A Few Words

Of course, we've always known that English is a highly creative language that can go just about any way we want.  We don't have the equivalent of the French language's Académie Française to regulate usage, vocabulary, and grammar.  If we want to turn "disconnect" into a noun and set aside "disconnection," we can do it.  Same with "reveal" and "revelation."  You know, The Big Reveal when home improvement programs show off the transformation from a so-so place into one with a wow factor.

Lately, on watching financial and news programs, I've heard some splendidly creative language.  "Vanilla option" for a normal option with no special features.  (Unlike a "rocky road option," I imagine.)  "Kicking the can down the road" for dealing with the debt ceiling later.  "The President needs to go long; he can't small ball" for kicking butt.  Then militaristic language is in vogue.  "The Fed is moving to smaller bullets."  "There's not going to be a nuclear monetary stimulus attack."  "He only has one more bullet in his gun."  And then lots of things are being "deployed" these days.  Other current phrases include "they don't want to open the kimono." "Elevator pitch" or pitching something in the amount of time it takes to ride an elevator.  And though I don't know what it means, what about "a dead cat bounce in the market"?

As these terms seep in, others seep out.  Does anyone use "counterpane," "davenport," or "folderol" anymore?  Or "woppy jawed" if something's off kilter?

There are definitely words that define their times.  I saw a movie not that long ago set in the 1920's in which the heroine said, "Whatever," like in, you know, "What-evah."  Not.  Or these:  Bikini, luncheon meat (the '40s).  Credit card, Freudian slip (the '50s).  Black hole, flower children (the '60s).  Floppy disk, leg warmer ('the '70s).  Walkman, voice mail (the '80s).  DVD, FAQ (the '90s). ( From Twentieth Century Words, Oxford University Press, 1999.)

And today?  How about "Hey!" instead of "Hi."  "No problem" instead of "You're welcome."  "The tweetisphere."  "Couch surfer."  "Webinar" (an internet seminar).

Then "folks" seems to have taken over that good word, "people."  (I muse that Lincoln might have said, "...and that government of the folks, by the folks, and for the folks shall not perish from the earth."  And except for Mother's Day and Mother Nature, "mom" seems to have replaced "mother."  (As "dad" has "father.")  And the pronunciation of that valuable French word, "voilà," has turned into "wallah."

Then, too, meanings get skewed.  "Decimate" for "annihilate" when it really means "to destroy by one-tenth".  (That's the "deci" part.)  "Dastardly" for "terribly" when it more precisely means "cowardly."  "Disinterested" for "uninterested" when it means "to be free of bias or self-interest."  "Fulsome" for "full" when it means "excessive, offensive."

Of course, there are some splendid words that only someone like Simon Winchester OBE comes out with.  "Chamfered" as in "chamfered rectangles."  ("A beveled edge connecting two surfaces.")  "Majuscule" (the opposite of "miniscule").

And my copy of Lawrence Durrell's Justine has words I underlined because I didn't know what they meant.  "Antinomian."  Even as I write that, my spell-check underlines it as if to say, "huh??"  (It means that "faith and grace relieve one from having to adhere to moral law.")  "Ratiocinative" ("reasoning, exact thinking").  "Phthisic" ("wasting away").

I used to have a little blue notebook in which I wrote words I didn't know.  My hope was that on looking them up and writing down the meaning, I might be able to actually incorporate them into my speech.  Or at least recognize them the next time I saw them.  Alas, neither occurred.  Many didn't really fit into everyday language.  Some I totally forgot I'd ever seen before.  One day the little notebook got tossed.

I did keep a listing of collective nouns which originally came from The Book of St. Albans, 1486.  To wit:

a rascal of boys
a goring of butchers
a blast of hunters
a foresight of housekeepers
a diligence of messengers
a converting of preachers
a blackening of shoemakers
a proud showing of tailors
a worship of writers

This is from the Waikiki Zoo.  I discovered the collective noun for flamingos is "stand."

Okay, let's be a little imaginative here.

What about a sunburn of vacationers?

What do you think?  An apertif or a café-crème of café-goers? 

This seems obvious:  a weaving of baskets.  (I took this photo in Sommieres, France, the last town where Lawrence Durrell lived.)

Et, voilà.

