Beyond Moonstone and Broken Stone

I didn't tell you the whole story.

Back in South County, along the coast of Rhode Island. The day that I stood on the seaweed and garbage-strewn edge of a chewed-away beach. Sizing it up. Whole chunks devoured. Agape, I stood surveying a wounded shoreline, gnashed and sliced with mechanical precision, a chainsaw steel-toothed-blade slashing. Here you are Lil Rhody: a newly chiseled ribbon of beachfront.

That's what she said to me, Hurricane Sandy, as she flossed her choppers. I listened further. My ears buzzed with the saw's vibration. A tinnitus. Hiss. (I wondered if her steely jaw hurt as much as mine did after a night of vigorous grinding.)

Now exposed a foot or more above the shiny, sabulous floor are three concrete septic tanks. Now an orange net of fencing assuredly tells visitors to not climb wood stairs, to not roam wood decks. We don't know what's safe. We don't know what might give under foot. Or what might topple overhead. And who knows, in this cycle of storms, how long it will take before we are able to tend to this beach's wounds.

Sandy's hiss lingered. Driving Rhode Island's roads I had noticed how all the trees, with the exception of evergreens, in the area and around the state had been prematurely shorn bare. Another reminder that our fall has not been like ordinary falls past. None of the seasons, truly, have been like those past, and there has been, undeniably, altered weather patterns throughout the year, a change in our climate, and I feel the loss. The resulting melancholy that grips me has become inescapable.

*   *   *

Out there, where the continent ends, a mob of seagulls swarmed above the churning waters, in search of... Something. Food. Companionship. Entertainment. They jostled above the smooth-stoned jetty, eyed its pummeling by the wildly relentless surf. They squawked discordantly, and hustled easily through knotty wind, steeling crab-scrap from one another. Scrap is plenty and they are a greedy lot. They are no better than ambulance-chasing lawyers, they are opportunists. (This explains their longevity, as well their repulsiveness.) Go away, you opportunistic kleptomaniacs!

Why are seagulls called seagulls when they are not confined to the sea? In fact, they do not venture far out above the ocean, and very often, they are found inland: at freshwater lakes, in the parking lots of football stadiums or theaters, or at big-boxed shopping centers that sadly occupy corner lots of every other town in America.

*   *   *

But before I'd reached the beach in South County, before stopping by at the Shopping Center in Westerly that I manage, before assessing the damage to a pylon sign, I had visited my dermatologist, Dr. Kirk in East Greenwich. There, I had the angry, seething mole—a mole that had for many summer nights kept me awake, this, the mole from which I could not vacation, a mole that had burrowed into the fold of my right armpit and maddened my mental health—excised, as well as another bothered mole that had, like any good, large-pawed mole, dug itself a home and taken a seat on the backside of the equator of my body. The waistline is not a sitting or nesting area. It is too heavily trafficked by garments of the day and evening. There, fine silks, cashmeres and cottons carouse, and stumble, get caught, on anything in their way. They do not appreciate this. Neither does the no-sitting area. So there, they are hewn down like all the trees or tree limbs that fell just days before. Or like any tree that does not bear good fruit. They are hewn almost precisely like trees, only on a smaller, more sterile scale: a numbing agent applied to the area via syringe not only numbs the mole and its underlying/surrounding skin, but also puffs it up into a small mound so that the now protruding and exposed bugger may be sliced from its nest by a hand-held straight edge blade. It is more efficient, in fact, than cutting the tree, as no stump remains, no inviting perch or tunnel.

Friday Night Frolic — The Low Anthems of a Dysfunctional Winter

A Scene on the Ice -  Hendrick Avercamp 

No ice
not even snow
on this island
that sits low
by the sea

Ponds long
to be cut
with silver blades
a fishing hut
or a puck

No such luck.

Where has winter gone?

Suburban soliloquists
take trains
stare out windows
at city's winter rains
dreaming of frost

Skis of copious length
on which to mount
a field of firn
to linger, scout
a winterland struck

But fuck.

Where has winter gone?

