2008 Lists: An Itemized Reflection

I'm thinking that I'm feeling listy [which is not unlike listless] and since I have a moment or two of time to myself today to spend as I please, I thought I'd blog. Most of the rest of the week is spoken for, what with New Years Eve, the annual New Years Day working at Moogys, syllabi to write, and interviewing job candidates at the AHA, so, today I'm just being a sluggo and procrastinating from taking all of the ornaments off of the tree, which I will do upon completing this entry. I think, in the waning days of 2008, it's appropriate to reflect on the year:

LISTS:

Top 5 movies I saw this month [in no particular order]:

Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Wall-E [I love this movie--really--I think I just love Wall-E]

5 movies I wanted to see this year but haven't yet: [Have you seen them? Are they good?]

Rachel Getting Married
Happy Go Lucky
Religulous
Gran Torino
Revolutionary Road
Vicky Christina Barcelona
The Wrestler
[Okay, that's 7....]

5 movies I saw this year that really made me laugh:

Role Models
Pineapple Express
Zach and Miri Make a Porno
Mamma Mia [even though it was silly]
Tropic Thunder [even though it was ridiculous]


Number of Movies on Moviefone's 50 Best Movies of 2008 that I have seen: 18
Conclusion: I love to go to the movies.
Okay, enough movie lists.

5 Books I'm reading right now:

Artie Lang, Too Fat To Fish [Yes, I am a faithful Stern Show Listener]
Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
JK Rowling, Tales of Beedle the Bard
Donna Cassidy, Marsden Hartley: Race, Region, and Nation
Shawn Michelle Smith, Photography on the Color Line: WEB Dubois, Race, and Visual Culture

My Favorite Blogs to Read:

Perez Hilton
Tales of a Postdoc Nothing
Sweetpea Cooks
Seriously?Seriously.
All of the Historical Site Visit Blogs my History of Maine Students Made [they're great].

Five Favorite Things I Ate Over the Extended Holiday Season:

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Blueberry Gingerbread
My Mom's Iced Sugar Cookies
The Deep-Fried Thanksgiving Turkey

The Best Christmas Card of 2008:
Morgan Lake Adams and Tim Schneider's 2008 Lexicon

The Ten Best Places I Visited in Maine this Year [Okay, 11]:

Acadia National Park
Fort Scammel on House Island
Moosehead Lake
Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village
Peaks Island
Fort McClary in Kittery
The Victoria Mansion in Portland
The Andre Kertesz show at the Portland Museum of Art [also the O'Keeffe show rocked!]
Sebago Lake State Park [our campsite was amazing]
Abbe Museum[s] in Bar Harbor and Sieur de Monts

Admiral Peary's House, Eagle Island

My favorite Local Maine Restaurants of 2008: [in this order]

Local 188, Portland [for brunch]
Frog and Turtle, Westbrook, if it wasn't so pricy, I'd eat there more often. Mmmm French-Canadian Fusion
The Treehouse Cafe [great sandwiches--right across from USM Gorham--glad they moved in]
Rosemont [Great Bakery and Local Foods on the way to USM Portland]
DuckFat [Fries were sublime]
Bangkok Thai
Norm's
Bintliff's [love their pancakes]

Magazines/Journals I currently subscribe to [and wish I had time to read]:

The New Yorker
DownEast
Harper's
US Weekly
Maine History

Databases I wish the USM Library Could Afford:

JSTOR
Artstor

Books Assigned this semester that resulted in the best overall papers from my students:

Sarah Orne Jewett's Country of the Pointed Firs
James McPherson's For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
Leon Litwack's Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery

Best New Recipes I tried this year: [Ask if you want them]

Blueberry Gingerbread
Grilled Chicken With Blueberry Salsa
Thai Lettuce Wraps with Spicy Pork and Pineapple
Downeast Pumpkin Bread
Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

Most Unique Party We Attended:
Morgan and Tim's Hard Cider Tasting

Best 2008 Moment:
Obama's Election

Best Consequence of a Shitty Economy:
The lowest gas prices in recent memory [at one point in 2008, it cost me $54 to fill up the subaru--now it's $23]

Ten Most Listened to Songs in my Itunes [for 2008]:

Artist,                     Song
Sufjan Stevens, Casmir Pulaski Day
Alexi Murdoch, All of My Days
The Decemberists, My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist
Adele, Hometown Glory
The Decemberists, Here I Dreamt I was an Architect
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Alone Apart
Sia, Breathe Me
Bon Iver, Skinny Love
Fire, Augustana
Varied David Sedaris Spoken Word Stories

Best thing I started Listening to Religiously this year:
This American Life [Better Late then Never]

Favorite TV Shows I Started Watching this Year:

Gossip Girl
Friday Night Lights

Biggest Life Changes: 

Starting a Tenure-Track Job and Buying a "Grown-up" House

Most Interesting and Picturesque Place I Visited this Year:
Aghada, County Cork, Ireland.