That Can-Do Spirit

An L.A. friend mentioned it in a post-storm email.  She spoke of "can-do Vermonters."  A good term.  People around here have been busy!  Hurricane--no, Tropical Storm--Irene crashed and thrashed about, but for us, at least, our down-town is almost cleaned up, our streets are re-opening, and our farmers market (which seemed a total loss) is up and running.

It's true that we in the northern latitudes have honed our can-do skills contending with all the long, bitter winters that invade these parts.  But after any emergency, you hear about the locals anywhere speaking with pride in their resilience.  No matter the community, the state, the region, people like to help, work together, get things back to the way they were ... or even make them better than they were.

We're fortunate to have a viable on-line community site which has proven to be highly effective--such postings as, "Who needs help this weekend?" with info about a bucket brigade ("wear mud boots").  Or a notice from a senior who can't shovel out her mud.  Or an offer for free gravel from someone who thought he might now have a hundred wheelbarrows-full in his yard.  Or a link to a new map (to be updated daily) of flood-caused road closures/openings.  Or a reminder to follow safe clean-up procedures with warnings about molds and environmental contaminants.  And, my favorite, a 2-minute video showing a horseback rider braving vigorous flowing waters to deliver medication.  (All this, of course, interspersed with notices about choral rehearsals, a tobacco cessation workshop, etc.)

So, I should not have been so utterly surprised at what I found when I visited our local farmers market on market day.  It hadn't skipped a beat.  The week before, it had been there in all its vitality even hours before the storm hit.  Then there it was again after only a week--though the flood waters had swept through, the structures had toppled, the picnic tables had washed away, great gashes had appeared in the parking lot.

But, as one vendor told me when I looked around and literally shook my head at how the new market so closely resembled the old (except the grass was gone), "It shows what a good bull-dozer can do ... and the help of a lot of people."  In fact, some hundred people (including children) had come out with their shovels and rakes to help level the land, set up new picnic tables, and construct another sandbox for the little ones.  They'd made new parking signs, seeded grass which they covered with straw, set out new trash and compost centers.  Others had brought them coffee and fresh muffins.

Sunlight on the new sandbox

"Thank you" sign on a tree

Then, market day, with the exception of a vendor or two still off in isolated towns, everyone was back in their old spots, making dim sum, selling pots of chrysanthemums, setting out maple syrup and pints of berries, chatting while making coffee, putting out pottery, and posting such signs as"These vegetables were not flooded."  One vendor lost half his crop when (contaminated) flood waters filled his fields, but he was there, too, with what he could salvage.  And flooding all this in a totally different way were people like me who came to support them--to buy their bread, cucumbers, flowers.  To offer them our blessings and wish them well.

Overheard bits of conversation:

"...my road washed out ..."

"We're up on a hill and didn't even know about the flood until later ..."

"I don't know if they had flood insurance but you know the deductibles are so high, maybe $30,000 ... or even $15,000 is a lot ..."

" ... if that tree had come down any closer ..."

"...everyone helped out..."

Gotta admit.  I was pretty proud to be associated with these can-do Vermonters (though I'm a Southern Californian like the friend who emailed me).  I didn't bring shovel and rake, but I do make a point of going each Saturday morning and buying their produce.  Thank you!

From Trouble-maker back to being Little Miss Babbling Brook

When Irene Came to Call

Before Irene hit, I was going to write this week's posting about prepping for a hurricane in a Southern Vermont town on the Connecticut River with a brief afterword about how we fared, thinking, really, there would be little to report other than some power outage.  But it turned out to be another story entirely.  Or, as one youthful resident said when scanning the damage, "It's something else."

Earlier in the week, we realized we were smack in the middle of Irene's track.  When I checked and re-checked the cognoscenti sites, there it was--scheduled to come barreling through, as one local said, "in my front door and out my back."  Then there was the Weather Channel notice that said "Irene poses an extraordinary threat that is one no one has yet experienced from North Carolina ... to New England."

