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Mr. Moto has a way of sucking the life out of almost every wonderful experience in the world - even climbing the Duomo in Milan. But climb we did, all 151 or so steps, after enjoying the lovely interior and suffering through an obscenely boring audio tour. Afterwards I said to Alex, you know, after seeing St. Peters (which we did last summer) all other cathedrals seem kind of on the small and spartan side. She called me a snob. Milano, much to our surprise, is a wonderful town. We're staying near the Navigli, a section that features Venice-like canals and numerous outdoor caffes and ristoranti. We touched the surface of Milan's famous shopping scene, as we are still trying to rebuild my recently-decimated wardrobe. We've also had some more fine gelato. The gelatteria here have a more modern feel, and as a whole this city is much less beholden to an illustrious past than its smaller sister to the south (from whence we came). I've had these flavors: torrone, choclate rum, fior di latte (I don't really remember what that is). Alex had more straciatella and some nocciola.. Chocolat rum was a competitor to the aforementioned Berthillon's cacao whiskey, and all in all Milan is holding up nicely in terms of gustatory offerings. Tomorrow Alex has meetings and I'm out shopping again - gotta get a suitcase if I'm to get all my replacement clothing home. Then we'll hit some museums and I know not what else. Sorry for the workaday feel of these updates. They are written in haste, and posted late because the much heralded internet hook-up at this otherwise lovely hotel doesn't work, and Italy is way behind in terms of wi-fi access.

We're off - speeding along second class, seats 33 and 38, carriage 6, on the EuroCity train towards Milano. About Florence, Mary McCarthy (paraphrasing a particular attitude), writes:

Florence is scraping the bottom of the tourist barrel. And the stolid presence of these masses with their polyglot guides in the Uffizi, in the Pitti, around the Baptistery doors and the Medici Tombs, in the cell of Savonarola and the courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio is another of the 'disagreeables', as the Victorians used to call them, that have made Florence intolerable and, more than that, inexplicable to the kind of person for whom it was formely a passion. 'How can you stand it?'

Oh I don't know...sure we wandered around with our Rough Guide and our tattered map... but we weren't all that, and neither was Firenze. Since it was a second visit, we skipped the Duomo, Accademia, and, gasp of gasps, Uffizi. We did hit the Pitti, though, after finding that Santa Maria del Carmine was closed on Tuesdays. It's a pretty overwhelming spot, filled with Titians and Donatellis and even some more modern Tuscan Italian painters. But most interesting and inspiring for me was the room which held the most boring exhibit: the Sale Bianco. Although there was absolutely no mention of it anywhere in the museum, this is where, in 1600, Jacopo Peri's opera Euridice was given a performance for 200 (of the many more more) guests at Maria de' Medici and Henry IV's lavish wedding. Important why? Because it's the first surviving opera to have been performed (Peri's Dafne, from 1597, is lost to us). Euridice's a boring opera, and Monteverdi blew it out of the water with his Orfeo only 7 years later... but still, there was a lot of vibe to be absorbed by this eager young opera composer. So I stood in the room and soaked it up. I took a picture of the vibe, but can't find it - so you'll have to make due with this one that Alex snapped of me in front of the palazzo, feeling the spirit. Just this morning, to add to the operatic embers, we visited Rossini's tomb. He's parked at Santa Croce, along with some other lightweights you know, Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante and the like, with a few Gioto frescos adorning the walls. Probably the artistic highlight, though, was our visit to San Marco, where yes, we did visit the cell of Savanrola, but mostly focused our attention on the spellbinding frescoes of Fra Angelico (one of Alex's all time favorites). As Alex explained, frescoes are painted on wet plaster - once the plaster dries, your fresco is finito. Kind of like speed chess or somethingt, so it's all the more impressive that such moving and accomplished works of art were generated with this process. If you're wondering, no, my luggage never came. They can't find it, although my complaint is in the system. I may one day be reimbursed by British Airways, who are apparently reasonably decent in these matters. (I wonder if they'll reimburse the $100 or so I've spent using my cell phone to track the stuff...or the hours and hours of our trip we've lost to this. Or the job I'm going to lose for being completely unprepared (for having no books)). But I digress. I always be amazed, contrary to Mary's somewhat tongue-in-cheek description, of the calmness this town exudes. Even amidst the throngs of German, American and Japanese tourists that crowd the monuments and weigh down the Ponte Vecchio, Firenze never seems to lose her cool. Amidst all the additional chaos of our particular experience, we still managed to be soothed.

