Guardians of Solitude

Bummer's best bud, Cecil, just called and announced he got hitched for the second time in this life! Cecil, I say to you and T what Rilke said to ODA and I on our big day (I know... it's been nearly over-used, but still a great, meaningful quote):

A good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust.

A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development.

But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Dan's Metal Memory of the Month: 9/06

With Winter (or at least Fall) fast approaching, what better way to pass the time than stumbling down memory lane, tripping over things lost and found... like those classic metal tunes from the 1980s? Dan presents a new monthly installment of some of these juicy nuggets from the past. Because this blog began with Dio, it seems fitting to display his unique brand of genius first: Holy Diver! Enjoy.

Summer Retreat

I walked outside this morning and realized that Summer will officially be over in a couple days. It was just a few months ago that we were kissing Spring goodbye and welcoming the heat. We were able to squeeze in a nice little vacation, but - like most - never get to take full advantage of Summer. Now, we wait for the cold. Winter in NYC makes Dan even more of a Bummer...


In another reality, Dan has a secluded Summer retreat up in Maine. He spends all season there in the North woods to avoid work and the oppressive NYC heat. The retreat is set on a lake near the coast where it's always about 75-80, with a cool down east breeze.

The neighbors are sparse and quiet. You can occasionally hear kids in the distance. Some family visit now and then, and even a few Stinky Town comrades make the trek up during the Summer months. But it's mostly just Dan and ODA sharing the space with the snapping turtles, lake trout, osprey and other birds... there are lots of birds.


Endless days are spent swimming and lounging on the dock listening to shags discuss preferred fishing grounds. There are some black flies and mosquitoes, but they're not too bad - after all, the songs birds need grub, too.


Long boat rides and naps on old intertube floats. After the sun goes down, we head into town - about a fifteen minute drive - for a nice meal at our favorite restaurant. Late at night, we fall asleep to the echo of loon songs on the lake...


In the morning, the chickadees wake us up and another day begins.

Commuter Complaint #1

Mothers clipping their adolescent boy's fingernails on the F train (Yes! I've seen it more than once). The repetitive "snapping" sound of metal against keratin. The dirty bits of human debris shooting off in random directions, landing God knows where. C'mon, folks... some common sense commuter etiquette here, OK?

Voices in my Head...

This morning at 5:13am, I was once again woken up by the sound of voices in my head. No, not those kind of voices - they are real voices, I swear! (The fact that nobody else in the neighborhood complains about it, does often make me feel like they are only in my head, but... I know better, I think.) They emanate from a loudspeaker operated by a local concrete business behind our street. Noise pollution in Stinky Town can be nearly intolerable - even to a born & bred New Yorker with partial hearing loss. You'd think that one would grow accustomed to it over time, but it just seems to get worse the longer you live here: the (below) neighbor's loud music; the (above) neighbor's late night furniture re-arrangements; the (next door) neighbor's attention-starved dog who barks and barks and barks at any sign of life beyond its four walls; the traffic (underneath, above ground and in the air); the growing mass of blockheads who use that annoying "walkie-talkie" feature on their cell phones; the (screaming, whistling or uncontrollably laughing) lunatics on the subway; and the never-ending "beep-beep-beep-beep" of those damn concrete trucks backing up at 5am! To date, I've tried to curb this demonic sound by contacting the neighborhood association, 3-1-1, the 76th Police Precinct, the Borough President's office, City Hall and the DEP. So far? Nothing. My last hope, albeit long-term and environmentally/politically unlikely, are the breeding yuppies and brainy grad students who see future dog-runs in present-day Brownfields. Or, maybe the Mayor will have better luck?

London: Not as Stinky!

offdutyartist (ODA) and I recently returned from a vacation in London - a little hot August relief from Stinky Town! I'd never been to England and ODA only has fuzzy teenage recollections, but it was (as our host said), "brilliant!"


We stayed with a friend in her wonderful, historic neighborhood - home of Spitalfields Market. A block away was Brick Lane: where the Bangladesh community (a.k.a. "Banglatown") boasts dozens of amazing Indian restaurants...


We spent the first few days poking around some of London's many free museums (yes, New York, they were all free), including the Tate Modern - one of the few renovated industrial era structures that houses an equally inspiring art collection...


While both London's famed British Museum and Natural History Museum were architecturally inspiring, the presentation of loot the empire had acquired over the centuries was disappointing...


All the good booty was next door at the Victoria & Albert - a Royal "cabinet of curiosities" of a museum...


On a smaller scale, the true cabinets of old still exist in the dusty corners of London's scientific institutions, such as the Grant and the Hunterian - lots of bottled and canned creepy crawlies to be had here!


The Bummers didn't just visit dead things on shelves, we also walked and walked and walked... then took a 1/2 hour ride on the London Eye - a gigantic Ferris wheel on the Thames...


In Trafalgar Square (on the way to another museum) we saw this sculpture of a pregnant Alison Lapper, a British artist born with phocomelia...


A Tube ride away was the beautiful Kew Gardens - a 300 acre expanse of formal gardens, wild preserve and home to the world's largest surviving Victorian glass structure, the Temperate House...


We also took a day trip out to Kent to visit another greenery: Sissinghurst Castle Garden. It used to be home to Vita Sackville-West, the aristocratic writer with whom Virginia Woolf had an affair over several years (don't worry - her husband also had extra-marital flings)...


Hands down, one of the best things about London was its delicious array of puddings! Those Brits sure know how to eat dessert. All in all, the trip was "smashing" and made Dan a bit less of a Bummer.

The "Goat"

As a postscript to the previous Dio post: while RJD claims that he got his signature devil horns (aka "the goat") hand gesture from his Italian grandmother, he is smart enough NOT to take credit for the ancient sign of unknown origin or meaning. Even a rather smutty engraving from 1779 shows Marie Antoinette sporting the same signal! Sorry, Gene.