from pacific coast to no coast

I am back on the Pacific coast, but I don’t smell the salt water anymore. I don’t even smell the pine or cedar. I smell mostly moss and cold air. My clothes smell like the fire burning next to me. This quarter I am in Friday Harbor, WA. Not that you know where that is. Take a map. Find Victoria, BC, then draw a line directly east. The first island you hit is me. The north Puget Sound bordering the Georgia Basin in the Salish Sea. How many names can a single place have? Just one more for you. I am in the San Juan Islands. Sorry, not Mexico. If I were in Mexico, I would be smelling sand. A smell that I miss.

It had never occurred to me that apples could generate a cult. An apple a day to be sure, but not a weekend full of activities. Washington is famous for its apples, but that was a fact I was slow to recognize. Perhaps it is because I grew up in a desert, but I have been picked or pressed apples. (My mother would be hurt by this statement, but no one can say they have done something if it was completed before the age of two.) I entered this and last weekend an apple virgin of sorts.

Last weekend, I attended an apple pressing party at a farm on the island. It was oh, so hippielicious. It was advertised as a ho-down, so we all dressed in plaid and baked an apple pie. The pie was the collective effort of three or four people trying to remember as much as possible about how to bake a pie coupled with a limited baking supplies. It thankfully turned out delicious.

The party was in yurt and the first thing said to us was: “You are all wearing plaid.” That pretty much sums up the whole evening. We pressed apples to make cider until it was time for the small children to leave and then the music selection began. We danced to dying 80s classics and Bollywood music. Let me save you the trouble, those two types of music do not go together unless it is dying Bollywood classics from the 80s. I would say I was too up tight for the affair, but it was nonetheless a worthwhile experience.

This weekend was more my style. I woke up extra early on Saturday to catch the ferry to Shaw Island with others from my program. On Shaw, we picked apples and filled an entire bed of a standard pickup truck and there were still more apples to be picked. Then we went on a walking tour of the island. Each island I have been to in the San Juans is more beautiful than the last. We filled my rain jacket full of apples so that we could make an apple crisp later. We eat while we worked.

The next day, after brunch, we went out to the dock and pressed the apples to make cider. We made over 100 gallons of cider. Mostly it was stored in milk gallons, but some people filled carboys to make hard apple cider. It took nearly all day to empty the truck. There were more apples than you would have thought possible. We drank the cider cold and fresh and warmed as the drizzle continued and I lost feeling in my hands.

It is a tradition or so I am told. People from Washington are crazy about apples. From now on whenever I hear Washington apples, I will have a very textual memory. I can never look at an apple again without remembering my time in the San Juans.

I think it is safe to say that I am appled out.

So, the summer is drawing to a close. I have yet to pack my bags and head off to school. Well, the packing of bags is a lie. That has been done for a few days yet. My blood sugars have dropped in anticipation of awkward encounters and making friends anew again. My travel luck seems to have turned around, but there is always room for that to change especially because I am moving to a very remote part of the Pacific Northwest for the quarter.

But, as the summer wears on, I become reflective and increasingly angry as my brother has changed my autocorrect to change I to Iraq. (I have no idea how to change it back.) The last burning days of summer seems romantic, but it is also accurate. As the hills of Los Angeles are once again on fire to kick off what we like to call “fire season.” The fires are out for now, but the air pollution lingers in the valleys. Just our daily reminder of the fires to come.

Part of me is sad to be leaving LA again, but the majority is glad to be getting out again. After all my friends leave for their respective colleges, what is there left in this city—sprawl of anonymity for me? Library books, hot afternoons and the occasional morning fog.

So the summer is drawing to a close and I am satisfied because library books and hot afternoons can be found anywhere.

Returning to school I have witnessed an interesting phenomenon in seat selection. Seating dynamics are the most important part of a class. Absolutely under no circumstances should you sit in the front row. There must be at least a seat of separation between strangers and yourself. It is necessary to pretend you do not know or recognize anyone in the class. Do not even make eye contact. And people wonder why they don’t make friends in their classes. 

