Anybody who lived in Massachusetts, as I did, during the 1970s will remember a public service announcement that ran frequently on the local channels (and that’s all there were in those days – local channels)  The ads featured, as I recall, Boston-area celebrities, or maybe they were just local teens and adults who would be dancing or painting or doing something artsy, and at the end of the spot they’d turn to the camera and say, “You gotta have ahts!”   They always had the Boston accent, and “arts” were always pronounced “ahts.” And it’s true, you gotta have ‘em.

I have blogged before about ASAP, the After School Arts Program that provides arts education for, not just the children in our little corner of Connecticut, but also for children in surrounding, inner-city areas.  As we all know, when education budgets are being slashed, as they are in our current economy, the arts are the first to go.  ASAP, run by the fabulous Joanne Torti, and its enthusiastic board of directors, tries to ensure that children are not denied access to classes in visual arts, music, drama and dance.  There have been studies that prove that an understanding and appreciation of the arts is as vital to an individual’s growth and development as an understanding of mathematics and language (please don’t ask me to cite them – they’re studies. Done by people who study stuff. Experts).

On February 19th and 20th, the world-famous dance troupe PILOBOLUS (not to be confused with the other world-famous dance troupe, MOMIX, which is so often featured here) will do a benefit performance at the Pomperaug High School in Southbury, CT, to benefit ASAP. Pilobolus is the dance group that did all the great pieces at the Academy Awards a few years ago. Remember? The dancers became the car in the movie “Crash”?  They morphed into all the themes of the movies for best picture that year in a very cool way.  And now, they’re providing their talents for a very worthy cause, ASAP.

So if you’re in the area and want to support a great cause, order your tickets now. Here.

The Lift Trucks Gallery sent me this short video that they made of last night’s reading. If you don’t blink, at the very end, you will see me up at the mike. But as the others have said, the most fun was (for me) before the event, and (for them) afterward.

I arrived at our designated meeting spot, Tazza Cafe, and as one of the others stated, within minutes, our screeching and cackling and guffawing had driven the other patrons away. Most had arrived before me and Tracy very graciously offered to buy me a cup of tea and then we all got to gabbing, and honestly, it felt like I was with family.

Here’s stuff I learned about the people who went, that I hadn’t already known:

Barbara teaches at an inner-city school and she loves her students and some of them have gone on to compete on a state (national?) level in an academic competition, with her as the coach. They are “Team Sorenson!” She sent me a photo of the team with their trophies but it’s quite blurry. Hoping she’ll send another.

Aislinn’s parents are from Ireland and she’s used to a lot of swearing and foul language and sang a song for us involving brass cleaner and bollocks! It was funny, because she’s soft-spoken and feminine.

Bev’s brother (cousin? Oh, how I wish I was taking notes) is a famous footballer in the UK. Bev’s husband Mark was a very good sport for coming along.

Colleen is thoughtful and kind and recommended my friend Dani Shapiro’s book, highly. She had just finished it.

Tracy was quieter than I expected, but her laugh is booming and infectious.

Alan explained that “putz” and “schmuck” are even nastier words than most of us had thought. Oh yes, we got right down to some vulgarities, even bandying about the c-word at one point (It was me, sorry. It was a joke).

Wonderful Arliss and her husband Bruce live quite near me and Bruce is the published author of a cook book!

Lisa is funny and pretty and thinks she doesn’t photograph well, which she does. Lisa’s Tom, also a great sport.

KC (Ms. Brunch) and her husband Matt met us at the gallery and then went on to dinner with the rest of the gang. I met KC years ago when she was a kid. SHe’s not a kid anymore! Gorgeous.

Here’s a group photo, taken by Tracy:

Here I am at the mike. As you can see, I decided to convert my story into song and sing it for the group.

Well the group has been sending each other photos from past night and perhaps they will put them up on their Facebook pages. Thanks to all who attended, you were wonderful!

I am thrilled to have found a site, online, that has posted all of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, unabridged, chapter by chapter. Below is a little sample, but you should really read the rest of the chapter because Twain goes on to write about how outrageously he and a few of his friends begin to abuse their hapless Italian guide by playing the part of the stupidest Americans to have ever set foot on foreign soil.