The gelato report so far: The first cone was definitely the best. Went back to dei Neri and had A-C-L (a sorbet of orange, carrot and lemon), chocolate crocant (i.e. crunchy), and licorice (the best of the troika - intense and lasting), while alex had the tried and true combo of straciatella (chocolate chip) and nutella. Last night we hit Caffè i Ricci, on the Piazza Santa Spirito, where I had chocolate mousse (I had asked for coffee mousse) and a flavor that I've already forgotten. This stuff was serviceable but nothing more (you could find and overpay for its like in New York). Today we hit Vivoli, the most famous gelato place in town. As is always the case with these famous joints, everyone says it's gone way downhill. Depends who you ask. I had Zabaione, Mela Verte (green apple - but it tasted suspiciously like lemon), and chocolate and coffee (1 flavor) and it was okay - nothing close to dreamlike. Alex, however, raptured on her combo of gianduia and pear caramel sorbet. The help was as surly and the prices as inflated as advertised. Here's a little snapshot of today's purchases: I'll let you guess who had the big one. Sadly, there are many, many highly respected (and some hidden gem-type) gelaterrias we/I did not have time to seek out and discover. I even heard tell of one that was better than Berthillon - the Parisian ice cream company, based on the isle de St. Louis, that for my money makes the best ice cream in the world. My first cone was in that league, but nothing since. We'll see what Milan has to offer. We couldn't get tickets to the Last Supper, despite trying 3 weeks in advance, so we'll have to find some other joys to occupy our time (or my time - Alex will be having meetings and stuff). A presto!

Made it to Firenze. It took 28 hours, door to door, from Portland, Maine. And, from the vantage of having an all out great time now, eating well, seeing the sights and soaking up the relaxed vibe of this venerable and stunning city, I can tell you that it (the travel part) was profoundly lame to its core. My suitcase is gone. Didn't show up in Rome, and the number they gave me to call, after I filled out my claim form, seems not actually to exist. I once managed to get one woman on the phone, who got as far as "I'm sorry sir, it doesn't seem..." before she got cut off. All of my best clothing, much of it new, a pair of shoes, all of my books for the coming semester are inside. All our toiletries. Half a custom made suit from India. Ah well, you win some you lose some. The pain began to melt away, though, as soon as we began to walk the streets here. Took a bus tour of the town last night, organized by the school for which Alex is working. Today we got a special tour of the Stibbert Museum, an amazing collection of armor and other oddities.We met Lisa Friend, flautist and opera expert/organizer (and Stibbert tour guide) for a late lunch in the beautiful town of Fiesole, which gazes out at Florence from on high. (The picture on the left gives only the slightest taste). Then we hit a department store and I bought stuff like shirts, pants, boxer shorts, toiletries. A nice excuse to go shopping. Too bad Italians don't make shoes in my size (well, unless you get them custom made...we're not here long enough). Alex then retired home for a brief rest and clean up while I sought out my first gelato. Went to the Gelaterria dei Neri, and it was sublime: chocolate with pistachios and hot peppers; ricotta with fig; amaretto with peach. The picture on the right does almost no justice to this transportive mixture. Then, back out with LIsa Friend to her beautiful house near Chianti, in the mountains, amongst fig trees and vinyards. We ate some grapes, had wonderful cheese with fig jam, drank local wine, and then headed out for dinner. Just got home and I'm ready for bed. Might find a wi-fi from which to send these funny little updates tomorrow.

Flying over the Italian alps…I woke up almost 24 hours ago, and finally a hint that it might all have been worth it. The clouds hover like little tufts of cotton, casting shadows on the peaks that lie scant meters below. In the valley, congested red-thatched houses, here and there a body of still, blue water. And just like that the mountains yield to flatland…geometric shapes in every shade of green and brown. The Italian August sun casts a sultry, seductive haze across the endless swathes, squares and squares and rectangles. And then, trees! Sprinkled in like kale amidst the meat. The map shows us above Genoa. Or Turin? Where are we actually…hard to say. But 285 miles to our destination. That’s half an hour, right? Oh there’s Athens and Istanbul and Kiev and Moscow and Warsaw and Helsinki and London and Madrid and Barcelona. The world is a small place, it turns out. And somewhere in the sky, or maybe just touching down, is sleepy Alex, nervous about her Italian, searching out her bags and my flight. If she doesn’t find me when I pop out of the gate, we’re to meet by the train, where there’s a little café that injects their freshly made cornettos with chocolate or jam, your choice. I have had more breakfasts than I care to recount. One after the other. Breakfast breakfast breakfast. No matter where I go, it seems eternal morning. My computer clock tells me it is 5:55AM. But that’s a world behind me, and I’m really careening on towards noon. I have the Daily Mail and the Observer, and a whole row of seats to myself. Pisa! Florence! Dear Florence, I’ll see you again shortly… too bad travel is no longer the shortest distance between two points. And now the bright blue sea. The Mediterranean – some coastal town or city even. The water is cyan with strange beige ripples. The city, maroon. The captain announces we picked up a great tailwind so we're only a little late. We'll be in at 12:30. That gives 2.5 hours to find A, get bags, get to Rome Termini, and find our train to Firenze. I am ever hopeful.