Favorite Things About Our New House:

It's in the White Rock Section of Gorham [rural, granges, cows, old barns, etc].

The kitchen is big and well-laid out so many people can cook at the same time.

It has lovely light all throughout the downstairs.

The dishwasher [haven't had one in years].

The Color of the Dining Room [A sort of dusky plum].
Plenty of Room for visitors [stop in!]

Favorite Grocery Store:

Hannafords

Favorite Farm Stores/Stands:

Smiling Hill [Milk and Ice Cream], North Scarborough

Windy Hill [Pumpkins, Meat, etc], Wyndham

Favorite Place to Buy Local Food:

Rosemont Bakery

Research Fellowships Won to work on my new book Maine/Modern:

One month at the Beinecke at Yale

Three Weeks at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson

Best thing about working and teaching at USM:

My unpretentious and very interesting students

How many feet off my PR I currently am in the hammer throw:

At least 25 [only about 6 in the weight throw, though], but it's fun to be throwing again!

Favorite New Class I Taught:

History of Maine

Best Track and Field Purchase of 2008:

My awesome black and silver Nike Zoom Rotational Throwing Shoes [They rock!]

Favorite New Game I Played:

Rummikub [new for me that is]

And Finally, My Favorite Photographs that I took this year:

Happy 2009 to All!

xoxo,

Libby

Addendum Lists [After Reading Megan's]

Things I'm most grateful for this year:

Getting a tenure-track job [that technically happened in 2007, but started in 2008]
No melanoma recurrences
Our lovely new home
My super husband
My family
Kate moving back to the east coast ;)
A continuing friendship with Jonathan and Chris from Santa Fe

Things I'm most proud of this year:

My ever-increasing knowledge about Maine
Getting 2 new fellowships [and maybe more]
Deciding to move on from revising my dissertation and work on my new book instead
Sticking to [most of the time] Steve's budget

On Hosting Thanksgiving.

It's 7:35am on Black Friday Morning [really, do they need to name the day "Black Friday?" Maybe this year it will be Red Friday b/c no one is financially solvent] and my parents have just departed back to Cape Cod. For some reason, on a day off from school, I'm up this early and so why not do a little post?

My parents sold the house they've lived in in Hopkinton for the past 16 years on November 4th and have not yet closed on their new house on the Cape, so, as the oldest of the six children, and the only one with a house that can hold my family, it fell on me to host Thanksgiving. I had been looking forward to it, certainly. Even though we fought brutally as children, we actually really enjoy each other's company now that we range from 21-31, and, with all of us scattered from Maine to Buffalo and lots of places in between, it's rare that we get to see each other. Plus, my sister Megan's boyfriend was here visiting her from Pakistan (where he's been a correspondent for Time) via London, and, plus #2, we also invited Steve's parents to come up because their children are all scattered too. All told, it was dinner for 12 [which ended up being 11 b/c my brother Mike didn't come b/c he was sick] and I have to say, overall, it went rather well.

What I would do again:

1) Fry a turkey.

My mom gave Steve a turkey fryer for Christmas last year, and, although he's used it on a boy's weekend, I've never had one, and neither had the majority of our dinner guests. Aside from the ghastly $70 it cost for the 6 gallons of peanut oil needed for the operation, the result was AMAZING. Nearly everyone preferred it to the roasted oven turkey [which was also excellent]. I made my own rub of salt, pepper, oregano, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a healthy dose of green chile powder from Hatch, New Mexico. We injected the turkey with small amounts of a marinade made from beer, butter, worcestershire, and tabasco. I recommend this process [as long as you do it outside and have an intrepid significant other willing to drop a 13 lb bird into 5 gallons of 350 degree oil out on your patio]

2) Make pumpkin chiffon pie

We were dinner guests at a colleague's a week or so ago, and she made this amazing light and fluffy pumpkin pie that tasted more like a custard. It was incredible and I immediately asked for the recipe. I'll post it below--point of order--make sure the egg whites are really stiff and allow the pie to chill for 4+ hours. The result is divine, and I think when I finish the post, I'm going to have a piece for breakfast. Yum!

