Lights in A Dark Season; Recent Reading, Stowe Skiing, and Shackleton Speaks, Again

During the last few days I have finished Volume 1 of Evelyn Waugh's 1964 Autobiography, A Little Learning, a library sale purchase a few months ago). There is, unfortunately, no volume 2. It died with Waugh two years after Volume 1 was published. Fortunately, this book takes him up through the Oxford years and just beyond so it is full of interest. It's the first thing I have read in ages that I couldn't put down. A few lines that particularly caught my attention.

From the first page:

I longed for the loan of the Time Machine - a contraption with its saddle and quartz bars that was plainly a glorification of the bicycle. What a waste of that magical vehicle to take it prying into the future, as had the hero of the book! The future, dreariest of prospects! Were I in the saddle I should set the engine Slow Astern. To hover gently back through the centuries (not more than 30 of them) would be the most exquisite pleasure of which I can conceive. Even in my own brief life I feel the need of some such device as a failing memory alienates me daily further from my origins and experience.

I liked his description of his mother as well, particularly this:

She would have preferred to live in the country and from her I learned that towns are places of exile where the unfortunate are driven to congregate in order to earn their livings in an unhealthy and unnatural way.

I also listened to Cormac McCarthy's The Road on CD last week.
It might seem like the only two things these books have in common is that they are written in English (and that I recently consumed them). The other thing is that they were written by actual geniuses who write like angels - one a very dark angel, however. The Road is the story of a father and son travelling along an unnamed highway in a post-apocalyptic America, on their way to anywhere. It was actually agony to listen to this story for protracted periods. I persisted because I had been pulled in and, thank God, the absolute worst does not happen - well, at least in terms of the father and son. The depravity of the few other survivors in this ashen future is unbounded, and so heinous that it would have been unimaginable - if Cormac McCarty had not come along and imagined it and made a person realize, "Yes, that is how it would be."

I am not surprised the book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2006, or that it has been made into a movie. I am surprised Oprah picked it out for her book club (!) and that McCarthy was interviewed by Oprah on her show (!!!) How'd I miss that? It's like the Queen swinging by Patty's Snack Bar here in le Vermont Profond for a clam roll.

So, there you have it. Thumbs up from your hostess on both of those.

Skiing

(This is not my picture. It's better than any picture I could take. I didn't have my camera along on this weekend's ski trip, and it was cloudy on Sunday while we were there. This is a picture of Stowe appearing on the Boston Globe website).

Waaay back in my early posts I talked a bit about how I learned to ski, sort of, at least, in my late 30s. I had never skied as a kid and only got started when it became apparent I would have to learn or the Understudy and Shackleton would have no one to ski with but instructors (As they were born in Vermont and live 9 miles from Jay Peak skiing was just a given). I couldn't afford all those lessons, so I bought skis and got going.

I was not destined to be a great skier or even a good one, but I progressed to the point where I could get down the hill without killing myself or anyone else - if it is not too terribly steep and not too crowded. For some reason that I can't now remember we did not ski last year. I think it was because the kids got ice skates and skating was cheaper and easier than skiing so we skipped a year. I think now that was a mistake.

God in his mercy has created many ski hills in Vermont and also executives at some of those mountains who let school kids come and ski with volunteer instructors at hugely reduced rates. Stowe, where I went for the first time this year, has such a program (thank you Stowe) and Shackleton and the Understudy were back there this weekend for another lesson. During their previous lessons this season I have enjoyed sitting in the Lodge drinking coffee, but this last Sunday, for the first time in two years I bought a half-day lift ticket ($65 - ouch!), put on my skis on and had a go.

I hate to be crass (although I can get over it) but I have decided that skiing actually is better than sex. I want to ski ALL THE TIME. Skiing is life. It is like flying. Even a terrible skier like me, who has to ski with three-year-olds and people who normally live near the Equator, can love skiing. I love skiing. I want MOOORE.

Also, I am completely smitten with Stowe. It is sort of stylish in Vermont for natives to talk trash about Stowe (a place fit only for New Yorkers and celebrities) but it is splendid and beautiful. If only it had cheaper tickets...

Shackletonisms



On the way to the mountain, we stopped at a local McDonald's for fuel. We have been there many times, but since our last visit they have changed the counter, adding a downmarket McStarbucks, oops, "McCafe". It wasn't operating yet, but it changed the look of the place. Shackleton was pondering the change and said,

"There's something different about this place, but I can't put my tongue on it."

This reminded me to share a few of his other gems that I have been meaning to post. Here ya go:

1. In the car, driving home in the dark with a crescent moon hanging in a cloudless sky:

"There's an old, old tale that I just made up."

2. Trying to choose a DVD to watch one night, I said, foolishly, that we all had to agree. The Understudy proposed several choices. Each time, Shackleton said, "I don't agree." The Understudy, exasperated, said, at last, "You don't agree on anything!" Shackleton said, "I don't agree with that either."

3. Whusband trying to get Shackleton to try some new food:

"Do you want to try this?"

Shackleton. "No way, Jose. No way. No way. Oh, and what was I going to say? Oh yeah, NO WAY!"

As Jack Handy once said on Saturday Night Live: "The face of a child can say so much, especially the mouth part of the face."