I eventually made it to Heathrow. Then, along with the huddled masses, I walked and walked, seemingly through miles of corridors, lines, escalators, a bus. Then the horrendous line you see here, a second time through the security mechanisms (everybody here was just transfering, so we'd all already done security). All liquids are surreptitiously confiscated, along with toothpaste, batteries, lipstick, shampoo. Many people miss their flights, I think, but not me. I have time to make it through this ordeal and then hit the shops and have a great breakfast at a place called Girafffe. A tostada with 2 eggs, sunny side up, and vegetarian sausage! This always was a great airport for eating and shopping, but a hellish one for security.

Okay, so here I am, squeezed into the 5-seat middle section of an enormous 777 plane that just took off from New York's JFK towards London Heathrow. Flying to London was in fact not on my agenda of things to do today...but my flight out of Boston was delayed 2.5 hours, so I missed my direct flight to Rome by about 15 minutes. Fortunately I managed to hook myself into this one, which, with the connection, will get me to Rome only 4 hours later than originally planned (1 less pizza, 1 less gelato). Of course, this flight was delayed by an hour because a plane had broken down in front of it. So will I make my connection, who knows? Oddly, shortly before I left JFK, Alex, who left Portland four hours later than I, took off from Logan Airport headed toward Munich. What a strange thought - the two of us flying through the night to distant ciities, on separate paths to the same ultimate destination. The reunioin will be sweet. Meanwhile I am profoundly uncomfortable...and annoyed. We're flying over Martha's Vinyard...Nova Scotia...the kinds of northerly places I've spent all day trying to get out of. Ah well...here comes the beverage cart.

Well, making through security went smoothly. I ditched my water, bought a lovely caesar's salad, took off my shoes in marched through the ancient carpet muck, and then shelled out $7.95 so I could log on...just in case I'd missed something. But I hadn't. On the bus down I saw the wonderfully formulaic and predictable movie "Failure to Launch." Concord Trailways knows just the flicks to pick to make a journey fly by. Last time it was "Along Came Polly," and I laughed so hard I thought I'd be asked to leave. Ben Stiller just speaks to me, in a very deep and personal way. On the highway coming down two cars spun out right in front of the bus. Smoke flying, whirling 360s toward the median. Our bus driver, mid-conversation, just pounded the brakes, pulled right, and then kept going. He was the happy recipient of many handshakes and pats on the back as we all descended at Logan. The spun-off cars, by the way, looked okay...but I bet they were shaken up. Everything about travel these days reminds me of what a fragile life we lead. Off now, to lead more of it. Next stop: JFK.

Well, if I was running out of stuff to blog about, the next week should fix that. I'm tagging along as Alex heads to Italia per lavoro (for work, that is). I plan to mangiare gelato ogni giorno, and brace myself for the academic year that is waiting for me on the flip side. I'll have the old trusty laptop with me, and Mr. Moto the cameraphone, and I've heard that they even have internets over in the big Boot, so you just might hear from me. e-postcard, anyone? Stay tuned!

It's just that I sometimes get, oh, what's the word...overgeeked? I had it in my head to write this long exegesis on the operas I saw up at Glimmerglass last weekend, and on opera in general, and how you only think you don't like opera. Really. And then this writing project, this blogligation, so to speak, began to weigh heavily on my conscience. Almost to the point where while I was composing - which, let's admit, is the thing I do when I am least procrastinating - I sometimes had thoughts that my much anticipated blog entry was growing seriously overdue. And then I realized hey wait a minute, this is just to blow off a little steam and be all stream of consciousness like and unprofound and all...you know, just to find a resting spot for some fraction of the billions of photos I snap with Mr. Moto (who is both a recurring character in the Berlitz Italian audio CDs I'm currently working with, and the new name - christened just now - of my cameraphone (guess the brand)). So overgeeked I am no longer, and you get no exegesis. I shall not exegete (okay okay, "exegete" is actually a noun. But just for today, can we pretend it means "to give an exegesis" (as opposed to "one who gives an exegisis," which is more or less its real meaning). (And truth be told, I have no idea what "exegesis" means.) In lieu of my exegetion, I'll say only this: Steven Hartke's new opera, The Greater Good, was very impressive but about forty minutes too long. It has the best extended orchestral depiction of upstairs copulation-animated bedsprings I have ever heard (especially since this effect doubles as a loving nod toward Bernard Hermann's most famous musical moment from Psycho). But for me, the winner of the weekend was Janacek's Jenufa, which now ranks as one of my favorite operas. Almost immediately after the brilliant production began all thoughts of "do I like this?" and "is this well written?" and the like flew from my opera-addled brain and were replaced by a racing pulse, welling tear ducts, and in general the kind of opera-induced ecstasy I've only witnessed in Tom Hanks movies (one in particular). I was bawling by the curtain call, okay? Simple story (pregnant and unmarried beauty is taken for granted by the man she loves, and permanently disfigured by the man who loves her. She ends up with the latter, who at least feels sufficiently guilty. A secret baby is drowned along the way.), great pathos, wonderful acting (yes, there IS acting in opera), and all in all just a crushing artistic experience.