So, this post might be a little behind the times, but I will perceiver. Spring break tends to throw a wrench in my blogging possibilities. I have receiving Paste magazine for almost a year now. It is 100 page gem which reviews music, film and books. In addition to articles, the monthly publication comes with a 20 track sampler CD and website. Almost every new band I have gotten into has been via my Paste magazine.

However, this thing I enjoy most about the magazine is its fabulous design. I renewed my subscription this last September. The magazine randomly appeared in my mailbox addressed to me in March 2007. To this day I still have no idea who originally signed me up for the magazine, but I am eternally grateful to them. The magazine has replaced Real Simple and Surfer magazine for my design inspiration.

But now I am most upset. Reason? Redesign. Why fix what isn’t broke? The new design is boring and uniform. The transparent lines and pastel colors make me feel like I am in a home improvement magazine, not a cultural critic magazine. It is a design for the less visually educated and the lazy designer. I am all for simple, but in its place. There is no need for simple in Paste. I also have a beef with the font change, but, then again, I did not like the pervious font either.

In short, sad day. I miss the old Paste, but I am still a subscriber.

Entering the gallery feels as though you are intruding on someone’s spring-cleaning event. Seemingly unrelated objects are placed through out the room in organized piles: the tower of lawn chairs, the stack of clock radios, totem pole of empty, painted 12-pack of Lenienkugel’s Original long neck bottles, and the television on its side on top of the cinderblocks with the potted vine on the television. Each clock radio is blaring a different station from country music to talk radio to rock music to static. All the stations are FM, which is associated with leisure time. On of the stations is public radio, but because the other stations are all music station the talk is much harder to focus on and is therefore drowned out by the music. The absent listener is disengaged in politics and other matters of the public sphere. The varying times on the twelve clocks, none of which are correct, prove further the listener’s disengagement from reality and space outside of home. The bottom most clock is counting the seconds and the 7^th clock is blinking 12:00.

The overall garage sale feel is achieved by the three plywood pieces that cover the three windows in the gallery and musky smell of the gallery. The three plywood window covers have opaque shinny black paint covering most of the bare wood surface. The paint has organic boarders and no visible brush strokes. It looks as though the paint was poured onto the plywood while it was lying flat on the ground. Each of the three pieces is identical with the exception that the paint boundaries vary in the way the paint spread out. The black pools are sad and devoid of any context. They are empty. The series reinforces the paint pools as intentional. They are hung up like paintings, but the medium and canvas can be found in different aisles of Home Depot. The plywood serves a dual purpose both practical and aesthetic. However, the plywood’s cheap quality almost disqualifies it as aesthetic. The windows are boarded up, which further personalizes the space. If no one can see in, you are perfectly alone in the room. However, it is self-isolation like the isolation of the individual from the greater community. Like the radios, the person who put up the boards is drowning out the public sphere.

The first piece the gallery visitor encounters is also segregates the resident from society as a whole. The base of the piece is a doormat with a brick patter and 6 rocks leading up to the TV from smallest to largest. The doormat is welcoming, dirty and well worn. Real bricks are stacked in front of the cinderblock that the TV is place on its side on top of. The TV is identical to the 20-year-old one your father refused to throw out because “It still works damn it!” and “I got that before I met your mother.” However, it does not really work because it can’t work the cable and even the basic channels are fuzzy. On the screen is a black and white image of white dots emerging from total blackness, then streaming like shooting stars towards each other and fading back into blackness. On top of the TV is a potted vine in a shallow terracotta pot on a white china plate. The plant is real. The vine is growing such that is trails down the side on the TV without obscuring the image on the screen. The plant is alive which connects the piece to the present and real. The vine cannot live forever, which makes the piece temporary. Behind the TV is a door-like freestanding board. The board is painted entirely black and then has thick drip-lines of the same black paint. There is a visible circle that has been painted over on the left side of the door where a doorknob should be. On the back of the door there is an identical circle, however, it is white with a black ring painted on the outer most part. The board/door appears to be melting into black tar. The doormat welcomes the visitor, but the door clearly advises the visitor to stay away.

