Elinor Nauen

Another version of "shopping in my closet" is finding these weird little gems in boxes I'm sorting through. I'm pretty sure this was never submitted. What else can I say? I wonder what prompted it. How did I end up with it? 

Spain was full of majesty but also more homely details, like this grandee of a radiator at the library in Bilbao. 

The really great thing about going through my stuff (my eternal spring cleaning) is finding books that I've been wanting to read, are out of print, & I didn't know I had. 

Strongmen: Mussolini to the present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a must-read. Drop everything & find it. 

In equal parts it's shocking & reassuring to know that tRump is following a typical demagogue's playbook as established by Mussolini & refined (so to speak) / developed by Hitler, Berlusconi, Putin, Bolsonaro, Franco, Gaddafi, Pinochet & others, including Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga ("the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake"). Ben-Ghiat explains exactly what that playbook comprises, such as propaganda, corruption & violence, & why it works as well as how. 

I see the effect of some of those tactics on many others than true believers, for example with the widespread contempt for the press, which has been so thoroughly vilified from the right that people of every political stripe shy away from supporting newspapers & reporters, making it harder for them to do their jobs. I know I'm compressing & I hope what I'm saying nonetheless reverberates. 

Someone gave me a very nice floor lamp & recommended LED bulbs. I had first used regular ones & they instantly heated it up scarily. So I stopped by the Brickman. I needed 2 but they were $4.99 so I figured I'd buy one & see how it did before committing myself to 2. Five bucks for a light bulb! Ha ha the joke was on me. When I checked out, it turns out that the bulb was actually $14.99. I paid 16 dollars for one light bulb. It's got a 5-year warranty & supposedly will last 22 years so I suppose it's "worth it" but but but.... 

Apparently you can buy those bulbs for a quarter of that price online so I suppose the instant gratification is what I paid for.

The week is short when you spend half of it in Europe. The day is long when you are not entirely awake. I managed to take myself to Hub Thai for lunch (my usual: drunken noodles with mock duck), get a manicure, buy kleenex, read a little of Berryman's life of Stephen Crane, go to the dentist where it turns out my teeth are much better than I expected. In other words, a typical day in the life. I like it. This sweet old world. 

Yesterday was a very long travel day, from 7 a.m. Spain time to 5 New York time (11 in Spain) so I didn't write here. It didn't feel awful ~ I had my usual window seat & was lucky enough not to have a neighbor. Today I feel pretty lively but will fade soon.

Perfect trip in every way: traveling with my dear Spanish sister Mercè; seeing beautiful places; eating interesting foods; meeting new artists, both living & long gone. It was the right length for this trip & my cat still remembers me. I think my husband does too. I'm relaxed & also eager to get back to my life here. 

This picture cracks me up. I've got my hood up because it was so windy that my jacket was practically blowing off. And somehow me inside the frame looks like I'm bundled up in snow. And what's with the oh-so-resolute face, Elinor Nansen? It was a glorious sunny & warm today on the Costa Brava even if it looks like I dropped in from the North Pole. I think I often look like I'm smiling half-heartedly or not at all when I feel like my smile is as broad as possible. 

Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river; it is a tiger that destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
~ Jorge Luis Borges

So dang beautiful here & always a new place or food or person to meet. My heart is full.

Mercè said, there's blood family & there's my American sister ~ & now we've all met, at her childhood apartment in Barcelona, for their holiday feast. We all managed to communicate despite very little language in common. That's one type of family, with the other being have plenty in common but not managing to communicate. I'm pretty lucky to get the former. 

We fly back to Barcelona this evening. So many highlights of our 5 days here: Chillida, pintxos, A Christmas Carol at the Bilbao opera house, the funicular & ferris wheel, the beach, the Guggenheim, the Bilbao museum of art, the library, listening to & seeing signs in Euskara, the unusual Basque language, the lovely mild weather, seeing people ice skating... traveling with my dear friend. And despite this long list, I'm sure I'm leaving out plenty.  

What a thrill to encounter an artist whose work moves, surprises, inspires, challenges me. I had never heard of Chillada (1924-2001) but I'm learning by standing in front of his work & embracing his questions & hints. 

I love getting to know Spain. On this trip, to Bilbao & San Sebastian, in the Basque country, for example, I've discovered pintxos, similar to tapas but more substantial, not a plate but a tiny sandwich, fancy (duck salad, a quail egg on a sea urchin) or plain (a cheese croquette, endless varieties of ham) (most of which I can't/don't/won't eat). Fantastic varying scenery, from coast to mountains to dry plains in just a few miles. I suppose if Mercè, my wonderful friend & compatible travel companion, were from Portugal or Hungary or France, I would be feeling the same joy in getting to know those countries. 

Someone who knows I like snow & Norway lent me Silence: In the Age of Noise, by Erling Kagge. Right now he's walking to the South Pole. By himself. You see why I have to sip it slowly?

Note: I'm writing this in New York in December & setting it to post in January, when I'm planning to be in Bilbao, Spain, & hoping not to know what day it is. 

I don't write on Saturdays so this is my last post of 2022. Soon Maggie & I will do our traditional year-end dive into everything about the year, so I'm not doing it now. On Sunday I'll be in Spain. I'll be flying through several time zones on the New Year's Eve Champagne Flight to Barcelona ~ curious what year it will be when I land. Happy healthy joyful loving adventurous art-filled 2023, everybody. 

I had a complicated thought for today's post & decided that a random photo would only make it better. By the time I got the photo in place, I had entirely forgotten my topic. It still hasn't come back to me, so this is all I've got. 

Clearly I need a nap. 

Update: Then it wouldn't save with the photo. What the hey?! Not my day. 

