What If Madge Were Chicana?

You’re Soaking in it, pen and ink doodle on graph paper, doodle © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.



Madge: Ei, alá, you’re so-king in it…

Client: ¡Chale! ¿De véras?

Madge: Sí, hombre, te digo la verdad.

Client: ¡Oralé! ¿Qué pasó? Was there a ganga at Dollar Store?

Madge: Bitche, how did you know??



-Inspired by Topic post, Cleanliness.
-Related to post, Everything I Know About Cleaning I Learned From My Mother.

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The 1960’s — What Was America Reading?

BookMark, Minneapolis Central Library, downtown Minneapolis, through the rain, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Time for another decade of bestselling books. At the end of the 1960’s, gas was 39¢ a gallon, a 1962 Jaguar XKE would set you back $4,500, and James Bond in Goldfinger grossed $23 million at the box office. Twiggy was big (I just saw her flash by the TV screen last night on America’s Top Model), along with hiphuggers, bellbottoms, collarless Nehru jackets, and cashmere turtlenecks.

People were buzzing about Foster Grants, Duncan yo-yo’s, new math, Dolby noise reduction, macrame, K-Mart, the Twist, the Chicago 8, draft dodgers, Teflon, and St. Louis’s Gateway arch, the world’s tallest monument.

The American 60’s were turbulent, violent, optimistic, free loving, and slow moving. If it was your generation you were either hip, jock, rock, or nerd. If it wasn’t, well, it lives on in the mythology that surrounds it.

The 60’s were big enough to hold Capote, Sontag, Kesey, Plath, Robbins, Baldwin, Ginsberg, Puzo, Hailey, Vonnegut, Nin, Miller, Didion, and Vidal. You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read. You can also tell a lot about a culture. In the 1960’s, for better or worse, here’s what America was reading.

1 9 6 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

F I C T I O N

1. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone
2. Franney and Zooey, J. D. Salinger
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
4. The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck
5. The Reivers, William Faulkner
6. Dearly Beloved, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
7. The Shoes of the Fisherman, Morris L. West
8. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour–An Introduction, J. D. Salinger
9. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré
10. Up the Down Staircase, Bel Kaufman
11. The Man with the Golden Gun, Ian Fleming
12. Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
13. All in the Family, Edwin O’Connor
14. The Adventurers, Harold Robbins
15. The Confessions of Nat Turner, William Styron
16. The Chosen, Chaim Potok
17. The Exhibitionist, Henry Sutton
18. Airport, Arthur Hailey
19. The Salzburg Connection, Helen MacInnes
20. The Tower of Babel, Morris L. West
21. Preserve and Protect, Allen Drury
22. Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
23. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
24. The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
25. Naked Came the Stranger, Penelope Ashe
26. The House on the Strand, Daphne du Maurier
27. The Love Machine, Jacqueline Susann
28. Myra Breckinridge, Gore Vidal
29. Christy, Catherine Marshall
30. The Pretenders, Gwen Davis

 

           Minneapolis Central Library, looking straight up, through the rain,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture
by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by
QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

1 9 6 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

N O N F I C T I O N

1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer
2. The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater
3. I Kid You Not, Jack Paar
4. Between You, Me and the Gatepost, Pat Boone
5. Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book
6. Calories Don’t Count, Dr. Herman Taller
7. Sex and the Single Girl, Helen Gurley Brown
8. Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck
9. The Joy of Cooking: New Edition, Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker
10. Security Is a Thumb and a Blanket, Charles M. Schulz
11. I Owe Russia $1200, Bob Hope
12. Profiles in Courage: Memorial Edition, John F. Kennedy
13. In His Own Write, John Lennon
14. Reminiscences, General Douglas MacArthur
15. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
16. A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, Jim Bishop
17. How To Be a Jewish Mother, Dan Greenburg
18. A Gift of Prophecy, Ruth Montgomery
19. A Thousand Days, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
20. The Making of the President, 1964, Theodore H. White
21. How to Avoid Probate, Norman F. Dacey
22. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
23. Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, Phyllis Diller
24. Misery Is a Blind Date, Johnny Carson
25. Death of a President, William Manchester
26. Edgar Cayce–The Sleeping Prophet, Jess Stearn
27. The Weight Watcher’s Cook Book, Jean Nidetch
28. The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull
29. My Life and Prophecies, Jeane Dixon with René Noorberger
30. Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, Linda Goodman

 

 

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, August 30th, 2007

-Resources:  1960’s Bestsellers List at Cader Books, Writer’s Dream Tools, and The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library

-related to posts: The 1950’s — What Was America Reading?, The 1970’s —  What Was America Reading?

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I Saw A Crane Today

A Room with a View, downtown San Jose, CA, August 30, 2007, photo ©
2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

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Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

Arriving San Jose, CA, August 29, 2007, photo © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.


I don’t know if it’s my cell phone camera, the older airplane, or San Jose, but something about this photo reminds me of a bygone era.

We’re staying in downtown San Jose. I love it.

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Because QM Helps Me Focus

QuoinMonkey has been sick since the wee hours of Monday morning. Bless her heart. I’m traveling right now, and I wanted to see if I had a doodle stored in my computer that might be a good omen for her to get better. Alas, I had nothing. Well, except for an apple shot I took on Monday evening.

Sorry, QM, it’s not very get-well-oriented, but at least it’s an apple, and you know what they say about apples. Unfortunately, it’s out of focus, but I feel a bit that way myself when you’re out of sorts. So, get well, my friend. There are things-on-sticks awaiting your tastebuds.