Hung on the wall is thick plywood framed in a black frame covered in glass. On the plywood are old stickers for cars, gas stations, auto parts. The stickers look like they are from the 1950’s or 1960’s. The framing with glass gives the piece a definite end. It is finished. The pastime of collecting stickers has ceased. The action is dead and now it can only be appreciated passively through viewing. Random chunks of the plywood are missing. They have been removed by a handsaw. It seems to have been found in the garage while cleaning it out. The owner framed it for sentimental reasons, which is why it has an unfinished quality.

Despite the isolationist feel of the plywood boards, radios and TV, there are several pieces that have a communal, but still deeply private, feel. The seven 12-packs of Lenienkugel’s Original are painted, from bottom to top, black, dark gray, light gray, thick white, thin, but still opaque white, white, and translucent white. This obelisk is in front of the three gallery windows and is surrounded by five small tree stumps spray-painted black on the sides, as if some kids vandalized them, arranged in an half circle.  The tree stumps suggest a community gathering place and the boxes a religious icon or memorial. The vandalism of the stumps make them less attractive and disinclines the passerby to make use of the place. Thus, the communal space remains empty.

Next to this piece is a pile of plain wood sticks constructed in the shape of a bonfire pile. About a third of each stick is wrapped in wide black tape. The campfire is the most ancient place of gathering, but the sticks in this fire setup are not sticks found in the forest. These sticks are cut and purchased from a store. They do not have indexical sign of a natural stick. This is an abstract, untraceable fire. Only the wood and structure alludes to a fire, otherwise it would just be a pile of stick-like forms. It makes the fire cold: the exactly antithesis of a real fire.

Across the room, in a wood frame and covered with glass is heavy, textured black paper. In the far right there are two cut outs roughly a square inch each. Inset of the cutouts are two graphics. In the top on is the print of a roller brush used for painting walls. On the roller there are 3 stars and 3 strips. The outlines are manila colored and the background is black. The other is the Sherwin-Williams Paint logo “Cover the Earth” with manila background, black outlines, and the plaint is red. The use of house paint themes extrapolates to the whole show, which uses black house paint in almost every piece. The small size of the graphics compared to the large size on the frame denotes their evident insignificance, but large influence because the tiny logos are the only thing the view focuses on.

Next to this is the apparent source of all the black house paint in the gallery. On the floor is a closed generic pale of black house paint. There is black paint dried to the side of the container that has dripped from inside when the paint was used. There are also smudges of white and gray paint which match the shades of gray in the beer box totem and the canvas propped up on the pale against the wall. The canvas is six vertical strips varying in gradients of black. The strips are equal is width and from left to right is go 60% gray, 30% gray, white, 30% gray, 60% gray, and black. This clean, unframed canvas illustrates that the house paint can make a refined work of art in the classical sense. The gradients of gray, which have defined boundaries, reflect both uncertainty and definite categories in society, which have spilled into the domestic sphere.

In the middle of the gallery is a black rectangular box. The box is made out of plywood and is open on one end. Only the outside is painted black, which has been absorbed into the grain of the wood. Inside the box, the supports and unpainted wood is visible. The box is empty. The box can be a crate, a table, a bench, or perhaps a coffin. The table and bench are the communal uses. The crate and coffin are the individual uses. All the other pieces in the gallery encircle this piece and allude to the death of a communal society. All the objects interrelate to drive human kind to its ultimate demise, but it is not too late. There is still a way out. One side is still open.

In the small side room, separated by a black curtain, there is a black and white video playing on loop. It is a man wearing a suite while digging a hole in his backyard. A house with classic wood siding painted white is in the background. There is a stereo playing a women singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow while crying with piano accompaniment. The video is flashing as though there was a strobe light in the room. The sound of the audio and the look of the man and house in the video give a 1950’s feel. The connection between the video and the audio make it seem as though the man in the video is digging a grave for a pet that the woman is crying about while singing. This connected to the black box in the middle of the adjoining room reconfirms the box as a coffin. Perhaps the objects in the coffin room belong to the man and the woman.