Anyway, here is the excerpt about Michaelangelo:
In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo–that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture–great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast–for luncheon–for dinner–for tea–for supper–for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed every thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But, here–here it is frightful. He designed St. Peter’s; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope’s soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima–the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it! Dan said the other day to the guide, “Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!”
I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.

Some shots from Capri:

And another from Pompeii:

Out of Pompeii
by William Wilfred Campbell

She lay, face downward, on her beaded arm,
In this her new, sweet dream of human bliss,
Her heart within her fearful, fluttering, warm,
Her lips yet pained with love’s first timorous kiss.
She did not note the darkening afternoon,
She did not mark the lowering of the sky
O’er that great city. Earth had given its boon
Unto her lips, love touched her and passed by.

I took a painting class once, in college. It was when I was at Bennington. This was an “Introduction to Painting” class and the other students, like myself, were not art majors and had little previous experience drawing or painting. The teacher wanted us to learn about light. She started us working with charcoal on rough white drawing paper. We were to draw trees with special attention to shadows and light. She made us notice the way the bark was rough and mottled with shades of gray and brown on the side where the sun fell upon it, but was just a flat black surface on the shaded side. She set up still-life arrangements in the studio. A clear vase, a couple of green pears, a white bowl on a bunched-up red velvety cloth draped across a table. She shone a light on the tableau and had us just use charcoal and chalk to draw the scene. She wanted us to notice the shapes and patterns, but most of all she wanted us to be aware of light. It seemed to be the most important, the most fundamental thing in painting.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I love the unique brilliance of winter light and have been trying to capture it in photographs. My hope is that I can use the photos to help me with some scenes I’ve been working on. I’ve found that my favorite passages in books involve the artful depiction of shadow and light. I love when a writer uses light skillfully to pull us into a scene. Here is an example of a beautiful use of color and pattern and light from a short story by John Updike called “After the Storm.”

“The room was radiant. Beyond the white mullions and the curtains of dotted swiss, pinned back with metal flowers painted white, the sky was undiluted blue. I thought, this morning has never occurred before, and I jubilantly felt myself to be on the prow of a ship cleaving the skyey ocean of time.”

Now, brace yourself for something quite incredible. This is one of the last paragraphs in the story and it shows why Updike is considered a true master of literature. The story, by the way, is told from the perspective of a young boy who is now in bed with a fever. I can’t help but believe it’s an autobiographical rendering of the birth of the author’s impulse to absorb beauty and nature and light in order to reproduce it later, with words.

“I turned my head away and looked through the window. In time, my father appeared in this window, an erect figure dark against the snow. His posture made no concession to the pull underfoot; upright he waded out through our yard and past the mailbox and up the hill until he was lost to my sight behind the trees of our orchard. The trees took white on their sun side. The two telephone wires diagonally cut the blank blue of the sky. The bare stone wall was a scumble of umber; my father’s footsteps thumbs of white in white. I knew what this scene was – a patch of Pennsylvania in 1947 – and yet I did not know, was in my softly fevered state mindlessly soaked in a rectangle of colored light. I burned to paint it, just like that, in its puzzle of glory; it came upon me that I must go to Nature disarmed of perspective and stretch myself like a large transparent canvas upon her in the hope that, my submission being perfect, the imprint of a beautiful and useful truth would be taken.”

The idea of the author being perfectly submissive to the scene, being transparent. What a lesson for me.

While typing this, my Word program protested the use of the words “skyey” and “scumble.” These aren’t words, declared Microsoft Word.

Tell that to John Updike, Word!.

What could better describe a stonewall in winter than a “scumble of umber?”

Here are some photos I took yesterday in the late afternoon, when there were a great many shadows.

Somebody emailed me this image of the statue of Roger Conant, after reading my blog about his curious pose. The unveiling of this statue must have created quite a stir amongst the people of Salem. It would be interesting to see more statues like this – showing our heroes in more candid, relaxed poses. Why must they always be on rearing horses? Why not show them like old Roger – clearly a man who knew how to handle himself in any situation.

