Goatdog Triumphs against the Elements

Hello from New Haven, home of some damn fine pizza, some of the best I've ever had (Chicago residents, imagine pizza from Piece but with a slightly better crust). We're back from gorging ourselves on some of that damn fine pizza. I'm here until Thursday, while my favorite art historian will be here for the rest of the month on a fellowship.

My stay in Maine was a lot of fun. We got a lot of progress done on the documentary about MFAH's great-grandparents; we interviewed her charming grandmother and great-aunt for nearly an hour apiece. I also got some minor work done on the artistamp documentary, as one of the major artistamp artists happened to live and work in a small town nearby, so we were able to drive up and get some shots of the studio.

Our two days on Monhegan Island were perfect. I'm not much of an outdoor type, so when I found myself panting, sweaty, and exhausted halfway up a rocky trail, I thought of Donal Logue in The Tao of Steve and started humming the Lemonheads' "I Lied About Being the Outdoor Type." We hiked and hiked and hiked, stopping every once in a while to rest, look for wildlife, or read; then we hiked some more until it was time to eat, after which we hiked and read. Our stay was pretty much like that, and it was an immense amount of fun, although my poor feet and legs are still in semi-revolt against me.

There's something incredibly gratifying about sitting on a rock ledge overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and reading, say, Richard Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, about his 1830s trip on a merchant vessel from Massachusetts to California and back, or reading one of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels, and being able to look down and see a bit of the oceans you're reading about. I hope I remember those moments forever, and I hope that years down the road, I will be able to pick up those books and be transported back to last weekend.

In one particular woodsy-type area, visitors built little structures called "fairy houses," made of bits of twigs and moss and bark. There's a controversy on the island about them, because some people uproot live saplings and moss and strip the bark off trees to make increasingly swanky fairy penthouses and fairy gated communities. I was going to take a photo of one of them to post here, but I'll be darned if the things didn't disappear when you tried to snap your picture. Weird.

Adventures of a City Boy

I'm in Maine on a combination vacation/filmmaking/high seas adventure trip. We started interviewing people for a short documentary about my favorite art historian's ancestors, who were pretty famous painters. Sure, forgetting the charger for the video camera was a problem, but our combination of east coast pluck and midwestern determination got us through (a trip to Portland to the Sony dealer helped too).

Today we went out in cousin Charlie's boat, and we were shipwrecked on a barren rock on the high seas! Er, well, the boat kept stalling, and then we were becalmed a few dozen feet off the island where we stopped for lunch; the ordeal lasted approximately fifteen minutes, but we had already worked out a plan to draw straws and eat the person unlucky enough to get the short straw, if the situation grew dire enough. (So I've been reading all of these books about shipwrecks and mutinies, and my imagination was working overdrive. And no, I didn't tell the other members of our stalwart crew about the emergency plan.) I even got a bit of a sunburn on the backs of my hands. All in all, a disaster narrowly averted.

Later tonight, it's off to the movies with MFAH's mother, then tomorrow we interview another relative and meet some people. Later in the week, we're going to the island of Monhegan for two nights, then back here for two nights, then it's off to New Haven for a few days before I return to Chicago. I might get a chance to blog again before I come back, but if you don't hear from me, know that I'm having a great time. (Or, suspect that we're all victims of a nautical disaster.)

Goatdog Triumphs against Adversity

I was in traffic court this morning—a familiar situation for me, although a new location for it. When I was much younger, I used to get a lot of speeding tickets in my hometown, and I would go to court to fight each one of them on the off chance that the ticketing officer would fail to show up. They always showed up, but I did manage to get one ticket reduced, so I think it was a good strategy.

A month ago I got my first traffic ticket in over ten years. It was for rolling through a stop sign, and I got an additional ticket for not having proof of insurance in the car. Was I guilty? Of course not. I stopped. Honest. Came to a complete stop for a full second. I mean, come on. Who rolls through stop signs in Chicago?

So there I was this morning, prepared to plead guilty and retrieve my license, which they take away to ensure your appearance in court. I got there early, was first to sign in, and was called first. I approached the bench and the friendly-looking judge, who bore a strong resemblance to Carl Levin. I presented my proof of insurance, and then he started to ask how I wanted to plead. Right as I opened my mouth to admit my guilt, he held up his hand and looked around the room. The ticketing officer wasn't there. He handed me my license and said I was free to go. I stood there like an idiot for a moment until he called the next person, and then I walked—nay, ran—out of the room before he could change his mind.

And who did I see coming down the escalator as I emerged from the bowels of the Richard J. Daley Center? The guy who wrote me the ticket. Mwaa-ha-ha-ha!

More Nerdy Stamps

See, I have been working on something.

Lyrical Odes to Refulgent Nature

"Exhausted men do not write lyrical odes to refulgent nature," David Roberts writes in his introduction to Valerian Albanov's 1917 book In the Land of White Death, an account of his trek across Siberia in the dead of winter. While I haven't exactly been exhausted, I have been really busy, and I thought I'd drop by to explain my lengthy absence.

I blame the heat, mostly. During the recent heat wave, our apartment was too hot to exist in, except for the air-conditioned haven of the bedroom. Since my computer is not in the bedroom, I got no work done at home. I used to write most of my reviews and blog posts at the ad agency, but I haven't worked there much this summer. I've spent most weekdays at the film studio working on the artistamps documentary, but that's work I rather enjoy, so I do it instead of writing.

I've also been worried about money—it seems I'm always worried about money. For some reason, I can't write when I'm worried, although I discovered this summer that I can make art (I just finished my ninth artistamp). I hope that when it cools down I'll find the energy to post more, and to write reviews for some of my ever-increasing list of unreviewed films.