Living with two foodies (my boyfriend Carl and housemate Winnie) means that in addition to smokey coconut ice cream, savory lamb curry with peppercorn surprises, and Sunday bisquits that seem to have a special bond with my hand (even when my stomach thinks it should move on), we also have dishes. Not piles of dishes, but rather a steady parade of be-speckled plates and glasses that need tending to.
About two years ago I discovered that dishwashing is a prime opportunity to bust out folk songs. In generations past, people would sing songs to themselves as they went about their daily toil, particularly when their daily toil required brainless repetition. I remember when I was in 7th grade, I came across a book of spinning songs at the local library, and learned several of them, even though I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be spinning wool into thread anytime soon (still haven’t, actually).
But now, I find myself driting back to these songs, sometimes ruminating on particular passages or mulling over an interval leap, while my hands scurry about mugs, knives, and spatulas. However, this is not the solitary experience you might imagine. In our new house each one of my songs is accompanied by a droning ventilation fan, that (since it seems to serve no practical purpose) appears to been installed to keep dishwashing singers on pitch. Today I discovered that that pitch is C-sharp, so in time I’m sure my songs will invariably gravitate towards that tonal center. If you sing carols with me later this year, and wonder why my ear is so stuborn, you’ll know that it is because of the whirring fan motor of apt. 4C.
Following 4th grade essay-writing instructions (to the tune of “write about what you know”), I will recount today’s art journey to the park.
As I climbed a gently sloping hillside on the SW corner of Fort Greene park, I caught a glimpse of two pigeons reanacting the perennial play of puffed-up male pigeon chasing fleeing female. At the zenith of the hill sat two entwined high-schoolers from the neighborhood, who I imagine had courted in some similarly earnest fashion, most likely involving text-messaging. Being that I was on my ceaseless quest to explore how different spaces shape our behavior, I noticed how coming across this couple rerouted my path, steering me toward a circle of laughing frisbee players, having a sorry go at catch.
Circling down the shadier, northern side of the park, I sat down next to a hollowed-out tree stump that featured a nice clump of mushrooms growing in its dark recesses. The stump reminded me of how Dr. Rose, the surgeon I saw last week who suggested I consider surgery for a torn meniscus in my left knee, had said that there was no hope for healing in my cartilage, and that I should think of it is as “rotten wood”. I touched my knee while looking at the stump, and wondered what the mushroom equivalent might be in my body.
After jostling around a bit and contemplating art, the environment, and my ceaseless vexation with this dirty city (marching through my mind one after another on an endless loop, like a pop song), I packed up to return home. I passed a boy who was explaining to his friend that the 80s were the same as the 90s in terms of “the mentality”, and was happy that I had no way of beginning to know how to verify that.
Last night I attended a great fund raiser in Chelsea for the Obama campaign, hosted by Fred Benenson and Monica Yun at ForYourImagination. During the course of the evening I spoke with a wide array of people, each finding their own ways to support Obama and use the campaign as a civic wake up call.
I spoke with a film maker about the need for an Obama Campaign dance, and we decided to team up and make this happen. Check here for developments.
These days, doing business on the Internet means memorizing lots of passwords. That is, or course, if you don’t throw caution to the wind and resort to using 123456 for every site (something my tech security consultant, Carl, has advised against). Well to make matters worse, websites have begun to push beyond the standard passwords and into the uncharted territory of elaborate security questions. Some are easy enough – mother’s maiden name, place of birth, childhood nickname, etc.Yet then there are other, far trickier questions, including favorites (i.e. color, places visited, children) and dreams (i.e. careers, retirement location, salary). What makes these questions difficult to answer is that they impose a rigid finality upon what, in reality, is a natural evolution of tastes, interests, and aspirations.
This new online security practice doesn’t come without its share of frustrations. I spent a solid minute recently (which in cable-internet speak means “an eternity”) staring at a blank, taunting security question field, drawing complete blanks as to what I had told my bank my childhood dream career was. After offering in vain all the obvious responses (paleontologist, actor, vaudeville performer), I started questioning my life path and whether I was really so far off track that I couldn’t even remember what the little me had dreamed of doing. Feeling like my credit card provider knew me better than I knew I myself, I longed for the days when all I needed to do was remember the jumbled phrase of letters and numbers in order to get on with my life.
Yesterday I celebrated Thanksgiving with Carl in Nashville. This was my first Thanksgiving away from my family, hereby marking a passage into the adulthood practice of spending some major holidays with my partner’s family instead of my own. For the last couple of years I have been marching along as the dutiful younger son, flying home for holidays and then flying off to meet Carl afterwards. My parents and I have been taking it as a given that I will make it home for major holidays - Thanksgiving, Easter, and St. Patrick’s Day (the one day when we pretend we are Irish). However, as major life changes often go, the decision to spend Thanksgiving in Nashville this year came more from a state of practicality (we happen to be here and its Thanksgiving) than a desire to shift my relationship to my family.
The major difference in the day’s festivities was the schedule. When I called my family at 2pm EST, they had already made it through the major meal of the day and were well into a heated game of Texas Hold ‘em. Meanwhile, things here at the Tashian camp were steadily making their way towards the big meal at 7pm. The other major difference was the division of labor. Here in Nashville, dish assignments were doled out earlier in the week with each person coming up with their best rendition of whatever they were given. Yesterday morning I whipped together a creamed spinach dish, fashioned after an article I read in a magazine on the flight home from New York. In the Cronin household, my mom slaves away for hours making all the food, while we keep her company in the kitchen. Nothing beats mom’s cooking, but it is fun to be encouraged to take part in putting the meal together.