The use of various gradient of black reflects the gray areas of both the public and domestic spheres. The grays are the uncertainty of how to act and what is expected. The stacks of objects command attention and power. They signify the power of authority in society. The perilous structure of the green and white lawn chairs, which are balanced on one another without any reinforcing structure or binding, points out the vulnerably of society. The chairs were once used in leisure time presumably on the front lawn where the user was visible to the public sphere. The 12-pack stack is also dependent on gravity to remain standing. However, the box structure makes that stack more stable. It is a comment on how beer is a lasting pastime, but outdoor front lawn neighbor (public) interaction is not.

All the found objects in the show appear to be old and dating to the 1950’s. This is the age of 2.5 kids, the homemaker, suburbia and the lost of identity in the crowd. The myths of the 1950’s are still used today as the ideal for home life. The discontinuity of objects in the show poke holes in this ideal. Everything is cold and empty.

The whole show is poetic. It disassociates the viewer from his or her own personal experience with familiar objects. The use of the black in every piece makes each piece self-refer to the show. None of the objects where expecting the artist and none of the pieces are expecting the viewer. The intensely personal feeling of the space and the exclusion of the viewer are the result of the poetic nature of Lyons’ art. The pieces are loud, but the meaning is subtly quiet.

Slow Dance backinblackisblackisblackisblackisback is eerie to quote the ThreeWalls press release. It demonstrates the lack on engagement in current society by individuals who give in to the driving force of mainstream culture. The disembededment of worn and cheap domestic objects leaves an unsettling feeling in the viewer, which never quite goes away. Lyons’ show is powerful and a must see. I thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half I spent in the small, empty, but loud gallery. There is an artist talk March 20, 2008 at 7:00 pm at ThreeWalls. (119 N. Peroria, Chicago, IL 60607) The show goes down March 29, 2008. See the ThreeWall’s website at http://www.three-walls.org/ for further details.

My flight from ITH to LGA was cancelled. In retrospect I would be more surprise if it weren’t. I spent all of Saturday obsessing over whether I would be able to get out of Ithaca. I could take a 2pm Greyhound arriving in Chicago at 6am the following day for $117. I could take a $50 Shortline Coach bus to NYC. I could take $100 Amtrak from Syracuse. But, when I woke up at 8am to check my flight. It was on time, so I went back to sleep.

At 10am, my friend’s roommate woke me.

Roommate: When is your flight?

Me: 1:30.

Roommate: It’s 11.

Me: No, it’s not. It’s 10.

Roommate: No, it’s a 11. Day light savings.

Shit. I packed in a fury, checked my flight (on time), kissed my friend goodbye, and stole someone’s cab.

I checked in. The flight was delayed to 3:05.

Me: Am I going to make my 5pm connection in LGA?

US Airways Representative: If it doesn’t get delayed anymore.

I knew I should have taken that 9:45 bus to NYC.

I sat in the airport for four hours. Just as I went through security, they announced the 1:30pm now departing at 3:05 with service to New York-LaGuardia Airport had been cancelled. It was a sprint race to the two service agents. I was on the phone waiting for customer service while waiting in line. Customer service hotline won. She checked every airport: Syracuse, Ithaca, Rochester, perhaps even Buffalo, no one was flying out or she could not guarantee me a seat. She took twenty minutes in between question to give me responses. It was really slow going.

Me: Can you get me on the earliest flight out of LaGuardia to Chicago tomorrow morning?

US Airways Representative: Ma’m, I have check every airport. You can’t just pick and choose what airport you want to fly out of. I have to check the restriction of your ticket.

Me: Restrictions of my ticket? You stranded me in Ithaca. I have classes tomorrow. I have to be in Chicago by noon at the latest on Monday. I have a reservation on a flight from LaGuardia to Chicago at 5pm today, which I will not make because you stranded me in Ithaca. You will get me on a flight out of LaGuardia tomorrow morning.