To the Dutch
they've it all
ice, skates, kolf
snow wonder they stand tall
on glacial ivory

The brilliance
of a Vermeer
Jan Davidsz de Heem's
flowers, oh dear!
Steen's palette instructs

Winter's not amuck!

As it should be:

Swirling, whirling crystal
fleecy drifts severe
white-out hypnotics!
The island's absent pearlescent smear
and Khione's heart despairs

So to Avercamp
the scenes he'd deliver
lustful heads turn
toward his frozen river
away from this muck

What's known as winter yuck.

A dysfunctional winter.

* * *

The north wind blows and brittle branches scratch against the clapboards, yet I don't hear the siren calls of winter. Temperatures have dipped (somewhat), but the blizzards of last year seem merely a dream. How can that be? The last time we Rhode Islanders saw snow around here it was cavorting with fall, just before Halloween. That was the trick. The treat has yet to follow, and I fear my friend snow may not remain as it should: a going concern. 

In a corner of the garage, my cross-country skis sit lonely, and I almost want to curse our pulsating sun that fights the brume for attention. This is not as winter should be. Not here. Not in Lil Rhody!

What we do have, though—even during abnormal winters—throughout the year, is a vibrant music scene, and a history of serving as a launching pad, or at the very least, sowing seeds, for several remarkable bands. Members of the Talking Heads met at RISD. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lisa Loeb, Duncan Sheik, Jesse Sykes (Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter), and Chris Keating (of Yeasayer) graduated from Brown University. And let's not forget one of my very favorites (especially when he's with his partner, Gillian Welch), David Rawlings, who grew up in the very next town from where I was born and raised.

In Providence, the local music scene includes, among others, The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones, Deer Tick, and The Low Anthem:

Ghost Women Blues—as well as other songs from The Low Anthem's most recent release, Smart Flesh—was recorded in an abandoned pasta sauce factory located in Central Falls, RI (home to Stanley's famous burgers), which is, like most places in R.I., barely a stone's throw away from my home. 

Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (2009) was recorded on Block Island—in the midst of its deep-freeze winter months. TLA is known for using locally found materials as percussion instruments, as well as its album sleeves and art. (Ah—a dumpster's treasures.) And I wonder what charms they dug up along the bluffs of one of the Last Great Places.

On My Space, TLA describes its music as minimalist, psychedelic and comedy. I think it's beautiful. (Or, wicked awesome, as the locals like to say.) And hope for more treats from them, as a going concern.

Now, please, Khione, bring on the snow!

The Edge of Arnold Mills — A Photo Essay

An Indian summer brings two days of consistently warm and glorious sunlight in which to ramble the oak, pine and chestnut-lined streets of my neighborhood. Yesterday, I strolled along the roads at nearly two o'clock in the afternoon when the sun is ordinarily high in the blue, yet it seemed to list a bit too far to the west, a reminder that all the worlds' (save for a few renegade countries) time pieces were set back an hour this past weekend, so I was, in actuality, walking and photographing fall scenery in three p.m. sunlight—if that makes sense at all.

Today, I set out earlier, at about noon-time, to capture more iPhone snapshots in one o'clock sunlight. (Is it too obvious that I'm wrestling with the one hour adjustment and that I'm smitten with the Hipstamatic application?)

The town in which I live was settled nearly four-hundred years ago by a bull-riding Englishman, William Blaxton (Blackstone), who was the the first farmer to cultivate Rhode Island apples. His Yellow Sweeting was the first American apple to be named. (Blaxton was also the first to plant an orchard in neighboring Massachusetts.) His orchard, like so much of the old farmland in this town, was later developed for non-agrarian use.

Braxton was known to journey into Providence on the back of his commuter-friendly white bull, tossing apples to children along his way. Imagine waiting for the Apple Man, his pockets stuffed with Yellow Sweetings, to breeze by on his snowy bull each Wednesday afternoon. Yet the gregarious man, supposedly, sought solitude in this once bucolic town.

