May 2009: A Monthly Review

It seems every time I walk outside, I make some kind of personal discovery (or rediscovery) about the natural world, and especially so in springtime. Many days, these little epiphanies are the best parts of my day. Once, on my walk to school, I saw a silver-spotted skipper fluttering about on the Ackert Walkway. It was the first of that species I’d seen this year. Another time, as I walked on Loop North toward the University City library, I noticed the long row of Japanese tree lilacs (Syringa reticulata) planted along the street were at the peak of bloom. They were hard to miss, being covered in huge clouds of yellow-white fragrant blossoms. I arrived at the library before it opened and so spent my waiting minutes admiring the ornamental beds planted around the library and by the adjacent schoolyard. One red-flowered perennial particularly arrested my attention. It appeared to be a figwort, but its flowers were larger and brighter red than any I had seen before. Once back home, I puzzled it out through internet searches. It was Scrophularia macrantha, native to the mountains of New Mexico. I’d never seen or heard of that species before. Yet another day, while at the Missouri Botanical Garden, I managed to catch a rare tree in flower. Alangium platanifolium has pendant flowers with long narrow white petals that coil back like clock springs. It really is a strange and lovely plant. I’m not sure why it isn’t planted more often. I also saw a pair of brown thrashers (Toxostoma rufum) feeding in the undergrowth with a fledgling chick. Brown thrashers are common at the Garden but I hardly ever see them anywhere else in the city.

Speaking of bird watching, I returned to West Tyson County Park for yet another spring hike and got excellent views of two species of migrating wood-warbler that I had not properly seen before: magnolia warbler (Dendroica magnolia) and Tennessee warbler (Vermivora peregrina). My North American life list now sits at 294 species. The excitement of the sightings inspired me to inaugurate a new ‘Natural History’ page at marckmenke.com and post a PDF of both my North American and Australian lists. I intend to put up more lists, inventories, and photographs in the future, as time permits.

During my neighborhood strolls I also discovered the community garden on Clemens Street has installed a commercial beehive on the premises, behind a slatted cyclone fence. That will be an interesting experiment, though there were already ample pollinators at the garden. I bet a knowledgeable beekeeper comes by to tend the hive, since it’s hard to imagine the doltish regulars handling the task.

Toward the end of May, the intense muggy heat of a Midwestern summer began to assert itself. I try to struggle against summer’s stupefying effects with air conditioning, iced drinks, short hair and more crepuscular behavior… but I often find resistance futile and just fall limp, literally. O well, copious sweating and ample rest are also beneficial acts… and I still far prefer summer in St. Louis to the winter here… Of course, my most promising preparations for improved climatic prospects are those concerning my permanent move away from this bleak part of the country. I’ve continued to make progress toward that end and intend to be away before summer’s closing.

While throwing out large quantities of accumulated paperwork in readiness for leaving, I was inspired to paste an informative art-collage in my diary composed of semi-randomly selected entries from almost twenty years worth of checkbook registers! It was an odd, financially skewed, trek down memory lane and also somewhat startling to recall all the ways I made, moved and meted out money in my lifetime. The weight of such portage is dreary. Here is hoping for at least a marginally less materialistic existence in the future…


June 2009: A Monthly Review

Early June brought sweltering heat, steamy humidity, warm rain and several thunderstorms, including two that developed into short-lived but intense windstorms! All over my neighborhood, large and small branches were blown out of the trees. It would have been truly perilous to be caught outside during those events. The largest blown-down branch I saw was really the size of a tree itself. On the Ackert Walkway, the top third of a 50 or 60-foot tall pin oak (Quercus palustris) snapped off and fell across the path, completely blocking it. The path looked like it just ended in a wall of leaves. Amazing.

I worked in the herbarium at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Lehmann Building a great deal this month, sorting, counting, wrapping and boxing several thousand specimens of Aethionema on loan from various institutions, readying them to be sent back from whence they came… It was a mind-numbingly tedious task and the counting was the worst part. A few of the loan counts never came out square with the expected totals… and on top of that, many of the older specimens were once treated with mercuric chloride as a preservative. Handling valuable specimens that could just as readily be considered toxic waste is not my idea of fun… Herbarium work sucks. The largest loans were from Edinburgh and Vienna, with others from Berkeley, the British Museum, Chicago, Copenhagen, Firenze, Gaziantep, Geneva, Goteborg, Hacitepe, Harvard, Helsinki, Jena, Jerusalem, Kew, Leiden, Madrid, Michigan, Moscow, Munich, New York, Paris, Stockholm, Uppsala, and Zurich. Methinks it be more fun to travel to such places than receive loans from them.

One day, two big dark Sarcophagid flies got inside my apartment. I don’t know how they came in, but they were most disgusting as they buzzed around from room to room in search of an exit or perhaps, a food source… I went after them with a swatter and a can of Black Flag insecticide. I cornered one in the bathroom and hit it with an unhealthy blast of pyrethrin aerosol. It fell down and landed on a houseplant. It must have been a gravid female and I think the insecticide made it go into convulsions, because suddenly it began to larviposit wriggling white maggots onto the soil surface! The sight was as fascinating as it was repulsive… The houseplant in question was just a small, badly pruned, begonia that I hardly cared about, so I gingerly picked it up: pot, plant, fly, larvae, and all, and tossed it out into the neglected backyard of the neighboring building. I didn’t want to throw it in the trash because I figured the maggots would be more likely to find food and survive there. After that, I went back inside and killed the other fly with a well-aimed stroke of the swatter.

My usual semi-directed web surfing led to a happier development concerning my other houseplant begonia this month. For years now, I’ve kept a magnificent specimen plant of an unknown species or cultivar of Begonia with large, jagged, palmately lobed leaves and red, fringed, scales on the petioles and abaxial leaf veins. It sends up panicles of typically attractive, pink, unisexual, begonia flowers every Spring. I originally bought the plant at Cole Hardware’s Mission store in San Francisco, where I found it labeled, rather incredibly, as the rare Hawaiian endemic Hillebrandia sandwicensis! But of course, a little research and observation on my part revealed it to be nothing of the sort. However, its true identity remained a mystery… until late this month when I came upon numerous on-line references, backed up with identifiable images. My stunning houseplant is almost assuredly Begonia X ricinifolia, which is a primary hybrid of B. heracleifolia crossed with B. peponifolia. Hurrah! Mystery solved.

I turned 39 (3 X 13) on the 9th, so Barbara and Jerry had me over for dinner in St. Charles on the Sunday prior. Uncle Bill came out from St. Peter to join us. It was a lovely afternoon. I walked around the garden and admired Barbara’s recent plantings and then we played a couple games of Scrabble. I won both times. In the second game, I went out by using my last seven tiles to make the word ‘LITERARY’. Dinner was nice, though perhaps too rich to be ideal. The main was a selection of stuffed chicken dishes, like chicken Kiev and chicken cordon blue… Desert was a choice between angelfood and devilfood. Of course, I had both. After dinner, Joyce and her daughters came by for a brief visit as well.

On the actual day of my birthday, I did nothing to celebrate, just worked in the herbarium at the Garden as usual. However, random serendipitous chance did present me with a gift that day. I bought a piece of junk food from a vending machine and got a Hawaii quarter as change! This was the last quarter I needed to have all 50 state quarters, and I had been searching for this one for months… For some reason that particular quarter had proved to be remarkably elusive. Perhaps fewer were coined because of the economic downturn, or maybe rabid Obama supporters were hoarding all the quarters from his home state. I don’t know, but it felt so good to finally get that last damn two-bit piece… in a word, Closure.

Recently on-line, I made several visits to an intriguing exhibit of new pop art portraits by Chieko Redmer entitled the Snakehol Collection. The pieces are on permanent (?) display at the Temple of Snap art gallery. Worth a view if you can gain admittance.

One day, workmen came by and installed a new intercom system in my apartment building. I would have prioritized other more necessary improvements than that, but “whatever…”. It’s true that the old voicebox system didn’t work very well. I could buzz visitors into the building, but talking or listening to them beforehand was impossible. Still, that was never much of a problem for me since most of my guests were expected and I had no hesitation about going downstairs to greet them. The new intercom system is set up with a receiver similar to that on a telephone.

The last two days of the month involved a situation that I now refer to as the V.H.E. (Violent Hymenopteran Event). On the 29th, I decided to go grocery shopping at the Trader Joe’s in Richmond Heights. So I went outside to get in my car, as one would do. However, a rather large wasp (a mud-dauber, I believe) was flying around the front left door of the car. As I watched, the first wasp was joined by a second that flew out from the crevice between the side mirror and the black hemispherical plastic frame that holds the mirror. I stepped back to survey the situation more cautiously. It seemed like there were at least three or four wasps, either circling around the car or landing and going inside the left side mirror. I decided to go upstairs and do some online research about wasps building nests in cars. There was a lot of information about wasp habits and how to control them. I called a few pest control companies to see what it would cost to have them come out and de-wasp my car… but they all told me they didn’t do cars. They did houses but not cars. I’m not sure why they made such a distinction but there you have it… I was on my own.

I went back outside with the same can of Black Flag I had used on that nasty fly earlier this month. I decided a direct assault was out of the question since there numbers were unknown and they might possibly all attack me at once. After some nervous hemming and hawing I decided to get in the car. I entered through the less guarded passenger side and very quickly shut the door behind me. I knew if they figured out how to get inside the car, I was screwed. I carefully watched the wasps. I wasn’t completely certain how many were inside the mirror. I started the car up and backed out of the parking space. Another wasp responded to the car moving by flying into the mirror to join her compatriots. It was hellish in the car with the windows closed. I turned on the A/C but it was still too hot. I decided to stick to my original plan and drive to Richmond Heights. I could go to the Home Depot near Trader Joe’s if I needed to buy some other kind of insecticide or repellent.

It was too dangerous to watch the wasps while driving, but when I stopped at a traffic light, I could see them huddling together inside the space between the mirror and the frame. I don’t usually get the chance to closely observe wasps behind the safety of a glass window. They really are beautiful creatures. It’s too bad about their venomous stings and nasty disposition. The little guys (gals actually) even looked kind-of cute when they poked their heads out trying to figure out what was going on. However make no mistake, my commitment to regaining a wasp-free vehicle never wavered. For the first couple of miles or so they just held on and didn’t move, but then something wonderful happened! Every mile or so during a traffic stop, one of them would fly out and go up in the air, like a miniature parachutist in reverse. It was always one wasp at a time, each at a different location. In all, there were four wasps in the mirror and they all flew away! By the time I got to the grocery store parking lot, they were all gone! I pulled out my can of Black Flag and sprayed all the external crevices of the car, especially the side mirrors, of course, and then I went inside to do my shopping. Later, when I returned home, I parked the car in front of my building instead of driving it around to the rear lot, in case more wasps were there, waiting...

The next day, I figured enough time had passed, so I tried parking behind my building…. but I was wrong! The wasps were still there and they still wanted to get inside my side mirror… WTF?! One flew right back into the mirror and another one almost got inside the car while I was trying to safely close the door. I had to get back in and drive the car around again until that new wasp also flew out. This time I pounded on the glass to hurry up the process. I was really fed up by then and the car was way too hot to have to drive around with the windows closed. This time I parked my car on the street and will plan to keep it there indefinitely. Now I just need to remember to re-park it during street cleaning days to avoid getting a ticket (sigh).

March 2009: A Monthly Review

The first day of the month was my last day in Baltimore. I checked out of the hostel after one last pancake breakfast. I left my suitcase at reception to be retrieved later. It was a cold morning and it probably had snowed the night before. I walked down the Mount Vernon hillside to the Inner Harbor. I considered visiting the National Aquarium but I thought it overpriced and too crowded. Instead I decided to walk eastward along the waterfront towards the Fells Point neighborhood.

