Happy Thanksgiving! Today the house smells like pumpkin pie and the thing I'm most thankful for is that I've had more help cooking the dinner than I expected. Soon we'll be getting out fancy plates, and this evening the doorbell will be ringing (probably early. My relatives are a little shaky when it comes to what the phrase `on time' actually means).
It's funny how much the smell of pumpkin pie reminds me of Thanksgivings past. Traditions have a way of binding the years together so for a few moments you slip through the crack between time and feel the comfortable ghosts of the past rattling around the kitchen with you.
So what sort of holiday traditions do you all have? Do you ever feel memories close enough that you could almost slip through time? What brings it on? A smell, the touch of a certain fabric, or something else entirely?
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
An Art Show and a Poem
This Saturday I went to the Faculty Art Show at FCC. It was a lot of fun. I got to say hi to the teachers I knew and see if I could recognize their pieces based on the style. There was a jazz band and food (though no tiny eclairs, more's the pity.) Visiting art shows bring out the temptation to introduce oneself as Bond. James Bond. They make one feel classy.
It's awfully easy to look at a piece that's really abstract, glance around to see if anyone else can make out what it's supposed to be, then mutter something about the inner workings of the soul. Later you find out that the piece was an experiment in texture and you get to feel silly. Or you never find out and spend the rest of your life hoping the fact that you found Texture IV impossible to understand doesn't mean you're washed up as a serious art student.
Some time ago I wrote a poem about Dali's picture of melting clocks.
Ruminating on a Portrait of Time
The dead clocks
Ooze across the table
Dripping moments and hours
Into a void of gray
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The world is flat
Colorless and empty.
The drip of melting hours
Echo loud in the stillness.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
It is summer. The relentless sun
Beats at the dust hazed windows.
For all his harshness he cannot disturb
The echoing quiet.
It is summer but no one turns on the fan.
So there you have it. My attempt at poetry. After I wrote it, I read it out loud to my best friend in a very serious voice. She listened solemnly right up until the last line -and burst out laughing.
Sometimes art is impenetrable. Other times you get exactly the reaction you're hoping for.
It's awfully easy to look at a piece that's really abstract, glance around to see if anyone else can make out what it's supposed to be, then mutter something about the inner workings of the soul. Later you find out that the piece was an experiment in texture and you get to feel silly. Or you never find out and spend the rest of your life hoping the fact that you found Texture IV impossible to understand doesn't mean you're washed up as a serious art student.
Some time ago I wrote a poem about Dali's picture of melting clocks.
Ruminating on a Portrait of Time
The dead clocks
Ooze across the table
Dripping moments and hours
Into a void of gray
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The world is flat
Colorless and empty.
The drip of melting hours
Echo loud in the stillness.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
It is summer. The relentless sun
Beats at the dust hazed windows.
For all his harshness he cannot disturb
The echoing quiet.
It is summer but no one turns on the fan.
So there you have it. My attempt at poetry. After I wrote it, I read it out loud to my best friend in a very serious voice. She listened solemnly right up until the last line -and burst out laughing.
Sometimes art is impenetrable. Other times you get exactly the reaction you're hoping for.
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