Part 2 of the Asheville, NC: Top-secret Surprise Holiday Trip

21 December 2012

Despite what the Mayans thought would happen that day, Eric and I decided to make the most of it. We bundled ourselves against the fiercely blowing cold winds and ventured out into downtown Asheville to follow the self-guided 1.7 mile art and history tour known as the Asheville Urban Trail.  What a wonderful way to learn the city!  Stops included, but were certainly not limited to, an O. Henry homage of brass hair combs, braid and watch fob imbedded in the sidewalk (William Sidney Porter, better known by nome de plume O. Henry and even better known for his wonderful short story The Gift of the Magi, lived in and is buried in Asheville), numerous Thomas Wolfe mentions (a life-sized cut-out image of Wolfe marking his neighborhood, a pair of big brass shoes in front of his childhood home which served as a model for the boardinghouse in his 1929 novel, Look Homeward, Angel and a tombstone complete with carving implements that marked the spot where Wolfe’s father’s tombstone shop once stood), and architect Douglas Ellington’s gorgeous Art Deco S & W Cafeteria building (opened in 1929 by two World War I mess sergeants, closed in 1974, currently being restored and converted into lofts and retail space).

O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi.  Asheville, NC.

Thomas Wolfe's neighborhood marker.  Asheville, NC.

S & W Cafeteria building.  Asheville, NC.

But, some of my favorite art came in the form of the wall dogs and graffiti that decorate the town.  

Merce Cunningham & John Cage wall dog.  Asheville, NC.

Paper flowers on a tag.  Asheville, NC.

Ishmael tag.  Asheville, NC.

That evening, Eric had reservations for us at Curatè Tapas Bar, a Spanish cuisine restaurant owned and operated by James Beard Rising Star Chef nominee Katie Button.  The menu is full of the most amazing delicacies, all of which are flagged with food allergy alerts where applicable.   The atmosphere was relatively quiet (we were early, old folks that we are), and the vibe was relaxed.  Just as Eric and I were questioning our server about certain items on the menu, the electricity blinked…twice.  We joked about the day not being over yet and how the Mayans may have indeed known exactly what they were talking about and oh, let’s order quickly so that if the world ends, it will end for us with bellies full of delicious tapas…

And so that is what we did.  We ordered Marcona almonds for an appetizer, the Tabla de Jamon (a sampling plate of three different delicately sliced hams from Spanish pigs, each fed differently, and each tasted subtly differently), Esparragos Verdes (green asparagus with the to-die-for red-pepper based Romesco sauce), and Gambas al ajillo (sautèed shrimp and garlic).  We followed everything up with dessert, Espuma de Chocolate (described by The Carolina Epicurian as “a plate smeared with hazelnut praline anchoring deeply flavored chocolate mousse, candied nuts and raspberry sorbet”)  for me, Helado de Romero (Rosemary ice cream) for Eric.  Everything was gluten free except the bread, which was served on a separate plate for Eric (who was quick to inform our server of my food allergy).  Nothing disappointed.

 

Later that evening, we experienced a blackout at the hotel.  For all our joking about the end of the world being nigh earlier in the day, it was very unsettling to look out of our hotel window and see blackness.  No streetlights, no restaurant lights, no super market lights.  Only the lights of cars, bravely motoring along in the dark.  

Marcona almonds, Curatè Tapas Bar.  Asheville, NC.

Tabla de Jamon, Curatè Tapas Bar.  Asheville, NC.

Gambas al ajillo, Curatè Tapas Bar.  Asheville, NC.

Espuma de Chocolate, Curatè Tapas Bar.  Asheville, NC.

