Henry Miller on Jacksonville

Olga is sticking to me like glue this morning. I don't know what's up. She's literally leaning against the left side of my body so firmly that I can barely type. I wonder what triggered this insecure state of mind?

Maybe it's because Dave and I went out for dinner last night and didn't get home until late. We went to a beautiful restaurant that we both really liked to celebrate the birthday of one of his coworkers. This restaurant is in an old, closed pub that I photographed not long after we moved to London because I was so taken with the building. At the time I though, "What a crime that this place is boarded up!" Well, I'm happy to report, it is now unboarded and quite swank. We all agreed we would happily go back.

I'm still reading Henry Miller as he fumes about the sorry state of America in the early 1940s. He's so strident it's almost comical. And I thought my family was cynical! Yesterday I came across this passage about Jacksonville, where my brother lives:

"Of all the little man-made parks I think the one in Jacksonville, Florida, is perhaps the meanest, drabbest, shabbiest. It belongs in a George Grosz picture. It reeks with tuberculosis, halitosis, varicose veins, paranoia, mendacity, onanism and occultism. All the misfits, the unfits, the has-beens and the would-bes of America seem to drift here eventually. It is the emotional swamp which one has to wade through in order to get to the Everglades. Fifteen years ago, when I first sat in this park, I attributed my feelings and impressions to the fact that I was down and out, that I was hungry and could find no place to sleep. On the return visit I was even more depressed. Nothing had been altered. The benches were littered as of yore with the dregs of humanity -- not the seedy sort as in London or New York, not the picturesque sort that dot the quais of Paris, but that pulpy blemished American variety that issues from the respectable middle class: clean clots of phlegm, so to speak. The kind that tries to elevate the mind even when there is no mind left. The flotsam and jetsam which drifts like sewer water in and out of Christian Science churches, Rosicrucian tabernacles, astrology parlors, free clinics, evangelist meetings, charity bureaus, employment agencies, cheap lodging houses and so on. The kind that may be reading the Bhagavad Gita on an empty stomach or doing setting up exercises in the clothes closet. The American type par excellence, ever ready to believe what is written in the newspapers, ever on the lookout for a Messiah. Not a speck of human dignity left. The white worm squirming in the vice of respectability!"

I know my brother will get a huge kick out of that. It's accompanied by a photo of Miller slouched on a Jacksonville park bench, looking thoroughly down and out under his draped coat.

I'm not sure anyone else has ever described Jacksonville with such...vehemence.

(Photo: Harlesden, London, last weekend.)

Picky Readers

My busy week is continuing. I've moved on from the painstaking computer purge of departed library patrons to making a book display for World Book Day on March 5. We've been asking students to name their favorite books and tell us why they like them, and you would think from their reactions that we wanted to pull their front teeth. They are so reluctant to participate! We finally got enough responses to put together a display.

I'm printing out an image of each book's cover, and including the student's review beneath it. We'll then hang these reviews in the library. Pretty straightforward, right? I think it's going to look good when it's done, but it's taking a bit of work, especially when I keep having to drop everything to check out materials.

There's a gang of fifth-grade girls who come into the library every single day and want book recommendations, but when I make suggestions they either don't want to read what I suggest (and no, I'm not always pushing "Misty of Chincoteague") or they check out a book and return it five minutes later, saying plaintively, "I didn't like it." I guess I finally hit my limit with this group yesterday because when they came in and asked me if I knew any good books, I said, "Off the top of my head, no!"

That got a laugh from one of my co-workers, and my boss chose that very moment to take a picture of me, which she tweeted on the library Twitter account with the caption "Decisions, decisions." Don't I look annoyed?

Fortunately, these kids like me, and I took them back to the shelves where we successfully scrounged up some reading material that they no doubt will return today, unread. I think they mostly like the attention. I'm sure they never sensed that I really wanted to get back to building my book display.

(Top: Bleak February, in front of a bleak house under renovation.)

Harper Lee, Henry Miller and Art

The art students at school have been experimenting with bones. I love this display. I've long been fascinated by Georgia O'Keeffe's famous bone paintings, meditations on life and death and color and unexpected beauty. These are her great-grandchildren!

I don't know how I feel about the news that Harper Lee is coming out with another novel, and one heavily related to "To Kill A Mockingbird." It could be fascinating to see her first pass at telling that story, from the perspective of the adult Scout. But I'm afraid it will be like those "director's cuts" of movies restoring footage that probably should have been left on the cutting room floor. From what I've read, her original idea -- encapsulated in this book -- went on to become "To Kill A Mockingbird" after editors suggested she build on the strongest parts of her narrative. So what does that leave us -- the weak parts? And what will her writing be like, now that she no longer has the benefit of Truman Capote's friendship and editorial ear?

Remember about 10 years ago when Capote's "lost" novel "Summer Crossing" was published for the first time to great fanfare? It turned out to be a rather thin reading experience. Sometimes early efforts are unpublished for a reason.

I'd be much less nervous if Lee's new book were completely different, and didn't involve the same "To Kill A Mockingbird" characters. It's always dangerous when tampering with the legacy of a classic, much-beloved book. But anyway, we'll see.

I've just started reading a Henry Miller book I found on the library shelves called "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare," in which he returns from Europe to travel his native America. I can identify with his cynicism about his native land, and although I just started the book I love it so far. He describes his first sight of the "bleak and uninviting" shores of Boston, and the look of the typical American house -- "...there is something cold, austere, something barren and chill, about the architecture of the American home. It was home, with all the ugly, evil, sinister connotations which the word contains for a restless soul. There was a frigid moral aspect to it which chilled me to the bone."