The other day I blogged about Salem, Massachusetts and showed a picture of the statue of Roger Conant which is erected in front of the Witch Museum on Salem Green. Because he’s there, in front of the Witch Museum, many think he was a witch himself, but Roger Conant was a very upstanding founder of the earliest settlement of fishermen in Salem, and had nothing to do with the witch trials. My friend Laurie informed me yesterday that an ex-boyfriend of hers pointed out that Roger Conant’s sculptor clearly had a great sense of humor, because when you stand directly in front of the statue it’s very clear that under those vast robes, Roger was, well he was …pleasuring himself. I’m not sure if you can quite get the whole effect in this photo:

Okay, I can see that something is at play here. I’m going to ask my sister Meg to drive over and get a better photo for us. We must get to the root of this!

Due to my schedule, I’ve had to broadcast reruns of IN HOUSE the past two Saturdays, but tomorrow, tune in for an all-new IN HOUSE interview with my guest, the brilliant and wildly eccentric dancer/choreographer Moses Pendleton, who directs the word-famous dance company, MOMIX

I got to sit in on a few rehearsals of Botanica, Momix’s exciting new show and I used the music from the show throughout the interview, making it, I think, one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve done. Well, Moses made it enjoyable too, of course. If you’re into gardening, New England, the environment, dance, Van Gogh, sex, love, skiing, John Keats, bees, the psychological effects of color on mood, music or the creative process – if one or all of these things appeals to you – you’ll love tomorrow’s show.

And, on another, equally exciting note, I’m going home today. I don’t know if it’s a HIPA violation to name your physician, but I’ll risk it in order to thank my surgeon Dr. Jamal Rahaman and his wonderful team of residents here at Mt. Sinai hospital. I’m told the surgeons don’t always have great bedside manner, but that’s not the case with Dr. Rahaman, who is not just a great doctor, but also a great man.

Also, at the risk of forgetting some names (I’m sure I will) I’d like to thank the nursing and support staff on my floor who include Michael Quizon, Mary “Jennie” Del Prabo, Cheryl Parks, Debbie Johnson, Lucy Jumelez, Antoinette De Los Reyes …oh, I know I’m forgetting names. Some of the most helpful people helped me when I was least lucid, but if you’re a nurse, I thank you, on behalf of all patients everywhere, for the work you do. Listening to the way some patients here talk to hospital staff makes me think that the word “patient” when describing somebody under nursing care, is an almost laughable misnomer. The nurses I’ve met this week have taught me much about patience, compassion, tolerance and grace under pressure.

I have spent the entire day trying to edit my four hours of digital Moses Pendleton into a concise half-hour for my radio show, IN HOUSE.

Why, you might ask, did you interview the man for four hours, when you have a half-hour show? The answer is, because a half hour is just not enough for a man whose kitchen looks like this:

Whose office looks like this:

And whose hallway looks like this:

Moses is a little preoccupied with sunflowers and marigolds and the interview is all about how he is attempting to bring the garden into the theater in his new show, “Botanica.” I have recorded a rehearsal but how do I bring the eroticism and beauty of the musical arrangements and choreography of Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn to radio?

I’ve decided to make it an hour long. There’ll be a part I the first week, followed by Part II the second. The problem is, Moses has a lot of energy. So do I. So does his Jack Russell Terrier, Mojito, who opens and closes all the doors to the house with his paws. The three of us just got ourselves whipped into a frenzy of excitement during our conversation and often veered way off-topic, and eventually I would have to suggest we take a moment and collect ourselves, and he would respond like this:

Download file

Anyway, it won’t be this Saturday’s show, but will most likely be on next Saturday. So stay tuned. This Saturday will be a surprise (to you and me).

Here’s somebody I encountered at Moses Pendleton’s house yesterday:

Here’s Moses himself, tending to one of his sunflowers.