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Everything I Know About Cleaning I Learned From My Mother

I have a picture in my head of Mom. She’s wearing soft denim shorts to just above her knees. Her hair is in curlers, a red bandana tied around the curlers, a cigarette on her lip. Next to her, on the floor, is a flat metal ashtray, the kind that folds like tin when you bend it. We are both sitting on a rug in front of the TV. She’s watching Another World. Mom likes the plain-looking older woman, Ada, but not Rachel, Ada’s daughter. I’m not allowed to talk while the action is taking place; fortunately, commercials come on every few minutes.

Mom watches Another World every day at this hour, shortly before our nap and right after our lunch. She only superficially follows As the World Turns and General Hospital. General Hospital is the hottest thing going on in soap opera drama, but Mom has never been one to follow trends. It is Ada and Rachel she is faithful to.

This particular day Mom has a basket of clothing by her side, and like one of those chowders you buy nowadays that comes in a bowl made of bread, Mom’s basket of clothing never seems to get all the way down to the bottom. She folds, smokes, watches TV. Smokes, watches TV, folds again.

I have had this memory before, and in it Mom is sometimes watching something other than Another World. One time it is John F. Kennedy’s assassination or funeral, I’m not sure which, although I do know I would have been too young to remember either. Yet, the details of that memory are especially acute: the orange cotton jumper Mom is folding, the one she sewed herself for Janet. The white hard plastic of the laundry basket. The cold tiles on the floor where my hand rests. What it is about that spot? Did we sit there often?

I am always young in my memory of that place, as is Mom. We are both earnest, both willing to be the best we can be at our respective roles. Mom is still willing to take her laundry basket with her to wherever she goes to sit; she still folds the clothes into piles while smoking her cigarettes and watching her soap. She is still kind to me, making me lunch, trying to show me the ways of moms.

Later on, in a newer house, she will keep all the clothes in a basket underneath the ironing board perpetually set up, but rarely used, in the master bedroom. The basket will get so full of clean clothes that a second one will be employed. All my clothes and those of my sister and brother will be stuffed into those two baskets, shirts on top of socks, pants on top of shirts, occasionally a set of clean sheets or a bedspread thrown on top of the entire heap. By the time any of us pulls out an item to wear, it will be so wrinkled from the weight of every other item that no amount of ironing, not even with steam nor the spray of a water bottle, will take out the indentations that soon become the hallmark of our fashion.

By then I will be sassy and sarcastic towards Mom. I will snarl at her, call her names, become an unruly teenager. I will throw a bottle of nail polish at her when she makes a snide comment about my boyfriend. But in that one long-ago memory, the one where Mom and I sit on the floor together, I watch her with big eyes. I notice how well she maneuvers her many devices — the television, the clothes, her cigarettes, the ashtray. I love everything about her, especially her smell, which I now realize is exactly the scent of clean laundry.

I wonder what it is about folding clothes that repeats itself, like a little ballerina doing pirouettes in my mind. Why not washing dishes or dusting, or scrubbing floors on her hands and knees? Mom wasn’t the kind of housewife who wore an apron. She didn’t whistle while she worked, nor did she sing. Mom didn’t buy into brand names — Tide and Palmolive (“you’re soaking in it!”). She called all powder disinfectant cleaners “Ajax,” even when she bought Comet. (Comet…it makes you vomit…so buy Comet, and vomit, too-dayyy…)

When I think of Mom and cleaning, I think of conflict. I think of anger and resentment. She hated to clean. She was so impatient she wouldn’t even allow us to clean. “I’ll make your beds, just get out of my hair,” she told us. Mom was a nervous wreck (her words) when I was growing up. She had too many kids, and eventually things started to happen. Teen pregnancy, drugs, smoking, drinking.

She wasn’t a controlling woman; she only cared that things were “clean enough.” But cleaning was just one more chore she never really wanted to sign up for. Mom was happiest when she was sitting over coffee with Tomasita from across the street or playing poker with her friends or watching her soap opera.

Maybe that’s why this particular memory of folding clothes while watching TV comes to me again and again. And this, always this: She asks me to go get her a glass of water. I jump up and run to the kitchen. There on the counter is an open package of windmill cookies with almond slivers. I take a piece of a broken cookie, put it my mouth and let it melt while I fill up her glass. It is quiet in the house for once, just the sound of breathy voices coming from the television, and that stark sensation that daytime TV produces. While the the rest of the world is out doing what they do and Mom is here with me, doing what it is we do.

-Based on a ten-minute practice from Topic Post, Cleanliness.

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A Letter To Agnes Martin And A Surprise Reply

By Joanne Hunt



Agnes Martin Room, Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico, August 2007, photo © 2007 by Kevin Moul. All rights reserved.


Dear Agnes,

I’m back in Taos. It’s February and as I slow-walked from Mabel Dodge this afternoon, I scuffed through snow still lying on the ground. I’ve paid my seven dollars to gain entry to the Harwood Museum but all I will visit today is you. I feel at home in this octagonal room. The four yellow wood benches clustered under the skylight in the center; simple in their symmetry. The horizontal golden hardwood planks that run across the floor soothe and ground your work. I am, as ever, stunned by the seven linen canvases that surround me.

