Greetings from Newton Square

Another quick post while watching the end of The Forsytes, mostly because it's only six episodes and I'd already watched three before deciding it was only worth finishing for completists (surely they aren't making another season of this -- I believe Netflix has The Forsyte Saga from the aughts and will see if the older one aggravates me less). 

I had a fairly quiet Friday -- it was much colder than Thursday, I walked fewer miles, and apart from getting boxes picked up, I mostly caught up on uploading photos, computer work, and the first episode of the new season of For All Mankind which is always excellent. Some of the architecture of the Newton Square-Piedmont neighborhoods downtown from yesterday:

Greetings from the Seattle Art Museum

We spent Sunday at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), and it was, shall we say, a mixed experience for me. Perhaps I was just not in the right mood for it, having just had a couple of arguments with people using recent academic garbage-speak in bad faith discussions about Israel (if I see the phrase "settler colonialism" again in 2026 I refuse to be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth in response, and the first week of January isn't even over). 

Perhaps we should not have started with the top floor exhibit, Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism, which I should have realized based on that title might exemplify the recent museum trend in which art is either interpreted to mean whatever anticolonialist, wealth-critical, anti-appropriation [pick your own buzzword] the curator wishes or conversely is criticized for failing to be sufficiently any of the above. Did you know that when people of color create elaborate paintings of fruit, it's a commentary on class and global shortages, but when white people paint extremely similar works, it's a flaunting of their privilege? 

Painting bloody pigs after slaughter is virtuous, and painting women sweating in fields is an important statement, but painting decadent French tables either means that the artist could see how atrocious the class system was or that the artist was completely blind to same, depending on who the artist was and what statement the curator wanted to make. It was a doozy, though the rest of the galleries at the museum were even worse, and thus begins a rant.

 

Here I am reflected in an important piece of contemporary art called "High Finish Box" which apparently exemplifies West Coast Minimalism, though you wouldn't know it from the card because this one only includes artist John McCracken's name and dates. (How come we get told that we must see Orientalism, cultural appropriation, and imperialism in the lovely homoerotic -- though don't expect the museum to point that last out -- work of John Singer Sargent, but we get no overdetermined interpretations of or even basic background on the various spatter paintings, Barnett Newman line paintings, and inevitable Rothko "Untitled"?)

 

This is a crop of my photo of Albert Bierstadt's Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast. (Confession: I love Bierstadt, which undoubtedly biases me and also reveals my imperialist tendencies.) The card next to it notes that when he painted this, Bierstadt had never visited the Pacific Coast, so this is entirely a fantasy landscape, created on commission for a fur merchant whose "economic interests in the region were clear. Interests that required moral and philosophical justifications, and political and military projections of power to reinforce." The card also says, "Here, Puget Sound is a heavenly realm...everything in this painting is grand -- except the Indigenous people on the shoreline. Their diminutive presence suggests that they are inconsequential to the story being told." Now, again, I'm not an art critic, but my first reaction upon looking at this painting is that the whole story of the painting is these local people, in rough seas in a gigantic rocky landscape, who are bringing their canoes safely to shore. All the light in the painting is pointing to their safe landing. And you can see how much skill it took by looking at the boat still in shadow, being skillfully maneuvered over the waves. It's the fucking curator diminishing the people in the painting, not the artist. (Interestingly, what's on SAM's web site is quite different than what's hanging next to the painting in the museum.)

 

Now in point of contrast, this is Shipwreck off the Coast of Alaska by Louis-Philippe Crépin (whose work I know much less well than Bierstadt's). It was, incidentally, purchased for the museum by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Art Acquisition Fund. It's the story of a real disaster in which a French expedition capsized and 21 men drowned, including the two noble La Borde brothers. The museum card explains how the La Bordes are shown trying to save their doomed comrades and adds, "At the right are two members of the Tlingit tribe, who witnessed the event and searched in vain for survivors...the story of the shipwreck remains part of the Tlingit oral tradition." Now, that may be so, but in this painting, you hardly notice the two tiny deep-in-shadow indigenous people. I'm glad the card points them out, but nothing in the painting glorifies or centers them and a viewer could be forgiven for thinking they were other colonists or even locals pointing and saying "hahaha look at these idiot French sailors." (This painting has the identical entry on the website as the museum card.)