So what I did was freak out for awhile.  Then, like that saying, "Trust in God but tie up your camel," I set to work getting ready.  I figured a main problem might be downed trees since a handsome collection of enormous white pines surround all the houses up here on my little hill.  I'd fortunately had one rotted-out oak taken out this summer but, otherwise, all I could do was go out before the storm and tell my trees how perfect they looked standing right where they were and please don't move.  My next problem would be power outage.  That was pretty much a given.  But I could cook since my stove was on propane.  I had city water which didn't require an electric pump.  I had plenty of food.  Manual can-opener.  Candles, batteries, flashlights.  After that, my next problem would be a degree of run-off flowing through my cellar.  (No other flooding since I'm on that hill I mentioned.)  Having experienced several Nor'easters, I'd long since put my cellar stuff up on blocks.  I only had to roll up some carpeting.  Finally, if we got strong winds, my garden furniture would tumble downhill into the poison ivy, so I took things indoors.  I wondered about getting duct tape in case something knocked out a window and I needed to put up plastic sheeting, but I thought I'd wing that one.

A few of my glorious trees

It finally started to rain 8 PM Saturday.  I felt prepared; I'd done all I knew to do.  I went to bed.  It rained through the night; there were no high winds.  Then Sunday, it rained and rained and rained, sometimes in sheets, no surcease.  My trees were happily staying put.  I checked online and turned on the TV to see what was going on.  And if the track had shifted.  It hadn't.  The reporters were all solidly positioned beside coastal surf and in city streets.  Then the power went out--which incidentally meant I couldn't open my garage door and get out my car, but I wasn't going anywhere.  I'd been watching the new Top Chef "Just Desserts" program ... but now got out my book.  All I could hear with the house closed up was the rain  As I sat reading, I felt as if I were in an airplane, stuck in one of those reclining seats, feeling a bit anxious, just waiting "to get there."  I also realized anew how rather grim it is not to have electricity and how we as a society may one day wonder that we had anything as primitive as above-ground wires.

Then, after some 17 or 18 hours, the rain let up.  I opened my front door to poke my head out, hoping the brunt of the storm was over.  Thanks to low winds, the trees were okay; no branches covered the road.  But as I was going back in the house, I heard something that I could not identify.  It sounded like an inordinate amount of traffic on the road just down the hill.  Except no one much was out.  Or, it sounded like a river.  Except there was no river there.  Curious, I put on my rain coat and walked out, careful to keep an eye out for possible downed wires.  The road at the bottom of the hill was, indeed, empty ... except for a police car turning cars away because, as it turned out, there was such extensive damage on up ahead that the road was closed for the next 40 miles--all the way across the entire southern part of the state.  It was then I discovered what the noise was. 

Bear with me here.  News reporters like to speak of Vermont with this sort of language.  "Sweet sleepy towns."  "Babbling brooks."  All story-book stuff.  Well, while they were so heavily concentrating on the fact that New York City had actually made it through the hurricane and, oh yes, by the way, Irene was now off in New England, IRENE WAS NOW OFF IN NEW ENGLAND.  Hello, out there!  Anyone paying attention?  In this land of hills and valleys, all of our state's little babblers (already saturated from a summer of rain) had turned into raging torrents, creating flash floods no one around here had ever seen before.  That noise I heard was our local brook now crashing down, eroding its banks, brimming over, making its way toward the Connecticut River, taking out mobile homes, chunks of pavement, whole trees, picnic tables, propane tanks still hissing gas, and our local farmers market.  Then when it got down-town, it raged across streets and parking lots, into shops, offices, and a hotel lobby as it wreaked havoc with roads and bridges on the way.  It didn't take an ocean surge to destroy things; it was built right there into our mountainy story-book setting.

The "brook" next day, greatly subdued

That woke up the reporters who then came here for their aftermath stories.  Irene is now gone, I and mine (including my trees) are fine, power came back on, but our town (as many) got creamed.  I've read that in some of the small towns, country inns have been turned into emergency command centers ... money donation jars have been filling up ... people have been picking up other people's family photos along brook banks.  Here, the flood waters have subsided and bulldozers are out scraping up the mud.  Then there's that spontaneous exchange that occurs after something like this--with a postal clerk, the take-out coffee guy, the car dealership fellow who schedules your oil change.

"Everything okay with you?"
"Yeah.  You?"
"Yeah.  It was something, though."
"Yeah."

I have to admit that one image in all this rather amuses me:  a shot I saw (but don't have) of our town's wooden Loch-Ness monster--usually propped out in the water near the marina--last seen, finally free, bobbing down the Connecticut on its way to Long Island Sound.