I am sitting in my usual place on the floor leaned against the white wall next to the absent eighth wall that forms the canopied entrance. I am wearing my faded black cotton pants and shirt. I don’t think you’ve seen me in anything but black. Few people have. I have been doing sitting practice in the zendo at Mabel’s for many hours today. I feel still and wide and ready for you.

As I look out at your paintings, these incredible 5’ X 5’ canvasses of pale blue and white, I am both deeply content and anguished. I won’t be back to visit for awhile – probably not until December. It is a difficult good bye because I have been coming here every three months for a year. I’ve gotten used to these trips to the Harwood. Like a trip to a favourite church or synagogue where you can sit forever in some form of prayer or communion. Silent. Unmoving. This room is as familiar to me as the zendo in my own home. This is my sixth visit and I am still awed to sit here.

It has been three years since that first November afternoon when I walked into this room, felt my lungs contract and my body hit the floor as my knees buckled. Gasping and wide eyed I looked around the room, overcome with emotion. I crawled over to this spot against the wall and carefully gazed out while steadying my shaking body. I have never had a painter’s work strike me so deeply. Each time I come here to sit and write, I can feel myself preparing to walk again into this room. Each time you hold a mirror up to me. Like an aunt who sees her niece once a year and registers how much she’s grown in a way that parents can’t. I see myself and where my writing is during each visit here. With each trip to Taos, this room is my Writer’s barometer.

I don’t want to leave Taos. I don’t want to head home. I have let my life get fuzzy. Cluttered up. Too much. Too full. When I get back to Ottawa, I am going to clear out some of the piles to make room. I am not sure what I am making room for but I will do it anyway. I want to live cleanly like you. Clear. Crisp. No distractions. I want to live directly. Single-pointed. Nothing extra.

Agnes, is there anything you want to tell me?

 

Ordinary Happiness, crop of Agnes Martin painting, Ordinary Happiness, Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico, July 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Yes, Joanne
You can do it.

Don’t be so hard on yourself and be ruthless too. I threw out all my early paintings and I never regretted it. I hadn’t found my form. I needed to clear everything out. Some art is going to have to die in your book in order to bring clarity. Don’t be afraid to get rid of stuff.

Don’t be afraid to move to smaller canvases.
Don’t make excuses.
Don’t explain.
Don’t justify.
Do what you need to do.

Not everyone will love your art. Some people don’t like mine. They just see stripes. Oh, and by the way, they are just stripes. Don’t make them such a big deal.

They’re No Big Deal and they’re a Very Big Deal.
Both.

Just like how you wrote the two sides of your aspiration on the altar in the zendo this week. On one side of your folded piece of paper: No Big Deal. On the other side: Very Big Deal. You got it right. It is always both.

Joanne, blue is a happy colour. Now I know that makes you want to cry because you’re not very good at being happy yet. You’ll get better. All these things you already have:

Lovely Life
Love
Friendship
Perfect Day
Ordinary Happiness
Innocence
Playing

These are not just the names of the seven paintings. These things are present in your life. Right now. Blue is an ordinary, happy colour.

Ordinary Happiness is the kind of happiness I’m talking to you about. The wild kind of happiness comes and goes. It rolls in and out like a storm. Ordinary Happiness has staying power.

You have kept coming to visit me all these years in your travels to Taos; you have sat and written in this room of rounded edges and light in the middle. You can go now. I’m inside you. You don’t have to wonder about when you’ll be back to visit. You can visit anytime. Even in the middle of teaching. I am not separate from you.

Joanne, I want to speak directly to your search for something bigger. You have been troubled about what you call your “lack of faith.” I know that you want to rest in something bigger than you, trust something bigger than you and be held by something bigger than you. I think that’s good. It is good to be open and available to wider sources. But know this: You’re the one who has to get up and go to your desk each day. Trusting in something bigger than you does not bring you to your writing. You do. That bigger thing might meet you once you’re sitting there but it is does not provide the motivation or the propulsion. It meets you. You need to be ready. Like when you’re settled into the belly of your writing and Big Mind is flowing out of you so clearly, effortlessly, not seeking anything while your hand moves across the page for hours. You can trust that.

Did you hear me?
You can trust that.

Is that outside of you?
Or inside of you?
Is that that bigger than you?
Or just you?

It doesn’t matter. That’s not your concern. What matters is that you write. What matters is that you show up and wait to see what shows up to meet you.

I once sat still every day for three months waiting for an inspiration to arrive. Three months. Every day I waited. Still. Silent. I didn’t know if it would come or not. I didn’t have faith that it would come or not. It was my job to sit and wait. It came and I painted again. But I might not have. And that’s not the point – whether I ended up painting again or not – the point is that I knew what my job was. So: I did it.

It doesn’t have to do with faith, Joanne. It has to do with knowing that you’re a Writer. That’s your job. To show up and write. You get inspired. You use words to express it. I got an inspiration. I painted. You write, as truly as possible, to capture that inspiration. I painted to do the same.

Not in a tight way. But in a true way.

There’s math involved. And calculations. And measurements. And elegance. And simplicity. In the form and in the math. It isn’t all soft and mushy. There’s discipline and rigour and study and figuring it out but it is held in a soft hand. Clear. Steady.

I led a disciplined life, some say, like a Zen monk. I don’t know about all of that. I didn’t need much. None of us do. My paintings sold for more than a half a million dollars each. You are surrounded by $3.5 million dollars worth of art. Isn’t that something? How can Lovely Life be worth that much? Yet, should it be worth $20 million or $150 million or $50 bucks for the canvas?