Ingredients
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 cup milk
2 slightly beaten egg yolks
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped
1 graham cracker crust

Combine the first 7 ingredients in saucepan. Stir in milk, egg yolks, and pumpkin. Cook and stir over medium heat till mixture boils (gently) and gelatin dissolves. Remove from heat and chill until partially set.

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat to stiff peaks. Fold into pumpkin mixture with whipped cream. Pile into crust and chill until firm.

3) Make my own Cranberry Sauce

It will never come out of a can in my house again. SO, easy! Just boil some cranberries, water, and sugar [the simple version, I also added grated ginger, orange peel, the juice of one orange, and toasted pecans to one version] and then simmer until it's the consistency you like.

4) Make only a big plate of fancy cheese and crackers for hors d'oeuvres.

No one overdid it on pre-gaming SO by the time the 2:30 meal rolled around, everyone was starving.

5) Use my fiestaware

I contemplated busting out the wedding china, but at the end of the day, not hand washing 12 place-settings is OK with me.

6) Polish my mother-in-law's silver

Steve's mom gave me alot of antique Bischof and Oschwald family silver this summer so I decided to polish it up for the holiday. It was lovely, and made her happy to see it used.

7) Go for a post-Thanksgiving meal stroll in the woods.

We've lived here since May and were unaware of the enormous network of well marked trails in the woods behind our house. We were also unaware of the old, burned out and junked Chevy directly behind our house too. Interesting. My youngest sister, a criminal justice major, was so intrigued by the mystery of the car that she pretty much has a CSI Maine show planned ;).

8) Get up at 6am to go into Portland and Register People for the Turkey Day 4-Miler

My head track coach has been hosting a Thanksgiving Day race for 27 years in Portland. It's a huge fundraiser for our women's team at USM. This year 1200 people ran--it was really fun to check them in and talk to people about it, and to see how many families made running the race a tradition.

I was going to make a comparable list of what I wouldn't do again, but there wouldn't be much on there. We had a really nice day, and I'm thankful for both mine and Steve's families. We have great and generous parents and I look forward to more combined Thanksgivings. It was really nice to not split the day, or alternate it yearly in order to see both sets of parents. Solution--just have everybody over!! ;)

The pre-dinner table:

Jack-o-lantern graveyard--one of the loveliest sights I've ever seen [no exaggeration]

Bruce, a very nice older gentleman who is in my History of Maine class (and who happens to live down the street from me), thought to let me in on a little local Halloween secret. Every year, at a remote graveyard on North Gorham Road on the way to Windham [about 10 minutes from my house], someone carves and lights over 300 jack-o-lanterns and puts them all over the cemetery--on graves, on tombs and monuments, on the ground, all over. It's technically anonymous, but most people think it's the people across the street. There's no advertising, just tradition and local custom. If you know about it or happen upon it, you go; if not, you miss out. They've apparently been doing it for years.

I went at dusk, just after the pumpkins were lit, and it was one of the loveliest sights I've ever seen. All the faces and designs on the jack-o-lanterns were different. The pumpkins were little and huge and every size and shape in between. I walked around wide-eyed with such a profound sense of wonder. I literally have never seen anything like it, have never imagined anything like it. It was literally magical time, the in-between time [dusk] where you think literally anything could happen. So much thought and reverence went in to this one act that it makes one believe that the world is still a good place, the kind of place you want to raise children in, the kind of place you hope this country can be, the kindness of strangers to strangers--dead and living.

The pumpkins flickered, people wandered around and were just totally entranced by the magic of the scene. They stumbled in from neighboring houses, parked cars on the side of the road, and wandered in wide eyed. Some took pictures, others just gazed from pumpkin to pumpkin, some brought children, others wandered alone. People smiled at one another, acknowledging mutual amazement.

The graveyard is old, most of the graves from the 18th and 19th century, some from the 20th, and honestly, what better way than to honor their spirits on the eve before All Souls Day. I'll include some pictures for you, but they in no way do it justice. They record the sight, but not the spirit.