That's all I really feel up to saying about that. I took the above photo while driving home (boy did I get in trouble for that, too. but it does capture the moment). I had forgotten how glorious upstate New York is. A totally different kind of beauty from Maine, but just as palpable. It's somehow wider over there, more land, endless rolling hills. Not quite as much water everywhere. Oh, and the fall foliage season that draws tourists to both spots each October? Better in upstate New York. Sorry. (I remember from college)

Hey - I've just updated The Vault with an almost never-heard Monkey song of mine! Why not indulge your curiosity?

Well, I pretty well jinxed it, di'nt I? I said "if nothing good happens" then I can go ahead and talk about opera and all that good stuff (the upstate New York sky as compared to the Maine sky - there's a riveting blogbit just waiting to materialize for you). And then the Yankees had to go and sweep the Red Sox five straight games in their own stadium. I mean, if that doesn't qualify as "something good," then I don't know what does. Really, don't get me wrong - I don't spend most of my time hating the Red Sox. At least I didn't until I moved here, and they had to go win the whole kaboodle. But in a sense, that victory (in 04) brought with it a sweetish silver lining. I'm generally a sensitive sort, and for much of my baseball rooting life I've had a kind of soft spot for the sox. That is to say, I felt bad for them. If you check out the tally on all the games the Yankees and Red Sox have played against each other, you'll discover that it's pretty close to an even split. And yet until 2004, in basically every single one of those confrontations that really counted for something, the Yankees prevailed. You couldn't help but feel sorry for the Sox. And actually, when I was a kid, due to the kindness of a former business associate of my dad's, I had a chance to meet some of the Red Sox in their own locker room. They had just been drubbed something like 11-10 by the Brewers, I think it was around 1982 (Robin Yount, Cecil Cooper...those Brewers) and I got in to see the sad and naked Red Sox moping about, and the very oldest one of them all gave me a long talk about Jesus when he heard that my father had recently died. I didn't tell him I was Jewish, or a Yankee fan, and he didn't tell me he was Carl Yastrzemski, so it was maybe a less charged consultation than it might have been on both ends. I still have the illegible autograph on my shelf. Anyway, I had a certain feeling for the Sox and their rooters, and even a kind of predilection towards sports-related suffering, as if perhaps in a former life I myself was a Sox fan. But in 2004 the Sox managed not only to win it all, but to humiliate the Yanks in doing so, and to generate a champagne toast at one of my early faculty meetings - first year on the job, the lone Yankee fan amongst a roomful of music professors bleeding Boston Red. Since then, and since all the endless anti-Yankee tee shirts I see all the time, and the anti-Yankee scarecrow I used to drive past on my way to work (I kid you not), and the extreme cold shoulder I've received at some local sports bars when all I wanted to do was root for my team and even be made fun of good naturedly, well since all that I say down with the Sox - I'd even hex them with voodoo if that was my thing. I find that bile, the kind instilled in young children at an early age in these environs (see photo), creeping in. I find myself almost rooting harder against the Sox than for the Yanks. But at least for this little moment in history, or perhaps the moment that just ended this weekend, the Sox are the big nasty boys on the block and my Yankees are the men who would be kings. For once I'm entitled to the bile. So the warm, peaceful feeling that overcame me this sunny afternoon, the feeling that all was right in the world, that the elements had been gently set back in their natural order, that was entirely a result of the crushing, debilitating blow the Yanks dealt the Sox by sweeping the five game series. Knocked not only out of contention for first place, but quite possibly any playoff hopes whatsoever, the Sox probably had a long, quiet flight to the West Coast tonight. And among the angry thousands, the moping throng spread across the summery soil of Red Sox Nation, perhaps a sense too that things are as they ought to be. That suffering, once again, is the order of the day. L'Chaim!

Hiya everyone. Missed you - traveled, wisely, senza computer these last couple of days.

Alex and I crammed a LOT of living into this past weekend. Left Portland, ME at 7:30 am Saturday, and returned at 2:15 am Monday morning. In between we visited 2 museums, 2 operas, different friends (including 1 new baby), spent too much money, did about 12 hours of driving, and even took some pictures to prove it all (or at least some of it). So hopefully nothing real good happens this week and I can calmly work my way through these momentous events. Because, as you know, if they aren't blogged, they didn't really happen.