That was not my job so I don’t know anything about those things. I tried to capture inspiration. Life is filled with beauty. Can you see it? Can you touch the beauty in your own life?

You are living too full up right now. Don’t despair. You can change it. One step. Then another. Sometimes I had too much too. It’s okay. Just start changing it each day. It won’t take long.

Pull out Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind to remember why you chose this path.

I never stopped painting because I never stopped receiving inspiration. You will never stop writing and listening to music. You and music do have a special bond. It serves you well. And you hear well. Keep listening.

Spend more time in silence.
Walk more. While you can.

And don’t worry so much. It will all go fine because “fine” includes everything – all the stuff we call good or bad. It’s just stuff. It is being human. That’s all. You get to be a human so you get to have the stuff that human beings call good or bad. Don’t worry. You’ll get all the stuff that humans are supposed to get. That’s our true nature.

Let it come. Receive it. And let it pass. Don’t cling to it. The happiness or the sadness. Just notice the inspiration. Both inspire. That’s all.

There is just the living of a life and knowing that is what you are doing. A living of a life. So pay attention.

Top of mountain.
Middle of mountain.
Bottom of mountain.

Doesn’t matter. No need to decide.
The mountain will find you.

Take good care of yourself,
Agnes Martin

About Agnes Martin, Joanne says: She was Canadian born in Maklin, Saskatchewan on March 22, 1912 and died in December 2004 at the age of 92 in Taos, New Mexico. She lived most of her last decades in Taos painting (or waiting for inspiration) until the end; she was dedicated to capturing the beauty in life.

Agnes said, ‘My paintings are about quiet happiness like the lightness of the morning…I look in my mind and I see composition.’ It is her simple clarity that left such an impression on me. I think that you have to have a really clean relationship with The Mind to paint the way she did. I want to write that way.

About this piece, Joanne says:  I was compelled to write a good-bye letter to Agnes that day in the Harwood at the end of a year long Writing Intensive. I asked her if she had anything to tell me. I thought that the response would be to sit in silence for awhile. I was surprised when I immediately drew a line on the page and my pen kept moving as the letter from Agnes emerged. It was calm and clear. I guess there were a few things she wanted me to know. I got out of the way and wrote until she was done. It came and went so easily. I slow-walked back to the zendo at Mabel’s that afternoon and read it aloud during our Reading Group. I was quite shocked. I still am.

About Joanne:  Joanne just returned from an August trip to Taos where she got to surprise Agnes with another visit. Kevin Moul stumbled upon Joanne sitting in her usual place on the floor writing and took the photos of her there.

Besides sitting for hours on the floor of an art gallery channelling Agnes, Joanne is the founder of an Integral Coaching® Training School in Ottawa, Canada with her partner and beloved wife, Laura. You can read some of her Perspectives and Articles in the Resources section of their web site at Integral Coaching Canada. She is ruthlessly working on her first book while trying to write more in coffee shops rather than pubs where her libation of choice is a Guinness. She is Irish after all.

-posted on red Ravine, Monday, August 27th, 2007

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MN State Fair On-A-Stick

–Minnesota State Fair Button 2007, quick snapshot after breakfast (notice the little piece of dirt on the middle right edge!), Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It’s Minnesota State Fair time! And after over 150 years, it’s a Minnesota tradition. The Minnesota State Fair is the 2nd largest State Fair in the U.S., second only to Texas. However, while the Texas State Fair runs for 24 days and has a larger annual attendance, the Minnesota State Fair is only 12 days with a greater number of people attending each day.

One of the most significant dates in the Fair’s history was September 2nd, 1901 when then-vice president Teddy Roosevelt was visiting and first uttered the famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Liz and I are heading to the Fair tomorrow afternoon. If it’s not raining, we’ll take the motorcycle and park in the lot set aside especially for us. Sweet! I don’t like crowds (attendance at the MN State Fair in 2006 was 1,689,579), so the highlight of the Fair for me is the food (what else?).

We are famous for our Fair food on-a-stick. Below is a complete list (from the Minnesota State Fair Press Kit, a great resource for everything Fair). Liz and I wrote down a few we want to try: espresso on-a-stick, hotdish on-a-stick, chocolate-covered nutroll on-a-stick, wild rice corndog on-a-stick, deep-fried fruit on-a-stick, and, let’s not forget, SPAM curds!

We’ve also got a friend working at the Fair this year (thanks for the buttons!). So we’ll be sure to stop by and visit her. And the Minnesota State Fair is a photographer’s paradise. There’s the fantastic people watching, the amazing art in the Fine Arts Building, the Milk Run, and the Princess Kay of the Milky Way Coronation organized by the Midwest Dairy Association.

Since 1953, the Princess Kay competition has recognized young women whose families are involved in Minnesota’s dairy industry (have I ever mentioned that Liz comes from a North Dakota dairy family?). Regional dairy princesses compete for the yearly title and the entire court have their likenesses carved out of butter during the Fair.

If you’ve never seen a butter sculpture, you are in for a treat! Hope to see you at the The Great Minnesota Get-Together. Or if you can’t attend, tell us about the Fairs in your part of the world!