Helado de Romero, Curatè Tapas Bar.  Asheville, NC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Brief From My Girlhood

Poetry reading at the ‘brary a couple of weeks ago went really well. The poet, Lightsey Darst, was in the area (from Minnesota) to visit friends of hers who now live in Anniston. Lightsey is a dancer, dance critic, English instructor, and poet. Her first book of poetry, Find the Girl (Coffee House Press), is “A poetic expose of girlhood, obsession, and the CSI industry.” I was very intrigued by this description, and by the cover of the book, which is a grainy photo of caution/crime scene tape. It is a book worth owning, and Lightsey is a poet worth keeping an eye on. She is experimental, and quite fearless. Her reading had a performance art feel to it, and reminded me very much of one of the Merce Cunningham dance pieces (the one choreographed to John Cage’s music) Eric and I saw performed in January. I mentioned thinking this to her and she told me of the time she interviewed Merce Cunningham. She also spoke of the time she saw two of Merce Cunningham’s dancers perform to poetry being read by Anne Carson. How amazing would that be to dance to poetry?

In the meantime, I am prepping for my adult summer dance class here at the GPL. I’ve decided to focus less on traditional ballet (that worked well last summer), and more on world dance. In addition to ballet, we will be covering modern Indian/Hindi dance (Bollywood), Egyptian belly dancing, the Spanish paso doble & flamenco, and Chinese Tai Chi. I am no expert at any of these dances, but I find all of these genres to be very fascinating and beautiful…and I’ve dabbled in them enough to teach and have fun with beginner students. The goal of each class is to learn something new about different forms of dance, to celebrate our differences, and to laugh as much as possible! Life is too short to sweat the small stuff!

Speaking of not sweating the small stuff, I had an interesting conversation with my boss and a coworker last week about just that. In a somewhat circuitous way, we began talking about the mentality of “if I can’t do it right, then I’m just not going to do it.” All three of us are reasonably intelligent people, and all three of us are perfectionists to a certain degree. But clearly, my coworker and my boss are perfectionists in a far different way than I. They do things that they know they can do well, and don’t do things that they don’t do well. They admitted to trying new things that they think they would like to do (painting, sewing, cooking), but when they discover that they are unable to do those things to their perceived standard, they tend to not pursue learning how to do better the thing that they want to do so that they will eventually learn how to do it to their perceived standard. I, on the other hand, do lots of things that I love to do (dance, sew, paint, landscape, cook, write), but that I probably don’t do to perfection. I do get frustrated when I hem a pair of pants wrong (sorry mom), or make a really unpalatable biscuit (sorry Slim, Laura and Kris). But I was encouraged by my mom and dad as a child to not give up when I made mistakes, to keep trying until I learned how to do things right.

My parents’ house is littered with evidence to their crusade to keep me trying. The letter of encouragement that my dad wrote to me on a sheet of my brown tablet paper when I was probably in kindergarten, stating something to the effect that we all have to learn to read and write, how else could he be writing me this letter, and how else could my sister be reading it to me right now. The really bad oil painting I did of a wide-eyed owl perched on a dead branch, in the dead of winter, in the dead of night that my mom STILL insists on leaving hang on the wall behind my dad’s recliner (I had a blue period where I was very prolific in the painting world…of my mind…more on that later)…photos of me as a pudgy child in a purple tutu with a hideous purple bonnet on my head (in an effort to help me build self-confidence and lose weight, my mom enrolled me in dance classes at the age of six…I LOVED dance classes so much that I stuck with it for fourteen years, and even taught dance for many of those years). All of these things (painting, dance, writing, reading) were things that I did not do very well at all when I first started doing them. But my parents always believed in me, and ALWAYS made me feel like my mistakes weren’t really mistakes...they were just signs that I was learning, and that I would get better if I kept at it. It also didn’t hurt that my parents always offered to patronize our hobbies when my sister and I initially embarked upon one. Like the de Medici’s with Michaelangelo, my parents offered to keep me in painting supplies if I would just keep painting. They did the same thing with my dance classes (new point shoes, tights, and costumes whenever I needed them, just KEEP DANCING), with my sewing (any material, buttons, ribbons to help me come one step closer to my dream of winning a 4H first place ribbon…I never came close, not even with my stunning nod to the Kennedy’s of Hyannis Port’s pleated-front Kelly green pants with a baby pink jacket that buttoned up the front with little green alligator buttons), and with my reading (allowing me to read authors and books that my friends were not allowed to read at such a young age…Stephen King, Anne Rice, the occasional bodice-ripper). I learned to learn from my parents. And although I don’t feel like I do any one thing exceptionally well, I enjoy doing the things that I do.