The street on which I live, I've been told, is an old gravel pit, which is hard to imagine as abundant fern sprouts along the brook that passes through my backyard (that is not my back yard, above) and among the broad tracts of wetland in this northern pocket of land. The yard borders an area known as Arnold Mills, which many years ago was surely a mix of forest and farmland, dotted with ponds and streams. Though much of the town is rocky, and white quartz is easily found in its park. (Diamonds! the children shout.)

Years ago, good portions of the southern part of town were industrialized with mills and iron works, especially along the Blackstone River. Cannon balls were once forged here for the French and Indian War, as well as the American Revolution, and the first power looms for American woolens were made in a local machine shop. Here, was the original home of the Valley Falls Company, an old textile manufacturer and precursor to Berkshire Hathaway.

The mills (except for retail operations) and iron works have since closed, so when this old bridge was in need of refurbishment a few years back it was shipped to New Hampshire for proper restoration, and the road was closed for nearly a year. It's one of two beautiful wood and trussed bridges adorning the quiet country road on which I meander.

From the now near barren woods below, which border the country road, you can almost see my home.

I want to run through the old pines and deadwood. But I don't. I'm still thinking about the empty Adirondack chairs placed in the side yard of a pretty colonial, wondering about the father and son that might have been sitting in them, freeing chestnut's from their spiky pods. I wonder if they made weapons of them, or roasted them in a prematurely-lit Sunday afternoon fire.

I'd better haul some wood inside. Indian summers are sublime, but fleeting.

Friday Night Frolic — Reckoning With Forces Part II

"Oh,' said a very white body as it threw a wrist watch to the ground which broke without attracting anyone's attention, 'Oh, how can anyone not love poetry, natural machines, large white houses, the brilliance of steel, crimes and wild passions?" 

~ Robert Desnos

Tree in the Wind by Joan Miró 

...Or violent storms?

She departed late Sunday afternoon, leaving us with waves of warm breath and felled limbs and lines. The Canadians had skedaddled (I can no longer use that word without thinking of JeannetteWalls's memoir, The Glass Castle) the previous day, rushing to get ahead of Irene before she heaved in like the great big storm she was meant to be. And she was, at least that is, in many areas around New England.

We are minus a tree. It fell into a gurney of wire and rubber netting.

Isn't it beautiful?

This tree fell across the street directly into a neighbor's driveway.

We are minus, actually, many, many trees. Trees that never seemed more alive split and pivoted and drifted where Irene commanded. Trees hurled themselves toward the farm and the highland beyond that to the west and the shuttered city to the south, and treacherously, toward capes and colonials and bungalows. But I saw only one home that had been hit by a tree. Two trees, in fact—the damage transparently marginal. (Perhaps not to the homeowner.)

We had no power for days. (My electricity was restored by Tuesday night, though as I write this piece,  service—including the internet—is prickly and more than fifty thousand Rhode Islanders are still minus electricity.) No electricity, no internet, no phones and for many, no water. Irene, not without warning, adorned us with coal-tar, high-voltage snakes hissing and snapping at air. Crack-mouthed spectators studied the spectacle. Sometimes too closely. 

We are minus power. We feel we should go to bed when the sun sets and awaken as it rises.

Isn’t it beautiful? 

Now, many people have jobs where there were none before, like cutting through fugitive trees and hauling their limbs and trunks. Electricians replace ballasts and perform other terrifying high-wire acts. Carpenters repair molding and roofers take to the sun-faded and wind-lashed tiles. Noise, noise everywhere!

(Those who've been re-energized—thanks to the hardworking professionals who are now working so hard they've no time to sleep—share water and help others in all ways possible, like offering a warm shower, or an oven or a refrigerator or food, or wine!) 

And as some continue to wait for the flicker of lights, even the rattle of little plastic and metal playing pieces and their game boards are once again heard. Books—spined, paper books are comfortably cosseted and the flipping pages set the timbre and timing like a worn metronome.  

But before the noise we walked into the streets, into a surreal scene. Nothing looked as it should be but looked as one would expect it to be. Everything appeared to still be there but much of it had been re-positioned in dangerous ways so that it was clear to the observer that it would soon not be there. Many trees that lay broken are now gone. The beautiful trees. At night, when we went to bed, we slept in star-blotted black quiet, without the rumble of fans or air conditioning or even a songbird. There is a certain eloquence to silence, the August moon was as silent as it's ever been.