MN STATE FAIR – FOODS ON-A-STICK

1. Alligator Sausage on-a-stick
2. Bacon Wrapped Turkey Tenderloin on-a-stick
3. Beef Kabobs on-a-stick
4. Beer Battered Brats on-a-stick
5. Bomb Pops on-a-stick
6. Butterscotch Cake on-a-stick
7. Candy Apples on-a-stick
8. Candy Bars (deep fried) on-a-stick
9. Caramel Apples on-a-stick
10. Cheese on-a-stick
11. Chicken on-a-stick
12. Chocolate Chip Cookies on-a-stick
13. Chocolate Covered Bananas on-a-stick
14. Chocolate Covered Cheese Cake on-a-stick
15. Chocolate Dipped Nut Roll on-a-stick
16. Coffee (frozen) on-a-stick
17. Corndogs on-a-stick
18. Corned Beef and Cabbage on-a-stick
19. Cotton Candy on-a-stick
20. Dessert Dumplings on-a-stick
21. Espresso (frozen) on-a-stick
22. Fried Fruit on-a-stick
23. Fried Jalapeño Pepper Cheese on-a-stick
24. Fried Swiss Cheese on-a-stick
25. Fudge puppies on-a-stick
26. Hot Dish on-a-stick
27. Hot Dogs on-a-stick
28. Key Lime Pie Dipped in Chocolate (frozen) on-a-stick
29. Kiddi Kabobs on-a-stick
30. Macaroni & Cheese on-a-stick
31. Marshmallows (Chocolate-dipped) on-a-stick
32. Meatballs on-a-stick
33. MinneKabobs on-a-stick
34. Pickles on-a-stick
35. Pickles (deep fried) on-a-stick
36. Pickles (Kool-Aid) on-a-stick
37. Pizza on-a-stick
38. Poncho Dogs on-a-stick
39. Pork Chops on-a-stick
40. Pronto Pups on-a-stick
41. Rueben Dog on-a-stick
42. Salmon on-a-stick
43. Sausage on-a-stick
44. Scallops on-a-stick
45. Scones on-a-stick
46. Scotch Eggs on-a-stick
47. Shrimp on-a-stick
48. Sloppy Joes on-a-stick
49. S’mores on-a-stick
50. Spaghetti & Meatballs on-a-stick
51. Spudsters on-a-stick
52. Super Dog on-a-stick
53. Taffy Pops on-a-stick
54. Vegetable Kabobs on-a-stick
55. Wild Rice Corndog on-a-stick
56. Walleye on-a-stick

Total number of foods on-a-stick: 56

NEW MN STATE FAIR FOODS IN 2007

• Apple fries (julienne apples crumb-coated and deep-fried)
@Coaster’s, located on the corner of Liggett Street and Carnes Avenue
• Blackened steak wrap with steak, eggs, potatoes and cheese
@Ragin Cajun, located on the west wall in The Garden
• BLP (bacon, lettuce, pico de gallo) quesadilla
@Tejas, located on the north wall in The Garden
• Buffalo chips and cheese
@Delicious Potato Skins, located inside the south door of the Food Building
• Butterscotch cake on-a-stick (a cream-filled cake dipped in butterscotch)
@Scotch Eggs, located east of the Horse Barn on Liggett Street
• Cajun shrimp wrap with shrimp, eggs, potatoes and cheese
@Ragin Cajun, located on the west wall in The Garden
• Calamari Fish and Chips
@two locations: inside the Food Building on the west side; west of Liggett Street on the northeast corner of the Horse Barn
• Coca-Cola cheesecake dipped in chocolate on-a-stick
@Apple Lil’s, located in Heritage Square
• Corned beef and cabbage on-a-stick
@O’Gara’s, located inside the east door of the Food Building
• Fried fruit on-a-stick (pineapple, grapes, bananas, strawberries, apples, cherries, kiwi, honeydew and cantaloupe skewered, dipped in a sweet batter and deep fried)
@Fried Fruit, located in Carousel Park near the Grandstand Ramp
• Jambalaya with eggs, potatoes and cheese
@Ragin Cajun, located on the west wall in The Garden
• Knuckle sandwich (brined pork with sweet & zesty sauce and caramelized onions on a hoagie bun)
@Famous Dave’s, located north of Adventure Park on West Dan Patch Avenue
• Kool-Aid pickles
@Famous Dave’s, located north of Adventure Park on West Dan Patch Avenue
• Lingonberry turnovers
@Rainbow Ice Cream, three locations: east of Underwood Street and just south of Carnes Avenue under the Skyride; southwest corner of Dan Patch Avenue and Underwood Street; west of Underwood Street, between Wright Avenue and Dan Patch Avenue
• Old fashioned ice cream sodas
@Bridgeman’s, located on the northwest corner of Judson Avenue and Liggett Street
• Peanut butter hot dog
@Blue Moon Dine-In Theater, located on the corner of Carnes Avenue and Chambers Street
• Rocky road scones on-a-stick (scones with chocolate chips, caramel and marshmallow, rolled and baked)
@French Meadow, located inside the southeast door of the Food Building
• S’mores on-a-stick
@Ultimate Confections, located inside the east door on the lower level of Grandstand
• Soda fountain funnel cakes (topped with Coca-Cola, Cherry Coke, Sasparilla, whipped cream or custard)
@Apple Lil’s, located in Heritage Square
• Sloppy joes on-a-stick
@Axel’s, located on the southeast corner outside the Food Building
• SPAM burger, Hawaiian SPAM burger, SPAM curds
@SPAM Burgers located in Carousel Park under the Grandstand Ramp
• Uffda brat (Norwegian brat wrapped in potato lefse)
@Sausage Sisters, located inside the east door of the Food Building

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, August 26, 2007

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Everyday Art – Study In Red

Study In Red, out on the porch, July 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

last day of July
sun vase over the deck rail
red refracting light

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, August 25th, 2007

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Doodles From Days Gone By

Womanly and Santa Koshari, doodles © 2000-2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

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Finishing What You Start

Half-baked Chicken, a paper mache-in-progress chicken started years ago, photo © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.