Another 20 minutes pause and I was booked on a 10am flight out of LGA.

Me: What is the flight number? And do I check in with United or US Airways?

Ten minute pause.

US Airways Representative: Your flight number is 6753 and you check in with United.

Taxi back to Cornell. Taxi to the Greyhound bus station. 4:45pm Shortline Coach Bus to Port Authority in NYC. The good news was that I got a college student discount on the ticket. The bus stopped in Bingington, NY and Ridgewood, NJ before it reached NYC. I could only read until about 6:30 when the sun went down because neither my overhead light, nor the overhead light of the seat next to me worked. It was rather upsetting, but I slept instead.

We arrive at Port Authority a half an hour early. I took at taxi to Barnard to spend the night my a friend who goes there. The taxi first tried to drop me off at 16^th and Broadway rather than 116^th and Broadway. He did not deduct from the fair for his mistake, but at this point I no longer cared. It was all about getting home.

I spent the night on her linoleum floor, and by night I mean the hour and a half between two when I sent to sleep and three-thirty when I woke up. I hailed a cab with surprising speed and made it to LaGuardia by 4:30am. Honestly, I was surprise the airport was even open yet.

I checked in at the automated kiosk because the check-in line was absolutely horrendous. It reminded me of the last time I flew out of LAX. There were options as to what flight I was on. None of them where to Chicago. Do you need assistance? Yes, yes I do.

Me: Hi, um, I am booked on the 10am flight to O’Hare, but they reservation is not here.

United Airlines Representative: Can I get your last name?

Me: Dean. D-E-A-N.

United Airlines Representative: Okay, and your flight number?

Me: 6753.

United Airlines Representative: Okay, so you are going to Denver.

Me: No. I am going to Chicago. I am on the 10am flight to O’Hare. I made the reservation yesterday from Ithaca Airport. I took a bus down last night to make this flight.

United Airlines Representative: Where are you now?

Me: LaGuardia. Shouldn’t they know these things?

United Airlines Representative: Well, that is the wrong flight number.

Me: It is the flight number they told me when I made the reservation.

United Airlines Representative: What airline are you flying?

Me: I booked my reservation with US Airways, but they told me to check in with United.

United Airlines Representative: Can you please confirm your name?

Me: Do you want me to tell you my first name?

United Airlines Representative: Please confirm your name?

Me: Um, H-A-N-N-A-H D-E-A-N.

United Airlines Representative: Okay, please stay on the line while I confirm your reservation. Okay, do you know your confirmation number?

Me: No.

He gave me the confirmation number and I was able to check-in. I got stand-by on the 6am flight and a confirmed seat on the 7am flight.

Security check was not even open when I got there. There were many stressed businessmen and women glaring at the TSA officers, who were there, but not letting anyone through.

I sat by the gate as they called other standby passengers. There was a lull and they started to boarding. Finally, with all the grace of god: Passenger Dean. Passenger Dean, please come to the podium.

Flight Attendant: You have a middle seat it that okay?

Is that okay? That is beautiful. I am going home. Unfortunately, it was not so beautiful. The men, who sat on either side of me, were far too large for their seats. Worse of all, the man, who sat to my right, had a stench about him that was so strong that I welcomed the Eastern European woman in the row behind, who apparently used perfume as lotion, and the migraine that came with her scent.

When we landed I called American Taxi for a ride home and, just as I was about to enter in the terminal number, I remember that I was flying United and I would have to go through that crazy tunnel before getting to the street. That settled it. I would just go for the taxi stand.

I forgot that arriving at 7:30 in the morning would mean that we would be caught in Chicago traffic. I was beginning to regret using the taxi stand. I made it back to my dorm at 8:30 and passed out in my bed. And despite all my desperate attempts to get back to make my 11am class, I did not go to it.

