Announcing IN HOUSE Week

Bothanica 90

I have recorded a series of interviews for my little NPR show IN HOUSE, and I will be featuring one each day for the next several days.

Today, please enjoy a recent conversation I had with our friend Moses Pendleton about Momix‘s upcoming show, Botanica, at the Warner Theater in Torrington, CT.  The shows are on January 8th and 9th, 2011.  The interview is right here.

If you’d like to see a little preview of the show, click here. Go ahead, have a look, you’ll be glad you did, and then you’ll want to buy tickets to the show, and you may do so by clicking here.  This is such a beautiful show.

A Dream Home

The other night I went to a lovely dinner party at my friend Katie Hylen’s house. I’ve known Katie for years but have never been inside her home. I’ve  driven past the home that Katie shares with her husband Steve, many times and have always been intrigued, because the outside of their home looks like this (all photos, I believe, were taken by Katie Hylen):

BarnFront2-2-4-04_2

_MG_3001_2

Give All You Have Been, Or Could Be

IMG_1185_2

I’m back from Marblehead. Yesterday was the memorial service for my stepfather, Stephen Howe.  Steve was a great man who rescued my family during a difficult time, many years ago. We’re all so sad that he’s gone.

My sister Meg remarked last week that there was never a time when somebody made the connection that she was related to Steve (even though it was through marriage), that she didn’t feel immensely proud.  I know my brother and I have always felt the same way.

Just That Kind of Day

wr

TODAY by Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

Field of Dreams

The other day I stopped at the home of Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn. I was told that Moses was out back and here is where I found him:

Moses is working on a commencement speech for an esteemed institution of higher education. He likes to practice his speech with his rapt audience of young daffodils. When I arrived, I swear the delicate blossoms were leaning in to catch his words.

DREAMS
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

A Makeover Story

Once there was a short, stocky horse named Mark. A short, stocky, filthy, mud and manure-covered horse whose mistress had the desire to ride him again, as she had done, for many years, during their prime. Yes, they had shared a very good prime, but now one of them …well, he had let himself go. So, one fine spring day, it was decided that Mr. Mark would have himself a spa day!

(It’s the same “before” video I posted earlier so feel free to skip it if you already viewed it)

People Watching

IMG_1104We’re off to the airport this morning after our lovely week in the Bahamas. The best thing about a family vacation when your kids are older is the opportunity to have every meal with them.  We rarely eat together when they are home,  but we always dine together when we travel.

The Separate Rose

Photo by Moses Pendleton

Photo by Moses Pendleton

THE SEPARATE ROSE: I
by Pablo Neruda

Today is that day, the day that carried
a desperate light that since has died.
Don’t let the squatters know:
let’s keep it all between us,
day, between your bell
and my secret.

Today is dead winter in the forgotten land
that comes to visit me, with a cross on the map
and a volcano in the snow, to return to me,
to return again the water
fallen on the roof of my childhood.
Today when the sun began with its shafts
to tell the story, so clear, so old,
the slanting rain fell like a sword,
the rain my hard heart welcomes.

Flowers Everywhere

Photo by Moses Pendleton

Photo by Moses Pendleton

My friends Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn have returned from Rome, where their dance company, Momix launched its European tour of the show, “Botanica.”  It was a very exciting trip for them, as the Italians love nature, beauty, music and dance and the audiences and critics went crazy over the show.  So many amazing stories from Moses today.  But most exciting to me is the fact that Moses exhibited many of his flower photographs at the theater because the art director of the show, in Italy, had seen Moses’s photographs online.  Where? Right here, that’s where!  On this very blog!  And now Moses has been asked to do a show at a museum of contemporary art in Rome!  Of his botanical photographs!  I can’t remember the name of the museum, but it’s very famous and I wish Moses would comment here and tell you all the stuff that he told me today, because it was all so exciting that I was literally levitating off the bed-desk, and then when I hung up the phone I had forgotten all the details.

The Blue and the Sun

blueandsun

HAVE ME

by Carl Sandburg

HAVE me in the blue and the sun.
Have me on the open sea and the mountains.

When I go into the grass of the sea floor, I will go alone.
This is where I came from—the chlorine and the salt are blood and bones.
It is here the nostrils rush the air to the lungs. It is here oxygen clamors to be let in.
And here in the root grass of the sea floor I will go alone.

Love goes far. Here love ends.
Have me in the blue and the sun.