William Faulkner's Birthday

William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897. I'll be paying homage to Faulkner by spending the weekend working out the layers of Southern chivalric themes and female idealization as portrayed in his Snopes Trilogy: The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion. Hopefully I'll have made major progress towards a twelve page paper by the end of the weekend. So Happy Birthday, Mr. Faulkner.

The Big Tuba Debut

The Widor Toccata is one of those pieces written for pipe organ that just makes me want to lie on the floor and weep whenever I am fortunate enough to hear it performed live. The sparkling sixteenth notes, the grinding, booming pedal tones. Ecstasy on this earth, if you ask me. I am not much on organ, but I can do pretty well on a piano, and I have a live-in tuba player. So it occurred to me a while back that I could play the Widor on the piano, and my tuba player could deal with all those pedal notes. We bought the music and have practiced it some. Then Ray, our friend and Organist Extraordinaire, after hearing about our piano/tuba duet, invited Bill to play the pedal line of the Widor with Ray on organ, for the postlude this Sunday at Centenary United Methodist Church. Ray has been playing on the "little organ" while the main sanctuary organ is having maintenance work done. The little organ has one manual and less presence, so the tuba seemed to be a good addition.

They will also do a selection of Moravian tunes for the prelude, and the tuba will carry the melody. Ray and Bill rehearsed together this afternoon, and here they are. I'm thinking about sending a copy of the performance to Fred Child at Performance Today.

Cuban Artists' Books & Prints at Wake Forest University

Today, Alison & I visited the Cuban Artists' Books and Prints exhibit now on display at the Charlotte and Philip Hanes Art Gallery at Wake Forest University. The exhibit is a unique and thought-provoking collection of artwork, created by Cubans who have found artistic outlets despite a myriad of adversities.

Most of the pieces in the exhibit are handmade books, using a variety of media, and often incorporating found materials. The show closes on October 6, so please plan to go soon! Here is the WFU Cuba Project website, as well as an article with other links.

As the falcon her bells

For my birthday, my lovely and thoughtful daughter presented me with a copy of the book As the falcon her bells by Phillip Glasier. I had seen a copy of the book in a library, and was immediately intrigued by it. Alison tracked it down from a bookseller in the UK. Glasier was a noted authority on falconry, and this book is a collection of essays about his various forays into the British countryside and his experiences with his beloved birds of prey. The title of the book comes from As You Like It, Act III, Scene iii: "As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires."

A quote from the book:

"(the falcon) ... turns suddenly, with effortless grace, stopping earthwards. Her wings nearly closed, she hurtles down, the gap between falcon and grouse closing with astonishing rapidity. If you are close enough to hear it, the wind tears through her pinions, making a rushing sound so curious that once heard it is rarely forgotten. Her bells, pushed against her legs, cannot ring, but you can hear the air whining through the slots in them."

You gotta love a book that describes a sighting this way: "I looked along the shoreline, and there was a whacking great eagle poking about among the rocks."

Midge and Me

2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the Barbie doll. To commemorate our birthdays, Lo-Rida and I took some of our Barbie dolls on road trips earlier this year. My first Barbie doll was a Titian Midge, given to me in September 1963. My mother selected Midge for me because at age 4, I had freckles and almost-red hair. This picture is of my Midge, along with Lo-Rida's 1980s Teacher Barbie. Barbie and Midge are posing on the riverfront of the St. Johns River at Green Cove Springs, Florida, my hometown.


On the bridge in the Spring Park, Green Cove Springs

Arriving in Florida

Encountering Florida wildlife

Midge enjoys the introspective and complex nature of Chopin.

Birthday of Significance

My first half-century birthday was marked, among other happy things, by the presentation at dinner of a salad and dessert, each of which resembled sculptures that might be seen at the Museum of Modern Art. Sadly, neither sculpture survives. I also enjoyed some free and unencumbered time at Borders, where my purchases included The Redneck Manifesto by Jim Goad, The Sun Magazine, the latest Garden & Gun Magazine (my subscription has lapsed, and I must send in that little card), Bitch Magazine, and Fashion Doll Quarterly. I am toying with those marketing analysis geeks ("people who bought FDQ also purchased..."). I enjoyed a yummy lunch at Dioli's Italian Market with Lo-rida, and of course we had tiramisu. Rounding out this day of resplendent calories and literary splurges was some retail shoe therapy. A happy pair of comfy clogs along with a sweet pair of black suede Anne Klein high heels join the Imelda Shrine behind my closet door. While I present to the world a fifty-year-old face that exudes normalcy, this shoe purchase confirms a deep-seated schizophrenia that will likely get worse in the upcoming half century.

Labor Day Weekend in the Mountains - Sunday

I am happy to report that one positive side effect of mid-century age is the apparent lack of need for sleep after about 3 am. Other than a 45-minute nap at mid-day, I've been awake since 2:45 am, and up since 3:30. In those dark, pre-dawn hours I puttered around on the computer and worked on the dreaded final paper outline. With some discipline, I might be able to actually get some real work done with these bonus hours.

Last night's dinner at the River House Inn was delightful. I had a delicious cream of tomato soup with goat cheese, roasted chicken on a bed of tiny diced sweet potato and greens in a glaze, and one of those molten chocolate confections (small and exquisite). Due to the occasion of my birthday, our waitress brought out a small scoop of raspberry sherbet with a candle. Well, this is the best raspberry sherbet I've ever had. I asked the waitress about it, and they do make it on site, and it has basil in it. They also happen to feature another dessert with basil ice cream. That will have to be for next time.


One of our waitresses turned out to be the daughter of famed guitar craftsman Wayne Henderson. She told us that she had just completed her first guitar, and if we drove up to Wayne's shop we could see it before she ships it out to its new owner. So today, Alison and Kavita and I took a little road trip up to Mouth of Wilson, Virginia and Wayne Henderson's shop. I recalled that a feature about Wayne had been in an issue of Garden and Gun magazine, so I was able to bring the magazine along and get his autograph. The guitars we saw were beautiful; Wayne played a couple of tunes for us, and now there is only one degree of separation between me and Eric Clapton. Please see Alison's blog for more about our outing.












The drive to Mouth of Wilson was beautiful. We also came across what amounted to the culmination of all yard sales in southwest Virginia from the last twenty-some years, in one two-story building: Pollyworld. Wow. Though it was hard to tear ourselves away from the samurai swords, Christmas mugs, VCR tapes, Niagra Falls salt and pepper shakers, and stuffed lynx, we were strong, bolted for the car, and headed on down Highway 16 towards North Carolina. Our final stop was at the Northwest Trading Post on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we bought some fudge (chocolate/black walnut, peanut butter, and maple sugar). We came back to the house and ate our fudge on the porch while we watched the late afternoon rain quietly make its way across the far ridges.

Labor Day Weekend in the Mountains - Saturday

Enjoying the mountains with Alison; Bill will join us today and we will have a little family birthday time this weekend. My significant mid-century mark comes this Tuesday, Bill's birthday (he's beyond the mid-century, just by a bit) is Wednesday. We will dine tonight at the River House Inn - very excited about that. The naming of the mountain house continues to be a priority; we are considering incorporating words from the following: thorn, owl, stone, grey, wind,... and several others. Last night at dusk Alison and I heard our first owls while at the mountain house. It started out as one barred owl, then there were suddenly several at once (two? three?) all in a jumble. A chorus of barred owls. It was fantastic. Something to think about as we ponder the house name. Another activity for the weekend includes hammering out some type of lucid outline for a final paper in my Southern Literature class. Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men and Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy (The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion) are the moving targets for this paper.