One of my favorite Pearl Jam songs wasn’t even written by them. It was written by Victoria Williams. It’s called Crazy Mary. Pearl Jam’s performances of this song vary wildly, but it’s always clear that they love playing it. And boy do I love singing along to it. Hope you enjoy. Lyrics are below.

Crazy Mary - Performed by Pearl Jam

She lived on a curve in the road, in an old tar-paper shack
On the south side of the town, on the wrong side of the tracks
Sometimes on the way into town we’d say:
“Mama, can we stop and give her a ride?”
Sometimes we did but her hands flew from her side
Wild eyed, crazy Mary

Down a long dirt road, past the Parson’s place
The old blue car we used to race
Little country store with a sign tacked to the side
Said “No L-O-I-T-E-R-I-N-G allowed”
Underneath that sign always congregated quite a crowd

Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around

One night thunder cracked mercy backed outside her windowsill
Dreamed I was flying high above the trees, over the hills
Looked down into the house of Mary
Bare bulb blown, newspaper-covered walls, and Mary rising up above it all

Next morning on the way into town
Saw some skid marks, and followed them around
Over the curve,through the fields, into the house of Mary

That WHAT you fear the most, could meet you halfway
That WHAT you fear the most, could meet you halfway
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around

Our favorite Hispanic pothead, Cheech Marin, is sharing his immense collection of Chicano Art with the public. I found the NPR story and the works themselves to be very interesting.

You can listen to NPR’s story here:
Comic Cheech Marin Champions Chicano Art

Chicano Visions Web Site:
Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge

Chicano Collection Web Site:
Cheech Marin Presents the Chicano Collection

Enjoy.

In my last post I mentioned the lack of respect for wisdom and experience that I feel here in Cancun. There’s a deeper level to this than just problems with retailers.

I sometimes feel that living here I myself can’t get wiser, can’t gain wisdom. I feel that I spend so much of my energy here just trying to live a “normal” life that there isn’t extra time for study or reflection and there isn’t cultural support for growth. I feel that the problems I have because I live here are often so big, so un-fixable and so ultimately hopeless that the only way I could prove to myself that I was taking a positive step forward, that I was using my wisdom, would be to pack up and leave.

The shortsightedness in the way Cancun businesses are run is just the beginning, just the tip of the iceberg. The bigger issue is the way that society operates here. Life is hard enough here that you have to become selfish and shielded in order to survive here. And so most people think only about themselves, they don’t concern themselves with the betterment of society, they don’t concern themselves with other people’s well-being and they don’t value (or even notice) the wisdom of those around them.

Of course I’m generalizing. Of course I can name 10 people right now who do care about others and to whom wisdom does adhere. But I can name 100 who are so self-involved, so stuck in the rut of just surviving here that they are not learning, are not getting ahead, not helping make this a better place. It makes me really sad. And it makes me question my own judgment for staying here this long.

[Before you bitch at me that I should pack up and leave let me say that you are right, and we plan to, but we need to finish some projects, sell the house and plan the move. And it will probably take us a year to get out of here. So in the meantime, I’m here, like it or not.]

As I was thinking about this lack of wisdom issue the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s song “Immortality” kept running through my head. So I thought I would share the song with you (especially with Susan and Joyce). The video is here and the lyrics are below. This song is rumored to be about the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The video a little rough, but Eddie is masterful as always and Mike’s guitar solo will make you remember that there is a God. Enjoy.

Immortality by Pearl Jam

vacate is the word…vengeance has no place on me or her
cannot find the comfort in this world
artificial tear…vessel stabbed…next up, volunteers
vulnerable, wisdom can’t adhere…
a truant finds home…and a wish to hold on…
but there’s a trapdoor in the sun…immortality…
as privileged as a whore…victims in demand for public show
swept out through the cracks beneath the door
holier than thou, how?
surrendered…executed anyhow
scrawl dissolved, cigar box on the floor…
a truant finds home…and a wish to hold on too…
he saw the trapdoor in the sun…
immortality…
i cannot stop the thought…i’m running in the dark…
coming up a which way sign…all good truants must decide…
oh, stripped and sold, mom…auctioned forearm…
and whiskers in the sink…
truants move on…cannot stay long
some die just to live…

The last couple of days in Colorado with my daughter were great. I took her to the new wing of the Denver Art Museum on Saturday. The new wing was designed by Frank Gehry, who is one of the architects whose work I deeply appreciate; it was a thrill to set foot in another one of his amazing buildings.