The town's Nessie when still stationed at the local marina

Other images:
1) Try this YouTube link here by a fine videographer I happen to know.

2) Here's a good CNN series of still photos of the region.  The middle one is especially dramatic.  (Click here.)

As a P.S., a few Vermont statistics from The New York Times might be of interest though I don't know what one can do with them. 

• 13 towns isolated (all have now been accessed)
• 35 bridges taken out including 4 historic covered bridges
• A portion of every highway in the state closed, except I-91 and I-89
• Amtrak service suspended indefinitely; 4 railway bridges impassable
• 260 roads fully or partly closed
• 30 bridges fully or partly closed

 

How Much High Season Fresh Produce a Dollar Will Buy

Her name was Mrs. Miller.  She taught us 7th grade Social Studies.  She was tall, pretty, with fluffed hair, and she wore dresses, high heels, and stockings as all women teachers did then.  All else about her is lost except for the fact that she'd been to Africa which made her very exotic in our eyes.  Any place in Africa earned equal points so it didn't much matter which country, not that I even remember.  But though I've forgotten almost everything else about the class, I remember a class-mate holding up his hand and asking, "How much would it cost to feed a family of four for a month?"  The year was 1951.  So we can make that an even sixty years ago.

Mrs. Miller considered a moment and then said, "I'd say it would cost $50 a month."  But she also made it known that might be on the high side.

I've obviously never forgotten that comment and have (also obviously) gone into sticker shock when it seems to cost more like $50 a day now.  Fruits (and some vegetables) seem like pieces of gold ... which is why I look forward to this time of year.  Their season.  So, when we now have bins of fresh beans, boxes of fresh berries, tomatoes, I'm a little surprised to shell out quite so many dollars but admit to "understanding" the prices because they've crept up so gradually, they almost seem normal.  But I also realize there's very little you can buy for under $1.  Maybe a banana.  (Not even a chocolate bar.)

I decided to do a study here of just how much fresh produce I could get for a dollar.  Most of it fresh local produce.  And unless otherwise noted, all of it organic.  And all purchased at a local farm stand or farmers market.  (No supermarket stuff here.)  (The spoon is supposed to show scale.)

Here each item is $1:  one tomato ... 2 cucumbers ... this much avocado

Speaking of cucumbers, these two lemon cucumbers came to 87¢ so I cut off part of a third to equal $1

In fact, the whole clump of broccoli cost $2.30 from the farmer who grew it, so I had to lop off more than half to get to my $1 amount

Here's the best deal, all four for $1, also bought from the farmer who grew them

$1's worth of local organic blueberries

White non-organic peaches

The princesses of them all  (in a gold-rimmed-dish, no less)--four organic cherries at 25¢ each.

Finally, here are a few non-produce items ... but still obtained from local sources.

$1's worth of Black Back Flounder (try saying that one quickly) from our local fish store.

A baked South American meat pastry from the farmers market.  Pretty itty-bitty for $1 and it wasn't very good.

And finally, here's some local cheese.

 $1's worth of this 2-year aged cheddar only came to 1 oz.

What Makes August August

Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, summer squash
Efforts to finish up house projects
First day of school (that used to be in September!)
A noticeable but not yet significant cooling
A noticeable but not yet significant darkening earlier
The sense of something ending, something changing

From Polar Bears to Banking ... with "That Orange Plastic Olivetti Typewriter Feeling" in the Middle: Recent Documentaries

In the right-hand column here, "Good Movies I've Seen Recently," you'll see that a number of them are documentaries.  I've been watching some splendid ones--delivered by the postman in those little red-and-white envelopes.  Thinking you would enjoy them as well, I thought I'd bring them to light.

A particularly excellent one is Earth (2007), narrated by James Earl Jones, and featuring (but not limited to) a polar bear family, a herd of elephants in Namibia, and a humpback whale mother and calf that swim from tropical waters to the Antarctic.  The photography is truly amazing with close-up shots you wouldn't believe.  There is also some splendid time-lapse photography, some laugh-out-loud moments, and an especially gripping shot of flying above what then immediately drops away into Angel Falls, Venezuela--the world's highest.  This is a Disney film, but not gushy.  Wonderful for everyone.