I rushed home [Steve was awaiting trick-or-treaters in my absence] and told Steve to get in the car and go--that he couldn't miss this sight. He didn't believe me at first, I think, but he came home a believer. There was magic in Gorham that night, and I got to see it. I feel so lucky. I hope you get to see it one day. I cannot remember ever feeling so transported by a scene.

On Finding Inspiration in Unexpected Places....

So, let's just say that I've been a little lacking in inspiration lately, and I needed a healthy dose in order to complete a grant application for a few weeks at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson this summer to dive in to the Paul Strand archives for my Maine/Moderns project about modernists in Georgetown, Maine. The problem with my office at school [besides the chilly temperature] is that I am surrounded by coursework--things to read and grade, lectures to write, recommendation letters to do, knocks at the door, department business ad infinitum. The problem with home is that I don't have a good work space set up yet [coming soon to a formal living room=Libby's office] and I'm easily distracted by home improvement projects and my extensive tivo list. So, where to write [or how to find yet more ways to make excuses while not writing]?

On my way home from school tonight, ca. 7:30pm, I was hungry and decided to stop at the Gorham House of Pizza for a sub. I brought in my bag, took out my laptop while I was waiting for dinner, and, while the TV was blaring ESPN's "Sportscenter" and the radio was playing any variety of John Mayer, Kelly Clarkson, etc. I started typing. 90 minutes, 2 diet cokes, and an eggplant parmesan sub later, the CCP application was complete--footnotes and all. I wasn't expecting to work there, but in a laminate booth, free from MY distractions, and free from wireless internet, I got inspired, and then just went with it. I'll proofread and send it off tomorrow--a healthy 10 days before the deadline.

So, maybe this is why I always see people on laptops in coffee houses. Maybe I should have learned some more lessons from the Kertesz exhibit "On Reading" [see earlier post]. I need to be caught writing. Not grading, not reading, but writing. I'm going to work on being caught more often. And I'm going to seek out some new laminate booths. It doesn't have to be a quiet place, but it has to be free from my constant distractions and/or reminders thereof. And that, my friends, is a lesson I've been needing to figure out for quite some time now. Free from excuses, it's time to start writing again. We'll see what else becomes clear after tomorrow's yoga class.

Columbus Day Weekend in Five Islands, ME

Reid State Park, Georgetown, ME
F. Holland Day House, Five Islands, ME
View from the back porch of Day House

It almost felt like Indian Summer in Maine this weekend, and you could've sworn it might have been early September--weather in the mid-60s, clear blue skies, and a warm breeze. Steve took Friday off and we headed up to Georgetown, ME, a small town outside of Bath where the F. Holland Day House is located. I've been coming to the Day house ever since I was researching my dissertation on F. Holland Day in 2001 and met the owner. I wrote a lot of my dissertation there, and it still serves as sort of a touchstone for me--it's one of those places that I walk in and just feel like I am home. It's a lovely and inspiring place [as evidenced in the photographs above], used now in the summers as a healing retreat for women with cancer. The environment always gets my creative juices flowing, and I wrote a grant proposal to work on a Maine photographer--Chansonetta Stanley Emmons--while I was up there--and also went treasure hunting in the Little Good Harbor (behind the house). As you can see in the photograph below, I found lots! I have been collecting seaglass ever since I was little, and I found some great pieces at low tide, as well as some beautiful old pottery shards, which are the real prize of any beachcomber. They've already found homes on various windowsills at home.



We spent most of the weekend outside enjoying the weather and the landscape. The leaves were in full color--some stunning oranges, reds and yellows and we took advantage of our proximity to Reid State Park [about 1/2 mile from the Day house] and went and walked the beach on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday, our friends the Delcourts who live in Portland drove up and we all watched their 2-year old daughter Nola fill endless buckets with ice cold seawater only to dump it out and do it all over again. I loved the water like that when I was little--still do. We took the Delcourts down to Five Islands Wharf where lunch was being served for the last time until next summer. The dock was crowded with leaf peepers and tourists hungry for lobster and other seafood, and we sat on a picnic table overlooking the harbor eating our lunch and enjoying the company for ages.

After the Delcourts headed back to Portland, Steve and I decided that we would go and play some disc golf [frisbee golf] at a local course in Brunswick [Enmon Field]. It was a great course, and we spent a few hours hiking through the woods chasing frisbees and hitting targets. It's a great sport if you've never played--same principle as regular golf, only with frisbees. Greens fees tend to be a good deal cheaper ($5 round) and it's something we started playing in Massachusetts a few years ago. We also have a great course about 10 minutes from our house in Gorham. Come up some weekend, and we'll take you out to play ;).

