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Category: Life
February 2009: A Monthly Review
I’ve struggled against my usual mid-winter melancholy with some success this year, perhaps because the weather has been relatively mild. However there was heavy snow at the end of January and beginning of this month, but not so much as to seem relentless. One snowy night, I stayed at the Missouri Botanical Garden until past midnight. When I came outside it was nearly bright as day. Usually the ‘snow-glow’ in the night sky is muted by city lights, but in the dark garden it was brilliant. The effect is fantastically surreal. If only I’d brought my camera… When I got to the parking lot, I found another surprise. My car was completely covered in hard-frozen snow, though it had only fallen a few hours before. I managed to clear off my windows and drive home slowly through the deserted slushy streets and still lightly falling snow. It was like driving a mobile igloo in an urban blight snow globe.
I visited the Missouri Botanical Garden Orchid Show twice this month. There were so many beautifully photogenic flowers to see and snap, including many species (for me, the most intriguing). Orchids were my first love when I became interested in plants. The first plant I ever owned was a Phalaenopsis won in a raffle at a Diablo View Orchid Society meeting in 1987 or 1988… it was very small and I never got it to blooming size… but it was an inspiring start. The orchids on display at this year’s MBG Orchid Show included Angraecum veitchii, Ansellia africana, Cattleya leddigesii, Dendrobium epidendroides, D. kingianum, D. speciosum, D. spectabile, Epidendrum ibaguense, Lepidotes bicolor, Ludisia discolor, Malleola constricta, Maxillaria Picta, Oerstedella centradenia, Oncidium ornithorhynchum, O. splendidum, X Phaiocalanthe Kryptonite Phaius tankervilleiae, Phragmipedium bessae, Pleurothallis quadrifida, Robiquetia bertholdii, Sarcoglottis ventricosa, Thrixspermum formosanum, Trichoglottis cirrhifera and X Vandofinetia ‘Blaupunkt’ etc. etc. I bought another plant at the garden shop, though I should now diminish my collection rather than enlarge it. It’s not an orchid, but a small (for now!) Strelitzia. They are well known for their bird-of-paradise flowers, but I’ll be satisfied to keep mine as an indoor foliage plant.
Perhaps the most significant event this month is the completion of another volume of my diary. Completing a volume is a milestone of change and renewal for me. More significant than the New Year, and occurring more or less as frequently. My twenty-second volume, piece, began on 2 December 2007, was finished 11 February 2009. In the past, I’ve been known to take a sabbatical between volumes, but this time I have too much to write for much pause. I still had a backlog of memories, observations, and insights to record and process… so on 25 February 2009, I initiated my twenty-third volume: Chances, Changes & Chains. The three similarly sounding words have a variety of meanings and implications. Depending on the definition or connotation intended, an array of contrasting concepts can be invoked.
Despite my doubts, I once again attended a general-interest guest speaker event at Washington University. This one was held in Graham Chapel and billed as ‘The Great Debate’. It was a pro & con debate about pornography that seems to be touring around different schools. The debaters were legendary straight porn performer Ron Jeremy vs. a young, conservatively ‘hip’, preacher named Craig Gross. Gross tries to dress like Green Day while Jeremy wore a Hawaiian shirt that made him look like an aging, obese Magnum P.I. After each gave an introduction stating their positions (I trust you can figure out who was ‘pro’ and who was ‘con’), the floor was opened for questions from the audience. I decided to ask a question about the underlying (and unstated) assumptions inherent in the debate structure. More specifically, I wanted to know why pornography and sexual-freedom were set on the defensive, while religion and conservative social control were given an .. offensive stance. A more even-handed (and interesting) argument would have been to set individual personal expression against religion’s allowance to dictate social controls. I asked this question of both debaters and they both hedged by coming back with what I already knew: it was a debate on pornography. Neither was willing to discuss the rationale or circumstances that brought about the debate… I suspect that Gross and Jeremy are actually united in a single cause: making money on a lecture circuit cash cow that titillates the prurient and puerile fantasies of undergraduates. That would make sense of why they want to keep the focus on pornographic shock and not religious hypocrisy. During my time at the mike I also made the point that pornography represents a human behavior that definitely exists,, while the dogma underlying religion’s mandate is nothing more than superstition, and would be considered fraudulent if held to the same level of proof as a prescription drug. Even though I wasn’t impressed with the debate I would have stayed until the end, if I didn’t have another engagement to attend. I imagine many who saw me depart shortly after my turn at the microphone must have thought I was leaving in petulant bemusement, but that was not the case. I arrived late for my other event: a buffet dinner for program recruiting held at the home of two faculty members. Dinner was from the House of India and dessert included a delicious marble cake with raspberry filling baked to celebrate Charles Darwin’s birthday.
