Since the craft-panic of late November dovetailed neatly into the holiday-cheer-panic of mid-December, it had been quite a while since I had the opportunity to give myself a day off from everything, and I knew I needed it. So, on Sunday afternoon, I parked Alan Alda at BART and headed over to the city to noodle around and check out the Anselm Kiefer exhibit at SFMOMA.
I’ve been a fan of his work ever since seeing Isis and Osiris the first time I went to SFMOMA, but prior to Sunday had only seen a handful of other pieces in the flesh. It goes without saying that most art is better viewed in person than in a book or slide, but Kiefer’s stuff is about a million times more exciting when it’s towering over you (literally, since most of his painting are more than 10 feet tall). What I like the most about his paintings is that they grab you from two planes. The super-dense surfaces, full of cracks, and frosting globs of paint and protruding straw and sunflower seeds confront you within the space of the gallery, and while you’re staring at that, trying to figure out the physical object in front of you, there’s suddenly a Magic Eye effect; you’re falling into the depths of the painting, into the wintry field or star-sprinkled sky, and it’s hynotic. I guess what’s so dizzying is the competition between the two landscapes, the literal landscape of the paint and the depiction of a landscape. They’re both huge and they’re both pulling hard at you.
Eh. I don’t want to pretend I have the desire to get into any kind of serious analysis about this stuff. If someone told me I had to write a 10 page paper about ol’ Anselm I’m sure I could churn it out, as rusty as my art-theory/art history skills might be, but that’s what’s nice about not being in school anymore. So you’ll get no thesis statement from me. Just a recommendation to check out the show before it closes at the end of January.
Archive for December, 2006
Last night I had a beer with my old coworker “Ms. Terrwilliger”. The bar where we were met up was the site of my “farewell lunch” when I quit working at our mutual former employer, a textbook store which, during our tenure there, turned from independent funzone to corporate-controlled lamefest. As we reminisced about that fine luncheon, at which I was presented with the very personal and age-appropriate gift of a 1 pound box of See’s candy, Ms. T. (witty, no-nonsense hipster) remembered that she had never told me about the “holiday gift” she received from the store manager (straight-laced, O.C. transplant Republican, hater of Ms. T. but unable to argue with her on-the-job performance) the last year she worked there. While the accounting manager got a pair of fancy candlesticks and the shipping manager got an ornate beer stein, Ms. T. received a boxed chocolate (that’s singular, as in one piece of candy) WITH THE ROSS PRICE TAG FOR 99 CENTS DELIBERATELY LEFT ON.
Ever well-mannered, Ms. T. politely returned the unwanted gift to his wastebasket (atop a mound of papers for maximum visibility) and shortly thereafter moved on to more pleasant employment. In a touching footnote, the manager’s incredible people skills and cost-cutting ways later earned him a promotion to regional manager.
This morning we awoke to pouring rain, so the Yankee Fan chivalrously gave me a lift to work. Right as he tuned the car radio to Morning Edition, they were finishing up a story about the downturn in pantyhose-wearing by American women. When the story ended, Renee Montagne made a comment to the effect of “Well, Amy Sedaris describes a use for pantyhose in her new book. She talks about how she used a pair to make an ice pack to put on her head when she bruised her nose” ummm….OK. IMMEDIATELY following this out-of-nowhere observation/plug, the KQED station break featured Linda Hunt’s honey-voiced promotion for tonight’s episode of City Arts & Lectures. Who’s the guest? AMY SEDARIS. Following that, the KQED announcer made yet another jolly A.S. reference. What’s up with this NPR/Sedaris love-fest? Have Amy and bro David supplanted Archer Daniels Midland as the big money funders of public radio? That’s what the Yankee Fan suggested. ADM, ADS, it’s only one initial off…
This weekend I shifted into full holiday mode. After a couple hectic weeks of high-intensity sewing/craft-panic, Bird vs. Bird is more or less under control, and on Friday night, with the rain spattering against the window panes and my favorite Bright Eyes/Saddle Creek Christmas album playing, I hauled the Christmas boxes up from the basement and broke out the hazelnuts.