We headed home early Sunday afternoon so Steve could get his weekly football fix, and now it's Monday, and back to work. I'm off to revise a conference paper to submit as a potential article for a book being published in conjunction with the conference--about Transatlantic Women Writers. WIsh me luck! Then it's on to making up Midterms for next week. It's hard to believe it's midterm already, but I'm not complaining ;). Things are about to get alot busier, and I'm just grateful for the October respite that is/was Fall Break. I needed to clear my head, and thanks to our jaunt to Five Islands--mission accomplished!

October Break, Sigh.

Anne Brigman, Japonesque Tidal Islands on the Coast of Maine
Paul Strand, 2 views of Iris, Georgetown, ME

"I will look at cliffs and clouds
with quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass
and the grass rise."
--"Afternoon on a Hill," Edna St. Vincent Millay

I've never taught anywhere that's had an October Break before. Even though it's only two days, and one of them is Columbus Day, I'm kind of excited. We just finished week 6--the best of intentions from the start of the semester are beginning to fade--absences increase, eyes look a little sleepier in class--this is the perfect time to regroup. And so, I will take Millay's wise advice this weekend. I promise to look with quiet eyes up in Five Islands where we're off to tomorrow. I'm excited to gaze off into the distance, walk by the ocean, and go to the place in this world that makes me happiest--F. Holland Day's House. Time just seems to stop there; my whole body relaxes when I walk through the door. I don't think it's an accident that so many photographers found inspiration there over the years. It's one of the few places I've been [and I've been a lot of places] where the environment can so quickly shape a mood of peace of contentment. So, with two grant applications and an article to finish, I hope to be inspired a bit, and to get some work done that's not a lecture, or paper assignment, or a big pile of essays to grade. I just want to read and write and get lost in it. I'll take some pictures and post them at the end of the weekend so you can see why I love it there so much. Off to bed!

Obscure Wedding Readings and Mindfulness.

Gentle reader, It was 38 degrees in Gorham this morning when I got in the outback to traipse off to school. Brrrr. It's only October 6th, and, since my school has some--how shall we say this nicely--"fiscal challenges," they've decided not to spring for heat just yet. Good thing I wore a wool poncho (which served mostly as a portable blanket for the better part of the day). It might be time to dust off the space heater. I must admit to sneakily turning on the heat for the first time at home this evening while Steve is away working in Massachusetts--not too high--61 degrees--just enough to ease the chill. It's working; I'm thawing.

I spent the better part of the weekend in Providence, Rhode Island attending the nuptials of Mark, one of my best college buddies, and his lovely bride Stephanie. I was asked to do a reading at the wedding and I must say, although I'm not typically one for bible verses [being a somewhat lapsed Catholic]--it was a particularly lovely reading [no 1 Corinthians here] and so I'll quote from it below.

From the Letter to the Hebrews:

Brothers and sisters:
Let mutual love continue.
Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.
Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment,
and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you are also in the body.
Let marriage be honored among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled.
Let your life be free from love of money but be content with what you have,
for thus he has said, I will never forsake or abandon you.
Thus we may say with confidence: the Lord is my helper and I shall not be afraid.

Maybe it's because I practiced it a few times and read it over a lot [slowly] so I could say it with meaning [the priest asked me at the rehearsal if I read for a living--I told him close enough--I stand in front of students all day and lecture], but it struck me as good advice for a marriage/partnership, and advice particularly relevant for our tumultuous financial times. I like the idea of letting mutual love continue. I'm a fan of hospitality. But most of all, I needed the message of being content with what you have. Being content with what we have is, at times, more difficult than it should be--at least for me. Being new homeowners [again] saddled with some debt from school, our first house, and my time as a grad student, we're sticking to a pretty tight budget. My husband is so good about it, but I catch myself resenting it sometimes. Old spending habits die hard, I suppose, but doing this reading on Saturday gave me pause. I have a lot--a great marriage,a wonderful family, good friends, a lovely home in a place I am growing to love more and more each day, a job and some financial security in this terrible market, more books than I could ever read, my health--the list goes on, but I'll spare you the rest of it. I should be content; I'm working on it ;). And I'm working on being more mindful. I'm even listening to some heady new age music while blogging and thinking that I really need to find a good yoga class to attend at least once a week.

