[Above photo: Awaiting the ferry on Little Diamond Island.]
16 July 2023
Summer is ½ over! How can time pass so rapidly? How can I be almost 83yo?
My sister-in-law helped me to realize that there may be a backstory to the Supreme Court decision to which I alluded last week. The woman who brought suit may not, in fact, have been lying about the man, posing as gay, who requested by email to have her create his website. It may have been a Right Winger’s attempt to challenge equality as imbedded in the Constitution and of which she was unaware. Or, she may have been quietly complicit. My point is that the Court should not have accepted the case, since there was no actual case—-no one had actually challenged her right to refuse services to a gay man based on his sexual object choice and her beliefs that homosexuality was “wrong”. Scant, incomplete, or dys-information certainly complicates our decisions and compromises our understanding.
The Hokusai exhibit was all I could have desired. It was surprising to me that he did the drawings/paintings, another man cut the woodblocks, and yet a third made the multiple impressions needed for a polychrome print. I suppose the latter two would be catagorized as “craftsmen”. The prints were spectacular and the details unimaginable to me as the result of a woodblock carving. His work evolved, both in skill and subject type, the latter apparently in response to what was popular [and would sell]. The groups of subjects includes scenes of Nature, Nature with man-made structures (bridges, for example), village and farm scenes, people strolling about on a holiday, beautiful women (often courtesans), and, at the last, warriors in battle. Side by side were prints, often of identical or similar scenes, made by his competitors (Hiroshige being the most prominent) and students. Finally, there were works by 20th century Western artists who were influenced by him. It was beautifully curated.
Wednesday I drove to Burnt Meadow Pond and met my friend, Lindsey, and 4 other kayakers. Turner and Cheri, the proprietors of Kayak Ways, put us in tuiliks, and then into modern versions of Greenland kayaks. A tuilik is the hood-parka-spray cover that Greenlanders use to stay dry and warm. Originally they were made of seal skin. Currently they are made of neoprene and are buoyant, so no flotation device is needed. The kayaks (qajac), Rebel brand, are long, narrow, low in the water, and as light as a feather, being Kevlar-carbon fiber composites. And tippy!
Rolling is remarkable, especially since the pond was warm. If one pays attention to the mechanics and is reasonably flexible, there is almost no effort involved. Certainly, there is no need for a paddle. It was pretty magical until I got into my own kayak at the very end to try rolling in it. Two issues: 1) I didn’t have nose plugs, which were attached to the tuiliks. 2) In my kayak (qajac) I used my own spray cover and neglected to don a lifejacket or other floaty attachment. I rolled over, blowing air rather briskly out of my nostrils, and, upon arriving at the other side, would be out of air and desperately wanting to inhale. However, since I had no flotation and am a “sinker”, I repeatedly found myself 6 inches below the surface. I did this several times before realizing what the problems were. It wasn’t a pretty end to the class. I can roll, however, which I guess is the important part.
Of course, in limbering up to roll over the past month or two, I have tweaked an old injury in my left lower back which isn’t fun. I acquired the injury trying to uproot a 3 foot tall spruce tree in the meadow, imagining I was stronger and fitter than I was. I think I just tweaked it with the same fallacious assumptions. Pushing past my limit, like a dummy.
My brother, Chas, suggested we visit the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland together, which we did yesterday. I am embarrassed to admit that although I have been coming to Maine since I was 2yo, I’ve been so parochial as to have never explored the mainland. Linda helped familiarize me with some of the hills on Mt. Desert Island, but I’d never been to this amazing treasure. Chas treated me to both the museum fee and to lunch later at the Rockland Café. It was a good time and he knows considerable about both Andrew Wyeth and about the uses of light in painting, since he is a painter. It was much more interesting for me as a result. And the seafood chowder and apple pie at the café were superb.
Especially interesting to me was to learn about Wyeth’s many year fascination with the Olsen house and its inhabitants, including his friendship and admiration of Alvaro, the son and brother. He cared for his parents to their death and then cared for his disabled sister, Christina of the famous “Christina’s World”, working many jobs constantly as a bachelor farmer to support them all. One room paired Wyeth’s paintings of Rockland with those of the same subject but created earlier by Edward Hopper. As much as I admire Hopper’s work, and the MOMA show last year confirmed that, I find Wyeth’s painting richer, less polished, and more engaging. It is foolish, I suppose, to compare different styles, but the juxtaposition of their paintings triggered me to do so.
It is a cool and rainy day with some wind. I’ll go to the Island tomorrow for a short stay. Because of all the grey and fog and rain, summer hardly seems to have begun. It is beautifully lush everywhere in compensation. Soon it should turn hot and dry, allowing people’s gardens to flourish; tomatoes leaves will develop mold in this weather, should it continue.
I’ve begun a book by Anne Applebaum, Red Famine, which is timely although it came out in 2017, before the invasion. She talks about the many legitimate reasons to consider Ukraine as a separate country—-its language, culture, previous choked-off independence movements—and the reasons that it has had to struggle so hard to realize its independence from Poland, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Tsars, Stalin, and, now, Putin. All have tried to conquer and incorporate it or parts of it; many have tried to eradicate its language and culture. Ukraine has soil that is deep, dark, and rich, sited as it is in the basin of the Dnieper River, and it has access to the Black Sea. I always thought that the 3.5 million Ukrainians who starved to death in the 1930’s under Stalin had done so because of the bureaucratic “error and failure” of the collectivization of farming. Documents make it clear that their deaths were intentional, just one of many attempts to crush Ukraine so it could be more easily “Russified”.
I think our leaders made an error and should have brought Ukraine into NATO promptly, with stringent demands to clean up any corruption, and, thus, to call Putin’s bluff. He is simply one more in a long string of cruel, hungry, and ambitious Russian bullies, empire-builders. Russia is already the world’s largest country with 11% of the total landmass, for heaven’s sake. How much lawn do they want to mow? Allowing NATO membership would chasten China, as well. What do we imagine is Putin’s end-game? Would it not be better to stop the carnage now? He would have to back down, as it seems he will anyway. He is out-gunned and realizes it, in spite of his nuclear arsenal. He is also facing home-grown rebellion.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 