While consolidating the house office the other evening, I found my old mini Boston stapler. This was the stapler I used to staple receipts from the painting sales I made at the art gallery I owned as a child. The gallery was actually our abandoned chicken coop off of the garage, so it wasn’t really mine, but my parents turned it over to me for the sake of my art. I spent many a hot summer’s day with shovel, rake, hammer and nail to make the place opening-night-ready. It didn’t matter that the only guests at the gallery opening were my mom, dad and sister…

In case you haven't read it, here is my Goodreads book review of Lightsey's Find the Girl:
Girls, Girls, Girls. Girls as flowers, blooming into womanhood. Girls as fruits, ripening for consumption. Girls as precious artifacts, waiting impatiently underfoot for someone to discover them, to rescue them, even if it is only their remains that are rescued. Find the Girl, the debut book of poetry by Lightsey Darst, reminds us of our lost girls; the girl who ran away, forever disappearing with her red lips, swinging braids and lunchbox. Or the girl who was taken, snatched by a predator who loved and dreamed her best. Find the Girl…the girl’s name is familiar from our childhood story books, our newspaper headlines, our high school history lectures: Gretel, Helen of Troy, Snow White, JonBenet, Yde Girl, and the Greek Koré. The more venerable girls, beribboned and red fruits to be opened by the Ripper’s knife, go by the names Annie, Liz, Kate, and Mary.

Lightsy’s poems, tucked behind the caution tape, are cautionary (“we escape someone doesn’t/ life for ours”), and remind us of girlhood fears still fresh in our memories (“what’s the worst that can happen”). The final and lasting words of the girl that didn’t get away: “I wish the earth bare myself a throat & nails only so that/ you might hear this, I might dig myself screaming/ free from the moss and the grapevine over me & my call/yes heard though miles away & through a young girl’s fever dream.”

Merce Cunningham Dance Company: Or Another Reason To Pee My Pants

On January 20th I received an email from the Alabama Ballet. I usually only open emails from Alabama Ballet a few times a year (November, when they are gearing up for their December Nutcracker performances, and whenever I see that they are performing the work of a favorite choreographer…Balanchine, Tharp, Graham, etc.). The subject of this particular email was “A Special Offer on a Not-To-Miss Performance.” Normally I wouldn’t open such a non-specifically subjected email, but I did. And I must say that I am glad that I did. Contained therein was the following message:

“The Alabama Dance Council makes dance history by presenting Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) at the 2011 Alabama Dance Festival.

Co-presented by the Alabama Dance Council and the Alabama Ballet, Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s residency is part of the company's final Legacy Tour and their first and only performance in Alabama. It is the last opportunity to see Merce Cunningham’s work performed by the dancers he personally trained.

Guided by Merce Cunningham’s radical approach to space, time and technology, the Company has forged a distinctive style, reflecting Cunningham’s technique and illuminating the near limitless possibility for human movement. For more than fifty years, MCDC’s collaborations with groundbreaking artists from all disciplines have redefined the way audiences experience the visual and performing arts.”

The email ended with the urgent, “Don't miss out on dance history in the making!”

Merce Cunningham Dance Company, I pondered…THE Merce Cunningham Dance Company (my brain screamed)?!? I found that I suddenly couldn’t breathe. My stomach was in knots. I wanted tickets. I wanted tickets right then. I wanted tickets right then, before they sold out (because I knew that all of the Merce Cunningham fans in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee would unite together into an impenetrable ticket-buying force that would prevent me from having what was rightly mine)! But the performance was on the Friday night before the Bamacross Gadsden weekend. Slim and I were going to be terribly busy that weekend (and unbeknownst to us, we would have other, more important fish to fry the week of the performance when a health issue cropped up unexpectedly within the family nucleus). Could we possibly swing a trip to Birmingham to see one of the last performances of a dance company whose founder was one of my all-time-favorite modern choreographers? Of that, I was not sure.