This Columbus Day weekend we're heading up to the F. Holland Day House in Georgetown, ME for the weekend [the summer home of the photographer I write about] and I look forward to using my little "October Break" as a time to get re-inspired to write and to just soak in the rocky coastal landscape of Little Good Harbor that served as inspiration and muse to a whole cadre of artists and writers in the early-1900s. I plan on doing some long walks, some serious camera work as well as some writing. The leaves are turning here [too quickly] and my eyes formulate photographs wherever I look these days. I need to savor the fall because it comes and goes so quickly here. Time for bed. Good Night.

On Reading, Andre Kertesz

It's been quite awhile since I've blogged--nearly a year in fact--and it's high time to start again. I must say that I did not think to start up again on my own, but reading the blogs of some friends from grad school has inspired me, and, at the very least it gets me writing something other than comments at the bottom of papers I am grading! In fact, I will admit to you, and you only, dear reader, that part of my impetus for blogging again is to start thinking aloud [blogging aloud] about ideas for my new project. So, sometimes you will see commentary on the life in Maine I am enjoying so much, and other times, you will probably see random musings about the modernists I am working on. If you have ideas or suggestions on either my life in Maine, or my modernists, do let me know.

It's late, and I should be getting to bed soon to rest up for an early morning US 1800-1900 discussion of Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, BUT, before I do that, I wanted to just muse a bit on an exhibit I went to see this afternoon at the Portland Museum of Art. I'm very glad that I am a member of this museum, and I can say that since becoming a member this summer I've been at least four times--twice to see Susan Danly's O'Keeffe and the Camera show. Today I went to see the new Impressionist show traveling from the Brooklyn Museum of Art [two thoughts: if you've seen one impressionist show, you've seen them all; why does the Brooklyn museum have such a large collection of French impressionists] but after a quick perusal of a well hung but slightly boring group of pleasant plein-air pieces from the 1880s, I ventured up to take a look at the smaller show, Andre Kertesz, "On Reading." Kertesz was a Hungarian born photographer who, like Henri Cartier Bresson and others, really made street photography into an art form. This show is a collection of his photographs from all over the world, spanning three or four decades, simply of people reading. Not people reading and posing, but just people lost in books, newspapers, magazines, in all sorts of positions. Men on park benches, far away views of people caught on rooftops sunbathing with their books, women on trains in Japan, backstage glances of a clown reading a book before going on stage, boys reading newspapers while sitting on piles of newspapers, etc. None of the photographs were overly large, some were only a few inches tall, but I was hooked from the first one I saw. Why? Well, I've been thinking about that very question all evening.

I think partially it's because I love his angles, the street photography, the unposed snapshot quality, the black and white prints. But more than that, I think it's because I love to read and I love to read wherever I can, so what really made me like this show so much is how it resonated with me. I caught myself smiling at grown men sitting against a tree in a park reading in the middle of a day, or women looking at bookstalls in Paris while walking their dogs. I thought of all the places over the years that I've been caught reading--on a bench in Belgium, under the trees at Hovey House when I was in grad school and Andy Bunie remarked on how great life was when all you had to do was sit under a tree and read [he was right], on the beach, on the T, on bleachers while waiting for track meets to get over, in the back seat of the car when I was little and trying to escape from a house crowded with five other siblings, in bed, on the couch, in the backyard, at my desk, in the basement of Bapst in college.....This list could go on forever. It also really struck me at how universal the act of reading is. Kertesz caught unsuspecting people lost in words all over the world. And the exhibit also made me sad. These images were mostly from the 1940s and the 1960s and I was thinking that if I set out to do a similar series these days, I wouldn't catch so many people reading. I would, instead, catch them texting on cell-phones, typing away on their laptops, pecking away at their blackberries. And, while I think that would be an interesting series, I think I'd rather catch people reading. I'd rather be caught reading. Midnight approaches and it's time for bed. If you find yourself in Portland, go see the Kertesz show, it's up through November. If not--just look for some of his photographs and lose yourself in the very mundane nature of the subject matter.

Inspiration

For we are married to this rocky coast,
To the charge of huge waves upon it,
The ceaseless war, the tide gained and then lost,
And ledges worn down smooth but not downcast--
Wild rose and granite.

May Sarton, "The Waves"