He also takes a dim view of the life of an artist in America:

"The only artists who were not leading a dog's life were the commercial artists; they had beautiful homes, beautiful brushes, beautiful models. The others were living like ex-convicts. This impression was confirmed and deepened as I traveled along. America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still."

Snowy Day

Yesterday's snowfall left Olga sniffing and snorting in the back garden. I'm not sure she understood why everything changed so dramatically. She didn't seem very put off, though -- she still expected her walk as usual.

Poor Totoro was left with a cap of flakes.

There's nothing left of our horseradish at this point. Dave tucked a couple of bulbs into the pot, which are coming up at the outer edge.

Despite the snow -- which left me slip-sliding on the sidewalk in my fancy Swedish shoes that I inherited from Dave because he doesn't like them (and wouldn't you think Sweden would know how to make snow-appropriate shoes?) -- we did have school as usual yesterday.

I finished purging the elementary school library's patron list. In all, I eliminated 555 departed parents -- including a well-known actress and a countess -- as well as 40 departed students and several faculty and staff members. I would love to gossip about who had what overdue books and unpaid fines but I suppose I must remain discreet.

By the time I came home last night, all the snow was melted. We're back to muddy normal.

Brrrrrr

Last night was a night for staying inside. The weather was pretty clear but it was cold, at least for London. About 30º F, I think, and it felt colder.

I had a meeting with some of the Royal Photographic Society folks in Covent Garden, and I had some time to walk around a bit beforehand. The streets were fairly empty. Everyone was warming up in the nearest pub!

Poor Admiral Nelson was virtually all alone in Trafalgar Square, perched atop his column...

...and the cafes in Covent Garden, where you'd be lucky to find a place to sit on many nights, were completely empty. (I was surprised they were even open, but I suppose they were meant to hint at the warmth available inside the restaurants.)

At the meeting we talked about our urban photography projects. I've chosen to photograph barber shops, something that I do along with Bleeding London when I'm out and about. A (quickly and badly written, by me) article about my photos appears in this month's London RPS newsletter.

By the time I got home last night, about 9:30 p.m., I was as cold as I have ever been in my life. It's weird, because I've been in colder temperatures elsewhere and I was wearing my coat, but I was really chilled to the bone. I ate a peanut butter sandwich for dinner and got into bed, where I finally warmed up.

And now, there's snow on the grass, which I hope to photograph as soon as it gets light outside!

NW10 Finished!

I am happy to say that the NW10 postcode, all 534 streets, is now officially completed for the Bleeding London photo project! I went back yesterday and took care of the final 18 streets, which took hours because they were sprinkled like pepper over the entire area. I walked a zigzag through the whole postcode and then took a bus back toward the tube.

And let me just sing the praises of public transportation. When I finished walking, I was at the far southwestern corner of the postcode. I went to the nearest bus stop, et voila! There was a bus going exactly where I needed to go, in the far northeast corner of the postcode. The buses in this town are amazing.

(It was an interesting ride too, involving an extremely drunk passenger who kept telling the woman sitting across from him to "stop talking," even though she never said a word as far as I could tell. Another guy challenged him and told him to "clean up his life.")

I'm glad to have that done, and now I'll move on to another postcode -- probably the neighboring NW11, which is sadly underrepresented.

Dave, meanwhile, pruned the rose bushes in the back garden and cleaned up some of the "winterkill" (a word I learned in New York). It looks much better out there. He's already planning to move things around and plant more plants for spring. I keep telling him he should leave the poor plants alone and let them develop some root systems, but he scoffs at my hesitance about moving them. I guess if they're hardy enough they won't mind.

(Top: Street scene in Harlesden. Bottom, a curious sticker I found on a parking meter.)

Attitude from The Spaniards

I woke up around 2:30 a.m. and when I went to get a drink of water I happened to look out the window and see falling snow! Once again, though, it doesn't seem to have stuck. Our last few snowfalls don't even really count because it's just barely been snow -- wet clumps that melt immediately upon contact with the earth.

Yesterday morning Dave, Olga and I met up with my coworker Lindsey, her husband Gavin and their dog, Nell, another staffy mix. We went for a long walk on Hampstead Heath, despite rainy/snowy weather that turned the paths into mud bogs. (You may remember we met up for a walk once before, albeit in drier weather.) I didn't even get many pictures because conditions were so gnarly.

We wound up at The Spaniards Inn, supposedly one of London's oldest pubs, mentioned by Dickens in "The Pickwick Papers." They were running a lunch special which gave us the impetus to go, but in the end we ordered off the menu. I've always wanted to try The Spaniards but I must say Dave and I were a bit disappointed. We were in a rather stark room, they wouldn't give us the table we'd tried to reserve, and although we'd told them we'd have our dogs, the guy who seated us gave us attitude when we brought in Nell and Olga. Nell wound up waiting in the car, which apparently she doesn't mind. We put Olga under the table on her towel after the same guy asked me not to keep her next to the table on the floor. (Too many people trying to pass by, he said.) Little did he know keeping her on the floor at all was a minor triumph -- normally, in a pub, she's in my lap!

All in all we found the food unremarkable and I initially felt so unwelcome that I considered leaving. I think if Lindsey and Gavin hadn't been there I'd have done that. Things got better, though -- once the dog was under the table, service proceeded smoothly, and it is an interesting pub. It's so old that it predates the width of the modern road, which narrows considerably where it passes the corner of the building.

On the way home, Olga and Nell rode in the back of Gavin and Lindsey's car. Nell was clearly relaxed, but Olga wanted to sit with me and Dave.

Back home again, I spent the afternoon reading and last night we watched a double feature of "E.T." and "Close Encounters," two irresistably crowd-pleasing movies, at least in our household.

(Top: Yet another Bleeding London cat photo!)