Soon I came to an especially strange looking building, like a cylindrical wooden house, painted red and set atop a complex scaffold of black iron, high as the building itself. I ascended the circular stairway, still covered in slushy ice and entered. The building was the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse, a screwpile lighthouse that had originally sat at the mouth of the Patapsco River, above a shallow shoal called (uh-huh) Seven Foot Knoll. A screwpile lighthouse is one built over water, on pilings that have been sunk or screwed into the seabed below. The lighthouse is now a museum with displays of model ships and other artifacts of maritime life. Visitors can still go up the narrow stairs to the small lantern room, but the actual Fresnel lantern lens is gone. From the displays I learned that at one time, Baltimore rivaled Ellis Island as an entry port for new immigrants. Overall it’s a great little museum set inside a most interesting structure. I’m so glad there was a will to preserve it when it became defunct.

At Harbor East, I came upon an incredible statue in the middle of a traffic circle surrounded by tall hotel towers: a golden tower of metal flame, perhaps 40 feet high, with dark iron figures of medieval knights suspended within it. I read that it was the Katyn Memorial, built to remember Polish officers executed by Stalin during WW2.

I continued along on the streets nearest the water to the center of Fells Point. There is a public square there with some museums and historical buildings around it, as well as a lot of bars and restaurants. I popped into a tiny whole-in-the-wall café and ordered a coffee to go. I then started back toward the city center, passing by the Broadway Market and through Little Italy. Only a couple blocks at the western end were in any way Italian or welcoming. At the south end of Jonestown, there is a museum called the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House that holds the flag that was flying over Fort McHenry during the famous battle, but it was closed.

The weather remained cold and around mid-day it began to snow. I went into a Panera on Pratt Street and had a turkey sandwich for lunch. Afterward, I came across a statue in front of the state courthouse of a man in 17th Century dress. It was Cecilius Calvert (A.K.A. Lord Baltimore), the founder of Maryland.

I walked back up to Mount Vernon Place by way of Preston Gardens. I wanted to spend my last couple of hours exploring the Walters Art Museum collections. Of course, once there I wished I had allowed myself more time. There were so many beautiful things to see there. I spent most of my time on the second floor with the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art as well as the 18th and 19th century jewelry. Towards the end, I skimmed through a few other areas, such as the medieval art on the third floor and the 19th century romantic paintings on the fourth, but there were many galleries I never even entered. If I have another opportunity to visit Baltimore, I’ll have to come back to the Walters. Among my favourite pieces were some fluidly ornate lacquered jewelry by Lalique and a Byzantine vase adorned with goat heads and ivy garlands, carved from translucent pink agate. The vase had once been owned and sketched by Peter Paul Rubens. As I was about to leave the museum, I saw the painting, Rubens Peale with a Geranium by Rembrandt Peale. I had seen the same painting the month before in Washington at the National Gallery and figured this one was a reproduction, but the signage implied it was original. I asked a nearby security guard and he told me that it was the original, on loan from the National gallery and hung only the day before. “Funny running into you again, Mr. Peale, by the way, that flower is now a Pelargonium”.

At about 3:00 in the afternoon I left the art museum, stopped back at the Baltimore Hostel to retrieve my suitcase and then made my way to Howard Street to catch a MTA metro train from Lexington Market to BWI. My first flight was to Memphis and then a connection back to St. Louis. The usual ride back on the Metrolink and I was home.

The week after my return from Baltimore was marked with a spell of warm weather, so I cut my hair, using an electric clipper with a one-inch guard. I had been part way toward growing my hair into a pageboy and had even begun to cut in bangs… but then I grew disgusted with the bother of having long hair and off it went. Of course, soon afterward the weather became horridly cold again. March in St. Louis is just too early to count on spring weather, even April can be iffy.

One of my major professors, Barbara A. Schaal, received a newly endowed faculty chair position: the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor. An elaborately catered reception was held in her honor in the Holmes Lounge on campus. Her entire lab attended. Some of the men wore ties, but it didn’t even occur to me. The food was great and far above any event primarily geared for students. There was a wide array of sushi and satay, plus elaborate mini deserts and an open bar.

On the 11th, I decided to drive to the store on a terrifically cold night. I drove one block before the car just died in the middle of the street. I was already in a precariously foul mood due to the icy weather… Somewhat luckily there was a police car immediately behind me. After some rigmarole, he decided to use his squad car to push my car into a nearby parking lot. He also told me he was going to call AAA for a tow, but the truck and driver who showed up were not affiliated with AAA, so I don’t know who he actually called. I wasn’t about to pay for towing when it is already a free service for AAA members, so I curtly told the driver “No thanks” and walked back to my apartment to call AAA myself. Since my mechanic was closed at the late hour, I decided to leave the car where it was and call again in the morning… but first I had to walk back to the car and get the keys because I’d forgotten to take them out of the ignition (sigh). The whole ordeal was definitely not my night.

The next morning I called ‘Triple A’ again and then walked over to where the car was to meet the driver. While I was waiting for the tow truck, a passing motorist stopped and kindly suggested I try starting the car again. I did, and it started without a problem. Though it was a cold winter morning it was still warmer than the night before. I imagine the frigid air temperature may have had something to do with the car dying. Regardless, I still wanted to take the car in for an inspection since it clearly wasn’t operating reliably. I waited for the tow truck to arrive but then told him a tow wasn’t necessary, especially since the garage I took it to, Hartmann’s, was only a block away.

My car stayed in the shop two or three days, getting new brake pads and rotors as well as an oil change. None of the work directly related to the car dying. It was just other maintenance issues that the mechanic suggested. I thought they were also going to perform a battery service cleaning because the terminals were covered in blue and white salt crystals. Imagine something akin to Magic Rocks. However the mechanics did not clean or replace my battery, which might very well have contributed to the breakdown… On top of that, I was given an estimate of around $200 for parts and labor before the work was done… and then got a bill that was over $300 when I came to pick up the car! I negotiated the bill down to $250 but still felt somewhat ripped-off… What a lot of bother and expense… It’s troubles like these that discouraged me from car ownership until I was 34 and living in a city with both sprawling distances and inadequate public transportation.

I intend to be gone from the Midwest before the end of 2009 and so have begun to focus on my leave taking. I know packing and moving will be major efforts that are best to plan before the last minute. I started by disposing of possessions I don’t want or need and packing those that I can live without for the next few months. I filled an entire trashcan with paper since my neighborhood paper recycling program has been discontinued. I also brought a goodly number of items to a nearby Goodwill outlet. I’m sure this process of packing and purging will be ongoing until I depart. Finding suitable homes for my houseplants is another challenge to contend with. I transplanted my starfruit tree (Averrhoa carambola) from a large planter in my front room and brought it to Mike and Darlene at the WashU plant growth facility. I started it by seed from a fruit I bought in a grocery store. I’m sure it will grow much faster now that it is getting greenhouse conditions.

Of course, for me Spring (and late Winter) is a time to witness the myriad ways nature rebounds from an icy deathlock. In March the early spring bulbs are prime: Crocus, Hyacinthus, Narcissus. Both beautiful to see, and to smell. One day I took a walk over to Kaldi’s for coffee and pie, and came upon a lovely parking strip covered in minute, blue Siberian squill (Scilla siberica). The deciduous magnolias around town also gave glorious displays of pink and white. Every time I had a chance, I went up close to sniff the flowers. Each tree seemed to smell different, even though they were usually the same species. One tree smelled like cinnamon, another like freesias and a yet another like a wine cork, etc. Another minor botanical event was helping Pu Chung identify photographs of native Missouri plants he had taken last spring at Pickle Springs Natural Area.

Ghis Loree, Tony Vaguely, and I started a fan page on Facebook for the late, great Michael G. Page. It was certainly one of my more rewarding online efforts, inspired by Mike Wilson, who created a similar page for Diet Popstitute. In some way, the ever-changing communal life of the Internet seems to make even death less of a complete ending, at least for the survivors who carry on.


April 2009: A Monthly Review

Early April was usually cold and chilly, which delayed the season for warm weather flowers, though it probably also maintained the early spring displays of bulbs, cherry trees, etc. for longer than otherwise. Probably the warmest days for a two-week period fell on the Easter weekend, which was exceptionally fortunate because that Saturday the Schaal lab took a botanical field trip to Pickle Springs Natural Area in Ste. Genevieve County, south of St. Louis. We drove down in carpools. I rode with Ken Olsen and Guoqin.

Pickle Springs is an area of woodland characterized by sheltered springs coming out of sandstone cliff faces. Year round moisture allows rare plants, such as certain ferns and lycopods to hold on at the base of the shady cliffs, despite the inhospitality of the surrounding terrain. At the top of the sandstone outcrops, gnarled bonsai-like specimens of shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) dominate, creating an effect reminiscent of Japanese woodblock prints. In a few open spots a native cactus, Opuntia humifusa, can be found. Another rare feature at Pickle Springs is a double aeolian arch, carved into a large exposed sandstone outcrop, with the hiking trail passing right through it. I spent some time there waiting for the crowd to clear, in order to attempt artistic photography. Only a few of the earlier wildflowers were in bloom, such as Anemonella thalictroides, Cardamine concatenata and Saxifraga virginiensis.

The following day, Easter, I went out to St. Charles to visit Barbara and Jerry and my other relatives, such as Bill, Janet, Joyce, etc. Lynne was visiting from Miami as she often does. In a blooming Forsythia beside the house, she found an active bird nest with brown speckled eggs in it. I brought a bunch of my houseplants over to with me in hope of finding them new homes. Janet took my Spathiphyllum and spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum) to put in the branch library she manages and Joyce took my African violet (Saintpaulia). I gave my Venus’ flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) to Jerry specifically because he once expressed an interest in owning one. Barbara took the rest including a Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata), a golden pothos (Epipremnum aureum), a leopard plant (Ledebouria socialis), an Aloe, a Sansevieria and my prized Euphorbia cf. canariensis, that had dramatically branched in a single plane while growing in my dining room window. Barbara later told me she gave the Euphorbia to a horticulturally inclined neighbor who was very interested in it.

I needed to have a headlight bulb in my car replaced. I took it to Loop Automotive instead of Hartmann’s, even though Loop automotive is farther away. I also decided to have them perform a battery service as well. I sat in their reception area and wrote in my diary while the repairs were made. There was a T.V. playing so I caught a bit of a courtroom reality program that was on the air. Daytime television is even worse than I remembered, much worse. Then Loop Automotive told me I needed a new car battery (sigh). The old one had lasted me almost two and a half years, which isn’t a particularly long time.

Toward the end of the month, the weather became more consistently warm, often grey and rainy as well. I hand-washed my wool sweaters before putting them away for the season.

On the last Saturday of the month, I drove out to West Tyson County Park to hike amid vernal splendour. I took the Flint Quarry Trail into the hills and then the Chubb Trail down to the bottomlands along the Meramac River. There were so many wildflowers in bloom, including Anemonella thalictroides, Aquilegia Canadensis, Asarum canadense, Claytonia virginica, Cornus florida, Isopyrum biternatum, Phlox divaricata, Ranunculus spp., Verbena Canadensis, Viola papilionacea, and Viola striata. At one point the blue Phlox was so thick that it perfumed the air around the patch. Along a hedgerow beside a large meadow, I identified a new bird for my life list: the field sparrow (Spizella pusilla). An excellent view of a black-and-white warbler (Mniotilta varia) and several Swainson’s thrushes (Catharus ustulatus) were other birding highlights for the day. Toward sunset I returned along the high flinty ridge. The forest foliage was still emerging and everywhere white dogwoods were in bloom both overhead and down slope below. A refreshing breeze was blowing from the south where the sky was turning pink and orange amid slate grey clouds. Sublimely lovely.

December 2008: A Monthly Review

At the birth of the month, before dawn, fell the first snowfall worthy of mention… but it melted away within a day, or so. Not bad, as those sorts of meteorological things go. A week later I slipped on ‘black ice’ while walking to school… I wasn’t hurt much thanks to my ridiculously puffy parka, but the rest of the walk was like treading through a minefield.