Denis and I got to watch MOMIX, Moses’s dance company, rehearsing for their upcoming show, “Botanica,” yesterday. There was a piece called Nightcrawlers in which the dancers used black ductwork tubing (stuff you would find at Home Depot) as extensions of their bodies and they became strangely erotic earthworms that pulsed and undulated and intertwined themselves with each other in a most beautiful and entrancing way. I’ve already ordered our tickets for the debut show of “Botanica” at the Warner Theater in January. Meanwhile, their company will be touring in London and throughout the US during October. Click here for details.

Today we’re in sunny California. As we were flying in, I recalled the first time Denis and I ever came to LA. We were young. Denis was a comic, I, a waitress. Denis won a stand-up comedy contest sponsored by Budweiser, and we got to stay at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. It was winter and even though it was only about fifty degrees, we splashed around in the pool like kids and then took a city bus all the way to the beach in Santa Monica, which took all day. We were so excited! Denis was going to perform at the Improv! In LA!
This time we’ve flown in for the Emmys, older, wiser, but still dazzled, as we always are, by this bright city with its colorful architecture, friendly people and impossibly clean streets.

This time it’s HBO, not Budweiser footing the bill, so we’re staying in Santa Monica. Here’s the view from our window:

There’s the Santa Monica pier:

Here’s Denis reading a script, poolside. I just had to say it, it’s so Lucy Ricardo. “There’s my dear husband, reading a motion picture script, poolside!”

For twelve years now, I have been driving past the house belonging to choreographers Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn. It’s a rather aged white Victorian set slightly back from the road. Across the street is an old carriage barn. I’ve known that Moses and Cynthia use the property as the headquarters for MOMIX, his world-famous dance company, but when you drive by, it just looks like any great old New England house that hasn’t been “done.” There are usually a few cars parked in the driveway. There’s a bit of lawn out front. Yesterday, I entered the Pendleton house, because I had scheduled an interview with Moses for my NPR show, IN HOUSE, and I don’t think I’ll ever be quite the same again.

Entering the home of Moses Pendleton is like entering another dimension. I walked into that house under the delusion that I’m a rather creative free-spirit, but when I walked out, four hours later, I felt like a prim school marm with a dull mind, an austere sense of style and a death-grip adherence to social norms.

Moses’s house is filled with beauty and decay, He gives shabby chic a whole new meaning. In the living room, decades-old wallpaper is peeling from the walls, but the color of the paper has aged and now it looks like the whole room is draped in a sort of heavenly gauze. Dried sunflower stalks ten feet tall hang above the beautiful winding staircase and now, drained of color, they look like they could be made of porcelain. Sunflowers, fresh and in varying states of decay, are everywhere because Moses is a gardener, an avid lover of nature and plants – especially flowers. And most especially sunflowers. This is their dining room:

I wish I had taken photos of every inch of that house but I wasn’t sure if it was okay, and it was so dreamlike, I wasn’t sure I could even capture the feeling of the place with my camera.

Moses is currently choreographing a show called “Botanica” which is about ….well, I have four hours of audio tape of what it’s about, but basically it’s about what Moses calls his “garden of earthly delights.” The dancers were all rehearsing in the barn and I got to see a few of the pieces, and they were astonishingly beautiful. The dancers were trees, and pods and blossoming plants and through their movements, the whole barn seemed actually to be alive with the elements of wind and light and sexual energy and birth. And I got a tour of Moses’s garden, which is his inspiration. The centerpiece of the garden is a giant sunburst of Marigolds – “Mary’s Gold” – as Moses described them. Here you can catch a glimpse through the arbor of Morning Glories:

My photo doesn’t do it justice. Moses is also a photographer, so maybe he will let me put some of his photos of his garden on my blog. Moses sees hues of yellow and gold and amber as energizing sources of life. He loves the ritual of the New England garden with it’s cycles of fertility and growth and decline and eventually decay and then rebirth. We watched the sun lower over the marigolds and then it was time to go and when I left the Pendleton-Quinn house, it felt like I was going indoors after being out on a bright lake or on a snowy, sunlit mountainside. Everything seemed dull and dark. It was like being snowblind, but I was flowerblind – completely dazzled by the brilliant energy of Moses Pendleton.