We went first to a temporary Impressionism exhibit in Gehry’s building. My daughter was raised looking at pictures of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and could identify the work of Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Seurat and Degas when she was 5 years old. So this exhibit was a treat for her.

After that we decided to visit the Contemporary Art galleries, also in the new wing. I felt like a million bucks when I saw how happily my daughter flitted from one piece of art to another. She got up close to each piece to study materials and brush strokes, she talked to me about the meaning and power of each work and sometimes she sat on the floor to look at certain pieces from a different angle. She was so excited about the pieces she was seeing that it just filled me with pride. I’m not always sure I’m a good parent, but when I see her that informed and that excited about art I figure that I must have done something right somewhere along the way.

When I turned 35 my husband gave me Lasik surgery for my birthday. I think he was sick of seeing me suffer the pain of hard contact lenses. Back then I had to carry eye drops everywhere and could never tell when a speck of dust would force me to pull over the car, or dismount my mountain bike, it was a royal pain in the eye. So I got the surgery. And I stopped being nearsighted. And I never looked back (couldn’t resist, sorry).

Except I didn’t stop thinking like I was nearsighted. I still look at things closely. I still find myself stopping to enjoy the way the light hits a flower or a spider web. And often I find myself training my camera on things other people wouldn’t bother with. Sometimes it’s a fresh tire track in soft mud, or the bark of a tree, or the rust on a pipe that’s lying next to the road. If it has an interesting texture or color, or great light, it becomes the subject of my myopic photography.

People around probably think I’m weird, because I do stop whatever I’m doing when I see something that must be photographed. But maybe that’s the curse of my training as an artist. The art comes first, always.

Here are some recent examples of the stuff that stops me and makes me pull out the camera:

A couple more quotes that amused me. I just love it when people play with the language like this. This one from my daughter, for no good reason:

Neither of them are if one of them isn’t.

And this one from the ex-Mrs. Rexroth in the movie “Intolerable Cruelty” (which is a witty and worthwhile Coen brothers’ movie):

I said I wouldn’t whilst I was, which implies no promise once I am.

Last week I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with the wonderful and fabulous choreographer Alison Chase. Alison was the founding director and “mother” of Pilobolus Dance Theater. If you’ve never heard of Pilobolus then you’ve missed something important and amazing in the world of dance (that’s what Google is for, right?).

Twenty years ago, when I was studying modern dance, my classmates and I were completely enamored by Pilobolus and we emulated them every chance we got.

Alison Chase is now working independently of Pilobolus Dance Theater, and seems to be pushing the boundaries of modern dance harder than ever. She showed me several videos of recent works and I can only say this: “be very jealous of me!”

You can get a taste of Alison’s work by downloading a Quicktime Video Sample of her recent choreography which resides on Alison’s temporary web site.

I am beginning development of Alison’s full web site now. And I’ll certainly post here when the site is finished; but don’t wait up, Alison is more of a perfectionist than I am, so this site could take a while to get right.

I came across a wonderful online flower maker. I hope you enjoy it. Here’s a flower I made and below is the link to the site so you can make your own flowers.

Make your own: Ze Frank’s Flower Maker

I had an urge to make art. But when I opened the program I make art in a poem slipped out.

Slipping

I’m reading a book that I really, really like. It’s called In the Casa Azul and it’s by Meaghan Delahunt. It’s an historical novel about Frida Kahlo & Leon Trotsky. As I’m reading I keep dog-earing the pages, the poor book has half its pages folded now.

Here’s a paragraph that has been sticking with me since I read it:

Happiness. That line from the American Declaration of Independence about the pursuit of happiness. He thought it both facile and dangerous. He thought that this one line could be held responsible for all the unhappiness and hypocrisy of the Western world. As if happiness were a quarry, as if you could stalk it, pin it down, corner it. But happiness wasn’t like that. It came over you, descended; sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. It was as intangible as mist. Something numinous. And then it was gone.