So first of all:
The hall of fame, on a second visit, was disappointing. It was rather glorious the first time around - although I had my complaints. My big complaint both times, actually, was this: they haven't done right by Negro League baseball. It's astounding that they haven't, given the blood Major League Baseball has on its hands... (I mean come on, it took until 1971 for Satchell Paige to get inducted?) They have a lovely little permanent exhibit entitled "Passion and Pride" or some such thing, and it has a condensed little history of the Negro Leagues that is oddly weighted towards the beginning and end of the story (say 1800s and late 1940s). There are a few interesting artifacts, like that ball above, which was signed by the entire 1924 Kansas City Monarchs, or the poster next to it, advertising a game between the Grays and Crawfords (both of which teams Josh Gibson, who's in the picture, played for at one time or another - more often the Grays). But speaking of Josh, there was very little mention of him, certainly no special exhibit devoted to him - there's a whole room devoted to Babe Ruth (it's only a little smaller than the Negro League exhibit). The core of my complaint is that aside from this little separate but unequal exhibition, there is basically no mention of the Negro Leagues in the rest of the museum (actually, there was a nice temporary exhibit of art inspired by the Negro Leagues in the art gallery - but I'm not sure how many of the mainstream fans make it down there). In other words, black ball is just as segregated as it ever was - it isn't allowed to assume its rightful role alongside the mainstream development of the game. I acknowledge that I'm more interested than most, or perhaps at least more interested than most white guys, but that's ultimately just the point. Miss turning off into the Passion and Pride room and you could leave knowing nothing about some of the most exciting, highest quality baseball played over more than half a century. I have to add here that, on a crowded Saturday afternoon, I did not see a single African American person in the entire museum. Not one. It was worse than being in Maine (which, it was recently confirmed, is still the whitest state in the country). Not sure if there's a direct causal relationship, but it's worth noting. Anyway, I suppose I'll clean this up in the form of a letter to the Hall, but thought I'd spew it here first. Thanks for listening. P.S. Is that glove on the right Josh Gibson's? No, of course not. They didn't have one of those. It's Thurmon Munson's - who was another boyhood hero of mine (and the subject of one of my songs).

Don't those words just ring magically in your ears? We're leaving at the crack of dawn to drive for six hours to the land of opera and baseball (and believe you me, those things go together well!) Will certainly report back, but it might be a coupla days.

Weather here is extreme sport. I groused through much of this summer, pontificating to anyone and everyone who would listen that we were getting cheated out of our birthright (as Mainers) for a stunning season. Every beautiful day seemed to require payment in blood, or at lease piss and fog. Then August rolled in and I clamped shut my yapper and just absorbed. The month has been heaven sent, but even within these blissful heights of meteorological consistency, there are days that step forward from the pack. The nice days here, the really nice ones, are historical, epic. The whites glisten blindingly, the sea shimmers, the sky has the indefinable clarity and radiance peculiar to this most northeastern of states. Every player in the environment seems to be shouting "love me! love me!" and passersby nod knowingly to one another, as if they and they alone are sharing the same drug-informed string of revelations. So I walked home from my haircut and it was like some rural version of the opening scene from Everybody Says I Love You. Heck, even the narrow gauge railroad conductor, as his locomotive barreled along the Eastern Promenade Trail, looked as though he was ready to burst into song. I occasionally glanced down at a book I had planned to walk home reading (this photo captures just such an instance), but mostly it was just the blind shining love bouncing off bodies and the sea and sky, the glorious near-denouement of this most sacred of seasons.

This shirt - the latest brilliant barb in a never-ending offensive - was hanging in the window of a shop down on Fore Street. For every one pro-Red Sox shirt or bumper sticker you see here you'll see about three anti-Yankee items. This one would almost kinda make sense, if it had come out like maybe a month or two after the stunning Red Sox comeback in the 2004 American League Championship Series. But now? Do you sad Red Sox fans really want to go toe to toe over which team's the bigger choker? Are Bucky Dent and Bill Buckner so entirely wiped clean from your memories? Or the fact that the Yankees have won just about one out of every four World Series? And wouldn't it be better to spend your energy celebrating your own team, rather than ripping another one down? I thought a championship would instill a little class, perhaps even some sense of humor in the Sox rooters. But apparently, at least judging by the apparel they wear, they're more comfortable in their perennial role as losers, snarling at the obvious multitude of successes notched by their hated and storied rivals to the south. (I guess this is the time of year when that core identity rises to the surface - seen the AL East standings lately?). Ah well. If Portland's biggest drawback is its misguided baseball allegiance I suppose we're doing okay. But Go Yanks!

At this risk of becoming, oh, I don't know, pedestrian?, I'll tell you that Alex and I fixed the tailgate latch on our Subaru today. This after the guy at Chip's Service Center charged us $20 to tell us that he couldn't fix it, and that a new latch would cost $180 + labor. You see the latch wasn't latching, which kinda defeated the purpose of having a wagon. So we bought a used latch from Lake Region Imports ($52), and after forcibly removing our supposedly broken latch, and putting in their supposedly superior latch, I saw at once what the difference between the two mechanisms was. It was all so crystal clear. So I fixed our latch by bending a little piece of metal, took out the new used latch, put our fixed one back in (this part w/ copious help from AJ Sax), and then to celebrate the outstanding success went upstairs and made burnt caramel ice cream. That probably would have made a better picture, but you get, instead, the tailgate, in its naked glory.