In another vein, I've watched three with an artistic bent.  Kings of Pastry (2009) deals with French pastry chefs who want to win the Meilleur Ouvrier de France that allows them to wear the coveted blue, white, and red striped collar of the country's best pâtissiers.  They are not in competition with each other.  Any number might win.  But in this film sixteen meet in Lyon, France, for three days of highly intense labor as the drama unfolds.  Did you know you could hold your breath watching someone maneuver sugar sculpture?  They rehearse long hours beforehand since the test/competition only occurs once every four years.  You're right there with them, oohing and ahhing, hoping nothing goes awry.

Perfection (and reflection) from our local farmers market pastry maker

Milton Glaser:  To Inform and Delight (2009) is an excellent view of this graphic designer whom few know by name but whose works are totally familiar.  The "I (heart) NY" poster is one.  The Bob Dylan poster another.  Hard to describe; look him up and check out his logos, drawings, ad campaigns.

Helvetica (2007), also excellent, speaks of this font that is now nearly fifty years old.  A sans-serif with a clean, neutral look, it has become something of the default font, especially in signage and advertising.  It's particularly popular in Europe.  You also see it in New York City's subway signs ... and the U.S. income tax forms.  It's neither saucy nor staid, just pleasantly rounded and healthy looking.  When I went grocery shopping the morning after seeing the film, I found that I had to be careful driving because I kept looking for (and finding) Helvetica.  On highway signs, the sides of trucks, buildings I passed.  Here (in Helvetica) is how one man in the film described it--he said the font gave one "that orange plastic Olivetti typewriter Roman Holiday espresso feeling." 

I found a sample on a pay-to-park ticket in my car

Freakonomics is a film based on the book by the same name--about the mix of popular culture, economic theory, and various statistics as it focuses on sumo wrestlers who cheat, the impact of the name one is given at birth, and ninth graders who are given bribes to see whether or not they will pass their courses.  Totally off the wall.

Then there are three excellent documentaries about current corruption.  You know, the power, greed, fraud stuff that's been going on.  Hacking Democracy (2006) deals with the extensive use of voting machines and how they are easily hacked.  (Very gripping.  Will anyone ever trust an election again?)  Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010) is about lobbyist Abramoff and the fraud, conspiracy, and tax evasion that sent him to prison.  And Inside Job (2010), an Oscar winner narrated by Matt Damon, details the 2008 economic collapse and corrupt banking practices. Good stuff.

Turning a Photo into a Painting: From Dark to Definition

Many artists don't approve of painting from a photo.  I do it for landscapes because it's often hard to find a comfortable shady spot to sit and paint ... or, if I do find one, then the scene in front of me isn't right ... or, even with a hat, the sun can get too hot ... or ants start crawling up my legs ... or it starts to rain.  So I often take photos and turn them into paintings in my studio rather than sit outside and paint plein air.  (However, I always do still lifes and flower arrangements from life.)  But now I thought it would be fun to show some Befores and Afters:  the photos I took and the paintings I then made from those photos.

What is important to keep in mind is that I don't follow the photo precisely.  I use it as a reminder:  composition ... what I felt about the scene when I first saw it ... and color, even if it's very dark as these photos are.  Take the immediate picture below.  I took it at sunrise in the Ladakh region of India, the mist not yet burned off, the Indus River only just evident as the sky lightened.  To my eye, the glories of the rising sun (which I could not yet see), obliterated the far scene but turned the nearer one rosy.  And a lovely viridian or even emerald green in the very left center indicated distant mountains.  So, I extrapolated a bit and put that color into the sky as well.  Also, though the photo reveals only the barest hint of sunlight on the middle-ground mountains, I remembered the scene as being lighter and so painted it that way.

The photo

1.  The oil painting.  (The symbol on the bottom middle is the Tibetan for "Om.")

Here is a similar shot taken from Pokhara, Nepal, when the night mists were giving way to the build-up of the morning's clouds that soon hid the mountains.  The sunrise here is evident on the high peaks.  As for the large cluster of bamboo on the lower right, it seemed too unidentifiable for the space it took up, so I left it out.  Nor did I like the left-hand tree "invading" the mists.