 

This is "The Temptation of St. Anthony #2." Now, admittedly, being Jewish, I know very little about saints and have trouble keeping straight which one did what. And as an art dilettante, I know that Michelangelo did a painting of St. Anthony, but I don't know why it's important -- whether it's because of the content or the use of paint or its influence on later artists...and maybe this one is not even in dialogue with those other artistic interpretations, maybe it's an expression of the artist's Catholicism or anti-Catholicism or something else. The point is that THIS painting has ZERO context on its card despite being obviously allusive; it's the exact opposite of all the paintings with cards not just interpreting them for viewers but ordering viewers to have specific reactions -- to be horrified by the Orientalism or the cultural appropriation or whatever. Give me some clue why this is important!

 

This series of photos by Dawoud Bey are called David Hammons, Pissed Off, made to record how Hammons responded to sculptor Richard Serra's massive and controversial Tilted Arc in Manhattan. The card notes that Hammons is pissing on the sculpture as a statement about Serra's "social and art-world politics" and later threw 25 pairs of shoes over it like sneakers dangling from power lines. What it doesn't explain anywhere is exactly what Serra's sculpture was, what it looked like, why it was controversial; it was massive, rust-covered, blocking big sections of a public area that physically prevented people from getting quickly from one side to the other, was not approved by the vast majority of people who depended on work in the area, it was a security hazard, but you'd have to look at Wikipedia and various art web sites as I did to find this out if you weren't already familiar with it. Without that context, the photos look kinda like a mediocre Mapplethorpe ripoff with public urination and men in uniform. (Side note: there's an exhibit with taxidermied cats by Hammons here that I gather is supposed to make a statement about African-American excellence, but all I could think about is where the dead cats came from, and whether they were killed specifically for this exhibit, which not only didn't SAM but none of the web sites where I looked had anything to say about -- I've been told recently that it's white privilege to worry about animals when people of color are being abused/tortured every day, but I needs must worry about multiple issues at once.)

 

And speaking of cats, this piece by Tony Feher -- the suspended chalices -- is called GrandMa's Pussy. I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR FILTHY MIND IS because 1) there is zero context for this on the card on the wall, just the artist's name and dates, and 2) the museum web site (which I checked when I got home) assures me that it evokes "a sweet grandmother who aligns with the archetypal and perhaps nostalgic image of a gracious and generous giver...who implores you to eat more and not leave so soon; her home becomes a site of care, with multiple bowls and plates and jars of things from which she encourages you to help yourself" and I'm assured in the same essay that "pussy" meant something very different in 2013 when the sculpture was created than it does today. Sorry but I just have to add HAHAHAHAHAHA CLEARLY THE PORN TO WHICH I WAS EXPOSED IN MY YOUTH WAS AHEAD OF ITS TIME. And I'm pretty sure Chaucer made a pussy joke. (By the way, nowhere does the web site entry mention actual pussycats, when they just might -- might -- have been able to convince me that the piece got its name because Grandma's cat knocked all these items off her counter.)

 

On a happier animal note, the exhibit A Room for Animal Intelligence has dozens of portrayals of animals from all over the world with placards from the animals' POV. This is Monkey Holding a Baby from 1800s Japan, so it's presumed to be a macaque, the only species of monkey native to Japan. This one expresses regret on its little card not to have been painted in color, as they have pink-red faces. 

Anyway, we came home, watched the Ravens-Steelers game which was a lot of fun for the first half and let's never speak of the ending, and now we're watching The Mirror Crack'd because Amazon Prime suggested it to us and I haven't seen it in a million years and Paul doesn't think he's ever seen it. Other than chatting with neighbors as they were packing up their holiday decorations and having ham and bean soup for dinner, that was most of my Sunday excitement!

Greetings from Issaquah

In addition to being the last Pokemon Go Community Days of the year, this weekend features the last PNW Witches' Market of the year, at the Pickering Barn in Issaquah instead of the beach in Kirkland where the spring-summer-fall markets take place. So after I spent the morning addressing and return-address-labeling holiday cards (mailing first requires stamps), we ate lunch and went to Issaquah, where I looked at lots of clothing, plants, crystals and Tarot decks, bought a felted witch hat and a handmade coat, and ran into my downstairs neighbor. Since we were in Issaquah, we also stopped at Bricks & Minifigs and Legendary Doughnuts, where we may have bought dessert. 