I can hardly believe I ever shuffled my two beautiful Jim Dine prints (gifts from Johnny, ah....) off my wall, even with my intention to move art around in order to see it fresh. 

Now I'm thinking about likeability in art: what it is, whether or not it's a good thing, & more. I've been mulling this topic & will try to add to this post when I've worked out some thoughts.

How many books have you read in your life? If I've read 2 books a week since I was 5 (I learned to read at 3), it would be about 7,000. That doesn't seem like very many. For several years I won the children's library summer reading contest for reading the most books. Prizes for reading books! I won a book about JFK called The Torch Is Passed & a volume of stories by O Henry. I am pretty sure I won it more than twice but those are the only two books I remember winning. That may have been the first time my name was in the local paper. I read at least 5 books a week every summer as a kid ~ it being a contest was no additional incentive. I remember the smell of that library; I was envious of my best friend in high school having a summer job working there. When I was 5 my goal was to read all the books in the library but there were so many duds in the A's alone that I gave up in a week. This article is about me. 

On Repentance and Repair: Making amends in an unapologetic world was a thank-you gift, not a pointed one (I assume!). The author, Danya Ruttenberg, goes carefully through the many steps of repentance & t'shuvah (returning to a healthier path) for both individuals & institutions, countries, & other groups. It's worth thinking through & I was glad to see her talk at some length about Simon Wiesenthal's important, challenging book The Sunflower. I recommend Weisenthal's book without hesitation, and Ruttenberg's with qualified enthusiasm: it may be more on the subject than most people will want to know & the book's turgid academic-but-for-the-masses prose is hard to forgive. 

Isn't it some holiday for the goyim today? Would it be appropriate to eat a vegan ham on Hanukkah? Did I brush my hair this morning? Who was I supposed to call? What was I trying to remember? What should I do next? How did I happen to do fewer Hanukkah things (latkes!) than Christmas events this year (parade in Murphy, NC; caroling in Washington Square park; concert at the Norwegian church; driving past the Dyker Heights decorated homes; there might be more!)?

My brother just called & quoted our dad: "We've had 25 good years," he'd say. "Not bad for 31 years married." We're probably more content than we've ever been. 

Our traditional anniversary conversation:

Me: How're we doing?

Him: Fine. How're we doing?

Me: Good. 

And the relationship discussion is over for another year. 

I'm Jersey-bound today... I'll take the A train to the George Washington Bridge, then walk across it to meet my dear friend Pauline, who I'm always excited to see & who usually drives in when we get together. Definitely my turn. Do I have plenty of reading material for the trip? Yes, of course. I love my life, where I can take a half day off whenever I want. Or longer. I already got my covid booster shot & am about to pick up a julekake (Norwegian Christmas cake, with cardamom, yum). I found a book on my shelves that I want to read, & pulled out a dozen for the Little Free Library (or whoever wants them).

Half

Too smart

to be a genius

Too late

to be a child

prodigy

* We saw the Hopper show at the Whitney last week. I like being a member because we could stay for as exactly as long as we felt like, knowing we can go back & see the rest of the (incredible! wonderful!) art whenever we want. 

* There was the annual party for December birthdays among the poets. As Angela Thirkell (I think it was) once said, the best parties are when you see the people you like most, a little more cleaned up. And with cake. 

* It's not going to snow anytime soon. Sioux Falls has had snow on 60% of the last 80 Christmases. For New York City it's 21%. You can look up the stats for anywhere at this fun WaPo interactive map.

* Today is the YAI holiday party at the dojo. We (mostly Sensai Carol) contrived karate to the 12 days of Christmas. I laughed so hard when we were practicing it that I fell over. 

* My office is back in the cleaning spotlight & I'm getting rid of things. Including 6 (so far) books. 

* Late breakfast with two of my grandkids. Man, they are all so smart & nice & together. 

* Every time I do my laundry I feel like I don't have to do anything else that day. It also galvanizes me to do lots. 

And now I have to take home the laundry & go to karate.

Everyone knows Roald Dahl for his children's books, of course, but for some reason I picked up his autobiographical Boy, which is a children's book for grownups, I guess you could say. It's written simply & charmingly but doesn't pull punches about the brutality of his experiences at English schools. 

My mother despised him for how he treated his wife, Patricia Neal, after she had had a stroke. She could be right, I don't know much about him & I don't remember reading his books as a child. He wouldn't have been to my taste, I was a horribly refined & serious kid.

The cleaning continues & I have gotten down to this brick wall in my back room. Feeling handy, I bought nails & hung these two works. One is by Jim Dine, the other I'm not sure, I think my friend's mother, who painted all her works when she was practically blind. It's not signed, however, so I can't be sure. Little by little, the place gets nicer & roomier. Want some books?

I've been looking at photos by Walker Evans, Paul Strand, et al, & am inspired to look closely at some things I see every day. It's also good as I am approaching Vision Zero (which I have seen twice lately as slogans for Toronto & the NYC police, & I can't believe it's a Good Thing, not if yer blind as a bat, minus the echolocation. Like me).

If I didn't already have several dictionaries (& 2 sets of encyclopedias) + on my way to pick up my laundry + trying to curb my book-acquiring hobby, I wouldn't have left this wonderful volume on 5th Street. 

Did you ever see a man with a kippah in a general holiday ad before? Nothing else reads "Jewish" ~ the wrapping paper & pajamas are neutral. Maybe it represents a mixed marriage, with "Make Merry" almost nondenominational but over on the less-noticeably-Jewish side of the photo. I mean, it's for a New York store, that is, a national chain with a location in New York, so it makes sense to include a close-to-unnoticeable tinge of Jewishness. I bet a lot of thinking went into getting the tone exactly right, as compared to Christmas ads, which are full-on Christian, like the holiday lights in Dyker Heights or the Christmas parade in Murphy, NC.