I had another thesis committee meeting near the start of the month. It went well enough. Everything should resolve well enough in the coming year. I also gave my presentation as a lab meeting activity as well. Another happy occurrence: I finally got on my Facebook home page for the first time in months. I had been shut out due to some inexplicable computer error that took figuratively ‘forever’ to be resolved. F-Book has caused ten times the trouble as Myspace. I partake in it mostly to stay in touch with a few friends who refuse to involve themselves in more open communities and the only reason I can imagine for its popularity is that it allows people to be more cliquish and exclusionary. Aren’t those wonderful behavioral traits to encourage?

Rituals of winter and Rituals of the New Year, both were performed in this nadir of months. Besides my fur parka, My down duvet is back on the bed and a ratty bath mat again covers the now remarkably icy bathroom floor. I also selected my new agenda or desk calendar for the coming year. Carefully chosen within with a larger arena of random chance, as the School Bookstore’s selection is usually quite spotty. This passing year I had one that featured Frans Lanting’s sublime nature photography and now, in 2009, I will have one displaying some of Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (now Tokyo). I would have preferred even more Katsushika Hokusai’s One Hundred Views of Fujiyama, but nonesuch was available.  Both are the Taschen spiral-bound models, which I usually get, but not always… 2007 was an agenda of Maurits Cornelis Escher drawings by another publisher, Pomegranate.

I threw a dinner party the Saturday before Christmas, for a few older relatives: my uncle, Jerry, and his wife, Barbara, and her sister, Janet. I also invited another uncle, Bill, who is 79, but he canceled on the day of the party because he wasn’t feeling well. Janet arrived only 15 minutes before the invitation time and I still wasn’t ready… Hosting an event is a challenge I only attempt once or twice a year; so when I do, I’m always out of practice. Momentary distraction and poor time mangement are the principle causes of most gaffes. Besides not being ready for the first guest, I also overcooked my spicy wild rice and quinoa dish… and later, when serving tea after dinner, I forgot which cup was regular and which decaffeinated... Despite my being “a hostess with the leastess” it was a fun time. Actually, hors d’oeuvres and dessert are my favourite courses, so I probably should just stick to cocktail parties… Before dinner, I served canapés, some with blue cheese & bosc pear, others with duck paté, as well as a tray of almonds, walnuts and kalamata olives. Besides conversation, entertainment included an impromptu screening of some of my recent films. The meal was marinated albicore steaks, steamed vegetables with garlic butter and the afore-mentioned luckless wild rice and quinoa. Dessert was freshly baked gingerbread muffins with vanilla ice cream. I filled my CD carousel with Yma Sumac albums, which serves surprisingly well as dinner music. After dinner, we played Scrabble. I won the first game and Barbara the second. After that everyone took leave. Before she left, I remembered to give my old Cal Academy insect drawer to Barbara, since one of her grandsons has an interest in entomology. I still have my insect collection, of course, but I prefer to keep it in unglazed wooden ‘cigar’ boxes.

N.B. The rest of this report, concerning a visit to Paris, is written en une mode experimentale combining words and phrase of both English et Francais. Don’t let it throw you.

I entertained before Christmas because I knew I would be leaving for Paris that holiday morning. Packing, taking the train and flying between continents, had its usual share of strains and stresses but no exceptionally untoward happenstances occurred. I transferred in Chicago. During the flight, and an all-too-typical delay on the tarmac, I sat next to a friendly, young Parisienne, a business student in Pittsburgh traveling home for a visit. It was good chatting with her about France, America, etc. However, her tobacco addiction wasn’t pretty. Buying a carton of duty-free cigarettes was her overriding obsession during the first half of the flight.
   
At Charles De Gaulle, I had my first international headache trying to perform the seemingly simple task of taking the RER into Paris. There were automated ticket machines but they didn’t like my credit card. It didn’t help that I had to first take a shuttle to another station because the nearby one was closed... After a wasted hour, I got a train to Gare du Nord. It was a cold sunny Boxing Day afternoon. I felt jet-lagged, tired and cranky from the train troubles. I decided to walk, as dealing with more vehicular transportation was the last thing I wanted. It wasn’t the most promising start but I soon came across a restaurant serving a favored comfort food: sushi! (Wada on Rue du Faubourg St-Martin). I washed down my raw fish with café noisette, an unusual combo, but most pleasing. I guess long-distance travelers are a bit like pregnant women in that regard. After feeding and ‘caffeinating’, I felt much better. I walked along the Canal St-Martin with my small suitcase. Black-headed seagulls fed on the green water of the canal and the light was lovely. I cut over to la Place de la République, with its traffic whizzing by and then passed the distinctive Cirque d’Hiver, of ‘Dovima and the Elephants’ fame. I arrived at my ’pension’, a little hotel off Rue Oberkampf, Hotel Luna Park. My room was small and cozy with a sink & bidet, and the rest of the facilities down the hall. My window looked down the length of a narrow back street. Pigeons flew among the gambrel roofs. Les clochers de l’eglise de St-Abroise were silhouetted in the western sky. I considered going out again but was exhausted and my bed looked so comfortable…

I was up early on the 27th. One of the benefits of west-to-east jet-lag is I rarely have trouble making an early start on the day, though enjoying the nightlife is another matter… I dressed and went out, walking down the linear green space of Boulevard Richard Lenoir, beneath which, le Canal St-Martin voyage dans la Seine. Tout prés la Place de la Bastille, je trouve un guichet automatique and had a double espress standing at the bar en le Café de Phares. Then I started on my way. Premier, de l’autre côté de la Place des Vosges with its elegant arcades and equestrian statue of Louis XIII, made more visible with the linden trees bare of leaf. Puis traverse la riviére Seine via le Pont de Sully a l’ Île St-Louis et puis a la Cathédrale de Notre Dame en l’ Île de la Cité. I walked around the famous cathedral, admiring the buttresses and ornate stonework, but was having too much fun walking, to wait in line to get inside. There was a lovely fruiting Pittosprum tobira on the south side of the nave exterior. I remember one in the garden where I grew up, but I hadn’t seen one in fruit recently. I continued westward on the island. La Place Dauphine was still enveloped in chilly shadows mais la Square du Vert-Galant at the tip of the island, sous la Place du Pont Neuf, was sunny and bright, though still cool. The golden-leaved willows and panorama of la riviere Seine made for great photography. Le grand magasin, Samaritaine can be seen on the north bank, but is closed now. I also loved the diversity of carved heads set into the eaves du Pont Neuf, certains sont beau, certains sont grotesque.

Je pris la Pont Neuf sud, dans la Rive Gauche. It was time pour déjeuner, so I went into the small quiet Café Dauphine and ordered un sandwich de jambon et un autre espress. The sandwich was remarkably bland, so I heavily dusted it avec pauvre. En la Rive Gauche, Je recontre un petite chevre ami en la plain-air marche de Rue St-Andre des Arts, and then continued my blissfully aimless walk around the outside of l’Église de St-Germain de Prés. I sat in the shady little park on the church’s north side. It was cold there but the bust of Apollinare done by Picasso was memorable. La Place St-Sulpice was full of fencing and construction equipment but I did go into l’eglise de St-Sulpice to see the interior. Overall, it seems a rather uninspiring example of the baroque period, but it must have its charms. Un bloc sud, au Musée de Luxembourg was a potentially interesting exhibit, entitled ‘Miro to Warhol’, or something like that, but I didn’t attend. Instead, I continued my walk through le Jardin de Luxembourg, stopping to admire some of the statuary, such as the huge golden head of Le Prophéte, the marble braids of Ste. Genevieve, the dramatically opulent Fontaine de Médicis, and several satyrs or satyr-like figures, such as L’acteur. I crossed la Place Edmond Rostand and, at the corner of Boulevard St-Michel and Rue Soufflot, immediately recognized the exact street-level vue du Pantheon, le fréres Lumiére filmed over a hundred years ago (and Merchant & Ivory had filmed again in 1995, in tribute, using the same camera!).

In front of Le Pantheon, there was un petit forêt de arbres de noel. I went up the steps of the portico, entered and paid my admission. Foucault’s pendulum hung from the top of the huge dome and swung in slow measured arcs across the center of the immense room. An unexplained statue of a cat was set on the floor nearby. I walked around the perimeter and admired the large-scale murals of l’histoire de France. My favourite ones were those of the hunky half-naked army of Clovis battling the similarly buffed and under-dressed forces of some barbarian horde or another. Now that is engrossing art. A small room off to one side held a cut-open scale-model of the building. I went down into the softly lit and barrel-vaulted sandstone crypt to see the final resting place of such luminaries as Louis Braille, Marie Skodowska-Curie, Pierre Curie, Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Marat, Jean Moulin, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet), and Emil Zola. Visiting the dead, particularly the famous dead, is among the most popular of Parisian activities. I’m not knocking it! It’s a lot of fun to see the evidence of ‘The Great Equalizer’ at work.

Le Pantheon served as a good segue from outside to in, so I made my next stop le Musée National de Moyen-Age in the elegant Hôtel de Cluny. The outside of the building has been excavated to reveal le Thermes de Cluny, 3rd century Roman baths, on top of which, the present late-medieval building was built. Coquilles St-Jacques are carved into the courtyard stonework, memorials of pilgrimages to St. Jacques shrine in Galicia. Ever since my first visit to the Cloisters in New York, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for medieval art, and the collection of le Musée National de Moyen-Age is probably even richer than the one at Fort Tryon, with carved ivory boxes, Spanish Visigoth crowns, a flamboyante Gothic ceiling, illuminated stained glass and an antique narwhal tusk, among its many treasures. Furthermore, the original statues of Notre Dame are on display here. The ones now on the cathedral are nineteenth century reproductions. Somewhat coincidentally, like the Cloisters, le Musée National de Moyen-Age also has a famed series of tapestries featuring the character of a unicorn. In this case, rather than being hunted, the unicorn accompanies a noblewoman on a journey of the five senses. The originality and intricacy of the set surprised me. Perhaps it is the way they are dramatically presented, but these were the most intriguing tapestries I’d ever seen. In another room, were more tapestries with scripted dialogue boxes woven in, like medieval comic strips. My only disappointment was not being able to see le Pilier des nautes from ancient Paris (Lutetia) with its carved likeness of the Celtic god, Cernunnos. The room it is kept in, the Frigidarium of the Roman baths, was being further restored…

Aprés le Musée National de Moyen-Age, I took le Pont St-Michel de l'autre côté de la Seine, stopping on le Île de la Cité to get a rather bland crepe poulet et emmental pour mon dîner. En la Rive Droit, I ambled through Le Marais, passing such sights, as the solitary Tour St-Jacques, et le belle époque Hotel de Ville, where a temporary ice-skating rink was set up in front. I arrived au Centre Pompidour shortly before closing, so decided to just explore le gratuit areas of the building. The architecture and curios in the gift shop were edifying in themselves. Nearby, I stumbled across a gay bar called ‘Le Bears Den’. As a former employee of Bear magazine I decided to go inside and check out the scene… but the bar was so tiny and the men were so large that it was literally impossible to cross the floor of the bar… so I aborted my first attempt exploring ‘Gay Paree’ and went to a Starbucks among the shops of la Place Georges Pompidou. While, I love the strong and diminutive café drinks that are standard in Europe, there are times I want a vente-sized, fat-free latte, that can serve as both a caffeine dose and a meal. In most European cities, other than London, Starbucks seem to be the only establishment that serves American-style café drinks. Strange as it is, evening coffee, and a sweet crepe, readied me for bed, so I said “bon nuit” to everything and headed back to the Luna Park.

