters. And the VP debate was that night, though fortunately we did not get into it! Virginia brought baked beans, coffee cake and potato salad (which she told me makes a great sandwich! as if!), and her daughter Anna made guacamole and grilled hamburgers. It was an awesome picnic lunch. And her new place (three ovens!) was just about the opposite of the Goose. A lot cleaner, too!

holy moly

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/donna-ferrato/holy-the-book-by-donna-ferrato

Well, it's printed! Donna Ferrato's lifework is ready to ship, and we're very excited about it. Also, if truth be told, a little scared. It is so outrageous that she (and me too, having written the very profane intro) may have to join the witness protection plan. But it's worth it. Women's rights are being eroded all over the map. (see, Supreme Court) So please help out. Buy yourself a signed book and look at the Kickstarter site to see the video of Donna and some of the pix. I mean, photographs.

absentee

I trotted out to the mailbox, slipped in the envelope and pulled up the flag. The mailwoman pulled over in her compact, right hand drive car, took the envelope and pushed the flag back down. Ordinarily, I vote by going to the school down the block in New York, finding my name on a list, taking my ballot into a little booth and then feeding it into a machine that does something or other with it. This was different. Easier. I hope the post office will deliver it and that I will be counted. Anyway, I voted.

 

cloudy skies over trumpland

The first presidential race I covered in the Midwest was in 1976, when I tagged along with Ronald Reagan in his childhood territory of Illinois for a little newspaper called the Illinois Times. He was unsuccessful then. The second one was tagging along with George W. Bush in Iowa in 1999 for Life magazine. (Lest you think I neglected Democrats, I also tagged along with Al Gore in that race.) 

How the mighty have fallen. I was reduced to covering the Trump Train with no president in sight (not that he would have come to Missouri—unnecessary—even if he hadn't been in hospital) for no publication but me. But it's tough to break the habit of wanting to cover the news, and this was big news in Southern Missouri.

  I was disappointed in myself as a photographer and reporter: I did not get close enough. There was only one other guy in the hundred or so vehicles wearing a mask, and i feared Republican cooties. I am not as brave as I was when I was younger, and even then I was never much of a street reporter. So I remembered how to stake out vantage points, but I didn't go up and talk to people. I wasn't afraid—I was camoflaged in camo, right down to a camo mask—and the people weren't scary. They were just normal, flag-waving, misguided Americans. A few kids and teenagers, but mostly older. I only saw one Confederate flag and one very offensive sign. But alas. I can't wait for this to be over, if it ever is.

 

yes, still in missouri

 

Joined some new friends for a late lunch today. Cathy is working for Biden and planning to volunteer at the polls on November 3. Alex is finishing an oral-history book. Oddly, we were all planning to go to Taiwan this year—Alex and I both studied Chinese—but had to cancel. Anyway this place specialized in wood-fired oven pizza. It was awesome. The Blanca Fresca—fig jam, goat cheese, mozzerella, prociutto, fresh greens and parmesan shavings was a fave. And the margherita was everything a margherita should be. Thin crust. Sorry, I don't ordinarily take pictures of food. And I can't speak for the wine, since I didn't drink any. The family who runs the place said the harvest this year was poor.

Taking off the mask.

Five acres of grapes in the background.

ozark landscaping

So I went to Walmart to buy some mulch, and the garden department was given over to Christmas trees. Christoween already??? Very disheartening. I wound up finding mulch at the lumberyard, and  took care of my elephant ears. For my next project, I will have to dig them up. But I don't have a shovel, and I expect if I try to buy one at Walmart all they'll have is snow shovels.

Also, Happy Mid-Autumn Moon Festival!