Our catsitter neighbors came over when we got home so we could give them some souvenirs we brought them. Then we ate dinner while watching the Big 10 championship football game, in which Indiana justified my love and beat Ohio State. Afterward we watched on a whim A Very Pagan Christmas on Amazon Prime, which we didn't know till we started watching is entirely terrible AI -- the graphics in which people and animals had double heads, the narrator whose voice we kept trying to place until we learned it was computer generated (Emma Thompson probably should sue) -- and given how little I feel like Christmas this year, it was actually just what I was in the mood for!

Poem for Monday and Festival of the Nativity

Roadside Creche 

By Ron Koertge 

Traditionally, Gaspar, Melchoir and Balthasar

show up with their exotic gifts, though the Bible

does not name them and some scholars believe

the Chinese sage Liu Shang might have attended

with a gift of silk rather than myrrh. Or even

better - fireworks. The Christ child's missing

fingers suggest he already has some experience

with cherry bombs or Red Devil Ground Blasters.

In this crèche, though, the magi have yet to arrive.

There are no camels, just a plaster zebra peering

over Mary's shoulder. Joseph must have stepped

out for milk or cigarettes. The weight of adoration

has fallen onto the shoulders of a single, scowling

shepherd with binoculars slung around his neck.

He is still keeping watch over his flock despite

that mischievous star that lured him from his

tranquil hillside and utterly bewildered dog. 

-------- 

I slept till nearly noon on Monday to make sure I would have energy for the rest of the day, because at 2:30 we went to pick up our new RAV4, and (as I predicted) we weren't back here till after 6:30, by the time we had inspected, test driven, signed the purchase papers, had the minivan inspected, signed the sales papers, talked to the manager, talked to the finance guy, signed the warranty papers, and consumed two cups of tea, one cup of hot chocolate, and at least two chocolate chip cookies (Michael's of Bellevue has a free full-service coffee shop for customers). 

We said a fond farewell to the minivan after 20 years -- there are still rocks our kids found in the doors -- and came home for dinner, which we ate after watching What If...?'s second episode with Cheryl (Hollywood and Bollywood, yay). Then, inevitably, we watched Die Hard, which Disney+ has at the top of their "Christmas Movies" list and we hadn't managed to see yet this year. No laundry has been folded in two weeks because I can't stay awake to stand up that long, unfortunately! Here are some of the cutest creches from the Bellevue Festival of the Nativity at the LDS Temple:

Poem for Wednesday and High Crosses

Dark Night of the Soul 

By St John of the Cross 

Once in the dark of night,

Inflamed with love and wanting, I arose

(O coming of delight!)

And went, as no one knows,

When all my house lay long in deep repose

All in the dark went right,

Down secret steps, disguised in other clothes,

(O coming of delight!)

In dark when no one knows,

When all my house lay long in deep repose.

And in the luck of night

In secret places where no other spied

I went without my sight

Without a light to guide

Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone

Surer than noonday sunlight over me,

And lead me to the one

Whom only I could see

Deep in a place where only we could be.

O guiding dark of night!

O dark of night more darling than the dawn!

O night that can unite

A lover and loved one,

A lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast

Which I had kept for him and him alone

He slept as I caressed

And loved him for my own,

Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.

And from the castle wall

The wind came down to winnow through his hair

Bidding his fingers fall,

Searing my throat with air

And all my senses were suspended there.

I stayed there to forget.

There on my lover, face to face, I lay.

All ended, and I let

My cares all fall away

Forgotten in the lilies on that day.

-------- 

I'm still sick and still cranky so I'll keep this short. Of my high school friends, only Kay could chat, but it was nice to talk to her when my throat and her internet permitted; afterward, we had lunch and I watched the second half of Marvel's Frost Fight and The Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special with Kristen. Then took a walk to the park, since it finally stopped raining. 

We saw bits of bowl games before the season finale of The Masked Singer, which ended as I had hoped pretty much all season -- right final two, in fact -- and spent the rest of the evening catching up on Doctor Odyssey, which is either epic crack masquerading as The Love Boat or has something else entirely going on. Back to Ireland because I found these lovely high cross details from Monasterboice:

Poem for Tuesday and Kilfenora Cathedral

Going Home to Mayo, Winter, 1949 

By Paul Durcan 

Leaving behind us the alien, foreign city of Dublin

My father drove through the night in an old Ford Anglia,

His five-year-old son in the seat beside him,

The rexine seat of red leatherette,

And a yellow moon peered in through the windscreen.