The following week, I heard exceptionally interesting program seminar by a woman from the St. Louis Zoo who uses trained dogs to study the range and habitat usage of large carnivores in South America including jaguars (Panthera onca) pumas (Felis concolor) and most unusually, bush dogs (Speothos venaticus), a small short-legged canid that lives and hunts in packs. This communal behavior may be why the bush dogs require unusually large territories for their size.
At the month’s end, I spent a few days in Baltimore, Maryland, to acquaint myself with this historically important city. After visiting the nation’s capitol the month before, I felt the time had come to explore its more antique rival. Of course for me, Baltimore’s primary claim to fame is its status as residence and citadel-muse to America’s most important director, John Waters. I was especially eager to expose myself to the indigenous “Hon’ culture and other trashy attractions.
I flew out late in the afternoon on Wednesday the 25th.from Lambert and changed flights in Cincinnati. It was dark by the time I arrived at BWI, a rather long walk through the airport led me to the MTA Station. It was cold waiting outside on the platform. I took the train to the Lexington Market stop in central Baltimore. The area around Howard Street seemed quite bleak and down-market, especially on the night of my arrival, but things looked more ‘postcard’ by the time I walked up the hill (Mt. Vernon) to the Baltimore Hostel on Mulberry Street. The hostel is a rather grand Victorian brownstone with the ceilings high and ornately plastered. It used to be the Bennett Mansion, It’s a bit rough around the edges now, in a practical yet Bohemian way.
I checked in and then inquired about dinner at such a late hour. The front desk recommended Mick O’Shea’s, a traditional Irish pub around the corner on Charles Street. Of course when I got there, the bar was crowded and the dining room empty, but the staff happily obliged my out-of-sync appetite. I ordered a hamburger. They didn’t even mind when I sent it back because of a misunderstanding about ‘medium’ vs. ‘medium well-done’. It was delicious, Potato chips seem to be the standard side dish in Baltimore, instead of French fries. Actually, potato chips with ketchup aren’t bad.
The Hostel offers a do-it-yourself breakfast, so on Thursday morning I got up and went downstairs to make myself pancakes. Starting the day with fried circles of batter soaked in maple-flavoured corn syrup became a joyous ritual. I had pancakes every morning in Baltimore.
After that I headed out for a day of exploration. The oldest Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States is right across the street, so I went there first. The front has a classical portico with Ionic columns and the interior is painted in creamy pastel shades. I liked the light airy feeling, though it did lack much drama or mystery. A garrulous volunteer docent showed me around the nave. After Paris, I was up on church architecture enough to ask a few meaningful questions. The interior had been recently restored to its original design with white marble floors and frescoes below the dome. There are three balcony lofts, originally intended for the choir, cloistered nuns and slaves respectively. There was a red and gold papal parasol in one corner and mediocre oil paintings that were gifts from a King of France.
After that I walked up Charles Street to Mount Vernon Place, where the Nation’s first Washington Monument is situated. The Monument is a white marble tower topped with a statue of Washington. It was built from 1815 to 1827. Around the monument are four blocks of public garden enhanced with sculptures, fountains and the like. Bordering the squares are such edifices as the Walters Art Museum, the Peabody Institute, the Garrett Jacobs Mansion and a United Methodist church built in 1872, on the site of the house where Francis Scott Key died. The church’s exterior is Victorian gothic wrought in green and black stone, which gives the whole structure a blemished and reptilian aspect. For a nominal fee, I went inside the Monument and climbed its spiral staircase. The small, graffiti-marked room at the top offers some informative views of the city from its center.
For lunch, I had a chicken sandwich (& potato chips) at David & Dad’s on Charles Street. One of the waitresses looked like Cookie Mueller and called me “hon”. That was a very edifying moment. Afterwards I went across the street to Tarlow Furs to see what artistry could be worked upon animal skin. There were incredible pieces on display, some classically luxurious and others strikingly unique, like mink and mohair sheared and dyed into three-dimensional plaid, etc, etc. Furriery is a rarified art form but I do hope it doesn’t vanish entirely, especially due to demented intolerance and malevolent terrorism.
After lunch, I took Park Avenue south to Fayette and then west to Westminster Hall, site of a particularly haunting old graveyard. Particularly so, because it is where Edgar Allan Poe is buried! Actually there are two graves for Poe there. His remains are currently buried under a large white grave marker at the corner of Fayette and Greene Streets. However if one ventures into the back quarters one will find another gravestone, with a Raven carved on it, marking his original gravesite. The tom b of the Revolutionary War’s General Sam Smith is also located in the cemetery. I wandered about, photographing the old stones until I found myself at a seeming dead end, surrounded by vaguely Egyptian mausolea. Rather than retrace my steps I decided to duck off the path and take a shortcut through an odd open gap in the earth that runs underneath Westminster Hall and leads back out to the front on Fayette Street.
Next I walked south on Eutaw Street, stopping to photograph the ornate, blue and grey Bromo-Seltzer Clock Tower from several angles. At Camden Yards on Pratt Street, I passed by the front of Oriole Park and the Sports Legends Museum. I walked eastward on Pratt towards the harbor. I investigated a large silver sculpture in front of the Convention Center that turned in the wind, or if somebody pushed it. Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is surrounded by a tourist-oriented shopping mall called Harborplace as well as museums (musea?) like the Maritime Museum, Maryland Science Center and National Aquarium. There, I took photographs of sculptures, seagulls, etc., and visited the Tourist Information Center. The Maritime Museum has several old, historic ships, like the U.S.S. Constellation, moored on the waterfront as floating museums. I didn’t go inside though, just admired them from the wharf.
I walked over to Jonestown, an old neighborhood that has many 18th and 19th Century brick houses. I took pictures of some of them including the Carroll Mansion and 9 Front Street, but what I most wanted to see was the Phoenix Shot Tower. Built of red brick and designed for dropping beads of molten lead to make gunshot, the tower was the tallest structure in the United States at the time of its completion in 1828. Unfortunately, one can’t go inside, but the outside is also visually intense. From immediately below and lit by the afternoon sun, the tower tapers away, appearing as a red triangle against the blue of the sky. Nearby there is a monument to slain policemen and an old, Catholic church: St. Vincent de Paul. Beside the church, I came across a bronze fire pit shape like the flames it is intended to enclose. It also looked a bit like the one the mad Seeker built as meditative art, in the film, Psych-out.
Across President Street is War Memorial Plaza bordered on its east side by an immense art deco War Memorial and on the east side by Baltimore’s classical revival City Hall. The War Memorial is surrounded by massive, stone horses and decommissioned cannons. The City Hall is topped by a tall, but surprisingly narrow dome. A security guard let me inside briefly to photograph the interior rotunda. A couple blocks further west I encountered another well-known landmark, the Battle Monument. It commemorates the Battle of Baltimore of 1814 and was built in the years immediately following, 1815-1825. This and the Washington Monument are what inspired John Quincy Adams to christen Baltimore the ‘Monumental city’ in 1827. I then walked north along the narrow greenway of Preston Gardens toward the north end of Mount Vernon. I passed by the former Belvedere Hotel (now condominiums) and stepped inside to see the lobby. Nearby on Charles Street, I had an early dinner of sushi at a Japanese restaurant, Minato.
I walked southward on Charles Street, and again passed by the Washington Monument. I also encountered a restaurant called Ixia that caught my attention because it had the same name as my friend Gary’s florist shop in San Francisco. Ixia is also a genus of South African bulbs in the iris family, Iridaceae. I found a Starbucks on Charles Street and went in for coffee and a cupcake. I sat awhile and wrote in my diary. Later, I went back to the hostel, which was just around the corner. I talked with the hostel staff, who gave me suggestions for accomplishing my next day’s itinerary. In the evening, I sat in the front room and wrote more. The view of the cathedral at night, from the front windows, was grandly romantic.
On Friday, I got up early had my pancakes first thing. I then showered, dressed and headed out for the Lexington Market light rail station on Howard Street. I took the train north to Woodberry. The day was great for taking a walk in the woods, mildly cool and only partly overcast. My destination was Druid Hill Park and the zoo and botanical conservatory it contains.
To get to the park, I walked through an upscale (yupscale?) live/work complex called Clipper Mill. It was built around the ruins of an old industrial foundry that burned down in 1995. Weathered brick, faded wood, and rusting iron contrast nicely with sleek modern design. It is a great example of urban renewal. Unfortunately development continued into Druid Hill Park. Much of the path I walked on was paved in concrete and lined with metal handrails, when simple dirt trails would have been so much more appropriate. It is sad when an urban park becomes overly groomed and sanitized. Parts of the woodland trail were even re-vegetated with commercial landscaping shrubs, like inkberry (Ilex glabra ‘Densa’). Soon my hike took me to the front gate of the Baltimore Zoo, where I discovered that the zoo was closed for the winter… No animals to see except a large flock of Canada geese (Branta Canadensis) grazing on the lawn. It wasn’t much of a disappointment really since there were so many other new places to explore
Fortunately the Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens weren’t closed because the conservatory turned out to be my favourite of all the attractions I visited in Baltimore. The Rawlings Conservatory is a large glass house with five main display areas: the Orchid Room, Palm House, Mediterranean House, Tropical House and Desert House. The plant collection was excellently tended and labeled. Among the many fine specimens I saw were examples of Acacia stenophylla, Alpinia zerumbet, Anthurium hookeri, Ascocentrum miniatum, Asplenium nidus, Bismarckia nobilis, Blechnum gibbum, Brassia, Calathea makoyana, C. zebrina, Callistemon citrinus, Carica papaya, Chamaerops humilis, Clerodendrum quadriloculare, Costus barbatus, Cryptanthus zonatus, Cymbidium, Cyperus alternifolius, C. papyrus, Dendrobium loddigesii, Euphorbia stenoclada, Goethea strictiflora, Helichrysum petiolare, Neoregelia carolinae, Nicolaia elatior, Opuntia microdasys, Paphiopedilum, Pereskia grandiflora, Phalaenopsis, Philodendron ‘Prince of Orange’, Pistia stratiotes, Pyrrosia lingua, Stenorhynchus, Strelitzia nicolai, Vanda, Vriesea splendens, Woodyetia bifurcata and many, many more. The outdoor botanical garden is rather small and obviously not at its best in February but I did see the most incredible sundial set in the middle of the rose garden. It was shaped like an irregular polyhedron with a different sundial for a different part of the world set on every face. I would like to have seen it on a sunny day to measure its accuracy.
After the Conservatory I continued my walk through Druid Hill Park and soon came to Druid Lake, actually a large reservoir with its dammed end facing toward downtown Baltimore. I walked around the lake toward the southeast corner of the park, passing by the columned portico of the park headquarters and also a statue of Christopher Columbus along the way. It was a windy day and the water on the lake was choppy. An elegant little tower stands upon the dam overlooking the city. I left the park by crossing over Druid Park Lake Drive. The apartment buildings along that edge of the park are ominously dilapidated. They almost look as if they were abandoned, but, unfortunately, I don’t think that was the case. I made my way south along Park Avenue toward the city center. With every block, the houses seemed better maintained and soon gentrification was raising its lovely, but expensive, head. I passed a house painted black over brick that bore a plaque stating that F. Scott Fitzgerald had once lived there. More excitingly, I also saw little purple crocuses (croci?) in bloom on the green median strip. The first I ever saw in the (pre-)spring of 2009! I walked on into the Mount Royal neighborhood, north of Mount Vernon, and took note of culturally significant structures such as Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the University of Baltimore.
Once back in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. I retrieved my diary from the hostel and again sat in Starbucks and wrote. I also checked my e-mail nearby at Red Emma’s Coffeehouse, a great little café with overt leftist politics. In the evening I shared in a small communal dinner of spaghetti and salad at the hostel with my fellow travelers.
That evening I decided to visit some of Mount Vernon’s nearby gay bars. I wasn’t particularly in the mood for drinking or socializing but I did want to get a general overview of the bar scene. First I went to one called the Drinkery and then to another a block away called Jay’s. They were both small neighborhood-style bars and very popular and crowded. I liked the friendly relaxed atmosphere they had. Jays reminded me of the Fudge Palace in the film Pecker, except without strippers. I ordered a diet coke at Jays and sat at the bar where I exchanged pleasantries with a few of the locals. One guy warned me to watch out for a local psychopath that looked just like that actor Kelsey Grammer, but I think he was sort-of being silly. After that, I headed over to a place on Charles Street called Grand Central. It was a bigger establishment with more expensive décor but it seemed to lack some of the bonhomie of the first two bars. I decided I had explored the nightlife enough for one night and headed off. It was lightly raining as I walked back to my lodgings.
On Saturday, last day of the month, I set out on a walk to Fort McHenry that would take me through Federal Hill and South Baltimore. After my usual pancakes, I headed out and again passed through the colourful mall along the Inner Harbor waterfront. On the harbor’s south side, I ascended Federal Hill Park, which afforded me a panoramic view. The top of the hill has such features as old cannons, a large flagpole & flag and a statue of Samuel Smith. Descending eastward, I came upon the mirrored and sculpted exterior of the American Museum of Visionary Art. The mosaics, woodwork, mobiles, giant chessboard and art bus were all fantastically entertaining, but I didn’t want to stop my walk to go inside. Besides, it was too early for it to be open anyway.
The streets of rowhouses that dead-end on the water, like where Marnie’s mother lived in the film Marnie, have been replaced with posh new condominiums, but the long straight driveways still run out to the water’s edge. A little later I passed the Domino Sugar factory that can be seen on the painted backdrop of Baltimore shown in Hitchcock’s famous film. There, I took a picture of a long piece of plastic sheeting caught on a fire hydrant and blowing in the wind, ‘The Bride of Baltimore’… The day was windy, grey and cool; perfect for a long, wintery walk. I continued south through a neighborhood of brick and formstone rowhouses on the inland side and more massive post-modern industrial condominiums along the shore. Some of the old buildings have been refurbished as cultural resources, the best part of urban renewal. The rowhouses were the essence of working-class glamour, especially the formstone-fronted ones. I’d love to try living in one and engaging in all sorts of Davenportesquely demimonde debacles.
Fort McHenry National Monument (and Historical Shrine!) is a star-shaped fort made of stone and mounded earth with iron cannons set at every bastion and ravelin. It’s built on an exposed grassy headland jutting into the mouth of the Patapsco River. Even from the ramparts, Chesapeake Bay is not really visible. The Battle of Fort McHenry, in the war of 1812 was the inspiration for Francis Scott Key, a Baltimorean, to compose the song that has become the U.S. National Anthem. To commemorate the event, the Fort is looked upon by a colossal, weathered, bronze, statue of Apollo, holding a lyre and naked but for a fig leaf. The visitor’s center shows a short film that explains the Fort’s significance and has a display of artifacts, like bombs (bursting in air) and rockets (red glare). The rooms and battlements of the Fort house interpretive displays and are open for inspection.
Afterwards I walked back, taking a route somewhat similar to the one I took out. I stopped for lunch at Harvest Table, a sandwich shop. Once again I received potato chips on the side. I also paid a brief visit to the Baltimore Museum of Industry. They have massive sculptures and artifacts made from industrial iron and an old tugboat called ‘The Baltimore’. In the foyer is a display of vintage light bulbs, including a huge 50 kilowatt bulb that is probably two feet in diameter! Later on, while walking through downtown, I came upon a Holocaust Memorial. It was a large vacant space set off by a few trees and bleak sculptures, such as a field of grass behind a metal fence symbolizing unattainable freedom.
I arrived back at the hostel at 3:00, coincidentally just in time to catch a piano recital by a young woman visiting the Peabody Institute. She grew up in Florida but is Russian by descent, so Russian cookies and tea were served. Even the sugar packets were written in Cyrillic script. The tea tasted like a very strong version of Earl Grey and was served in a samovar. It was very unexpected and soothing to have high tea in a nineteenth century drawing room, while live classical music played. After that I went upstairs and took a long drowsy nap. The excitement of the last few days had inspired me to amass a sleep debt that I had to now repay. In the evening, I got up and hunted down some tandoori chicken & naan to go, from Lumbini, a nearby Nepali restaurant on Charles Street. The chicken was rather dry. More mint sauce would have been nice…
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