The blackness was blinding. And enlightening. Many conversations erupted: Remember old wooden ice boxes and the rag man? Outhouses and reading by oil lamps, laundry scrubbed on washboards and dried on the line? (I remember my mother tying my brother to the line—but that, as they say, is another story). Grass cut with push mowers instead of machines we sit on? Wood fires burned all day to heat the homestead? Walking, yes walking, to school? (Wait—what does that have to do with a hurricane?!)

And we think we work hard. 

In Rhode Island, we are minus surf deaths. Actually, in Rhode Island, Irene took no one. Though sadly, over forty people in thirteen states were killed in storm related accidents, and lush, gorgeous Vermont is in crisis. More than two Irene related deaths were caused by rough surf. What compels one to throw a surfboard into the sea during a hurricane? But the surfers: they died doing what they love, didn't they?

There is a French expression known as l'un dans l'autre. Which means, in English, literally all in all or all things considered, on balance. In French, the phrase is expressed more like one thing in another or seeing one thing through another.

Things are as we see them (until we see them differently). We are minus this and plus that. What may be beautiful to one is ugly to another. There is nothing like a ferocious storm—the moments before, during and after—to remind us of this.

One might say what the French writer and poet, Andre Breton, observed: The birds have never sung better than in this aquarium.

Isn't it beautiful?

* * * 

Guitarist Ottmar Liebert and his Luna Negra band have been recording nouveau flamenco style music since 1989. His instrumental music, a sanctuary from the storm, offers clarity and hope. Each song tells a story, conjures a specific place and time, and the silent narrative is both mesmerizing and emotional. The music, like his song titles, is passing storms. It is Turkish nights, Spanish rumbas, a Havana club, and light: morning light, moonlight, streetlight. It is flowers, butterflies and  falling stars and beating hearts. It is beautiful.

Leibert is not entirely without words, he keeps an online journal here. And his complete website, here.

Friday Night Frolic — Reckoning With Forces

Downtown Providence, RI--1938 Hurricane (RI Historical Society)

Today's Frolic will be brief as we have visitors from Quebec—not to mention a swirling and churning she-storm making its way up the East Coast—converging upon us at any moment.

Our French visitors should be here this afternoon. Irene, if her wrath shan't dwindle, will make her presence known Saturday evening and she may prove to be a force that we New Englanders haven't encountered since the great New England hurricane of 1938. (Though we've weathered significant storms since, but not the sort labeled "Category 3" that also make landfall.)

All this dark, tempestuous she-talk of late reminds me of another force: Danish singer/songwriter Agnes Obel.




Obel's power can be found in the substratum of classical music, simple melodies and often morbid lyrics. You can find more about Agnes here. Her debut album, Philharmonics, was released in September, 2010.



Obel's pitch perfect voice lingers long after the storm has passed. 

Be safe, my East Coast friends. Be safe.

"Friday Night Frolic" — When Flying Badgers Roam

Photograph: Ansel Adams

They flew low. So low that they appeared to clip the tall oaks and pines lining the streets from where we first saw them. From the car, we caught sight of two mottled grey lusterless airships as we headed south on Abbott Valley. They—wide-bodied, slow-motion, thunderous-winged bullets—soared nearly side by side as they appeared from the east and throttled west over Bear Hill's ascent.

Lu looked worried, Are we going to be bombed, Mama? she asked.

What a question. But it made me think of 9/11. Of Vonnegut's Dresden. Of Pearl Harbor. Because this is how it works, I think in scenes. But my daughter doesn't have a scene like this. I don't either, not a real one, except for 9/11—which left a deep aching imprint on anyone old enough to remember—which was also the same day, the same morning, that my husband left early for Washington, D.C. out of Rhode Island's T.F. Green via Pittsburgh, and lost contact with me for a good four hours. Nothing. His flight had been grounded in Pittsburgh once it was evident that we were under terrorist attack—wireless signals dead on the idling plane.