The photo

2.  The oil painting

Below is a Vermont scene that really only comes alive once it's painted.

A storm in May

This time I made two paintings--an oil and a watercolor:

3.  The oil painting

4.  The watercolor

Next is a photo I took on a walk early one summer morning when everything was enveloped in fog.  I obviously saw something that the camera muffled but that I was able to translate to the painting.

The photo

5.  The oil painting

Below is a winter scene just a little farther down the road from the one above.  I enjoyed enhancing the sky's lemon color.

The photo

6.  The oil painting

And a different view from the same place:

The photo

7.  The oil painting

Finally, here's another picture from the same area.  The photo is not quite as dark as it appears here.  I had fun finding a greenish color in the grey clouds and mirroring that in the middle tree.

The photo

8.  The oil painting

The paintings:
1.  Where the Indus Meets the Morning
2.  The Himalayas From Pokhara
3.  May Storm
4.  May Storm, Watercolor
5.  Foggy Morning
6.  Winter Light
7.  Winter Along Kipling Road, Oil
8.  A Random Afternoon

Another time I'll do a similar series with a different emphasis.

It's 4:53: Who Will It Be? Chris Matthews or Robert Frost?

If I had a hammock, I'd go lie in it these mid-summer afternoons, but since I don't, I settle in a chair around 4:30, put up my feet, and sit a bit, putting aside the busy part of the day and shifting to a time that will rest my bones.  I've figured out supper, maybe even done a bit of prep work.  I've poured something refreshing to drink.  I pick up a newly-arrived New Yorker.  Or, lately, with the news heating up, I watch Chris Matthews at 5:00, even with its interruptions, everyone talking at once, and head butting stuff.  But, soon enough (usually by the first commercial), what with all the partisan nonsense, political grid-lock, and posturing, I shake my head and turn it off.

(A bit of background here now.)  Sometimes, realizing I haven't turned to them in quite awhile, I make a project of re-listening to my old 33 RPM records ... or re-reading my books of poems.  Recently, not wanting to keep filling my head with those Beltway bashings, I got out my Robert Frost from college days, set it on the coffee table (where I'd be reminded to read it), and then went about my work.  A good solid Modern Library edition, it's a sturdy little book, easy to handle, easy to flip through.  As I set it down, I decided that Frost was possibly my favorite poet.  

A bit later, when it was in fact time to put up my feet, I sat awhile then saw that it was 4:53, nearly top-of-the-hour Chris Matthews time.  I looked at the remote control there beside me ... and I looked at my old college book there on the coffee table in front of me.  Which would I choose?  Voting for something meadowy, I picked up Frost and spent the rest of the afternoon amid stone walls, pasture springs, and star-like fireflies in the garden.

I've always liked Frost's common sense, his matter-of-factness, his home truths, edginess, and little surprises co-mingled with such language as "By June our brook's run out of song and speed." (1)  Or "Never tell me that not one star of all/That slip from heaven at night and softly fall/Has been picked up with stones to build a wall." (2) 

As I sat there, I re-read the two poems ingrained into the national psyche--Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ("Whose woods these are I think I know...") and The Road Not Taken ("Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...").  And the only poem I still remember by heart because, after a dear friend gave me a broadside of it that she'd made in a letter-press printing class, I hung it up and so see it everyday.

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

I also re-discovered Mowing, Mending Wall, The Oven Bird, A Time to Talk, New Hampshire, A Question, Fire and Ice.  And these:

Devotion

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.

Happiness Makes Up in Height For What It Lacks in Length

Oh, stormy stormy world,
The days you were not swirled
Around with mist and cloud,
Or wrapped as in a shroud,
And the sun's brilliant ball
Was not in part or all
Obscured from mortal view--
Were days so very few
I can but wonder whence
I get the lasting sense
Of so much warmth and light.
If my mistrust is right
It may be altogether
From one day's perfect weather,
When starting clear at dawn,
The day swept clearly on
To finish clear at eve.
I verily believe
My fair impression may
Be all from that one day
No shadow crossed but ours
As through its blazing flowers
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.

A Frostian scene with its New England stone wall

(1) Hyla Brook
(2) A Star in a Stone-Boat

(Since Frost's poems are now in the public domain, it's okay to include them here.)