Weekend Update, or, Speaking of Snow and a Little 10th-Grade-English Refresher

Several commenters recently have taken a position on snow. Mine varies. This weekend, the snow was definitely a good thing. I was up at my Holy Mountain, Jay Peak, first thing Saturday morning. Beautiful, no? Unfortunately, fluffy, pristine snow, and clear days in January around here often also portend brutal cold. It was -15 F with a stiffish breeze when I got out to take my mountain walk at 7:30 AM. I spent a minute or two actually worried that I might have done some disfiguring damage to my nose and cheeks as I headed into that breeze to get to this:

Fortunately, as ever, once I got going the woods cut the wind and my blood got flowing and no body parts were permanently damaged. It was so beautiful, it reminded me of poetry; specifically, the figures of speech we were supposed to learn in English 10A. Do you remember "synechdoche?" I recalled that it involved using a part of something as a stand-in for the whole: as in "all hands on deck." So, if I were writing a poem about people (of both sexes) suffering a freezing walk in the woods, I might say "every pair was frozen." Sorry. That's crude, but perhaps partially redeemed by educational value? I was also reminded of the poetic device known as assonance. This is, as per the Wikipedia definition (if you don't want to click through), "repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse." The Wikipedia example was "Do you like blue?" (The "oo" sound is assonant). The assonant phrase that kept recurring to me was: "chapped ass." (Note the assonant short "a" sound here). Sorry, also crude, but when you turn your back to the freezing wind in the beautiful woods it's hard not to resort to poetry.

Later in the day, things warmed slightly and the kids and their friends went slding here at the farm in a beautiful afternoon glow.




Stowe Mountain Resort

Sunday was the opening day of the kids' school ski program down at Stowe Mountain Resort. It was my first time at that most famous of Vermont ski areas and I have to say it was astonishingly nice. They have just finished a huge new luxury lodge at Spruce Peak and every thing has been done to a very high standard completely atypical of the uncercapitalized ventures we generally have in poor northern New England. This is Vail in Vermont. To their credit, the mountain basically lets the local school kids and their instructors ski for free. The kids had a great time skiing while I hung out with some other Moms in the fabulous "great room" of the new cafeteria - although it was not like any cafeteria I had ever been in. I stupidly forgot my camera. More on this anon.

Escape From Contemporary Art And Other Little Events

I picked up the kids after school on Friday and we all then went a little further south, to Stowe. The Understudy, like me, has bonded with the Stowe Library and she wanted to pick up a few books. The Stowe Library, you few regular readers will recall, is housed in the same building as the local Arts Center ("Helen Day Art Center" to be precise). Hence, you cannot enter the library without running a gauntlet of art. (I always feel sorry for whomever has to mow the lawn. One installation this summer looks like a collection of rusty croquet gates arranged in rows). Shackleton, upon exiting the Camry, struck this pose in front of these interesting wooden items and demanded I take a picture. I think he was thinking Indiana Jones.

I liked these sculptures, or installations, or whatever they are. I think Shackleton liked them too, though he picked up on some hint of menace.

Today, though Saturday, was a semi-sick day. Shack and I are still recovering from a rotten cold and the Understudy seems to be coming down with it. Drat. We did come to consciousness briefly this afternoon and got over to the Pick & Shovel in Newport so the kids could get a Creemie and I could get odd-sized lightbulbs for a chandelier and some bubble wrap. They have everything at the Pick & Shovel, as you might suppose given that shopping list.



We had Maisy along on this trip, so we went to the beautiful Newport Bike Path for a very brief walk. Ooops, I had said there would be a moratorium on bike path photos, didn't I? Well, this is the Newport path, not the one in Stowe, at least. Months ago I had written a little about the contrast between the two bike paths and the two communities (i.e., Rich Town[Stowe]/Poor Town [Newport, duh] and great striking original thoughts like that)and promised a few Newport photos. So, let's not think of this as me breaking my recent promise but keeping an old one. Anyway, here's a shot of Shackleton, The Understudy and Maisy, on a little bridge on the Newport path where it traverses a swampy edge of Lake Memphremagog. What it lacks in parking areas, paved surfaces, contemporary art, benches, signage and porta-potties (all things they have in Stowe), the Newport path makes up with scenery.







Also, on Thursday, my neighbor and I traveled into Burlington together for various and several reasons. I wanted to do some research at the University of Vermont about Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan Am. I got a box lot of Trippe memorabilia at auction last week and this has presented some mysteries. Unfortunately, two hours in the library were not enough for the box to yield up its secrets. Drat, again. I did however, renew the exorbitantly costly UVM library card and with my new card in hand, I found a couple of satisfying photography books to bring home to the Last House. Mine now for four weeks.

One is a nice big folio book called: Cecil Beaton: A Retrospective Edited by "Dr." David Mellor (Little Brown, Boston 1986). The courtesy title suggests to me that the editor is a pretentious pratt, but I got it to look at the pictures and I don't much care what Dr. M and his ilk have to say about them. I had a brief look today and the pictures are really wonderful.

I had wanted to have a look at this book last year when I was at UVM to do some Gladys Peto research (see the sidebar). Beaton wrote about her in a book called The Glass of Fashion. There seems to be one copy in Vermont and they have it at the U. I couldn't find this book of photographs last year while wandering through those wonderful stacks, but I snagged it Friday.

Near it on the shelf was an intriguing volume called: Sixties London Photographs by Dorothy Bohm. (Lund Humphries 1996). I brought it home too and had a nice, long look today. Ms. Bohm is a famous photographer, though this is the first I have made her acquaintance. All very tight copyright protections on this kind of thing, so I can't put up any photos here, of course, but you may like to have a look at her things yourself. Q.v. So, really, not escaping from Contemporary Art at all, are we?