Yeah, we had some fun. But the big revelation of the weekend was mine, and it is this: the "K" in "Special K"? Kellogg's!

Nina, Yory, Serena and Sylvie are in town. Nina's the oft mentioned "big sis" and Serena and Sylvie are the too infrequently mentioned nieces. Tonight we gathered, with a gaggle of friends, out at Two Lights State Park. Doug and Sheila brought little Liam along, and I was wondering if there might be perhaps a meeting of the minds amongst the four-to-five-year-old contingent. Initial shyness was replaced by rose hip fascination (Liam is an expert). But the out and out bliss occurred during a stunning segment of "under the frisbee" - in which two childish adults toss a white disk back and forth to one another, while two giggling and squealing lovebirds tempt fate by dancing perilously close to the line of fire. Youthful glee: a failsafe balm to this old man's spleen.

A few more vacation snapshots - no time to really write. But from top to bottom: 1) Lobster headed into the sack, an intermediary spot on its way to better things; 2) a scenic overlook on our early afternoon hike; 3) beautiful Vinalhaven harbor; 4) I think it's called a galamander, or something - it used to haul the huge chunks of granite they took from Vinalhaven in the 19th century (and put into such buildings as St. John the Divine in NYC); 5) one of the island's many swimming quarries (a result of all that granite having been extracted); 6) the outside of Robert Indiana's in-town house, which is a converted Oddfellows Hall; 7) Me in the shirt that earned me far more abuse here than on the mainland.

Sorry to have missed you all these past couple of days. It was time for the Truth About Daisies retreat. Doug and Sheila rented a sweet little house on Vinalhaven, and I managed to drop in for an incredibly lovely 28 hours or so. Lots to tell and show about it, but I'm soooo sleepy. And it's suddenly cold(!!!!) here. And we have next to no oil, which is now something like $2.50 a gallon. Reality sneaks in with a vengeance. Anyway, I'll post more about the trip, unless something more exciting happens soon. Maybe I'll just post more pictures from my dopey camera phone. It requires so much less thought than actual writing, you know.

Am I the only one? Don't you also cringe when you hear politicians speak of "good-paying jobs?" The latest example that comes to mind is Ned Lamont, who just gave Joe Lieberman a deserved bonk on the head (I'll stay out of whether Lamont's qualified for the senate and all that juicy stuff). But John Kerry also used the phrase all the time in '04. It's so obviously wrong that I think it can't be an unintentional mistake. More of a populist, pandering kind of move (in the George Bush tradition)? (I know I don't need to tell you that it's "well-paying," not "good-paying." "Good, paying" might be possible - but I don't thing it's ever meant that way, and I've not seen it transcribed that way either). For the record, and you read it here first, I am against good-paying jobs. Any friend of good-paying jobs ain't a friend of mine. Me won't vote for anybody like that.

The locals stare out me almost incredulously when I tell them I've been swimming in East End Beach. I say it proudly, as if I've discovered the key to life here up on Munjoy Hill - you know, that it took a smart New Yorker like me to figure it out. I mean after all, there's a big sign right at the entrance that claims for the water quality the illustrious rank of "acceptable" (for swimming). Then I got ill. Alex was convinced it was the water, but I steadfastly denied it as I clutched my belly and lay in the fetal position. So then I did what anyone does when virtually anything happens: I went to the net. And I found this disturbing article from a few years ago. And from there I made it to the EPA's water facility monitoring site to read up on our friendly neighborhood wastewater facility (located a few hundred feet upstream of said E.E. beach). And there I learned that Portland Water Works has in the past been in "significant non-compliance" with acceptable federal standards for chlorine and [warning: it gets gross starting...now] fecal coliform levels. How non-compliant, you ask? Well, in the last quarter of 2004, which incidentally is when I took up residence here, the fecal coliform levels were at 4500% of the allowable limit. I thought I was kidding when I called the place "the poopie factory." Things have, to be sure, improved steadily since then, and the last reading, from the first part of this year, has the level at 150%. I feel so much better. Then I discovered that on the Maine Healthy Beaches site, you can actually check the Enterococci levels for water drawn from specific beaches. It's a confusing statistic, but the bottom line is that above 104 is bad. So looking at East End Beach, I see that the levels are for the most part quite fine. That is to say, most samples have the level lower than 10. But every so often it spikes up - like on Bastille Day this year, it was 323. That's three times the federal limit (which is itself controversial). Ostensibly there are supposed to be "advisories" on days such as this. But I've never seen one. And the water isn't even tested every day. And, I still have a little bit of a lingering stomach ache and I haven't been in the drink for a couple of days. And I emailed and called several people, including the beach manager, and no-one's gotten back to me. So to cut to the chase: I'm done swimming at East End Beach. And depressed as can be about it too. Good thing the EPA's really cracking the whip these days...