Clearly, Tuesday's flying machines were military—similar in size to the ones that used to buzz over the lake in Maine, before Bangor International changed their flight pattern, and nothing like the small, single engine Pipers that land at the towerless North Central airport in northern Rhode Island. I'd seen North Central's asphalt runways, been there with the kids to watch the lighter, sexier planes take off and land (what to do with your children on a Thursday afternoon), a pilot gave them plastic wing pins. Its largest runway is only 5,000 by 1,000 feet. Bangor's sole runway is nearly three times that—more than two miles long.

I read somewhere that Air Force One can land on a 4,000 foot runway so long as it's done with full reverse thrust, hard brakes and full spoilers and flaps. I've no idea what that means, but it sounds violent.

No, we're not going to be bombed, Lu. It was curious though. Planes flying low enough to trigger that ducking impulse. Low enough to take out one of Providence's skyscrapers (if Providence actually had skyscrapers). And the only airport at which they could land was miles away in the opposite direction. They were too low. Prematurely low. Disturbingly low.

Only minutes after they flew from view, as we headed up Bear Hill, we caught the nose of another bus-swallowing aircraft coming from the north and flying south, right above Abbott Run. I could feel its weight. A second plane followed just behind. Now it was more than curious. It was odd. Were these the same two planes that we had just witnessed jetting west? They couldn't have changed their flight direction that quickly.

We drove to the bank, made a rapid deposit, and returned home within ten minutes. As we climbed the deck stairs to the back side of the house we heard another magnificent roar, and from the north, again, appeared a smoky plane. From the deck's vantage point, it appeared to be a cargo carrier, a heavy, beat up old junker lumbering along at low altitude, blue exhaust pluming from behind.

It was no longer odd. It was concerning, as if we were being harassed. I went out to the empty street, expecting to see neighbors peering at the sky, but no one was outside. No one. Lu followed and hugged me with worry. They're in their basements! Call the police! she begged.

I didn't feel like this was a rational thing to do. Call the police. What if we were being harassed, what if terrorists had hijacked the planes intending to use them as shrapnel? What the hell could our town's policemen possibly do? Have another donut quick, guys, it's all over.

So I called the police (truly, I'm not the sort of hysteric that calls the police every time I notice something amiss). Have you, by chance, been getting calls about low flying planes? I asked, feeling as nutty as one might feel when making such a call.

Yeah, the officer answered quickly, we have and we have no idea what's going on. NO IDEA. Sorry.

Oh, really? It's...

NO IDEA. Sorry, he said again.

We turned on the evening news. Trending topics dominated, but it was silent as to airborne assaults, which I thought ought to be a trending topic.

Who does one call for the answer to why a half dozen military planes might have crossed through town a few hundred yards above one's rooftop? I thought about this all night. Would one call the FBI? Would one call 911 (as Lu also suggested)? Maybe one calls the local airport? Or, of course!, the Department of Defense. Or does one take swift, fiery notes and sketch an outline for her first sci-fi thriller? No, that's been done.

The real questions, though, the questions that flashed before me like the Vietnamese nail salon's neon sign on a steamy summer evening is who does one call if one is actually getting bombed? What's to prevent those steel barrels from falling from the sky? Why am I even thinking about bombardment? Why do I like that name: Bombardier? It's sexy I tell you, that's why. And why are planes so sexy?

Well, not all planes. Not planes that can be something else. Not the planes flying over my house early Tuesday night—the menacing planes—shame on them for bullying us, for blackening my idea of the airship as magical machine navigating above snowy gossamer pillows, away from the mundane, to some faraway exotic dream.



Fleet Foxes (go visit their website, it's fun—click back on Fleet Foxes after you visit each link) take me back to the days when planes were just planes. When the folk music of the 1960s and 70s was just folk music, like Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Simon and Garfunkel.

Their May 2011 release, Helplessness Blues (click to play the title song—you can also download and share it) is stunning. Gloriously stunning. Above-the-clouds stunning. It soars.