ESSAY/NOTES: The Democratic Convention

THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

from the New York Times, Bill Clinton’s speech:…Democratic values would restore the promise of the middle class.

... no question the country was in a better position than it was four years ago.

“We simply cannot afford to give the reins of government to someone who will double down on trickle down,” ...“We believe ‘we’re all in this together’ is a better philosophy than ‘you’re on your own,’ ” Mr. Clinton said.

“Some people just have to have it spelled out for them,” said Linda Brooks, 64, of Hampton Roads, Va. “He speaks in plain words people can understand.”

In the 45-minute speech, Mr. Clinton paid tribute to a spirit of bipartisan political cooperation that he lamented was now missing...

“Democracy does not have to be a blood sport,” Mr. Clinton said. “It can be an honorable enterprise.”

... the magnitude of the problems Mr. Obama inherited when he took office in 2009:

“President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did,” Mr. Clinton said. “No president, not me, not any of my predecessors, could have repaired all of the damage he found in just four years.”

...“People feel like the system is rigged against them,” she said. “And here’s the painful part: They’re right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay less taxes than their secretaries…”Elizabeth Warren 

ART: The Met

To the Metropolitan yesterday, going into Manhattan on Metro North railway line.  Such a pleasant journey.  It terminates at Grand Central Station and one can walk through the magnificent Grand Concourse and feel the grand excitement the possibility of travel offers.

We’re staying in Peggy and Date’s magnificent home, a four-story building on a small bluff with a creek running at the footings.  At night one falls asleep to the sound of flowing water. 

This painting by Rockwell Kent seems the most marvelously beautiful work to me - why do I love this so much?  He’s not a particularly valued artist - I love the ruggednes and the violet and silver blue snow, the frigid water, the strange yellow sunset event over the water, far far north of any comfort zone.  Maybe it’s the color harmonies, not so much the narrative - it’s classic early 20th century landscape style, with more hardened, saturated color moving it away from subtlety.

ART: Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Looking at Luminosity depicted on Canvas

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

A spectacular day at MFA.  What a pleasure and luxury a large metropolitan museum provides…”...how way leads onto way, and I doubted I would ever come back…”

What I loved today were ceramics, baskets, classic abstract painting, and Ori Gerst’s remarkable operatic, cinematic HD videos.  If I were home now, I’d rush out to the garage and start an abstracted sculptural collage that I could paint with encaustics.  

Now why should I feel so compelled by 3d suddenly?  I always have, actually - but I feel it in my body and my bones, to shape pliable matter, to hold it, to find the form, to build it, to express subtlety, muted tones, gradations, earthly somatic presence.  

FILM REVIEW: What to Expect When You're Expecting

Film” What to Expect When You’re Expecting”  

Viewed on the plane” a coercive fantasy about affluent beautiful  self-absorbed couples who become parents because it’s time now, and parenthood is trending, the new thing to do.  Parts of it, like paintings, are very good.  No one decides to have an abortion or worries about money: the men worry about their lives closing down, the wives pressure their husbands into fatherhood.  They are like parent versions of Cinderella, turning into loving parents when they see their newborn for the first time. For me, the truly moving and intriguing film narrative involves a luminous JLo and her fearful reluctant husband’s experience as they adopt an Ethiopian baby.  They journey to a third world orphanage, and a procession of babies draped in white emerges from a hut, and each is presented to their new mother and father. It’s a truly moving and beautiful scene, fully believable.  It opens the heart, implicating an unjust world and celebrating those who try to make things right.

GARDEN: Roses

The autumn is coming, I can feel change.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 – 

GET READY FOR ANOTHER

GOLD MEDAL - web photo - I just planted this old favorite of mine in May.

TRIP:  The Rose Garden

I’m mulching and feeding the roses once again, carefully grooming them again after letting them go for several years.  It’s very satisfying - they are heavy feeders and very responsive to care, and the extreme pruning I did in July, though unrecommended and unusual, reset them very successfully and they responded with a grand, healthy bounteous flowering.

I’ve put in three yellows, and they are doing well.  When we come back,  I’ll finish adding new fragrant-only selections and colors.  I may remove a few more.  I’ve removed all other plantings and so access is very good now, and I can move easily around them to work on them.

Very stiff!  It’s fun working with Florentino, the gardener.  He suggested I put in a climber, and I think we will during bare root season.

PERSONAL:September Arrives - The Rose Garden Yellows

GET READY FOR TRIP:  The Rose Garden

Carol Burnett

I’m mulching and feeding the roses once again, carefully grooming them  after letting them go for several years.  It’s very satisfying - they are heavy feeders and very responsive to care, and the extreme pruning I did in July, though unrecommended and unusual, reset them very successfully. They responded with a grand, healthy, bounteous flowering.

I’ve put in three yellows, and they are doing well.  When we come back,  I’ll finish adding new fragrant-only selections and colors.  I may remove a few more.  I’ve removed all other plantings and so access is very good now, and I can move easily around them to work on them.

 It’s fun working with Florentino, our gardener.  He suggested I put in a climber, and I think we will during bare root season.

Gina Lollabridgida

Gold Medal

TRAVEL: The Pinnacles National Monument

Saturday, September 1, 2012 –  

Driving Home from Palo Alto

Stopped off at Pinnacles National Monument, impromptu while trying to avoid traffic on 101 and the boredom of the I5.  A wonderful discovery - a beautiful lush California chaparral oak woodland with mixed pines and eroded boulders and needle mountain formations.  I saw birdlife immediately while we were driving and there’s a stream, dry now, but promising run-off in the springtime.  

I was enchanted with the place and we will go back.