This little montage of yesterday's trials will have to suffice, because tonight's stunning triumph was swathed in darkness for which my puny camera phone was no match. We ran and played in the blazing sun, coaxing Alex's copy-paper kite to fly. It made a good show of horizontal, but faltered in the vertical domain. Then tonight, Eureka. I was summoned from my dreary studio perch to the street, where I arrived barefoot and groggy, to see what was surely the finest vision of my summer. My brilliant Alex, radiant and laughing, running on the avenue with a brand new shopping bag kite twelve feet above her head, propelling the recently maligned Hannnaford's insignia to new heights. It would have made the localest of papers had the town not been sleeping, but I saw it all. And then I joined, naked soles stomping on the pavement, trailing old supermarket glory from some fraying twine in the August evening breeze.

Okay, I may have a really short fuse when it comes to olive bars (this being the third olive bar photo on the blog in about as many weeks) - but puhleeeze! This picture - of the aforementioned Hannaford olive bar, which is in most respects delightful - almost speaks for itself, no? The sign just sets my imagination running. "Excuse me. Yes, I'd like to speak with a cheese associate. Ah, yes, Mr. Associate, or is it Mr. Cheese, I'd like to taste one nicoise olive. Can we set up an appointment?" No, you can't forbid olive tasting - that's just so 1980s. Hannaford, get with the times. Accept the fact that people are going to snarf some olives - it's probably ultimately good for sales - and get a big bucket, or even a spittoon, for the pits. That'll be scads better for your public image, believe me. (And when you do, I promise to place a photo of the improved situation right here, in this very spot).

Yeah, I know it looks bad. Like I've forsaken all responsibility, forsaken the studio even, and dedicated my days to beachbumming. Pictorial evidence to the contrary, however, I have actually been getting a few things done in the shop. August is tricky time for both Mainers and academics. Lovely as the days are, in the evenings there starts to be just that little nip, that little reminder that as everlasting as this summer seems, it will be over before you know it, before you've eaten your last blueberry pie even. And with the coldness comes the workaday life, back to the grind. So I suppose we all, okay maybe just me, get into this kind of midlife crisis mode (midlife of the summer, that is, even though it's far beyond that), and feel as if every day needs to be mined for its fleeting warmth and breezy blueness. So I've made a little commitment to swim in some body of water every day for the rest of the month. I've hit every day but August 1, actually. Mostly, it's a jump into the refreshing waters at the East End Beach, after I do my morning run. The water is lovely for us hardy northerners, not sure how the rest of you would fare. And then late afternoons are also a possibility. Yesterday Alex, Neil Sattin and I headed south again, this time for Crescent Beach State Park. Here's me (foreground) and Neil (background) in a moment that was every bit as paradisiacal as it looks.

Heaven help me - I'm TOTALLY ADDICTED to lonelygirl15. Not just her brilliant videos, one of which I've embedded below, but all of the response videos that are popping up on YouTube. I'm just happy to be alive at this juncture of our technological evolution!

Aired up Alex's sweet little Univega bike for a desperation trip over to Willard Beach in South Portland late this afternoon. Lots I could say, but here are some pictures instead. You'll note I was rescued in the early evening. And one little anecdote. Three kids, two boys and a girl, maybe six years old, were running past me. Boy 1 says: "last one to the playground is a rotten stinkbomb!" Several moments later, as the girl begins to lag behind a bit, she says, pensively, "rotten stinkbomb? Hey....I'm not playing!" Pretty smart kid, I'd say.

Hi everyone. I'm sick and sleepy...finished some semblance of book proposal draft, and then found a bunch of cool pics in my inbox from Truth About Daisies percussionist, Burd. This gives a better sense than previously published pics about the delightful chaos we inflicted on poor, unsuspecting Corthell Hall. When I'm up to it I'[l tell you all about my new found love for swimming at East End Beach (right downstream from the poopie factory). Stay tuned. (And don't forget to check the Vault - which I've been religiously updating each week, despite the fact that few are noticing!)