I have a retablo painting I did of Santa Lucia carrying her eyeballs on a plate. Saint Lucy is the patron saint of the blind, the saint to invoke for clarity. Vision. She is my favorite saint, possibly because of those perfectly round eyeballs that sit like a teacup on a saucer (and the fact that she walks around not with empty sockets but rather with another set of seemingly perfectly functioning eyes).

Unfortunately, I haven’t finished my painting of Saint Lucy. I started it about four years ago. She’s gone through several metamorphoses. A high-collared purple tunic. A low-collared maroon tunic. A low-collared maroon tunic and cleavage. (Scandalous!)

The clarity she’s given me is that I’ve always struggled to finish my art.

I’m trying to figure out where this comes from. I don’t not finish my work projects. But my work projects have deadlines and people checking to see if I’m meeting my deadlines. I complete most my daily chores — making breakfast and packing lunches, doing dishes after dinner, posting on the blog. If someone is relying on me for something — a letter to the editor or an appearance at a political event — I almost never let that someone down. Yet, I let myself down all the time.

On the shelf across from Saint Lucy is a half-finished chicken. I made its body out of the torn-off corner of an empty dog food bag. It’s a paper mache project I started five years ago. I wanted to paint it bright blues and pinks and greens and shellack the whole thing into a shiny, festive piece of folk art. I even made the feet, although I couldn’t figure out how to attach them to the body. I have everything I need — the paint, the wire, even the shellack. I just need Me. To. Finish.

Personally, I’d like to blame it on my air sign. I am, apparently, mercurial. I’m supposed to not be able to stick with any one thing. Yet, I’ve always done art and writing, and I’ve always seemed reliable when it came to not finishing my art and my writing. I can’t get more stable than that.

Maybe my parents did it to me. Except, Dad has completed everything he ever set out to do. Years before he retired he started a list of Things To Do When I Retire. He was worried he might run out of ideas, so he grew his list for several pages of his pocket-sized memo pad. As far as I can tell, he’s done them all. Learned to oil-paint and completed many of the historic churches of New Mexico. Wrote his memoirs. Perfected his golf swing. Went to Spain. Built a patio deck and raised all the flowers he loved as a child.

Mom was much lazier. She watched As The World Turns and read National Enquirer, eventually graduating to Harlequin Romance. I could say it’s her fault. In fact, I will. And tomorrow when I call to tell her, she’ll remind me that while she might have put off the ironing and never made us breakfast, she did finish big projects. She and Dad refinished three large pieces of furniture, I now remember, including transforming our formal dining room table into a coffee table by chopping off its legs.

No, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all mine. I don’t show up for me.

My two mentor teachers, Juanito and Natalie, finish everything they start. I’ve asked them. More than once just to make sure they answer the same way every time. They do.

So I’m making an effort to do the same. When I drew Bethanny, I hated her. Where did she come from? She just showed up on the page, and that smile of hers. And who was the guy in the picture frame. Bethanny wasn’t like any of my other doodles, and I wanted to skip over and start a new drawing. Which is what I did. And if it weren’t for the fact that I disliked that one even more — you should see him; he’s got a long neck and goofy glasses — I wouldn’t have gone back and finished poor Bethanny. But you know what? I did finish her, and I kind of like how she turned out. How’s that for clarity?

Saint Lucy, how do you work your magic when your shoes aren’t even filled in? The shawl on your shoulder was supposed to be yellow, I think. I notice that your pose is almost exactly the same as Bethanny’s. She’s got a grapefruit; you’ve got eyeballs. What a combination. I hadn’t even noticed until I started this post. I’d like to promise I’ll go back and finish you, but the truth is, it’s hard to go back. My style has changed. Plus, maybe you’re a better beacon unfinished than you are fully done. Maybe that makes you vulnerable like me. Me, you, and the uncooked chicken. Looking at what’s in front of us. A blank page to fill.

Santa Lucía, unfinished arcryllic on wood retablo of Saint Lucy,
painting © 2000-2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

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Eloquent Nude At The Riverview

Riverview Theater, vintage 1948 sign, designed by Liebenberg and Kaplan, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved

A good friend called me last Sunday completely revved up about a film she had seen at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis. The last showings were scheduled for Sunday at noon and 5:30p.m. and she said we had to go see it. Both the director and the producer were going to introduce the film and stay afterwards to answer questions.

As soon as I heard it was a documentary on the model most often photographed in Edward Weston’s work, I knew I wanted to see it. It was a rainy Sunday and at 10:30, Liz and I were still in our pajamas, drinking morning coffee; we didn’t have long to get ready. We tried to make the noon showing but got there too late. Instead of missing the first 15 minutes, we decided to head downtown to take photographs and come back for the 5:30. Were we glad we did!

Eloquent Nude – The Love And Legacy Of Edward Weston & Charis Wilson is directed by Ian McCluskey. Ian appeared down-to-earth, excited, and passionate when he talked about the film. He did an excellent job of interviewing, editing, and paring the footage down to just the essentials.

The final product skillfully reveals his vision for the film – to capture the essence of the relationship between photographer, Edward Weston, and poet, writer, and model, Charis Wilson. The film reaches far past their marriage, to reveal the minds and hearts of two people bound by artistic love and creative drive.

McCluskey explained that he had always wondered who the woman was in the Weston photographs. When he started to dig into it, he discovered Charis and in a moment of bravery, contacted her, filmed over 8 hours of interviews, and, well, the rest is history.

He talked about the tender moment when he worked up the courage to give her a call and then stumbled over his words. “It’s an honor to finally talk to you,” he said. In the cut-to-the-point, direct humor that carried over into the film, Charis laughingly said, “Oh, he says it’s an honor.”

Producer, Julie Gliniany, originally from the Twin Cities, eloquently spoke about the project and how she met Ian through an ad on Craigslist. A few years and a lot of work later, Eloquent Nude is a reality. Julie was beaming when she talked about nervously screening the film at the home of Charis Wilson, now 93 and legally blind. They set up a big screen TV and Charis sat close to the action.

About half way into the film, Charis asked her daughter to stop the viewing, turned to Julie and Ian and said, “If my tear ducts hadn’t clogged up years ago, I’d be crying my eyes out. These are the home movies I never had.”

I can’t recommend this film enough. I was riveted to Charis Wilson’s expressive face, honest commentary, and candid sense of humor. And after hearing Ian and Julie speak about their work, I walked out of the Riverview completely inspired to tackle my own creative projects.

Julie and Ian took a chance; they went out there and did something that was close to their hearts. They didn’t have a lot of money but they had an idea that they believed in; they placed ads, got the crew together, contacted Charis and made their vision a reality.

Before we left the historic Riverview Theater (designed by Liebenberg and Kaplan in 1948, with many of the original furnishings), Liz signed up for their email list. Today she got an email from the producer, Julie, that the film had been held over at the Riverview another week. I had already planned to blog about the experience, but Julie’s email gave me that extra zip I needed to get this post out tonight.

Here’s what she said:

Thank you so much for such a warm welcoming in Minnesota over the weekend. Ian and I are safely back in Portland, enjoying the August sunshine and already missing the friendly crowds, Scandinavian accents, and potato salad of the Midwest (I know, my accent isn’t too far from gone).

We wanted to write and let you all know that due to the huge success of ELOQUENT NUDE, the Riverview Theater has decided to hold the film over for an additional week!

As this obviously wasn’t included in the beautiful press we received we’re asking for as much help as you can offer to spread the word about the additional screening dates. Feel free to post this info on blogs, forums, work email lists, etc.. Although Ian and I will no longer be able to attend the screenings, we hope you will help us fill those seats and continue sharing this story.

Riverview Theater
3800 42nd Ave S, Minneapolis
612-729-7369

Wed. Aug. 22nd at 5:30
Friday Aug. 24 – Thursday Aug. 30 at 5:30pm
Weekend Matinees at Noon on Aug. 25-26
Tickets are $2

Keep in touch!

Julie Gliniany & Ian McCluskey

Don’t miss this film! When it comes to your town, rain or shine, rush out in your pajamas, coffee clutched in hand, and see it. Grab some buttered popcorn and a box of Raisinets. And prepare to be moved.

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

related links:

–Weston Photography – Kim & Gina Weston’s site – Historic and current photographs of the Weston family and history, including Charis Wilson and Wildcat Hill

–Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Interview with Charis Wilson, Conducted by Mimi Luebbermann, In Aptos, California, March 24, 1982 – Great candid interview with Charis, well worth the time.

–Weston Book Leads To Documentary Film, Oregon State Website, updated 2006 – Wendy Madar co-wrote the Charis Wilson memoir, Through Another Lens: My Years With Edward Weston. We checked a local bookstore last weekend and found the book to be out of print. But you may be able to find it used.

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Bethanny, On A Diet (Again)

            
Bethanny and Grapefruit, pen and ink on graph paper, doodle
© 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

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Memorial – Day & Night

Memorial, By Night, Gold Medal Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 5th, 2007, shot through the grove of trees at center circle, facing the I-35 Bridge, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

I heard on the 9p.m. news that they found the final and 13th person from the I-35 Bridge collapse. The final person as far as they know. Our visit to the Memorial two weeks ago was unplanned. Liz had purchased tickets in May to see 1776 at the Guthrie on August 5th. We had plans to take her Mom who flew in from Wyoming the night the bridge collapsed.

By the time of the Guthrie performance, the Memorial in the grove of trees in Gold Medal Park had already formed. We took some flowers to the play that night. Before the performance, we ate dinner and walked out on the Guthrie’s Endless Bridge to view the I-35 Bridge.

And after the performance, we trudged through the soggy grass up the hill in the dark, and placed the handful of flowers down under the trees. The bridge was lit up in the background. We said our prayers.

I wanted to wait until everyone was found to post these shots. The eerie, blue neon lines from the benches that square the trees on the hill at Gold Medal Park threw strange shadows on the handmade signs that night. A light breeze blew through the summer air.

We stood together silently for a while. Then walked down the hill, picked her Mom up in the lobby next to a group from the 1776 cast, drove through the city, and headed back home.

Perhaps tonight there is a little more peace. Yet I heard that 6 died yesterday in severe flooding down in southeast Minnesota. Roads, bridges, and railroad tracks caved in. Houses flooded, fell away in mudslides, and are buried in layers of silt.