I hurriedly forwarded the Alabama Ballet email to Eric with a personal message:
EEEEEEKKKKKK! Please tell me we don't have anything planned that night!
Eric: I don't think we have anything.
Me: OMG! I'm going to check on the price of tickets. I may pee on myself before I am able to though...
Eric: If tickets aren't ridiculous I'll help pay. Actually even if there are...(awww…isn’t that sweet of him?)

At this point, I was already online, pricing out the tickets, and checking the seating that was still available. I began to G-chat Eric while I was checking out the tickets so that I could communicate faster with him. I began furiously entering all of my credit card information, billing information, favorite foods and colors…everything they asked! I typed information as if my life depended upon it! And, as I typed, I kept hearing the bong of the G-chat doorbell, indicating that Eric was trying to reach me…I thought my heart was going to explode…but not before I peed on myself. And then, we had tickets! Orchestra seating, on the floor. And they had only cost $16 each. I was shaking, I was so excited. I, for one, was NOT going to miss out on dance history in the making! And, by gosh, neither was Eric!

Now, let me take a moment to fill you in on Merce Cunningham, should you need some filling in (my explanation is not academic in the least…it is merely information that I have stored away about an individual whom I have admired over the years). Merce Cunningham was a very unique pioneer in modern American dance/choreography whose fruitful and long-lived career was made even more interesting by his domestic/professional partnership with equally unique American composer John Cage. Cunningham’s choreography was, in addition to many things, an experiment in absence and presence; Cage’s music was an experiment in the “activity of sound,” the releasing of sound…from just about anything (I know a muralist who played a trashcan lid for one of Cage’s recordings). Cunningham and Cage often created their collaborative works independent of one another, with Cunningham creating choreography for Cage’s compositions without hearing Cage’s music. It worked. I know it worked, because I saw a perfect example of their collaboration Friday night…Xover.

Xover was performed by approximately fifteen people: eleven dancers, one singer (positioned on a side arm of the stage), and three musicians (in the orchestra pit). Cage’s composition (Fontana Mix with Aria) was performed via computers by the three musicians (one who could have been Merce Cunningham’s twin brother, if he’d had a twin brother), and vocally by the rather operatic chanteuse Aurora Josephson. It is difficult to describe the music, as it really needs to be experienced in order to get the full effect…Ms. Josephson sang the Aria, the musicians played the Fontana Mix through their computers, and the dancers athletically danced. At times, Ms. Josephson would create additional percussion through the gargling of water, the winding and springing of a jack-in-the-box, and the ringing of a bicycle bell. The music and the choreography meshed; concurrently, the music and the choreography stood apart. Moments of silence were filled with perfectly performed dance sequences. The silence was part of the music. It was Cunningham and Cage in its purest form.

The second performance was a more traditional modern dance piece called Crises. Crises was performed to Nancarrow’s Rhythm Studies for Player Piano (various numbers), and had a bit of a rag-time feel to it. It was an interesting piece, accessorized by fog/smoke, with dancers who made me think of flames that were attracting each other. I had to look the piece up on the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s website because I was afraid that I totally missed any meaning. Crises is described as a “dramatic… dance concerned with decisive moments in the relationship between a man and four women.” Hmmm…I suppose I wasn’t completely off the mark by thinking that the dancers were flames attracting each other…

Dance history in the making. That’s exactly what it was. When I read of Merce Cunningham’s passing in the July 27, 2009 edition of the New York Times I lamented the loss of such a great dancer and choreographer. I felt robbed of ever having the chance to see his work. I briefly lectured on his work last summer during my Ballet for the Uncoordinated class, explaining his importance to the world of dance, and his avant-garde style. I even mentioned that his and Cage’s collaborations were often parodied when people went to the trouble to parody modern dance. Then I went on to explain to my students that Mr. Cunningham had left specific orders upon his death that his dance company dissolve, yet I had heard word of a few Central Park performances (a friend and poet who lives in Brooklyn happened upon one of the performances on a beautiful afternoon). I never dreamed that a tribute tour would come to Alabama. Good and unexpected things happen…sometimes disguised in the form of an unspecific subject line of an email.

Listening to: Blind Pilot & Radiohead. I think a Merce Cunningham/Radiohead collaboration would’ve been pretty darn awesome.