So yeah, I'm back on the Joni trail again. She's a funny one. While I was writing my dissertation, people asked me all the time if spending so much time concentrating on her made me sick of her music, you know, made me never wanna hear Joni again. And I always said, truthfully, no, because the diss was really three super-in-depth studies of individual songs (albeit in all their socio-historic and musical-stylistic, to use academic wanker terms, context). But when the whole thing was done I was, indeed, burnt, and sadly, I stopped putting Joni in rotation. Then I had the opportunity to speak at a Joni Mitchell symposium held at McGill University in the fall of 2004. I prepared my paper (which turned out to be, I think, quite a bit too academic for the setting) and I went, enjoying with Alex the beautiful 5 hour drive to Montreal. I wasn't expecting much, and even the concept that I was going to meet, or at least be in the same room with, my dissertation topic, didn't really thrill me so much. I was spent, you see. So I'm there at the conference, and Joni arrives late by the grace of God and misses my presentation (which was made fun of - I was portrayed as a total egghead - on the front Arts page of the Montreal Gazette) and she walks into the room, cameras flashing, and from the moment she arrives I'm totally transfixed - blown away even. She was a star, and in her comments so opinionated, so brilliant and cutting and honest, that I reconnected with all it was that got me into the project (as she had become) in the first place. Her comportment over the remainder of that two-day experience, a subject for another day, just knocked my socks off. I came home with renewed vigor (and with an autographed copy of my dissertation. I also gave her a copy, but foolishly neglected to leave my contact info on it, so she hasn't called, and she hasn't invited me out to the Vancouver residence, or to tea, and we haven't had long jam sessions into the early hours of the morning. Just in case you're wondering. At least these pictures earned me some serious cred, in the scheme of things).
Anyway, I'm kind of at a similar spot now. I have a kind of self-imposed deadline - a book proposal that's like two years overdue, but my friend and former dissertation advisor Ellie has, out of the goodness of her heart, started cracking the whip again. So I've dug out all my works-in-progress on the matter, and started reading stuff again. And to get myself even more into the mood, I've begun reading old articles (an absolutely astounding library of press clippings on Mitchell, along with a lot of other great stuff, is maintained at Jonimitchell.com - perhaps the best, most comprehensive website devoted to a popular music artist). And although on some level I'm feeling kind of burnt, I start reading these clippings and all the worship just seeps right back in (replacing the jealousy, which I'll admit sometimes also plays a role). I'm reading about her 1979 album Mingus, which was controversial (and I think an out and out masterpiece). And she's talking to John Rockwell about her composition method and says this:

Let's say a guitarist in the studio lays down four tracks. Some of them have magic moments, but they also have clunkers and warm-up chords. So, what I have is four tracks that need weaving. I edit each of those tracks individually, and then I run them all together. This is the way I've chosen to compose, through technology, through tape. It's audio composition - the elimination of things that do not work by erasure, all by ear. And by a graphic system which runs inside, behind my eyes. I see a graphic indication of what I'm hearing. I see where it's tangled in a graphically.

And I'm thinking, man, here we are 27 years later, and that's what everyone does. It's Protools, you know? (Most audio editing these days has a very pronounced visual element). Anyway, so I'm sucked back in - and the opera is perilously on hold for a couple of more days while I parse and chop, drool and expostulate.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of Laurel Canyon from my friend Charlotte, who was its art designer. But an even better surprise was to discover how truly excellent is Michael Walker's chronicle of that legendary L.A. neighborhood, from its mid- to late-60s heyday into its late-70s decline. This is the best account of sex, drugs and r&r I've read in a long, long time. It's beautifully written, insightful, and rings true with all the research I've done on related topics (newbies to this space may be unaware that I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Joni Mitchell, so this counts as research for me (as I work on a book proposal)). Walker has accounts of the sudden and shocking rise to prominence of artists like the Byrds, CSN(&Y), Joni, Jackson Browne, Frank Zappa, and many others who traipsed through the Lookout Mountain area when it was a bastion of Bohemian living and The Music. Most poignant, for me, is his account of the transformation both L.A. and the music industry in general underwent when Cocaine supplanted pot and LSD as the drug of choice:

Whenever cocaine actually arrived, there is universal agreement that it leeched whatever charm and innocence, real or imagined, the canyon scene still possessed. Whereas pot and acid were seen as tools of enlightenment, encouraging collaboration and damping, as much as was possible, the egos raging beneath the tie-dye and buckskin, coke magnified and amplified the worst qualities of nearly everyone who became heavily involved with it.

Walker's many interviews with major players from the eras in question load the book with fresh insights and previously unpublished anecdotes (like the time Joni Mitchell called Graham Nash, in 2005, to ask if he wanted to get together one last time and have a look at her old Laurel Canyon home, which she had been renting out for decades, before she sold it. He declined the offer.) And his take on the subject matter is deeply human and musically smart. For anyone hoping to get a handle on L.A.'s role in the rise of folk rock, the singer-songwriter movement, and the rise to American prominence of British acts like Led Zeppelin and Elton John, this little volume is invaluable. It also has a great chapter on groupies (with many lurid and captivating anecdotes from Morgana Welch) and - and you know how I feel about this - a very good glossy photo section, where all of the book's protagonists and several of its events may be studied. Only downside: if you've ever been a singer-songwriter, you'll lament having come of age in the wrong place, at the wrong time.