Maybe there is no peace. Only the idea of it. And the gentle acceptance and quiet strength that reverberate through our town.

Memorial, By Day, Gold Medal Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 5th 2007, shot from high inside the Guthrie Theater, Memorial is in the center of the circle on the hill, left view is the reflection in the stainless steel window panel, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

 -posted on red Ravine, Monday, August 20th, 2007

– related post: Bridge To Nowhere – The Great Connector

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PRACTICE: Waiting – 15mins

-From my practice notebook, 8/9/05 (about two years ago)


My right eye is purple today, the eyelid, the area under my eye. So far the white of my eye is still white but already I can imagine a few days from now the old blood making its way down from the lid to the globus.

Globus. That was what the eye doctor called it. No damage to the globus, he said. But the risk, he continued, is that you’ll develop a secondary infection in your sinuses or in any of the areas back there. It could even go to your brain.

In the emergency room, or the Urgent Care’s version of an emergency room, they told me to lie down on a bed, and they pulled the thin blue curtain around me. I could hear the nurses and doctors walking in their rubber-soled shoes on the linoleum. Ploit, ploit, ploit, their footsteps seemed to say.

Over in one part of the room I heard someone talking in low tones to a patient about migraine headaches. Then two nurses or orderlies talking, a third and fourth person joining them. The one male voice was saying that his wife was craving steak so he took them out to eat at Texas Cattle Company the night before. Guess what she ordered, he asked the other nurses. What? Chicken tenders. They all break out in laughter.

He goes on like a newborn comedian: My son went to dinner at some friend’s and he came back that night and told us, Mom, Dad, they served us filet mig-non. Filet Mig-Non, the male nurse said for effect. They all burst into laughter again.

I sat in my space, folding my legs left over right, then right over left. I practiced my brave face, afraid that if anyone showed me the least bit of compassion I would start to cry. I noticed the blue fabric of the curtains seemed to have a repeating eye pattern. I thought, That’s spooky. A wall of medical supplies on one side and an evil eye staring at you from the other.

Finally, the curtains parted and a tall, stocky woman stepped in. She was wearing a white smock. She asked me about my eye, took a close look and in her eyes I could see almost a fear, What is this??, and she asked me about the rooster. I told her the story and still her face held that disgusted look, not a judging look but a disgust just thinking about a rooster on my face, like those pods in Alien, the original one, that wrap around a person’s entire head.

I told her I thought I needed tetanus. She agreed. I told her I should probably get something for infections. The rooster walks around all day in bird droppings, I said. Eww, yes, and again the bloom of disgust. That’s a good point, she said, all while continuing to stare at my eye.

In the background I could hear a man’s voice, Dr. Raul G. of the blue, blue eyes. I had hoped he’d attend to me but no, he is with the migraine headache patient while I am with someone whose mouth and eyes are stuck in the Yuck position. Don’t doctors see way worse than me? Maybe that’s ER, not urgent walk-in clinic.

And now I’m thinking, I wonder what she did when the retarded man with scrapes from his head down his elbow and thigh went in. Of course, he was oblivious, flipping through magazines as if they were those cool books that show frames of a cartoon that when you flip fast through the frames animate the images. A galloping horse.


                       
                        Lindo the Rooster (now long gone), photo taken around
                         2004, a year before he attacked me.

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WRITING TOPIC – CLEANLINESS

Just in case you’re spending the weekend cleaning house, we wanted to give you a writing assignment that might make all that dusting and sweeping and scrubbing and vacuuming feel more like research than time wasted. Or maybe you’re the kind of person who never feels that cleaning is time wasted. 

Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness.     
                                                        ~Christopher Morley

What exactly are your cleaning habits? Do you make your bed every morning? Does laundry pile up until you’re out of clean underwear? Is your nickname Neat Nick or Sloppy Joe? Do you make a conscious choice not to clean, ever, or do you delegate the cleaning to others — a kind and loving partner, your roommate, the kids, Mini Maids?

Cleanliness is almost as bad as godliness.     
                                                         ~Samuel Butler

For this writing practice, do a slow walk along the perimeter of the room in which you spend most your time. Start with your right foot. Walk slowly. You’re not in a rush to get anywhere. Let your eyes move around the room but don’t grab what’s in front of you. See it, let it go. Try not to mentally note what you see. Instead, take it in the way you might take in air. Breathe in, breathe out.

Cleanliness is next to impossible.
                                                         ~Author unknown

Then go sit down and do a ten-minute practice on the topic “Everything I know about cleanliness…” Talk about where your notions of cleanliness came from. Talk about the products you use. Describe your grit in as much detail as you can. Air that dirty laundry.

Now go!

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Because, By Golly, My Girl Is A Mountain Biker!

Jim’s Orange (brand) mountain bike, August 17, 2007,
photos © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.


“Daddy, do I have to ride my bike to school today?”

“Yes, it will be fun.”

“But Mom said I could ride the bus some days.”

“Nah, you don’t want to ride the bus.”

“Yes I do.”

“Naaa, you’ll get four miles of riding in today.”

“But I don’t want to ride everyday.”

“Yeah you do. Four miles a day is 20 miles a week. That’s, like…let’s see, there are 30-some weeks in a school year, so that’d be…that’s over 600 miles!”

“Wow, that’s a lot!”

“I’ll say.”

“OK, I’ll ride.”


Note to Em from Mommy: TGIF!

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