On the 28th, I left the hotel at dawn and headed to the Filles du Calvaire metro station, where I took the ‘8’ to École Militaire. You may be guessing my destination. As overrated as it is, I simply had to ascend le Tour Eiffel as high as they would let me go. The line was already the width of the tower when I arrived, but it was probably four times as long by the time the the ticket gate opened. It was a freezing cold morning and I stood bundled like an Eskimo in my parka. I bought four Eiffel Tower key-chains for a euro from gypsies touting their trinkets along the line. The crowds in the elevators and waiting for them were unpleasant mais le vues du tour et Paris tous les deux made it worthwhile. The views from the top were clear and served as an unlabeled test map for my knowledge of Parisian geography. En le matin, the long winter shadow of le Tour Eiffel falls on the east wing du Palais de Chaillot across the river. The bolted grillwork of beams that make up the Tower is like a large-scale wickerwork when one gazes (or photographs) into the massive brown mesh, especially when gazing upward from the lower deck or on the stairs while descending. I was finally hungry pour petit déjeuner and ordered a waffle with chocolate syrup and coffee at the cafeteria on the mid-level deck. I didn’t see the champagne bar on the lower deck get any customers on this icy cold morn.

After descending and again admiring the Tower from the park below, I walked est dans le 7e arrondissement. On the pedestrian-only Rue Cler, My hunger again asserted so I chose a bistro named Tribeca that seemed to be serving a French take on American Sunday brunch. I ordered a plate that included an omelet soufflé et pomme de terre. It was okay but nothing special. Aprés déjeuner I walked down Avenue de la Motte Picquet and spent the afternoon at l’Hôtel des Invalides’ various attractions. I entered from the North and was presented with the central courtyard surrounded by its two-level arcade and the dome rising behind. I walked across the expanse and entered l’Eglise des Soldats. Its pale walls enlivened with colourful banners made it seem more cheery than most churches. Through the glass behind the altar I could see a hint of the megalomania to come. I exited, explored the courtyard’s arcade, and then went around outside toward Avenue de Tourneville et l’entree de l’Eglise du Dome et la Tombe de Napoleon.with gilded fleur-de-lis in the doorway and his brothers entombed in ante-chambers on either side, I entered further into the space and took in the great dome above and the Bonaparte’s sunken tomb below. It seems apparent that Grant’s Tomb in New York City owes much of its design to that of the Emperor’s. One side of the church was in disarray due to some sort of restoration work, but with care, I was able to avoid including the blight in my photography. It’s a funny church: there is no seating and the richly gilded altar is completely upstaged by the sarcophagus in its pit. The sarcophagus is carved from a seemingly monolithic piece of red-brown porphyry. In truth, it looks like an immense chocolate bon-bon. I descended the stairs behind the altar to enter the lower gallery of the tomb. The black marble portal is flanked by a pair of immense, bronze sentries, each bearded, muscular and somber in disposition. The circular gallery itself is walled with white marble friezes portraying various manifestations of Napoleon’s grandeur, while winged caryatid columns, also of marble, support the floor above. I left and returned to the interior of les Invalides, to marvel at the array of armor, swords and other weaponry in le Musée de l’Armée. The collection is mostly European with occasional forays into oriental implements. The intricacy and cleverness of the contraptions was amazing. Walls loaded with antique muskets and crossbows and several rooms full of shining suits of armor. It looked like a scene from Arthurian legend… or a Crusade.

I left les Invalides as I had entered, du nord, et marche de l’autre côté de l’Esplanade des Invalides et la Seine via le Pont Alexandre III. The idiosyncratic ornaments on the bridge attracted my attention, such as a gilded lizard coiled around a pillar and a clump of iron cattails topped with frosted glass fruit at the midpoint of the span. En la Rive Droit, I took in the belle époque exteriors of le deux Palais, le Grand et le Petit. The latter advertised a showing of the paintings of Akira Kurosawa; intriguing, but I did not enter. L’obelisque en le centre de la Place de la Concorde was an object I most wanted to examine, as I have seen and photographed it’s near twin in the temple of Luxor. Though the grandeur of la Place de la Concorde is a magestic spectacle, I still prefer the Egyptian setting for its ancient authenticity and arid romance. I passed by the giant Ferris wheel dans le Jardin des Tuileries and photographed the vistas and sculpture. A statuary group honoring Michel Ney particularly pleased me for its composition and male pulchritude.

I was overdue pour un autre espress, and so stopped in at the chic and botanically named Sansevieria on Rue de Rivoli and ‘tanked up’ at the bar. Next up was l’Église de la Ste-Marie Madeleine at the top of Rue Royale. La Madeleine is  large, classically laid out and dimly lit. It smelled sweetly of incense, perhaps spécial pour Nöel?. The white marble altarpiece showing Mary Magdalene ascending to heaven accompanied by angels is lovely and strange, quite different from the usual crucifixion one expects. After that, I made my way along l’arc des Grands Boulevards vers le 11e arrondissement, et mon hôtel. Along the way I twice stopped for nutella crepes made-to-order at a sidewalk kiosk. I also visited and photographed such sights (or ‘sites’… whichever) as the edifice de l’Opéra Garnier et les Portes du St-Denis et St-Martin. I remember an automobile accident had happened en la Place de la République just before I passed by. A small car and a motorcycle had collided, with both vehicles up on the curb. The motorcycle rider was lying on the pavement with paramedics attending to him. He still had his helmet on and was moving his legs, so hopefully it didn’t turn out too badly.
 
Next morning (29 dec.), I slept until past 8:00, most unusual considering my jet-lag. I must have been particularly exhausted. I dressed and groomed and headed back to la Place de la Bastille, via either Blvd. du Calvaire/Blvd. Beaumarchais or Blvd. Richard Lenoir, I forget which. Pour petit déjeuner I had un double espress et un jambon sandwich a un Le Weekend’ café and then took le Pont de Sully a la Rive Gauche. The light was clear and cool. I passed l’Institute du Monde Arabe and explored l'art du Musée de Sculpture en Plain Air en la rive de la Seine. One sculpture particularly grabbed me. It was a bronze of a mutated man with tentacles masturbating his erection while peering through a carapace-like structure. It was great to see a piece of art that would have caused an uproar in the States, pass without undue controversy in Paris.

I originally intended to take a train to Versailles, but changed my plans after spying, through a fence, a troop of adorable chien des buissons or South American bush-dogs, (Speothos venaticus) performing their morning exercises in single file in their pen a La Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes. It was a serendipitous alteration, as lundi is the day Versailles is closed. La Ménagerie is a small zoo but is well-maintained and had many intriguing organisms available for my perusal, including: antilope, aras, baudet du poitou, bouquetin, cabiai, cagou, cheval de Przewalski, chouettes, cygne, faisan, flamant, goral, ibis, lapin, leopard naugeux, mara, markhor, nandou, panda roux, porte-musc, takin, tortue géant, vautour, vignogne, yack, et cetera. Besides the outdoor cages, there are also several vivarium-like buildings for the smaller animals of warmer climes.

Aprés la Ménagerie, I decided to stroll around le Jardin des Plantes proper. Unfortunately the glasshouses were still under renovation, but I enjoyed the outdoor plantings. I walked through le petit bois and climbed the spiral topiary maze on its small hill, topped by Verniquet’s gazebo. In the exhibition beds at the garden’s center, several plants were in bloom, including Buddleja auriculata, Edgeworthia chrysantha and Viburnum foetens; the last being delightfully fragrant. It was telling to see how much milder Paris’ climate is to that of St. Louis, despite Paris being at much higher latitude. Nothing blooms in late December in St. Louis… well, sometimes pansies.

I could see huge dinosaur bones through la fenétres des Galeries d’Anatomie comparee et de Paléontologie but I also saw a long line to get in. Despite my love of natural history, I concluded that I had spent enough of my time in Paris on that discipline. Je traversai la Seine via le Pont d’Austerlitz and walked along le Port de Plaisance de Paris Arsenal vers la Place de la Bastille. I stopped for a late lunch at Les Associes, a restaurant that seemed to cater to the business crowd. I ordered un plat de charcuterie et fromage that was more interesting than satisfying et plusiers demitase d’espress. Despite the caffeine, I wanted to go back to the hotel for a nap. It was quite a ‘low-energy’ day. I originally intended to get up again toward evening, but Hypnos had the last word and I slept until the pre-dawn of the next day.

Dark and early le prochain matin, I made my way to la Gare d’Austerlitzand took the train to Versailles. It was a freezing cold morning, below zero. On the way, as the train passed Parc André Citroën, I saw the park’s tethered hot-air balloon ride waiting in a grassy field for its first customers of the day. Aprés partais la gare au Versailles, I followed the signs vers le Château de Versailles. The château was only a few blocks from the station, but ice had formed all over the sidewalks making it difficult to walk. It was especially treacherous walking on the large cobblestone courtyard in front of the palace’s main gates. Just as I arrived, a man came out and told the early crowd that the entire château complex would remain closed because the ice made walking too dangerous. It seemed somewhat incredible that there was no method to get people across the courtyard and into the palace, but apparently not. Many of the people who had already been standing in line awaiting the opening, continued to stand there, hoping that the park managers would change their minds. A lot of them had grim and stony expressions on their faces. I don’t blame them being angry but I wasn’t personally bothered by the sudden change-of-plans since there were so many other things I wanted to do. Even without the dangerous ice, winter is a poor time to see Versailles (no fountains, no flowers, no greenery, etc.) I spent a few minutes gingerly navigating the pavement to take a few photos of what could be seen from the fence and then I made my way back to the train station and then on to Paris. On the return trip, I espied the small-scale Statue of Liberty that stands at the south end of l’Allee des Cygnes.

I took the train a la Gare du Musée d’Orsay, et traversai la Seine via la Passerelle Solférino. As I walked across le Jardin des Tuileries it started to lightly rain so I took shelter sous l’Arc de Triomphe du Carousel. and admired the sight line that runs through the center of both the Tuileries and the Louvre.  It was still only mid-morning so I decided to spend the day in the grand museum… but then realized that mardi est le jour le Musee du Louvre est fermé. Actually, the exterior of the Louvre is much more photogenic without a long queue of people in the foreground. The rain stopped and I walked over to I.M. Pei’s famous pyramid surrounded by its shallow pools and smaller subsidiary pyramids. A robot was moving up the side of the triangular glass panes, cleaning them. I took a lot of photographs of different aspects of le cour d’honorée and then walked through la Passage Richelieu dans la Place du Palais Royal. I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon visiting the highlights du 1e arrondissement starting with le Palais Royal. En le Jardin du Palais Royal a pack of bronze wolves ran in a pack across the courtyard and the fountain in the center had blocks of ice floating in it. I walked westward on Rue des Petits Champs/Rue D. Casanova until I reached la Place Vendome. I walked around, checking out Napoleon’s column and the dazzling jewelry displays in the shops. I went into the Ritz to use the bathroom, and see the place where Rock Hudson collapsed from AIDS and Princess Di spent her last privileged night. An employee came up and politely told me that photography wasn’t allowed. I sort-of guessed that. I headed back east on Rue St-Honoré, briefly poking my head inside the not particularly memorable Église de St-Roch as I passed along. I cut through le Jardin du Palais Royal encore. As the rain returned I found shelter under glass roofs, premier la Galerie Véro-Donat et deuxiéme le dome de la Bourse de Commerce. Both were architecturally interesting but offered little else. Le Jardin de Halles was pleasantly damp and green as it assisted the adjacent Eglise de St-Eustache by providing an open and verdant foreground to set off its flying buttresses and rose windows. I quickly passed through the uninteresting Forum les Halles and got another nutella crepe on Rue Rambuteau. I checked my e-mail for the only time of my entire visiten un café en la Place Georges Pompidou. Le Centre Culturel Georges Pompidou est aussi fermé en mardi, but Tinguely & Saint-Phalle’s Stravinsky Fountain was interesting to see with icicles hanging on the sculpture and little icebergs floating in the pool. I went in a little shop selling sensual aids, and tried out a scalp massager that looks something like an egg whisk with its end cut open. It felt amazingly good, so I bought it. Since my return, I’ve kept it out on the living room coffee table. It looks like a piece of modern sculpture and feels better than sex!