'Daddy, Daddy,' I cried, 'Pass out the moon,'

But no matter how hard he drove he could not pass out the moon.

Each town we passed through was another milestone

And their names were magic passwords into eternity:

Kilcock, Kinnegad, Strokestown, Elphin,

Tarmonbarry, Tulsk, Ballaghaderreen, Ballavarry;

Now we were in Mayo and the next stop was Turlough,

The village of Turlough in the heartland of Mayo,

And my father's mother's house, all oil-lamps and women,

And my bedroom over the public bar below,

And in the morning cattle-cries and cock-crows:

Life's seemingly seamless garment gorgeously rent

By their screeches and bellowings. And in the evenings

I walked with my father in the high grass down by the river

Talking with him – an unheard-of thing in the city.

But home was not home and the moon could be no more outflanked

Than the daylight nightmare of Dublin city:

Back down along the canal we chugged into the city

And each lock-gate tolled our mutual doom;

And railings and palings and asphalt and traffic-lights,

And blocks after blocks of so-called 'new' tenements –

Thousands of crosses of loneliness planted

In the narrowing grave of the life of the father;

In the wide, wide cemetery of the boy's childhood.

-------- 

We had rain all day Tuesday, so I spent it indoors finishing my Ireland Shutterfly books and doing some laundry and other chores. My Voyager group was missing two people, so we skipped watching an episode (we're up to a two-parter anyway) and just chatted for an hour and a half about election depression and entertaining distractions. 

Cheryl, Paul and I watched Deadpool and Wolverine together and it was just as great as the first time, maybe better because I was aware of cameos -- human and "20th Century Fox graveyard" -- to keep an eye out for. Then we watched the 2003 Daredevil because it's one of the few Marvel movies we'd never seen. 

Here are some photos from Kilfenora Cathedral in the Burren, founded in the 6th century, containing three high crosses, a Gothic sedilia, and the tomb of Neptune Blood, whose nephew tried to steal the British crown jewels in 1671. The transept's oak ceiling decayed, so it has a glass roof to protect what remains of the interior architecture:

Poem for Monday and Holycross Abbey

Seed Speech 

By Janet Wong 

If you think

of words

as tiny seeds

that take root

and hold

this earth together

then you see

why it matters for us

to scatter even our smallest

thoughts out there,

to make our voices

heard --

There are no stupid questions.

And, yes:

there might be simple answers.

The birds are chirping:

more seeds,

more seeds!

-------- 

Paul is on the redeye overnight because he has a work thing -- he'll be back here Wednesday night, assuming the election doesn't mess up flights. So we had a fairly quiet day doing work and chores, then we walked to the beach and saw the ducks closer to evening now that the clocks have gone back. We ate leftovers for dinner and started watching the Chiefs-Buccaneers game together before he left, then chatted while he was at the airport about the stupid overtime rules that let KC win. Now I'm watching The Fall Guy, something distracting from the news. 

Speaking of the election, since it seems like a good night for prayer -- my Jewish women's support group for Kamala on Facebook called it Poll Nidre -- here is Holycross Abbey, founded as a Cistercian monastery by the King of Limerick in 1182, possessing a relic of the True Cross brought to Ireland by King John's wife Isabella of Angouleme in the 1200s, a chalice from the 1600s, a fresco of Irish hunters from the 1400s, the Stations of the Cross both within and without, the ruins of the infirmary and guest house, and partially intact cloisters:

Poem for Thursday and Yeats' Grave

The Stolen Child 

By W.B. Yeats 

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berrys

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

-------- 

Thursday was chilly but sunny after an overcast morning during which I did a bunch of chores. I am finally done washing, folding, and putting away laundry from the trip! We took a walk in the early afternoon to enjoy the weather, then we watched most of the Guardians game, which ended well. 

The Yankees game did not end as I had hoped, but I missed most of it on chat with my Thursday night regulars, after which we watched the last two episodes of Ridley, still quite dark, and looked for the auroras that my kids saw. Here is W.B. Yeats' grave at Drumcliffe Church in County Sligo: