2011 goes on record as being the best summer of my adult life. Easily.
The Pioneer Valley and surrounding hill towns are full of farms, rivers, campgrounds, festivals, and ice cream. Mix in a dash of Vermont, a slew of visitors, and some Lititz fireworks, and these days are just about perfect.
Which is why, though I’m a lover of fall, I was sad to see some mums today. One of many signs that the summer is winding down.
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Saturday night in Philadelphia, PA
Bad news for residents of Tuvalu, a small South Pacific nation with 11,500 people spread across nine atolls. Large parts of the country will disappear underwater later this week:
Tuvalu…will be hit Thursday and Friday by “king tides” associated with the new moon, Hilia Vavae of the Tuvalu Meteorological Office [reports]
[snip]
Over the last decade, successive Tuvalu leaders have claimed their state will be the first victim of sea level rise associated with global warming. They have used the argument to claim special immigration access to New Zealand and recently were in discussion with another Pacific state, Niue, on moving their people there.
Tuvalu is a fascinating little country and the title of this gem of a movie.
Some of the best dinner parties happened in Sassy J’s small apartment on the third floor of a Rittenhouse brownstone. The kitchen was composed of a refrigerator, an apartment-sized stove, and a sink that stood galley-style against the back wall of the living room. A microwave cart, sans microwave, provided extra counter space, and a few cabinets above the appliances housed the pantry and place settings. Anything not needed on a regular basis was banished to the adjacent “hell closet,” the door to which was opened with extreme caution and only in emergencies.
Shortly before she got married and moved to the ‘burbs, I visited Sassy J’s little urban retreat for the last time. “I won’t miss this kitchen,” she said, pointing out the signs of disrepair: chipped enamel on the stove, sagging cupboards, and rusting hardware. But no one noticed these flaws during the cozy parties; the dinners were perfect, even without comfy chairs, granite countertops, and shiny appliances.
Six or eight of us would arrive and drink wine and smell the sautéing onions and garlic. And then we’d drink more wine and seat ourselves around the folding chairs and the card table borrowed from the downstairs neighbors. And then we’d drink more wine and feast on whatever Sassy had cooked up: shrimp on rosemary sprigs, Moroccan lentils, soups, salads, sometimes a bourbon chocolate pecan pie if it wasn’t Sunday and hard to procure the bourbon. And then we’d drink more wine or coffee and sit around telling stories.
And so I resolve in 2009 to have more people over to our own tiny kitchen. We can’t seat more than six comfortably or spare the counter space for a food processor (although we do have my grandmother’s blender), but we have some wine, good recipes, and Sassy J’s old folding chairs in the basement.
Thanks to Mark Bittman, whose “So Your Kitchen is Tiny. So What?” article was the inspiration for this trip down memory lane.
Last week, Type E and I packed up the Subaru and drove North to explore a bit of New England. The first leg of the trip was Northampton, MA and the surrounding Pioneer Valley.
Setting up at DAR
On Saturday afternoon the tent made its first 2010 appearance as we set up camp in DAR State Forest, where the fall foliage was already in full force.
Then we promptly left nature behind and took scenic Route 9 into town for Indian food. Northampton’s downtown is charming: very walkable, bike path, tons of restaurants, lots of retail, multiple music venues, and the Academy of Music. The Northampton Brewery has an amazing outdoor, multi-level deck, a lovely place to have a beer and soak up the scene.
Northampton's Academy of Music
On Sunday morning, after my standard grumbling about the trauma of going out into the cold, cruel world just to use a bathroom, we did the Route 9 drive again and found ourselves at Bread Euphoria. This place, located in Haydenville, MA, really is euphoric.
Bread Euphoria
The smell of baking cinnamon lures you into the building, where you’re greeted by a display case of scones, cookies, bagels, quiche, pizza, salads, mac ‘n cheese—all of life’s finer things. Beverage options include delicious coffee and Berkshire Brewing Company drafts. Bread Euphoria offers wifi, but their customers prefer talking to typing.
Look Park foliage
After some driving through Smith College’s campus (gorgeous), Easthampton (small), and Holyoke (depressing), we paid our admission to Look Park, just outside of Northampton. There was a benefit concert in the outdoor amphitheater, a miniature golf course (sadly, I got my ass kicked), a zoo (sadly, with a caged bald eagle), and a train exactly like the one I used to drive at Dutch Wonderland.
Look Park train
Our trip coincided with The Big E, the largest fair in the Northeast, home of the Big E Cream Puff and Craz-E Burger. In addition to the usual record-breaking pumpkins, rides, and livestock, the Big E has something not usually seen at PA fairs: booze. And a huge cow sculpted from butter.
butter cow
On the way out, Type E sampled salsa prepared by a sullen veggie chopper salesman and almost died from ingesting a hot pepper. The sullen veggie chopper salesman was unsympathetic.
The Big E!
We left Massachusetts the next morning, after one last drive through town, where a busker was playing his banjo in the rain.
On Friday night, the Scribe Video Center’s Street Movies! program came to Fishtown. Films included Shouts from the Crowd, a documentary about local jazz band Nate Wiley and the Crowd Pleasers, From the Del to the El, a story about the evolution of Fishtown, and Still Life With Animated Dogs.
The hit of the evening was Y Did Yoda Figt Count Duku, an animated Star Wars movie by Sean McBride and his 5-year-old cousin. Watch it, or I will cut you in half like a sandwich!
All of this is a sad reminder of the short films I saw at the 2005 Philadelphia Film Festival and never wrote about. So in lieu of actually writing, here are links to some of the animated goodness–only four months late.
Those last two pieces are hosted by California Institute of the Arts; its film school has many more streams available for your viewing pleasure.
Today’s arts pick is another outdoor installation, this one representing the downward spiral of a once-useful object into a total state of degradation.
The piece, an item designed to protect and aid vision, has been debased in a myriad of ways, and the artist uses every means at his disposal to emphasize its pitiful condition. The most obvious device is the deliberate destruction of the lenses–their shattered state is clearly an indication of the subject’s current irrelevance. The artist reinforces this technique by leaving the lens fragments inside their respective frames as a bitter reminder of a time when the subject was able to fulfill its purpose.
Just as important as the trodden lenses, however, is the surrounding canvas. If the lens fragments symbolize the subject’s unfulfilled potential, the decision to set the piece in pavement highlights its resulting insignificance. The lack of contrast between the subject and canvas–notice how some components fade into the background–ensures that the piece would be almost invisible to passers-by, except for the outlining frames.
This exhibit is on display in Philadelphia, at 16th and Fairmount.
South Philly light tour
Cleaning up City Hall
Saturday night in Ocean City, NJ