I wandered the backstreets du Marais, as always, examining odd details of Parisian life, like a red industrial shipping cube set in the center of the formal fenced cour du Musée de l’Histoire de France. I then accidentally stumbled across l’entre du Musee Carnavalet, which is the history museum for Paris itself. It was actually the first open museum I encountered, et gratuit aussi. What an excellent way to spend the end of a rainy afternoon! The museum is housed in two grand and historic townhouses: l’Hôtel Carnavalet et l’Hotel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau. The former was the residence of the influential  Madame de Sevigné in the late 17th century. The museum’s collections date back to prehistory and Gallo-Roman times, but become more extensive beginning with the 16th century. The Medieval collection was ‘closed for refurbishment’. Many rooms in the museums are actually preserved interiors from other Parisian buildings, mostly ornate salons for the upper classes. My favourite was a room wallpapered in silver with flowing crimson banners and arched doorways with fully mirrored doors. The opulent paper seamlessly continued from the walls to the ceiling. The peacock-inspired art nouveau jewelry showroom of Fouquet was also uniquely memorable. There were many original paintings portraying the places and personalities of Paris through the ages. A portrait of an aged and mournful Countess Castiglioni gowned in funereal black was comically morbid. Other treasures on display include gilded mantelpiece clocks of exceptional intricacy, large antique models of the Bastille Fortress, ceramic political cartoon figurines and a bronze copy of the death mask of Napoleon. At dusk I went out to the gardens and took some dreamy photographs of the walls and the colonnade that runs entre le Cour des Drapiers et le Cour de la Victoire. L’Escalier de Luynes is another architectural feature of exceptional beauty. I was going to buy un livre de la librairie du musee but like many merchants in Paris, they were too strict about enforcing a high minimum charge amount on credit cards.
 
Aprés le Musée Carnavalet, I walked back to my hotel through the neighborhood where the Marais meets Belleville. I stopped at a marché and purchased lait écrémé et Canada Gris pommes and later on the Rue Oberkampf, I bought un demi poulet rôti at a busy boucherie to take back to my room for dinner. Aprés dîner, I wrapped up the leftover chicken and milk and set it on the ledge outside my window. All of Paris served comme mon réfrigérateur.

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, I had the rest of my roast chicken, milk and apples for breakfast. As usual, I left the hotel at dawn and headed west, making a somewhat straight line pour le Musée du Louvre. On the way, I stopped at a produce market and bought more fruit: mangosteens, passionfruit and pears. I photographed the front de l’Eglise de St-Germain Auxerroisand the entered le cour carrée of the Louvre’s central Sully wing. As I approached la Pyramide Verre I began to leap in jeté-like bounds across  le cour d’honorée, partly from genuine glee at visiting one of the World’s greatest museums and partly to get into the entry line before it got any longer. For once, I timed my arrival correctly. I was within the first 50 meters of a line that soon approached 500, but at the same time, I didn’t have to wait more than twenty minutes before the doors opened. While I was waiting, I ate my fruit and read my guidebook for tips on how to best visit this huge museum, which I was told requires twelve miles of walking in order to visit every gallery, or was it twenty? In any case I didn’t come close to achieving that feat.

After descending from the Pyramid and buying my ticket, I decided to first see the “Trois Grande Dames du Louvre” (A.K.A. the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace). It was an admittedly vulgar choice but I thought best to see them before the museum became even more crowded. With five separate entrances the Louvre fills up remarkably quickly. To describe all the wonders of the Louvre I saw that day would overwhelm me, but in brief… After encountering the winged Victory on the stairs I went up to the second floor of the Denon wing, and took in the masterworks along the grand Gallery, including those by Da Vinci, David, Géricault, Ingres, Veronese, etc., etc. Among them, La Joconde (A.K.A. The Mona Lisa). I also checked out the somewhat paltry remnants of the crown jewels in incredibly ornate Galerie du Apollo. Then I went down stairs to admire the idealized realism found in Roman, Etruscan and Greek sculpture. There were so many fine pieces that I don’t think the Venus de Milo would have even left a particular impression on me, were it not for its fame. Then I descended into the excavations of the medieval Louvre sous le cour carrée. It is strange to walk around the exterior walls and moat of a castle now entirely underground. These remarkable ruins show how the Louvre doesn’t just hold historical artifacts, it is an artifact! The adjacent ‘History of the Louvre’ exhibit further underscored that fact by explaining the drastic changes the palace has undergone through the centuries. By then it was lunchtime, so I returned to Napoleon Hall sous la Pyramide and found a counter selling pita sandwiches and drinks. I just wanted to eat fast and return to the art. Aprés déjeuner, I spent most of my time with the antiquities, especially the huge Egyptian collection, but also the Mesopotamian, Persian and Levant. I was beginning to flag again, so I went au Café Richelieu pour une crepe nutella, double espress et un coke. I was seated at a small table in the middle window, perfectly lined up with the top of the glass pyramid and the similar window in the Denon Wing opposite. In the late afternoon, I admired the awesome physicality of the massive sculptures Francais en le Cour Marly et Cour Puget, and then went up to the apartments of Napoleon III to briefly luxuriate in imperial excess. With the understanding that the Louvre would be open until 9:30 and I could freely return, I exited pour le musé dans le Galerie du Carrousel, a pedestrian (in every sense of the word) underground shopping mall adjacent to the Louvre. Upon exiting, I discovered that le Musée du Louvre would be closing early due to New Year’s Eve and would not be allowed back inside… (sigh). Suddenly I had several more unwanted hours of unstructured time to fill up. I stopped to look at la Pyramide Inverti, a glorified skylight that hangs from the ceiling of the Mall. Children were clustering around to place their hands between the inverted glass pyramid and the smaller stone one beneath it. At the time, I had not read or seen The Da Vinci Code, but I knew that this skylight somehow served as a plot device. Since then, I have seen the movie (and will not bother with the book…) mostly to satisfy my curiosity about how exactly Paris was exploited by the author, Dan Brown. Without going into an unnecessary film review, I will say that the movie was less stupid than I thought it would be (though still stupid) and I even liked its conceit of challenging the infallibility of Christian dogma by presenting another fictitious tale that is not any more ridiculous than the first.

Having just been evicted from ”le paradis du art”, I decided I needed more coffee for mood improvement. I got an espresso and three mini-muffins in a mall-style café and then returned to the surface world. There were still seven hours to go before 2009 and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I decided to walk the long and straight path au Arc de Triomphe en la Place de l’Etoile (ou la Place Charles de Gaulle) via le Jardin des Tuileries et l’Avenue des Champs Elysées. As the sun set, I strolled the central path through the Tuileries towards the immense Ferris wheel, spinning and glowing with blue-white light. After crossing la Place de la Concorde, it was the alee of plane trees lining the Champs Elysées that was now lit up in blue and white. Most of the stores along the fabled street are just variants of the usual consumerist chain-traps that can be found in malls and shopping centers worldwide. One restaurant I passed did impress me with its extreme aesthetic, virtually the whole joint was done in hot pink: upholstery, paint, lighting, etc. On top of that, there was no sign out front and when I asked the maître d’hôtel, he told me the place deliberately did not have a name! I can only imagine how they advertise or are discussed. A little while later, I stopped and bought a small cup of chocolate ice cream. It was funny to want a frozen treat when the night was so cold, but there you have it.

A la Place Charles De Gaulle I took the subway to the center and walked around the flood-lit Arc de Triomphe. It was too late to go up inside but I learned that the ceremonial lighting of the eternal flame beneath the arch would happen in half an hour, at about 6:30. As I had no specific plans and some time to kill, I decided to stay and watch. I feel confident I will never do so again. Beyond the night beings too cold for standing around, the ceremony itself isn’t treated like a public event, even though it happens in a very public space. The gendarmes cleared the general public from most of the circle around l’Arc de Triomphe leaving only a small area beneath the northern secondary arch, that wasn’t a good vantage point, especially when the invited guests and military guards stand in front of the action. I’m still not sure if the eternal flame was extinguished and then relit or not. I realize the ceremony is for the French to honor their war dead, not for tourism, but I’ve been to similar ceremonies, such as guard changing ceremonies at unknown soldier tombs, and usually plenty of viewing space is provided.

Underwhelmed with my introduction to Gallic patriotism, I walked back down l’Avenue des Champs Elysées. until I turned onto Avenue Montaigne, a street inhabited by more consistently high-end shops than the Champs Elysées itself. A la Place de l’Alma, I bought a delicious shish-kabob sandwich from a street-vendor. I ate it as I walked toward the Seine, passing by that reproduction of Lady Liberty’s torch flame that doubles as an ersatz memorial to Princess Diana’s famously fatal car crash in the underpass directly beneath. From la Place de l’Alma, I got mon premiere vue du Tour Eiffel au nuit, brilliantly lit up by cornflower blue floodlights and accented by twelve glowing yellow stars to represent the European Union, as the famous searchlights shown their horizontal beam through the night sky. It really was an exceptionally beautiful sight.  It would have been painful to turn away so I walked toward the Tower instead, by crossing le Pont de l’Alma and walking along Quai Branly. By the time I reached le Pont de l”Iena I had finished my sandwich so I got une crepe marron pour dessert. I ascended le Jardins de Trocadero to enjoy the famous view from between the wings du Palais de Chaillot and then descended and again crossed la Seine via Pont de l”Iena.
 
En la Rive Gauche, I walked beneath le Tour Eiffel, staring up into its preternatural violet-blue hue and briefly inspecting the powerful tinted floodlights to understand the method behind the magic. I walked est dans le 7e arrondissement, de l’autre côté de l’Esplanade des Invalides. Prés de le Ministrie de la Defense, I connected with the Boulevard St-Germain. I stopped in au Café Flore pour mon dernier café du 2008. It is a chic enough place, but I prefer the one in San Francisco. I crossed a l’Ile de la Cité via le Pont St-Michel. A la Place du Parvis Notre-Dame, Celtic musicians were leading a group of year-end revelers in a merry dance, one with at least quasi-pagan implications. Le long de Rue du Cloitre-Notre-Dame, I gazed up at the protruding rainspout gargoyles on the cathedral. Weathered to the point of abstraction and glowing white in the floodlights, they reminded me of dire wraiths. I crossed le Pont St-Louis, and walked down the dark and picturesque Rue St-Louis en l’Ile. Encore en la Rive Droit, I was growing weary of New Year’s Eve, and began to entertain thoughts of lit avant minuit. I decided to give a perfunctory toast to the year that would soon be gone and the one that  would soon be. Au Café des Phares, I took a table inside near the front and blindly ordered a Bordeaux that turned out to be vin sub-ordinaire. I sipped it listlessly, more eager for rest than wine. Old English and American pop songs were playing. It was a dreary moment. I reminded myself how New Year’s Eve is so often overrated. I paid my bill and walked up Boulevard Richard Lenoir and back to the Luna Park. I had just lain down in my bed, when I heard that familiar annual cheering erupt du tout prés bars et soirées. For a brief moment I added my own drowsy and subdued cheer and then happily closed my eyes to let 2008 fade away forever.

November 2008: A Monthly Review

Of course, the days grew shorter and the nights colder. Such seasonal changes reflect in my own behaviors. A tendency towards hibernation and torpor sets in, especially here in the Midwest, where winter becomes bleak indeed. But the worst of that is yet to come; November is only a moderately chilly month, with many mild days and remaining touches of fall's foliar splendor. In the distance, through the thinning canopy's black branches, brilliant flashes of vermillion and flavine enflame my eye and quicken my pulse.