By noon on Saturday a double recipe of biscotti and an experimental batch of “Italian Nut Cookies” were packed away, the thrift store cheer was on display (choir boy figurines, creepy painted wood Wise Men, expanding tissue paper tree, etc.), lights were strung around the front window, and thanks to the tallness and general helpfulness of the Yankee Fan, a handsome Noble Fir had been purchased, hauled across the street, stood up straight and decorated. Although JB may not get to see the tree this year, I’ll always feel like it’s partly hers since we picked out so many of the ornaments at Cellar Thrift together over the years. I made sure her enemy, the creepy, smiling lollipop, was front and center.
Today was Stollen day. My family always eats Stollen on Christmas morning; in the past we’d get a loaf or two from Cost Plus, but the past few years I’ve been baking it from scratch using a recipe from a yellowing TimeLife German cookbook. Its ingredients are Christmasy to the core: there’s almond extract, there’s blanched almonds, there’s mounds of butter and currants and candied fruit peel soaked in rum and a marzipan core down the middle of each loaf. It’s an all day kind of process, between the rum soaking and the 15 minutes of kneading and 3+ hours of rising time.
A lot of people don’t like Stollen; it has a lot of the same ingredients as fruitcake, although it’s not nearly as sweet and the cake/bread to candied fruit ratio is much less outrageous. Not the best thing to give to your friends. This year my mom asked me to only bring one loaf home for Christmas (if you do like it, it’s hard to keep yourself from slicing off just a sliver more all day long, and the fat/sugar content is off the charts). I usually make a double recipe, which is four giant loaves, and this morning I hesitated; would I end up aggravating my roommates by clogging the freezer for months with unwanted logs of German fruitcake-bread? Against my better judgement, but in the spirit of holiday bounty, I went whole-hog. The loaves are cooling in the living room right now and the apartments smells like caramelized orange peel. I figure I can always feed the extras to the geese. If they’ll eat Fritos, they’ll eat marzipan.
Is it morbid to have considered more than once that if nuclear holocaust was nigh that I’d like to be listening to the News from Lake Wobegon segment of A Prairie Home Companion while I waited for the killer bomb to drop? I know I’m not the only person who gets a feeling like a warm, woolly blanket when I happen to turn on the radio and ol’ Garrison’s talking about the Chatterbox Cafe and ice-fishing.
Last night, stomachs full of chilaquiles rojos and margaritas from the new-ish Alameda branch of Otaez and legs a pleasantly tired from a long walk around the Hayward Regional Shoreline, the Yankee Fan and I headed for Thompson Street in Alameda. He wanted to show me the decked-out houses, and being the Christmas fan I am, I was pretty excited. After some wrong turns, we rounded the corner into a cacaphony of twinkling. Just as he parked the car, there came the magic words “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon..” There was no need for discussion. We reclined the seats and snuggled down in our jackets, listening with eyes half-closed while thousands of Christmas light blinked on and off all around us.
It was like a little doughnut hole moment, sweet and soft and warm gone too soon.
Earlier in the week I went in for my semi-annual checkup at Pleasant Valley Dental. My original dentist, Dr. Johnson, recently retired, so my pearly whites and I were thrown to the new guy. Apparently I’m clenching in my sleep. Apparently there’s “erosion”. Apparently I (and not Delta Dental) need to shell out $450 for a custom night guard or…? More erosion I guess.
The Yankee Fan is of the opinion that 1) I do not clench my jaw as I sleep and 2) am being scammed by dental vultures. My mom asked around the staff room at the school where she teaches and reported that seven of her coworkers have night guards and enthusiastically recommend getting one.
I’m not sure how to proceed. It kind of sounds like a scam and also like it would be really annoying to wear. But the thing is, I think I am a clencher, especially as of late. I’m not especially stressed out or anything, but I’ve been kind of mentally over-busy, over-concentrating, thinking about websites and sewing and fabric and listening to too much NPR. Every night during the past week, I’ve been waking up abruptly about half an hour after hitting the hay. I’m filled with anxiety, my teeth are clamped down, and in the darkness and my confusion I think that I see purses hanging on the walls of my room. What I’m really seeing is all the framed and somewhat purse-sized thrift store photos hanging on the wall by my bed, but it always takes me a couple minutes to remember.
If I had the night guard in, would I sleep better or would I just wake up thinking that I’m choking on a coin purse?
That’s the four hundred and fifty dollar question.