In other news, I will not set foot in an airport until to return to LA in June. You are safe to travel until then.

As to the man who told me to stop my whining and grow up, I have this to say to you: your assessment that I am spoil is in all honestly entirely correct. However, millions of people depend on air travel each day and for it to run worse than the LA bus system is nothing short of disappointing and somewhat impressive. 

I planned a lovely weekend trip to Ithaca, NY to visit one of my closest friends. I have a flight out of ORD to LGA at 8am. I arrange for a taxi at the ungodly hour of 5:30am. My taxi is early, which is a good sign. I run into Showanda the security guard in street and she wishes me a good trip.

I get to the airport and try to electronically check-in. It says there is a problem with my itinerary and to pick up the phone, here is your confirmation number. I try another machine. Same thing. I then realize that I am in the United Terminal, even though I am on a US Airways flight. Maybe that is it. However, I did check online this morning and Orbitz told me to check-in with United. I walk outside and over to Terminal 2. There is a United kiosk there. I try again. Same thing. I pick-up the phone, but it is broken. I ask the people at the desk. They tell me go to Terminal 1. What is it with airport employees being super unhelpful?

Back outside and over to Terminal 1. I try the electronic check-in one last time. I pick up the phone and give my confirmation number, full name spelled, and destination city.

Airlines Representative: Your flight has been cancelled.

Shit. Me: Can I get on the 7am flight?

Airlines Representative: Do you have check luggage?

Me: No, I do not.

Airlines Representative: Let me check. Yes. I will book you on that. Stay on the line.

Five minutes pass.

Me: Hello?

Shit, I am going to miss the 7am flight waiting to check-in. I try to check-in on the kiosk again. Your confirmation number is…

Airlines Representative 2: What is your confirmation number?

I have to go through the whole thing again.

Me: Can I get on the 7am flight? Because I have a connection to Ithaca at 1:25.

Airlines Representative 2: Yes, I see that. Please stay on the line. Do not hang up.

Five minutes pass.

Me: Hello?

You’ve got to be kidding me! Not again. I try to check-in. Success. This is going to be a long day.

On the plane, it was freezing.

Me: Um, can I get a blanket?

Flight Attendant: Oh, sure honey. We have tons. I’ll get you know.

I waited all damn flight for that blanket. It was far too cold to sleep.

Outside of NYC, the plane begins to circle over empty brown farmland. Oh, please, god, not a repeat of my last flight to LGA.

Captain: Aaah, folks, this is your captain speaking, (Like we can’t recognize that familiar cocky, masculine as that of the stereotypical captain.) as you’ve noticed we have been put into a holding pattern. (Holding pattern? What holding pattern? That is not New York below up. That is the middle of nowhere.) So hopefully, we will get the go head to land in La Guardia.

Wait, I am not finished with the captain yet. Why is it that all captains referred to the passengers in the plane as folks, but the flight attendants refer to them as Ladies and Gentlemen?

Once we landed in La Guardia, surprisingly on time, I had to transfer to Terminal C from Terminal A. Because LGA is quite possibly the ghetto-est airport in America, I had to go out of security, down to baggage claim, and hop on a mystery bus entitled Transfer Bus B. I had to ask 3 people and clarify with at least 2 others. The La Guardia US Airways Terminal is like going from Oz to Kansas. I mean, the tri-city airport of Midland, Saginaw, and Bay City has more security. With a “Have a good flight, Sugar” and a wave through the metal detector, I was to the gates. I got on the 11:45 flight to Ithaca.

Ithaca airport has one gate. I am not even sure they have an x-ray machine. They are so tiny that you have to call a cab to pick you up. They don’t have a cabstand. I shared a huge van with some 40-year-old who turned out to be dating some undergrad, who was really happy to see him. Even the taxi driver raised an eyebrow. And, despite my complaining, it was nice to see changes in elevation.

Wish me luck on my return and pray to all that is holy that you aren’t on my flight.

“[The] youth are the primary creators, trendsetters, stimulators, and storytellers in contemporary society.”