On the first day of the month, I took one of my favourite drives and walks, this time with a novel twist. I drove across the Mississippi to Alton, Illinois, via the Clark Bridge and then along the Great River Road. The drive itself is spectacular. White sun flashing through the blue sky, striking the river, striking the white limestone cliffs, and striking the Technicolor trees most of all. Of course, I can never pass the Piasa Bird without stopping to marvel at this most peculiar roadside attraction, though its modern interpretation is ugly in the extreme. I wound along the winding and pastoral riverside to Pere Marquette State Park, where I spent several hours hiking the trails up, over, and around MacAdams Peak (791 ft.). I added bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia) to my park list and spent a few moments at the summit explaining to the public that a large congregation of lady beetles were fascinating, harmless and only interested in mating and staying warm. I blazed a new (for me) route back to Missouri. Instead of taking the Clark Bridge or the Grafton Ferry across the Mississippi, I took the Calhoun County Ferry across the Illinois River and then the Golden Eagle Ferry across the Mississippi. It was a significantly longer way to go, especially since I had to wait in line at Golden Eagle through three ferrying cycles, but the delay was worth it because Calhoun County is beautiful. It's rolling hills of green pastures interspersed with copses of woodland and interesting old buildings. I was especially interested to finally see 'Calhoun Country' because one lineage of my French ancestry lived in Calhoun in the 19th Century. Perhaps I have unidentified cousins there still.

The last Clemens Community Garden work party of the year happened. It will be the last work party for me, as a garden member. I removed huge sunflower stalks, tomato tangles and other dieing vegetation from my two beds, 13 and 21. Of course, I left in the perennial milkweeds, asters, Aethionema and herbs. I hope they will fare well with whoever their new caretakers will be. The other gardeners seems to want to turn my rock garden (21) into a herb garden for the whole garden to share. I approve of that plan, as it will be a good use of the rocky limestone soil I created there. I also harvested the last of my chard and bok choy from my vegetable garden (13), as well as one last banana pepper that had escaped my notice before.

I don't write much about the cinema in my monthly reviews, as I always intend to discuss such matters in film reviews… that rarely get written. However, this month, I began to earnestly explore the films of the silent era; a huge meta-genre that largely ended with the coming of sound in 1929. In my youth, my few attempts at watching silent films ended in boredom and disgust. The lack of audible dialogue, as well as monotone colour and the foreign conventions of a bygone era, were more than my inexperience could overcome. However, I now see that these silent films have nothing to apologize for. Rather, the lack of dialogue and other rational distractions allows the viewer to sublimate more fully into the emotional and oneiric state of the imagery. This engaging empathic response can be so rapturous that I'm almost amazed that the silent tradition didn't remain strong, even after the advent of sound. I suspect that the social norms of what was then an almost exclusively group activity may have played a part. I think watching film alone, or at least without interpersonal connections, is necessary for a deeper, fuller, experience. However, the audience's social cross-intentions and the industry's profitability usually trump such appreciations. I wonder if silent films could ever again become a medium with mass appeal? It is an intriguing idea. Of course, I should address the gross misnomer that plagues 'silent ' film. The films are rarely intended to be watched in silence. Rather instrumental music, and sometimes sound effects and non-synced vocalizations, are an integral aspect of the experience, and should not to be overlooked.

Of course I voted in the national elections this month, as well as for my state and local contests. I always vote against the worst candidate, so Obama and Biden were the only sensible choice for President. I was also gladdened that I helped get Missouri a Democratic governor, but locally I was disappointed that a sales tax initiative to support public transportation failed. I also felt the negative impact of California's passage of Proposition 8. For me, marriage itself is not a core issue, but I definitely feel that denying the right to same-sex couples is a telling measure of the level of homophobia in my home state, which is supposedly among the most liberal in the U.S…. Though actually, I don't think of California so much as 'liberal', as 'diverse'… and diversity without the ethics of inclusion, can quickly devolve into Balkanized acrimony.

In the morning of Election Day, I walked over to Forest Park and took in the abstract expressionist special exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum as well as the permanent modern collection on the second floor, which actually had some of the best pieces I saw that day, by recent German expressionists. The special exhibit was a great summary of mainstream mid-20th Century American art. Some exciting pieces (and some, not so much) were on display, many by the big names of the time: Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Frankenthaler, Guston, Still, Noland, Krasner, Stella, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I particularly liked the pieces that seem to disintegrate into nebulous chaos. Two small rooms were set aside for a piece of interactive word art, which was fun but didn't seem to fit the exhibit at all. The whole exhibit was constructed around the contrasting views of two prominent critics of the time, Greenberg and Rosenberg. It was telling that these men seemed less like independent critics than favourite (or client) -promoting admen. This gets right to my major beef with the 'Art World Establishment'. For me, the whole controversy about modern art was misplaced. The questions should never have been "Is Pollock art?" or "Is Pollock good art?" but rather, "Like it or don't, but who cares that it's a Pollock, and if you do care, why?" Instead of constantly paying homage to the establishment, I believe more people should spend more of their own time making their own art; 'uninhibited', 'unconventional', 'radical', 'controversial' art! It isn't that I don't think art history or criticism is without value, on the contrary! But the way museums, galleries, brand-name artists and rich collectors trade and promote artworks like the investments they have become is beyond gross and beneath contempt. I suppose my paying 5.00 to see the exhibit contributes in some small way to the legitimization of these exploitive processes, but at least I can take comfort that it is only 'in some small way' and that it was worth it for my own education.

One of my biggest accomplishments this month was finally catching up on my monthly blog posts. I was a full five months behind and the situation was becoming terminal. I think my summer illness made me feel too drained to write at length, especially about the illness itself. Anyway, staying on top of my 'blogsponsibilities' is one New Year's resolution that I intend to start early! Another resolution is an effort to proofread my posts more thoroughly. My typos are among the worst of anyone I read. If you catch one, let me know… Though sometimes they aren't typos, but rather my attempts to move the language forwards with word coinage and experimental punctuation.

On Sunday morning, I was pleasantly surprised by a call from my cousin, Lynn who lives in Miami. She was in town to celebrate both her birthday and Thanksgiving. We went for lunch to the Boathouse in Forest Park. While waiting for our table, we took a walk around Post-Dispatch Lake. It was a bright, crisp fall day. There were ducks on the water and tall dry grass on the lakeshore that caught the thin light and glowed. We stopped to smell a crushed leaf of sweet bay (Magnolia virginiana) and read the plaques on the Turner Monument. A kingfisher flew across our sight. For lunch I had smoked salmon and cream cheese on a bagel with a creamy salad made with smoked trout. Lynn had fish and chips with basil mayonnaise. After lunch, we rented a paddleboat and again circled the lake, this time on the water. The afternoon light was serene, but dazzling when it shone through the surging fountains on the lake. Our pedaling kept us warm, even when the spray from the fountains blew over us like sea foam. Afterwards Lynn came over to my home for a cup of tea and some Yma Sumac appreciation before heading back to St. Charles, where she was staying. The whole afternoon was a perfect example of modern grace and civility.

I usually avoid the endless stream of speakers that parasitize the college pop-culture lecture circuit, but this month I did take in a question-and-answer session with sex advice columnist, Dan Savage. I was interested in hearing his spiel about Proposition 8 and gauging the queer political activism at Wash U. The evening was marginally entertaining. He argued his viewpoint well, though it is the typical and supposedly practical one that emphasizes separation between church-and-state, without acknowledging that people aren't going to vote against their moral beliefs. Truly, it is the fraudulent and irresolvable claims of ALL religious thought that must be challenged. I realize that is a tall order but nothing less will undermine the thought-control of the irrational and gullible by the self-righteous and dishonest. Some of the audience seemed interested in current events but a lot of them just wanted to ask dumb questions about rimming and then be titillated by Savage's unprofessional and flippant answers. That is the problem with Savage. On one hand, he wants to be a radical activist, but on the other hand he wants to be what progressive straight people think a gay man should be. Some of that is pandering for profit and some of that is because Dan Savage really is an openly homosexual straight man, including having a spouse and a kid. I'm not opposed to his lifestyle choices but I do get tired of how the gay and lesbian political establishment has emphasized marriage and other straight-acting roles at the expense of 'traditional' gay culture, which Savage frankly dismissed as outdated in his response to one audience member's question. However, I for one, value queer cultural achievements such as camp, drag and other explicitly 'gay' artistic innovations, far more than any plain sex act or relationship between people of the same gender. Though of course, sex and love often do provide the raw fuel for the more complex and elaborate cultural novelties that I treasure. I could write so much more about this, but enough for now.

On Thanksgiving, I drove to Janet Daley's house in Florissant. Like the year before, I forgot to take a map and got completely lost by getting off on the wrong freeway exit. One for some huge stupid mall called St. Louis Mills, which I've now seen twice in my life, both times on Thanksgiving when it is completely and ominously deserted. However unlike the year, before, it was still daylight and the weather was much warmer, so instead of heading home in traumatized disgust, I headed eastward across unfamiliar residential streets until I finally bumped into a major road that I recognized. But it was still a stressful vexation to be driving around in circles. To calm my nerves and bolster my blood sugar I ate about a third of the gingerbread muffins that I had baked that morning as my contribution to the banquet… Despite the driving delay, I was still one of the first three guests to arrive. I helped Janet set the table and started giving away small houseplants that I had propagated a few weeks earlier by dividing my leopard plant (Ledebouria socialis). It had grown to the point that it was splitting its pot and needed to be divided. I gave Lynn a back massager made from tagua nuts since she couldn't bring a houseplant back to Miami on a plane.
It was a large family gathering. Janet had something like twenty-five guests in total! Other people that came for dinner were Barbara, Jerry, Joyce, Rodney, Elizabeth, Hannah, Aunt Toots, and Mary-Ellen, as well as Janet's in-laws and three of her sons, Quentin, Matt, and Chad, with their families too. I ate too much, but that is what I want to do on Thanksgiving. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to holiday fare. I insist on the classic dishes of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, baked yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie… though I also sampled several other desserts as well. The emphasis on feasting makes Thanksgiving one of my favourite holidays. Even though, I never fully fit in with the social norms of the occasion, I usually have a good time anyway.

I spent most of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend working at school, which was largely deserted due to the fall break. It was nice to have the campus mostly to myself, except for the lack of food purchasing options. Every day I took a stroll to a different café in the surrounding neighborhoods: on Friday, Kaldi's, on Saturday, Kayaks, and on Sunday, Messugah. I think I liked Messugah's coffee (and atmosphere) the best, though none compared to the coffee I make for myself at home.

At the end of the month, a novel arrived in the mail that I had to read immediately: Gutter Boys, the latest from an old compatriot in queer culture, Alvin Orloff. The novel has been out for a few years now, so it was really high time that I moved it to the top of the 'to read' list. If only there were time enough for all the edu-tainment options that call to me. Anyway, reading Gutter Boys was at least a moderately cathartic experience, not least of all because it is a roman a clef about the early days, in the early 80s, of Alvin and the late great Diet Von Popstitute, a Warholian instigator to many and a sort-of semi-boyfriend to yours truly… In the book, Jeremy (Alvin) develops a hopeless crush on Colin (Diet) until he eventually accepts the obvious: Colin/Diet, as an avatar of radical cultural expression, cannot, must not, be confined within the clinging threads of romantic sap. The amazing thing for me was seeing that Jeremy/Alvin's realization was also my own, ten years later in the early 90s, though by then AIDS had replaced alcohol as Diet's primary inner demon… Anyway, for those not intimately familiar with the source material, I still recommend Gutter Boys (Is this turning into a book review?!) for its historically unique and hilariously apt view of New York the day after Larry Kramer's Faggots. The bon mots are the real crowd pleasers here. Orloff's writing is full of those dead on, deadpan, camp, social comments that are the bread-and-butter of today's post-modern irony-addicts. After he points out that 1960s television was inadvertent surrealism or that new wave was more punk than punk, it will suddenly seem obvious, and that's why all good entertainment is educational, some how, some way.

October 2008: A Monthly Review

The Fall brings the best weather of the year to the Midwest. The days are mildly warm to briskly cool, with skies either softly overcast or bright and casting long shadows. This fine weather is joined with brilliant displays of colour, as the foliage turns from greens to soft browns, golden yellows and fiery shades of pink, orange, red, and purple. I even saw some red maples (Acer rubrum) that were so intensely hued I would call them 'vermillion'. Of course, an occasional shower or blustering wind usually only adds to the moody drama of the season. With the coming of cooler nights I've begun to prepare for the bleak time to come by taping up window cracks and draping my down comforter on my bed. However it has yet to get so bad that I have needed to run the heat or wear my fur-trimmed parka…. but those days will be here before too long.