For the past four weeks, Carl and I have been adventuring on the wide-open roads of our enormous country. We have learned to be patient with the inventive driving styles of those sharing the road with us, the endless searching for snacks and maps in the cavernous back-seat pile, and the itchy restlessness that voluntary confinement to a Honda Civic can lead to. Our creed on this journey has been “embrace the unknown”. However, despite our best intentions, sometimes all we’ve been able to muster is a one-armed awkward hug with the unknown.
Taking in as much as I can as it whizzes by, including the dynamic landscapes and brief glimpses of people’s lives in various tucked away corners of the country, has infused me with a deep appreciation for how each of us finds a path and does our best to walk it with conviction. We live in a country filled with men and women doing their best to live lives that fulfill their needs. These needs are often common enough, yet the paths are as varied and distinct as the geological wonders we’ve encountered.
Three more weeks and a canyon that is supposed to be quite grand lie in our future.
When I got doored this past Spring in Central Square, I failed to get the insurance information from the person who was responsible. I stood on the side of the road, having pulled my bike out from underneath the parked taxi that broke my fall, and all my attention raced to my throbbing thumb. The person who had flung the door into my bike, a passenger getting out of a car in moving traffic, stood with me in silence. There was no discussion about exchanging information. No discussion of medical bills or friends that could be called.
Several days later, as the first medical bill arrived in my mailbox, I began contacting everyone I could think of in the City of Cambridge to see what was being done about cyclist safety. I got in touch with a number of biking advocates in Cambridge, each working hard to get city law-enforcement and policy makers on board with changes that are critically needed. In each of my conversations, the same question was raised. Why hadn’t I asked the person to give me their information, or at least take down the license plate number? It’s a good question. However, the subsequent list of post-accident shoulds that tended to follow this question, began to wear on me.
While I agree that empowering cyclists with safety information is important, it is not the only solution for creating successful outcomes in accident situations. There were many people with a role to play in what happened following my accident - the person who doored me, the person on the bench who saw it happen, the shop attendant who gave me ice to put on my hand, the police officer around the corner. Each was actively engaged in the outcome of the situation, whether they recognized their agency or not. Any of the “post-accident shoulds” could have been initiated by one of these parties, especially since the clearest thinking was probably not come from the person who was just thrown through the air.
Perhaps one of the best things we can do to improve bike safety is to consider cyclists when we’re not on our bikes. If I’m getting out of a cab, I can take an extra look back to see if someone is coming. If you’re on the street and someone gets knocked of their bike, help them collect the information they need or call for help (engaging others is great way to do your part if you find yourself paralyzed by liability fear). In a dense city like Boston, transportation roles are fluid, with many people taking on the role of biker, pedestrian, car passenger, and T-rider, all in the same day. Because of this role multiplicity, we have the ability to be helpful in a variety of situations, and the safe, responsive streets we are seeking require that we do.
As quoted from an e-mail sent to Boston Phoenix Arts Editor Jeffrey Gantz last Saturday:
I am a Boston Phoenix reader who spends a good chunk of my entertainment dollar on dance performances. After years of reading Marcia Siegel’s reviews, I have finally put my finger on what it is about her writing that disappoints me. Certainly, when it comes to placing work in its historical context or providing acerbic compositional analysis, Siegel delivers. However, with her red pen firmly in hand, Siegel unleashes commentary that often obscures poignant artistic moments underneath a fury of “composition teacher” corrections.
I would love to see Siegel’s writing reflect more earnest excitement and curiosity about the dances she sees. I don’t know how many more of these grim write-ups I can take.
I was feeling homesick today, and thinking back to my mom and I watching musicals on AMC when I was growing up. Big dance numbers on gigantic soundstages. I think these memories planted the seed for my love of Bollywood films.
This past weekend Carl, my friend Heather and I went to see a show in a tucked away warehouse loft in an industrial corner of Nashville. As we noshed on expensive cheese and cheap wine, the band unraveling cables and fussing with projectors, my East Coast cynicism reared its head and began doubting whether the evening would produce anything more than a jam band blaring out blah music over music industry chatter (which is what we’d experienced walking in on the tail-end of the opening band). However, in Music City, I have learned that one can expect to see fantastic performances in the oddest of places, and so I decided to suspend my pre-judgments.
The headlining band, Vic Thrill, was a Brooklyn-based duo who were introduced as the creators of the Circus of Enlightenment. They hit the ground running on crazy, layered beats, and after three songs, the affirming lyrics, and the high-octane rhythmic pulsing had worked the crowd into an ecstatic, revival-style fervor. While Vic chirped and gyrated, Bam I Am controlled, via her 80s-style keyboard guitar, the steadily streaming, pshychadelic video feed that projected on the wall behind them. While the overall feeling was cheerful, there was a current throughout much of the work that spoke of a world that was darker and more mysterious. Vic’s enrapturing gyrations superimposed over a stream of video that spanned everything from archival footage of lindy-hoppying to girls wrestling in bikinis, left me enthralled and at times fearful. Propelled by the sheer force of so much carefully-chosen media, I could feel myself moving closer towards this artist’s unique vision of transcendence. Once again I have been shown that art has the potential to show you things you never imagined. If they are performing near you, Vic Thrill is not to be missed.