I gave a seminar talk for my graduate program about my work involving the phylogenetics of , in the mustard family, Brassicaceae. The talk came off well enough though its preparation was a bit rushed as the date for it was bumped up two months earlier, so an important guest speaker could be accommodated in December. Of course, the afore-mentioned 'big shot' then later canceled anyway…

For a few days this month, Washington University was a focus of national political interest as the school was hosting the 2008 vice-presidential debate between the basically decent Joe Biden and the completely deplorable Sarah Palin. I don't put much stock in debates as a way to determine a candidate's stances or competence and so tried to ignore the event. That was occasionally difficult to do however, due to ad hoc security fencing, placard-waving supporters and crowds forming around stages, booths and television cameras…

A small event back home inspired a good amount of social interest and networking on my part. My Class of 1988 from Alhambra High School in Martinez, California, celebrated its 20th Anniversary Reunion. Even though I wasn't able to attend the reunion in person (and technically I 'graduated' a year early with a CHSPE) I was still intrigued enough to reintroduce myself to many old friends and acquaintances online. Most of these 'meetings' took place on Facebook, though several of my 'best friends' from high school are also on MySpace, which I prefer. I'm happy to say that most of the people I knew well seem to have done well for themselves. Of course more than twenty years have passed since I last saw most of them, but I hope that we will stay in some sort of contact into the future. Thanks to the Internet, such connection is now a more reasonable possibility.

For several years now I've held St. Louis' version of Halloween in ever-lower esteem, due to several unpleasant experiences. I had hoped this state of affairs had reached its nadir in 2007, when Brian Crisp and I were attacked in the Delmar Loop by a gang of thugs. The follow-up response from the U City police was also uncommunicative and sub-satisfactory. This year I stayed home and had a good time cozily watching a movie alone. However, I learned a couple of days later that a police officer was shot and killed in the Delmar Loop by an ex-con. It happened within an hour of the time the year before when I was attacked… a coincidence of course, but a telling one. At least I can assume that this time, the police are taking the matter seriously.

September 2008: A Monthly Review

My online film festival culminated this month with another fantastic premiere double feature: Soar With Feeling/Feeling Sore and Other Garden Glimpses. The whole festival was just an overwhelming positive experience. I can't wait to put on my next one! Another important online premiere was the public grand opening of Chieko Redmer's long-awaited 'Temple of Snap!', featuring extensive galleries of her art and engaging blogs.

I attended the defense party for Jen Neuwald that Nick Griffin and his wife threw at their house. It was a fun affair with drinks, barbecued chicken, beer-boiled brats and an elaborate photo-frosted cake. The Griffins have really amusing pets such as a pair of bearded dragons, poison dart frogs and a guinea pig. Now that Dr. Neuwald has moved on, I am the 'old man' of the program in every sense of the word. The next day there was another party in the afternoon at John Chase & Tiffany Knight's house, which featured all sorts of rich dishes (yum).

Near the end of the month, I joined my aunt, Barbara and my uncles, Jerry and Bill for a dinner party in St. Charles. They barbecued steak and salmon, and for dessert, I baked a chocolate devil's food cake, served with vanilla ice cream. After dinner we played a couple games of Scrabble. It was a pleasant time.

One night, I was I baking some salmon myself, and, after taking the blue glass Corningware baking tray from the oven, I immediately put it in the sink and ran cold water on it (I did remove the salmon first…). The glass tray shattered into several hundred splinters of blue glass… What a spectacularly perilous mess! Take heed dear readers and don't do what I did… always let your hot glassware air-cool first.

I was also tangentially affected by another disaster of national or continental scale, namely Hurricane Ike. By the time the storm front reached St. Louis, almost 1000 miles inland, it had been downgraded to a mere windstorm, but this was still enough to give a furious display and cause substantial damage. A branch from an Ailanthus tree behind my building snapped off and downed a power line, before landing on a neighbor's car. The car was only minimally damaged but my building was without power for several hours before the repairmen could arrive. I called 911 because a though there might be a danger of electrocution. The surface of the street behind my building was also flooded due to the torrential rains, but the water level went down after a few hours.

I spent a night at the Washington University sleep clinic to see if they could detect any sleep disorders that could explain feelings of exhaustion and sloth that I often experience. I drove over to the Chase Park Plaza, where the clinic is located, and gave 'The Smiling Teardrop' to the attending valets. I checked in and prepared for bed in room 11. My nurse, Debbie, came in and hooked me up to the monitoring equipment. It was an elaborate procedure. At the end of it, I was connected to seven EEG pads on my scalp, three EKG pads on my chest, two eye movement monitors on my face, two leg movement monitors on each leg, two breathe effort measurement bands around my torso, a breath readers in my mouth and nose and a blood oxygen reader on my right middle finger. I so wish I had brought my camera… Anyway I didn't sleep well that night due to the strangeness and discomfort of the equipment but slept long enough for Debbie to get the necessary data. In the morning I was woken up and detached from the equipment. I filled out my sleep survey and drove home… to take a nap. However, as it turns out, I 'passed' my sleep test with flying colours. Whatever may ail me, it doesn't include anything like sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome.

One of my favourite writers, David Foster Wallace, hung himself this month. I've been a fan of his ever since I stumbled across his first novel, The Broom of the System in a Goodwill thrift shop in about 1987 or so… I I was even inspired to write him a letter expressing my admiration for his work. He was kind enough to reply with a short postcard… All this was before his fame peaked with his epic second novel, Infinite Jest. He also wrote many fine short stories and essays. I've read almost everything he's written, though at the time of his death, I had yet to get around to his last volume of short pieces, Oblivion. News of his death didn't strike me as an emotional blow. Our author/reader relationship wasn't like that. Instead I found the event intellectually fascinating and realized that it was time to review his legacy. I re-read The Broom of the System and then immediately followed that with my first read of oblivion. I also read two volumes of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Consider The Lobster and then I stopped, for now. A monthly review is no place for extensive literary criticism, but to briefly summarize. I had outgrown many of the devices he innovated in his early novel (as had he), though I still cherished some personal nostalgic references. His last volume, Oblivionwas wonderful, just what one would expect (or not…) from an intellectually gifted but emotionally tortured genius. His essays were a mixed bag of hits and misses, largely dependent on his familiarity and focus with the individual subject matters.

I attended the opening of the Lutz Bacher/Aida Ruilova show at the Contemporary Art Museum. Bacher's exhibit was so-so… a little bit of everything but not much of anything. Ruilova's shorter films were so throwaway that they completely depended on display gimmicks to generate any effect at all, but her longer works, such as LuLu, show that she has potential as an avant-garde filmmaker. I turned the hors d'oeuvres and drinks into a sort-of dinner and then wandered across to the Pulitzer Foundation and checked out the Dan Flavin exhibit, twice, once before dusk and once after. It was a sublime environment. I also gave lengthy appreciation to Stella's massive ironwork, 'Joe', in the courtyard. I then went out into the neighborhood to see the spectacular illuminated installations put up by the 'The Light Project'. In fact, I made a return trip on the following Thursday, at twilight, to further thrill to and photograph, 'Joe', Flavin's show and the other illuminations.

I also went to the St. Louis Zoo twice this month. There is just too much to see it all in one day. Like most of the attractions in forest Park, the Zoo is free except for certain areas like the Children's Zoo. I was happy to pay such small fees as there were. The St. Louis Zoo really has an extensive array of wildlife. Following is a list of most of the animals I saw (in alphabetical order, common names only): addax, agouti, alligator (Chinese), babirusa, bee-eaters (carmine), bears (black, grizzly, polar, sun), buffalo fish, bush dogs, caimans (spectacled), catfish (HUGE!), camels (Bactrian), capybaras, chimpanzees, chinchilla, cormorants (double-crested), cranes (crowned, white-naped), currasows, elephants (Asian), egrets (great, snowy), false gavials, fennecs, flamingoes, gazelles (Mhorr's, Soemmering's, Speke's), giraffes, giant anteaters (surreal), giant tortoises, goats, gorillas, a groundhog, guans, guinea pigs, a hedge hog, hippopotami, hyenas (spotted), ibis (white), a black jaguar (tres 'Cat People'), king vulture, kangaroos (red, tree), lemurs, leopards, lions, lesser kudu, marmosets, meerkats, mongooses (dwarf; mongeese?), okapi, orangutan, oryx (Arabian), ostriches, otters (river), owls (great horned, etc.), penguins (gentoo, Humboldt's, king, and macaroni), prairie dogs (black-tailed), puffins (horned, tufted), a puma, red river hogs, rhinoceros (black), sea lions (California), a seriema, a snow leopard, spoonbills (roseate), storks (maribou, saddle-billed), takins, tigers (Amur; including quintuplet cubs!), toucans, tragopans (satyr), a tuatara, urials (Transcaspian), wallabies, warthogs, warty pigs (Visayan), wild ass (Somali), zebras (Grevy's), plus many more in the Primate House, Aviary, Herpetarium, Insectarium, Butterfly House, etc… I never saw the cheetahs, even though I searched their display intensively.

For me, the most epic event that occurred this month was my weekend canoe trip on the Eleven-Point River in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri. Four other graduate students and myself drove down to our starting campground at Hufstedler's Canoe Rental in Riverton, Missouri. On the way, we listened to music and stopped for 'Bar-B-Q' in the small town of Doniphan. I had the fried catfish dinner with cole slaw, potato salad and hushpuppies. We didn't get to our camp until dark. We made a fire and sat talking for awhile. I drank only one beer and went to bed (or bivy, rather) earlier than my companions. My sleeping arrnngement worked okay, though it would have been better if I had set up the mosquito netting frame over my bivy. Biting Ceratopogonid midges (no-see-ums) were the first of several banes to plague me during this trip…

The next morning, I awoke first, and had breakfast. We had to wait until the rest of our group arrived in the morning from St. Louis. Our full party ended up being fourteen people… and three dogs. I was l glad for the free time in the morning. I walked around our campground and down to the riverbank, examining the local flora, fungi, and fauna as I went. Many composites were in bloom as was the spectacular native hibiscus (Hibiscus lasiocarpus ). The wild mushrooms beneath the oaks included species of Boletus and Russula. Animals seen included bristly and multi-hued oak caterpillars and a flattened and gravid toad.

Eventually everyone in our party arrived, and around noon, we made our arrangements with the people in Hufstedler's front office. We chose fiberglass canoes. I bought a Hufstedler's can-cozy as a souvenir. We were driven upriver in a yellow school bus to the putting-in point at Greer Crossing. As I we unloaded and packed our seven canoes, I was chagrined to have my dire suspicions confirmed. The two least experienced canoeists, Pu Huang and myself, were to be partnered in a canoe. Since everybody else was "naturally" partnered up as relatives, spouses, partners or roommates, it seemed too imposing to lodge a protest. I put on a brave face and thought "How bad could it be", but inside I shivered with a sense of doom. The one thing we had on our side was that both Pu and I wouldn't be drinking, unlike the more experienced canoeists, who all reached some degree of intoxication. Since I had somewhat more experience than Pu, I took the more difficult rear position in the canoe. Besides that, the dogs were running around and jumping on things. One of them got muddy paw prints on my bag. Most do owners are too selfishly indulgent with their pets. They just assume everyone wants to put up with the mess, disturbance and potential threat just because they do. I didn't even know there would be dogs coming along, let alone three.

At this point let me declare all of my previous experience operating watercraft: two prior canoe trips, in front position, on the Currant/Jack's Fork and Merimac Rivers in Missouri, solo sea/bay kayaking in the Gulf of California, New Zealand and Puget Sound, group rafting on the Snake River in Idaho, solo rafting in Lake Tahoe and solo inner-tubing on the Truckee River, both on the California-Nevada border… plus the operation of a paddle boat in small urban lakes in San Francisco, St. Louis and Quito. These are diverse experience, perhaps, but by no means extensive.

So our seven canoes set off. The Eleven-Point is mostly a calm river but the calm stretches are interspersed with patches of rapids. Pu and I were often behind the other canoes due to our inefficiency with stroke coordination, but it wasn't a problem because the others would often stop to socialize and drink at sand bars, so we could always catch up. Canoeing in such calm water is enjoyable and not too difficult. The canoe just glides through the dark, clear, water; propelled by just an occasional paddle stroke. Limestone cliffs and overhanging trees line the banks. Occasionally a kingfisher or great blue heron flies overhead… "merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream".

However rapids were another matter all together. I tipped over once before on the Jack's Fork and I know the distress, danger, damage and discomfort a tip can cause. Also, though I can't always control a canoe in white water, I do know that a canoe should not go through rapids sideways. Unfortunately, Pu and I had a tendency to do just that, more often than not. In many situations, I am apt to let small errors pass without comment, but canoeing is NOT one of those situations. I knew if we didn't get "ship-shape" before the larger rapids appeared we would be wrecked. Since I could observe both my own rowing and Pu's, I tried to give emphatic instructions for coordinating our efforts, especially when we entered a potentially "do-or-die" situation. However, I usually wasn't able to get Pu to understand my imperatives. This lack of communication was the final ingredient needed in a recipe for disaster…

Our canoe tipped over in an area of heavy rapids called Mary Decker Shoals,both of us fell out and the canoe and most of our gear floated down stream. It was terrifying to suddenly be in deep rapidly flowing water. I tried to perform the backstroke but it was hard to stay afloat in the surging rapids. I was weighed down by a bag around my shoulder and I was also being choked by the neck cord of my hat. I foolishly didn't have my life vest on. Some how Pu and I made it to a sand bar on the near bank. There was a group of people fly-fishing on it, who helped instruct me on how to proceed to the shore. Some of the other members of our party retrieved our canoe and most of our possessions. Most of my stuff survived and even stayed dry due to both my waterproof Seal-Line bag and ample use of disposable trash bags. However, I did lose my binoculars in the river and my National Geographic Birds of North America was totally drenched. Pu's camera and cell phone were soaked too, but I understand they still worked after they dried out. At the time, I didn't care about the binoculars at all; I was just so grateful to be alive. It was a traumatic event and after that, I really became a hard-ass about steering the canoe correctly. Too much was at stake to remain genteel. Fortunately we didn't have another incident but later other canoes in our party also capsized in two other incidents. Each time it was a perilous situation that left the survivors with shaken nerves and lost equipment & supplies, but fortunately no serious injuries.

Our group had to canoe until dusk before we found an available camp site at a place called Barn Hollow. The dogs were running around, chasing each other and being rambunctious. I chose a campsite as far away from the dog owners as possible. I set up my bivy, this time with the insect netting, and ate my dinner of string cheese and granola bars. Later I stood or sat near the groupcamp fire and vainly attempted to dry off my boots, which were soaking wet. I was quiet that evening due to being physically tired and mentally stressed from the day's events. I could see the lights of boats night-fishing for suckers on the river. I slept long and deeply that night.

In the morning I had my breakfast of yogurt and more string cheese and granola bars. I received confirmation that the worst rapids of the trip (Class 3) would be at a point on the river just upstream from our pull-out. I discussed the possibility of Pu and I, portaging the rapids. As I was breaking camp, Pu came by and told me our canoe was missing, either due to being stolen or floating away. I decided to wait until I was done packing before I investigated this latest development. It was just as well that I waited because Pu came back and said that he had been mistaken. That was a relief.

Our party got back on the water. Pu and I continued to have worrisome steering troubles. Finally Brad Oberle and his brother, who were canoeing together took pity on us and Pu and I split up. He went with Brad in one canoe and I went with his brother in another. This was a much better arrangement.
We were now more than three fourths of the way to the end of our trip. Our party made a few more stops including a particularly memorable one where we explored the banks of the Boze Mill Pond, dramatically crystal blue millpond that was actually a dammed spring-fed tributary stream.

The much-dreaded final rapids were at place called Hall's Bay. The part that my canoe went down featured a drop of perhaps three feet over a distance of twenty feet. It was nerve-wracking to perform, even with an experienced canoeist in the rear of the boat. I don't want to even imagine what would have happened if Pu and I had attempted it.

After that there was one more stop on a sandbar where the dog owners shampooed their pets and then we pulled out at the Riverton boat ramp, unloaded our gear, said our good-byes and rode home with our respective rides. The drive back was much quieter than the drive down due to general tiredness. I felt nauseated for a while on the winding country roads but a strict regimen of gum chewing and meditation allowed me to recover my equilibrium.

When I got home I spread out my gear all over the apartment to let it fully dry and air out. The next day I had to do an urgent load of laundry to save some clothes that were beginning to mildew. It took more than a week for the cutgrass lacerations on my feet and rash-like insect bites on my hands to disappear. Yes, it was a hard outing, but also one filled with breath-taking natural beauty and adventure. I'm glad I did the trip and I have no regrets… except maybe about losing my binoculars.

August 2008: A Monthly review

I started out this month still convalescing at my aunt and uncle's house in St. Charles. My time there was pleasant except for the pain and impaired mobility brought on by my illness. Near the end of my stay I went out for dinner with Barbara and Jerry and their friends Tom and Betty at a family-style restaurant in St, Charles. On the fourth day of the month I moved back to my apartment though I still needed to use a walker to get around and was on a lot of pain medication. Eventually my insurance got me my own walker (one with wheels) and I was able to return the one I had borrowed from Betty.

For the first couple of weeks, I had to take the public bus to school because it was too far to walk in my condition, nor could I drive. Taking the bus was an interesting change of pace. It was interesting to see the routes and talk with some of the drivers. Bus drivers often know a lot about their passengers and the communities they drive through. For longer trips, such as to my physical therapy appointments, Barbara continued to supply invaluable assistance. One day she helped me with grocery shopping and laundry as well. I would take her to lunch as a small token of my gratitude.

Throughout the month of August, my condition slowly improved, though it took more than a month for my symptoms to fully dissipate. It seems clear to me, that in my case, the 'cure' was more destructive than the cause. If I had never been put on the blood thinners, heparin and coumadin, it is unlikely that I would have suffered the internal hemorrhaging that caused the worst of the pain and swelling in my leg. Of course, prescribing such dangerous blood thinners has long been the standard treatment for deep vein thrombosis, due to the other dangerous risk of having the clot dislodge and become a pulmonary embolism in the lungs. However, it turns out that clots in the leg below the knee are much less likely to cause such an embolism. In such case as mine, low-dosage aspirin therapy is often sufficient.

At first it was a challenge to get back into the swing of things at school. One day near dusk as I was hobbling across campus with my walker. I stopped to rest and looked up to discover a large flock of swallows and chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) flying and feeding in mid air above my head. I stood and watched them for probably ten or fifteen minutes. The swifts were particularly striking, with their streamlined bodies that look like a cigar crossed with a boomerang. Another day, a couple weeks later, a group of students and visitors went for lunch at the House of India. Delicious. It was a farewell lunch for one of my labmates, Taina Matheson Price, who was soon to move to North Carolina to finish her degree at Duke.

My On-line Film Festival continued without a hitch this month with more world premieres. First IRIDIUM was launched on 6 August followed by my pentahedral micro-epic New York Minutes, Parts I-V two weeks later.

All of my acute health problems seemed to also play havoc with my mood. I often felt quite blue due to all the pain and inconvenience. I decided to return to my psychiatrist, Dr. Brady and make another attempt at trying SSRI therapy. This time I tried another drug, Lexapro. It seems to be working better for me than Prozac. I feel more energized but without my sleep being nearly as severely compromised. I plan to continue the therapy at least through the next winter, which I usually the most trying season for my emotional state.

By the end of the month most of my pain and immobility problems were gone, thought some of the swelling in my right leg persisted for another few weeks. To celebrate my return to normalcy and take advantage of my last summer in the Midwest, I visited or revisited several local attractions over Labor day weekend.

On that Saturday morning, I drove to the Budweiser Brewery in Soulard, the old 'French Quarter' of St. Louis, to take the famous tour. Even though I'm not a particular fan of Anheuser-Busch or of beer in general, I've now lived in St. Louis for six years and felt it was time to explore this cultural event. While waiting for my tour time, I explored the museum in the front lobby and also took a stroll around Soulard to appreciate its many old buildings. The brewery tour was enjoyable. I was glad to learn about the brewing process and I also found many of the old pieces of equipment and ornamental building aesthetically pleasing. Seeing the famous Clydesdale horses was particularly enjoyable, though this wasn't the first time I'd seen the beasts. The tasting room at the end of the tour was a bust. I didn't like any of the beers I tasted… but the free pretzels were nice.

After the Brewery I decided to revisit the place in St. Louis where I did first see the Clydesdales: Grant's Farm, located in southern St. Louis County. On my unfamiliar drive through the badly laid-out streets of south St, Louis, I almost got in a traffic accident. I also stopped for an ice cream at Dairy Queen. That might have been the first time I ever went to a Dairy Queen… Grant's Farm is a zoo-like amusement park operated by Anheuser-Busch. It is built adjacent to White Haven, the actual farm that President Grant owned and lived in for part of his life. It is now a National Historic Site. I visited the White Haven farmhouse during my previous visit to Grant's Farm, but this time I focused on seeing the large menagerie of animals for which the amusement park is famous. Admission to Grant's Farm is free… but the parking fee is exorbitant. Visitor's enter via a tram ride through a large game park stocked with several species of deer (axis, fallow, etc), rare breeds of cattle, ostriches, wild asses, wild turkeys, etc. There is also the Hardscrabble Cabin that was actually built by Grant himself in the 1800s, though I suspect all the original timber has been replaced by now. I got excellent views of the globally rare Pere David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus) for which I was especially pleased. After getting off the tram, there are many more animals to see, including capybara, bald eagles, an iguana, elephants, Aldabran tortoises, red kangaroos, storks, flamingos, llamas, dromedary camels, macaws, fennecs, horses, etc. However, my personal favourites are the pygmy goats. There, one can go inside a fenced enclosure stocked with dozens of little goats. You can pet them and feed them milk from little baby bottles! In fact, the entire reason I returned to Grant's Farm was to once again experience, and film, the goats. I spent a full hour in the goat pen and could have stayed longer if the day wasn't so hot. As Grant's Farm was closing, I visited the Clydesdales, which are kept in their own separate stables far removed from the other animals. They certainly are impressive. I also accidentally bought a non-diet soda at the gift shop and didn't notice until after I opened it… I was so thirsty I drank it anyway.

The next day, Sunday, I went on another excursion to revisit the Sachs Butterfly House in western St. Louis County. The Butterfly House is located in Faust Park and is operated by the Missouri Botanical Garden. It was great. There were so many different kinds of butterflies and tropical plants to enjoy in the main conservatory and many other displays of various live arthropods in the front lobby. I took some great photographs. Butterflies seen include the postman (Heliconius melpomene), the great egg fly (Hypolimnas bolina), the common morpho (Morpho peleides), the paper kite (Idea leuconoe), and the owl butterfly (Caligo memnon) to name a few. The grounds of Faust Park are also rich in natural and historic beauty and interest. I believe the park was originally the farm of Missouri's first governor. I took a walk on the woodland trail that runs between the house of Governor Bates and the oddly shaped Lamella Barn. I saw several native butterflies and many species of native plant including Actaea, pachypoda, Amphicarpaea bracteata, Elephantopus carolinianus, Laportea Canadensis, and Pilea pumila. I also encountered a colourful three-toed box turtle (Terrapene Carolina triunguis) which was a joy to behold.